The Stack is a weekly podcast where we share and discuss the latest trends, news, and content from the world of marketing, sales, and tech. In each episode, Sean, Tim, and Ryan sit down to chat about the hard-hitting questions related to sales, marketing, and tech. You can subscribe on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play Music.
In this episode, we discuss benchmarks for content in 2019, how to boost your SEO with question keyword optimization, and how top B2B companies structure their content. We would love to hear your thoughts so make sure to comment or tweet us at @Sylvestrer1, @SeanHenri, and @Tendrecroppes or @PepperlandMKTG.
Best B2B Content: Analysis and Insights from Over 50,000 Articles
Camel Anderson for Buzzsumo
Looking back on performance is how we all grow as marketers. Buzzsumo did us a lot of favors by pulling this analysis together. They took insights from over 50,000 articles and broke it down by all the key features high-performing content had in common. This article should help you understand the shift in types of content that either continues to perform or other formats on the rise.
“One of the most popular content types, historically, “how-to content” is aimed at teaching readers to do something. Whether that is something like How to Create a Successful Content Marketing Funnel or How to Get Around Google’s Latest Algorithm Change.
How-to articles are popular because they are utilitarian. They give the reader something tangible–something that solves a problem they have.”
Key Takeaways:
- Social media is increasingly becoming a battleground of competition. In 2018 the median social interactions for a quality post was 415 and will now have to reach upwards of 689 interactions in 2019 in order to stay top-tier.
- LinkedIn isn’t out of the question. While other social media platforms may see a decline, LinkedIn still holds a strong audience.
- Even though list content seems over-done, the fact of the matter is people are still reading them and continue to perform.
- Don’t take their word for it. If you’re just getting started, run with what they say works best. Otherwise, use your own data and testing to determine what works for you.
How To Boost SEO With Question Keyword Optimization
Joydeep Bhattacharya for SEMRush Blog
In this article Joydeep outlines a pretty thorough breakdown of how Google retrieves an answer for question-based phrases, and what you can do to get your site’s content included in the featured snippet or rich result . Through keyword research and SERP analysis, they were able to outline some key methods to ranking for Direct Answer Questions, Short Answer Questions, and Long Answer Questions.
Before diving into the tactics, he takes a step back to walk through the relationship between Question Keywords and Semantic Search.
“The ‘searches related to ‘ section or the keyword suggestions listed under ‘auto-suggest’ are all powered by the semantic search technology. There is an important relation between semantic search and question keywords. Google can identify the entities present in the question keywords with the help of semantic search.”
Key Takeaways:
- A large percentage of searches are formatted as questions, roughly 8% according to a Jumpshot Study published on Moz. This means there can be a huge payoff in optimizing for these terms.
- Semantic search ‘search with a meaning’. Usually, the intent is pretty clear. Be clear and direct with your answer.
- Having a high ranking for a question-format query will allow you to capture more featured snippets. More snippets means more traffic.
The Content Strategy Framework of the Top 1% of B2B Companies
Andy Crestodina for Orbit Media
This article walks through a conversion driven content strategy that focuses heavily on building the domain authority of your entire website but specifically the service pages. The diagram below confirms that people that land on service pages are much more likely to convert into paying customers.
“Service pages are definitely not link-worthy. Ever link to someone’s service page? Probably not. A website without a blog is an online brochure, one with very low domain authority and rankings.
It’s the visitors who land on our service pages that drive demand. We won’t be successful until we get qualified visitors to those pages. And to get those pages to rank, we need links and to get links, we need an SEO driven content strategy.”
Key Takeaways:
- Start with the core; optimizing your sales page with conversion in mind. Make sure you are fully answering the users’ questions while giving evidence to back it up.
- Make sure to have a documented content strategy. Having this written down will help you build your calls to action.
- Publish your own research or case studies. Content seems so repetitive, but a sure-fire way to stand out from the crowd is to publish unique and original research.
App of the Week
HashTest
Find out what hashtags will help you reach more users on social media. HashTest allows you to test out hashtags with their on-demand grader. It will score your hashtags so that you can find the best one for your social media channel.
Key Takeaways:
- Hashtags increase content engagement by an average of 40%
- This will help you pick phrases that aren’t overused so you can stand out from the crowd
- Quickly analyzes data to ensure you are getting fresh results to drive your decision making
Lighting Round
In this section, we quickly run through some other updates that we didn’t have enough time to deep-dive on, but we still felt were noteworthy.
- Facebook’s 10 Year Challenge is Just A Harmless Meme – Right?
- Google Search Console Makes ‘Inspect URL’ Tool More Useful
- Caution: GoDaddy is Adding Unwanted JavaScript to Websites
- Google To Discontinue Some Old Search Console Features
Listen or watch for new episodes each Friday, or check out the archives to watch past episodes on-demand. Like what you hear? Leave us a review or let us know in the comments!
