Category: Content Marketing
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What Is LLMS.txt and Do You Need It?
UPDATE: Google says not to worry about LLMS.txt for its AI. No word on other AI platforms though. For decades, the web has relied on standardized files to help machines understand websites. XML sitemaps became critical for search engines to discover and index content efficiently, while robots.txt files provided essential…
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Google’s Watermarking of AI Images and Text
In a significant move for digital content integrity, Google has introduced SynthID, a tool designed to watermark and detect AI-generated images. This innovation addresses a growing challenge in the digital age: distinguishing between real and AI-created visuals. As the capabilities of AI evolve, it has become increasingly difficult to identify…
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Optimizing for GEO: Generative Search Engine Optimization
A new study of 10,000 search queries focusing on generative search results by researchers from Princeton, Georgia Tech, The Allen Institute of AI, and IIT Delhi found that you can improve visibility by: “Specifically, our top-performing methods, Cite Sources, Quotation Addition, and Statistics Addition, achieved a relative improvement of 30-40%,”…
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Google’s New Algorithm Update Crushing Sites With AI-Generated Content: My Experiment
Google’s March 2024 core algorithm update is cracking down on low-quality, AI-generated content across the web. Google wants to “reduce unhelpful, unoriginal content on Search and keep it at very low levels.” Google says the update involves adjusting its rankings “if webpages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience. or…
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AI Writing: Muted Tones, Lack of Persuasiveness
B2B sellers using AI for content need to know this: A study by Originality.AI shows that large language models (LLM) – i.e. generative AI models – tend to “move sentiment scores closer to the neutral part of the scale.” What’s that mean? AI tends to mute tones and feelings. Sentimental…
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Forrester: AI Content Not Meeting B2B Buyer Needs
Laura Ramos, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester says B2B marketers are in a wild ride in 2024. While generative AI will play an increasing role in B2B marketing and product launches in 2024, there will also be significant downsides. She warns that “thinly customized generative AI content will degrade…
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The Powerful Benefits of Performing Content Audits
For brands publishing content regularly, it’s easy for old outdated posts to pile up over time. Periodically auditing and refreshing that content takes effort but delivers incredible value. Let’s look at some of the biggest benefits of making content audits a regular habit. Improved Visitor Engagement Stale, irrelevant content is…
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Easy SEO Wins to Improve Your Website Rankings
Improving your website’s search engine rankings may seem daunting, but there are several relatively simple SEO tactics you can implement to help move the needle in the right direction. As an experienced SEO practitioner, you know that driving organic growth takes a comprehensive strategy – but you can make incremental…
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Understanding and Tapping into the Emotional Triggers of Your Audience
Users will spend 4 trillion hours on social media this year. Yup, that’s a lot of time. That’s also a lot of content. How do you stand out? You’ve got to form an emotional attachment with your audience. Engaging with audiences on an emotional level is a powerful way to…
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Apple, Google Privacy Changes May Disrupt Tracking, Attribution
Both Apple and Google are anticipated to implement new privacy enhancements alongside the release of their upcoming platform updates. In the case of iOS 17, which will enter public beta in July before its official launch in September, Apple plans to automatically eliminate link trackers from URLs transmitted through Message…
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20 FAQs About Content Marketing
Question: What is content marketing? Answer: Content marketing is a strategic approach to marketing that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a specific target audience. Question: Why is content marketing important? Answer: Content marketing is important because it allows businesses to establish themselves…
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AI Detection Tools: Not Ready for Prime Time Yet
With all the buzz about AI tools like ChatGPT generating content, I want to offer a word of warning for people using AI detection tools. They don’t work. It’s as simple as that. I’ve now tested more than 100 different articles on several different AI checkers including the most popular…
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Improving Engagement on LinkedIn | How Often Should I Post to LinkedIn?
