As a newbie in the digital marketing field, I have a lot to learn. While watching a YouTube video that Ms. Krista LaRiviere talks about the Optimized Content Marketing, there is a couple of new things that I was particularly fascinated about.
The biggest surprising fact she pointed out (from the study done by Group M and Nielsen Research) was that the Paid Ads have only 6% of Click Through Rate (CTR). Yet, so much marketing dollars are invested on them. On the other hand, Organic Search results have the rest of 94% CTR. But somehow, the marketing investment amount is less than half (or sometimes one-third) of the other. These facts are shouting out for the importance of analytics. We truly need to be clear about how things work and come up with a good game plan. It is definitely a smart idea to focus on optimizing contents, so that they appear as Organic Search results, which we can expect more out of it (impressions, etc.).
Another thing that I learned from the video was the Keyword Gap, which is so important to be aware of. At first, I thought it is like wordplay, but it is so significant—I had a light bulb moment. When I look for a product/service, I type a keyword (or two) into the search box to look for it. However, the keyword I enter may not be exactly the same one as the business/provider thought I would use. This “gap” is called, “keyword gap.” One of the examples Ms. LaRiviere listed up was: “High-end pet food (business)” and “Organic cat and dog food (consumer).” This example clearly taught me that it is important to see things in consumers’ perspective (in everyday life/conversational tone; appropriate expressions/wordings to the target audience). No matter how you perfectly set up your infrastructures and contents, they don’t mean anything unless keywords are right on the target.
Search engines have been evolving and improving dramatically every day. Google tweaks its algorithms very frequently and conducts some updates once in a while to get rid of spammy websites/contents. I think that Google+ has a different (community-base) approach to it (as if it is a different ball game) with additional factors (like Search plus Your World, etc.). The elements, such as Social Signals, must be considered more than ever if you want to win a higher placement on the Organic Search result. From a user’s perspective, it is a bit scary in a sense; however, as a consumer’s point of view, it may be the best way to receive personalized and optimized results. We need to educate ourselves and stay on top of the game.
If you are interested, the YouTube video I watched can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v7PVF4g7Nk “The of Three: Content Marketing + SEO + Social Media” by Krista LaRiviere, Co-founder & CEO of gShift Labs