One of the keys to getting engagement is to increase activity and distribution. LinkedIn provides broader distribution to posts that get early engagement when first posted. One way to do that is to encourage friends and co-workers to comment and engage. One friend I have has fostered a small network…
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Writing for the Bottom of the Funnel: Closing the Deal
So much of content writing today focuses on top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) content or middle-of-the-funnel (MoFu) content. Each has its role in driving people through the customer journey and nurturing them. But less attention is paid to the bottom of the funnel content Top of the Funnel Top of the funnel content…
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My Top 9 Tools for Online Content Writing
Every once in a while someone asks me what tools I use to write on my website. I’m using WordPress like just about everyone else. WordPress powers 34% of all websites worldwide in and accounts for 60% of Content Management Systems in use. There were more than 455 million WordPress sites online…
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10 Steps to Help Your Business with Content Marketing
We all heard that “Content is the King” for some time. When you use content with the right purpose, you can really help your business. COVID-19 has taught us that an integrated and online world is possible for all of us. With the increasing e-commerce activities, businesses need to find new ways…
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Two-Thirds of Links on Twitter are Done by Bots
Call it the attack of the bots. The majority of tweets linking to the most popular websites are not handled by human beings, but bots that post content without human involvement. That’s the findings of a Pew Research Center random sampling of 1.2 million tweets last year to answer this…
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Take Control of Your Brand Conversation or Someone Else Will
Not surprisingly, when you don’t control the conversation, it happens without you. Brands that stop advertising and sending positive messages are seeing huge drops in brand sentiment because they only thing people hear about you is nothing or negative. Those that continued to market saw a drop (people are thinking…
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Content Omnivores: Video Consumers Want It All
With the increased attention focused on OTT (Over-the-top) TV and streaming services, there are some interesting trends developing. 65% of US consumers say they stream content at least once a week. Two-thirds say they stream more video online than they watch of broadcast, cable, or satellite, according to Horowitz Research’s…
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Marketers #1 Goal in 2019? Get That Email Address
“Personalized experiences are about delivering contextually relevant experiences to your prospects and customers, based on what you know about them, where they are in the purchase journey, and what they are looking to achieve. It is becoming more evident that marketers who consistently deliver personalized cross-channel experiences are seeing moderate…
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Does your B2B website attract buyers? Apparently not
How effective is your website for building awareness and consideration? Most people would say it’s pretty good. In fact, the majority of B2B marketers say it is their most effective tool for the early stages of the buying funnel. In a report by Forrester, most B2B marketers said their business…
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Long-form Content Results in 56% More Social Shares
Long-form content results in 56% more social shares than content shorter than 1,000 words, according to new research from BuzzSumo and Backlinko. The research, which analyzed over 900 million articles, also discovered that long-form content was correlated with better backlink performance. Specifically, posts weighing in at more than 3,000 words receive an…
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An Easier Way to Make Infographics
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So, what is an infographic worth?
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Digital Media Consumption Way Up: Winners and Losers
Overall digital media consumption grew by 15% in August alone, according to a Pivotal Media Research analysis of Nielsen’s August 2018 data as reported by Wayne Friedman in MediaPost. Winners and Losers Google goes up. Facebook goes down. Google products, including YouTube, Google, and Waze account for 32.8% of all…
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Google Algorithm: Low Traffic Does Not Equal Low Quality Content
Google’s John Mueller had some good news for bloggers (like me) when it comes to evaluating the quality of content. Just because it doesn’t have a lot of page views doesn’t mean Google’s algorithm will flag it as low quality. During a recent Google Webmaster Central hangout, he was asked…
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Bulls-eye marketing: Finding the sweet spot
To maximize the effectiveness of your advertising, you have to place it squarely in the target for consumers. You already know it’s not enough to have a great product. It’s not enough to assemble your unique selling proposition – what I call your Weapon of Mass Distinction. It’s not enough…
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SEO Copywriting Tips to Impress Both Search Engines and Readers
SEO copywriting is an essential skill for anyone who wants to be successful online. It is the art and science of creating content that is loved by readers and search engines alike. Doing so is the key to rank high and convert well. SEO copywriting is a relatively new field.…
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The Astounding Number of Bots on Twitter
Call it the attack of the bots. The majority of tweets linking to the most popular websites are not handled by human beings, but bots that post content without human involvement. That’s the findings of a Pew Research Center random sampling of 1.2 million tweets last year to answer this…
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Emotional Brands and Neuroscience Marketing
Some of the most successful marketing campaign motivate with emotion and not facts. That’s why companies like Facebook, ESPN, Nielsen, and ad agencies have divisions that explore the neuroscience involved in advertising. By examining the hidden signals of emotional reactions, marketers can better focus campaigns to take advantage of the…
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The worst social media marketing mistake you are probably making
Social media marketing is the new black. It’s not even a question anymore of whether you should be on social media, but rather what social media you should be on. Even though social media have been around for a few years now, I still constantly see companies that make the worst…
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Youtube Reminds Publishers who is in Control – Cuts Revenue to Small Guys
“One of YouTube’s core values is to provide anyone the opportunity to earn money from a thriving channel,” said the email I got from YouTube. Apparently their “anyone” doesn’t include me. YouTube says it is tightening its rules and raising the minimum threshold of subscribers you must have in order to…
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8 Ways to Build a Personal Brand
For years, marketers have worked with companies to build their brand. Cementing a brand message into a consumer’s mind makes sure you’ll get a shot at their business when they need your service. Imagine your air conditioner stops working and it’s 95 degrees outside. You’ll head to your computer and…
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Social Media for Publishers: Revenue Doesn’t Match Investment
Despite all the work media companies put into their Facebook and other social media channels, it has not turned into any significant source of revenue. If you’re in the business you know that. You get some traffic from social media, but not any real dollars. A research report by trade…
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30 Social Media Stats Every Local Business Should Know
For help with your digital and social media, contact PulseLocal Marketing. In Huntsville, AL, call 256.533.3131.
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Online Reviews Really Matter in Business
If you think online reviews aren’t affecting your business, here are a handful of statistics that might change your mind. SOURCE: Forbes The Value of Positive Reviews 90% of consumers say they read online reviews before ever visiting a business 85% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much…
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B2B Content Marketing: Why it Works
Nobody likes ads. They intrude into your reading, watching, or listening. That’s helped fuel the use of ad blockers on-line. People want to research before they buy a product, but they don’t want to get their information from advertisers trying to sell them something. Traditional marketing has become less effective. …
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YouTube shuts down monetization for smaller contributors
“One of YouTube’s core values is to provide anyone the opportunity to earn money from a thriving channel,” said the email I got from YouTube this morning. Apparently their “anyone” doesn’t include me. YouTube says it is tightening its rules and raising the minimum threshold of subscribers you must have in…
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Making Sure Your Social Media Contests Stay Legal
This article details how to comply with Facebook’s contest rules within the United States and Canada. It is not a substitute for, nor intended to be, legal advice. If you have questions, consult with a legal professional or use a managed Facebook contest platform. Facebook contests and sweepstakes can be a…
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Seismic Shifts in Digital Marketing in 2018
As we look ahead to 2018, there are some clear pattern emerging when it comes to digital marketing and advertising. What’s in and out? Here are my predictions for 2018: Content Marketing, SEO, and Value Exchange With the reduced reach of social and the continuing fragmentation of media, marketers are finding…
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Google is moving to mobile-first indexing
Google gave webmasters plenty of warning — more than a year — but it now appears they are ready to step up efforts on indexing mobile websites and serving results based on what they find. Currently, Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking algortihms look at desktop version. Now, they will switch to mobile-first indexing. “Mobile-first…
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My first book has been re-released as a free download on Amazon
My first book – “Weapons of Mass Distinction” – has been re-released and is available as a free download on Amazon. Get it here.
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Facebook to punish slow loading websites
Here’s another reason to make sure your website loads quickly. Facebook will give priority placement to sites that load fast. “…we’ll soon take into account the estimated load time of a webpage that someone clicks to from any link in News Feed on the mobile app. Factors such as the…
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Great read: Digital Vault highlights the intersection of Digital + Media + Marketing
Blatant-plug-alert! I’m the publisher and editor of another website, Digital Vault, which I’d love for you to check out. The site focus on the intersection of digital, media, and marketing. We now have more than 100 advertising, marketing, and digital evangelists writing and contributing to the site and the growth…
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Ad Copy that sizzles and sells
GUEST POST: Adrian Posner, Posner Marketing A successful marketing plan relies heavily on the pulling-power of advertising copy. Writing results-oriented ad copy is difficult. There is no magic formula to write perfect ad copy. So how is any writer supposed to pen a piece of advertising copy that sizzles and…
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Google says no to pop-up and pop-under ads
Google has taken another positive step in trying to help reign in the mess of annoying ads on website. Google will no longer permit placing pop-up or pop-under ads, the company declared in a blog post. They also won’t allow the use of any Google ads on sites that contain…
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Canada’s Supreme Court rules Google must block some search content worldwide
Can one country really tell Google what it can and can’t show in its search results for the rest of the world? Read on. Canada’s Supreme Court made a startling ruling that has broad-reaching impact around the world. In a 7-2 ruling, the court decided to grant an injunction preventing…
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The case for content marketing
The rise in content marketing in advertising circles is staggering. From native ads to blog posts, articles, and videos, it’s re-framed how some businesses do marketing. The adoption of ad blockers and concern over where ads are placed has only accelerated the movement. It’s almost become a universal marketing tactic.…
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Despite a year warning, publishers and ad creators aren’t ready for Flash ad end dates
The Interactive Advertising Bureau advocated for an end to Flash video ads by July 2017. Instead, it wants advertisers to use HTML5. Google jumped into the fray by stopping accepting Flash ads as of April and announcing an end to grandfathered Flash ads this July. So, with two months to…
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When the majority of people tell me that doing something will negatively impact my brand, I take it seriously
When my son was very young, he was watching television one day and noticed one of the characters was drinking a “cola.” That’s what it said on the can. He asked me if that was Coca Cola and we talked about how they often substituted generic products so they didn’t…
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Will people still read long-form content when it’s on a tiny cell phone screen?
With more and more traffic going to mobile, specifically smart phones, every day, is there a future for long form journalism on line? That’s one of the questions a Pew Research Center study tried to answer. Researchers looked at 125 million cellphone sessions accessing 74,840 articles encompassing 30 news websites…
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Would you rather pay for content or put up with advertising?
85% say give us ads. 75% say they would drastically reduce their online activities if they had to pay. In fact, Americans assigned a value of nearly $1,200 per year to the array of free, ad-supported services and content currently available to them on computers and mobile devices, according to…
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Who you trust more: Advertising or News Media?
While we hear a constant drum beat that trust in the news media continues to drop, it’s not the same for advertising. In fact, more people think ads are more honest than they were three years ago, according to a YouGuv survey in March. Trust but verify
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Facebook adds a rocket to its lineup
You may have noticed a little rocket icon pop up on your mobile version of Facebook. Tap it and it will take you to alternative news feed. No, not “alternative facts,” but an algorithmic design feed of content similar to what you interact with on your regular feed, but…
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Low renewal rates from ad buyers on Native Advertising: Does it work?
You know native advertising. It’s when instead of running an ad, publishers integrate advertising messages into content. It may be in the form of a news-looking article that features the company’s information or employees. In its best form – clearly labelled as advertising content – it may provide interesting and…
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YouTube struggling to get paid subscribers
You really have to wonder about that whole “give it away for free and then later we’ll charge for it” model. Here’s yet another example: YouTube is the world’s largest video streaming service and streams more music than anyone else. It’s been free from inception, but YouTube has been touting…
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The Nausea rule of advertising
Think of your brain as a giant hard drive. It can hold a lot of information, but it does have a limit. And, like a hard drive, the limit is reached frequently. So when new information comes in and there’s no room left, it often pushes out the other information…
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How Advertising Works
The first time a man looks at an advertisement, he does not see it. The second time, he does not notice it. The third time, he is conscious of its existence. The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it before. The fifth time, he reads it. The sixth time,…
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Define your Weapon of Mass Distinction: Avoiding “We do it too” advertising
Advertising lessons learned from working in the news business For several years, I worked as a strategic consultant and trainer at some of America’s top television stations, including those owned by Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst-Argyle, Post-Newsweek, Cox, Raycom Media, Journal Broadcasting, Freedom, and Fox. I have worked on projects for Entertainment…
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Bulls-eye marketing: Finding the sweet spot
To maximize the effectiveness of your advertising, you have to place it squarely in the target for consumers. You already know it’s not enough to have a great product. It’s not enough to assemble your unique selling proposition – what I call your Weapon of Mass Distinction. It’s not…
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Vast majority of search is mobile
How are people searching for your content or business? These days, it’s all about mobile. Hitwise says that about 58% of all search is done on mobile devices. They came to that conclusion by analyzing 100s of millions of online searches during April and May, 2016. For news and sports…
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Connected TVs: Streaming first, live TV second
Whether it’s a Smart TV with the internet and some services baked in, a Blue-Ray player, Roku, Google, FireTV, AppleTV or one of the dozen other internet-connected devices, US households continue to connect their television sets to the Internet at a rapid pace. A study from Frank N. Magid Associates…
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Will people still read long-form news on tiny cell phone screens?
With more and more traffic going to mobile, specifically smart phones, every day, is there a future for long form journalism on line? That’s one of the questions a recent Pew Research Center study tried to answer. Researchers looked at 125 million cellphone sessions accessing 74,840 articles encompassing 30 news…
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It’s not all about content marketing
Yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard it a thousand times: You need to post original content to get traffic. Content is king. That’s what they told me. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. I’m calling BS on that.
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Five great viral video campaigns for your enjoyment
Some fun spots to break up your day. Ellen DeGeneres and Adele teamed up for a fun adventure. Ellen sent Adele into a Jamba Juice store with an earpiece. She had to say whatever Ellen told her. Funny stuff. As you can imagine, the video went viral on social media.…
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Marketing to teens on social
Want to reach teens with your marketing? You better be prepared to be nimble. We all know tastes change quickly with teenagers. What’s hot one day is ice cold the next. It’s the same with social media. Just about the time you figure out where they are on-line, they move. …
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Organic search dropping: What’s a marketer to do?
So what’s a marketer to do? Paid search is taking over more real estate on Google. Google eliminated the right rail paid search ads and cut the map pack from 7 listings down to 3. But that still means often the organic search results often fall below the fold, meaning…
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