Content Marketing

October 10, 2012 By Erik Deckers

Get Ready For AuthorRank: Set Up Your Google Author Identity

Google AuthorRank is going to become a deciding factor in search engine optimization, as well as personal branding. As we’ve discussed recently, Google seems to be setting itself up to use AuthorRank as a ranking factor, although no one is sure when that will happen. (A couple people I’ve talked to think they already have).

This is the Google Author rich snippet. It tells Google that this collection of letters is “an author,” so it can act accordingly

How do you set up for AuthorRank? Do you have to do anything special? Or is it all done for you?

First, you don’t actually need to do anything for AuthorRank. That’s the name of the signal Google is using, like PageRank. It’s their assessment for your page, or your name. And they’ll most likely keep the actual ranking number a secret.

While you can’t set up your AuthorRank, what you can do is start using the rel=”author” tag in your blog posts so when they launch the algorithm, you’ll be ready.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Set Up Your Google+ Account

Go to plus.google.com, and log in with your Gmail account. If you’re not using Gmail, you should be.

(If you’re setting up your Gmail for the first time, just remember this is going to be your identity and your legacy email that goes with you wherever you go, even if you move across the country and change cable systems (i.e. and lose your cable-provided email address). So don’t pick something stupid like HotCougar68 as your Gmail address. You’ll kick yourself if you ever have to use your Gmail in a professional manner.)

2. Fill Out Your Google+ Profile

This means filling out everything — past workplaces, education. Everything. Anything that Google could find and associate you with elsewhere.

Your photo needs to be a real photo, not you with a friend, your dog, your kid, or even you as a kid. Remember, this is the photo that will be shown when your name appears in a Google search. So a backlit photo of you standing on the beach at sunset from 200 yards away is not a good idea.

Add your other social network profiles too. Keep in mind that these are public, and anyone who’s looking at them can find you through your Google+ profile. So if you have a secret personal account you don’t want anyone to know about, don’t include it. Otherwise, include as much as you can.

The “Contributor To” box: List every place you provide content for, even if you only do it once in a while.

3. Fill Out the “Contributor To” Section With All Blogs

This is where you tell Google where your work can be found. Your blog(s), your website, anywhere your written content appears. Even if you wrote a guest post for a blog a year or two ago, include it.

4. Include Any Email Addresses Associated With Your “Contributor To” Links

This will help Google+ verify that you really are the author of the pieces you listed on the actual blog. For example, this particular blog post is published on the problogservice.com blog. In order to get Google to recognize that I’m the author, I had to include my problogservice.com email address.

5. Update Your Blog’s Bio With Your rel=”author” Tag

First, copy the URL of your Google+ profile. It may include the word “posts” or “about” at the end. I recommend leaving the word “about,” because that takes people directly to your Google+ profile. The “posts” at the end takes them to your timeline.

You’ll end up with something like this:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/105373352538863833629/about

You can go to Bitly.com to shorten your Google+ URL. That way, you can track whether it got clicked on. And you can even customize it so you know it, and can type it from memory (mine is bit.ly/erik-plus, because I’m a bit of an egotist).

Next, go into your blog’s bio and add the following code:

When you’re done, it will look like this:

Erik Deckers

You just told Google, “I wrote this! And to prove it, I can be found at this Google+ profile.”

Google will then go check, see that you listed this particular blog in your “Contributor To” section, and say “VOILA! We have an Author!” And the circle will be complete.

Then when that particular post shows up in a Google search, it will have your name and smiling face right next to it, so everyone knows it’s yours.

This is my bio from this very blog. Note the rel=”author” tag. We had to use the AuthorSure plugin to get that to stick.

6. WordPress Users Get the AuthorSure Plugin

One thing I don’t like about the self-hosted WordPress platform is that it strips out the rel=”author” tags from the user bios. It doesn’t matter how many times you try, they remove it every time. So download the AuthorSure plugin to your WordPress blog. This will keep the rel=”author”, rel=”me”, and rel=publisher tags intact, and working properly.

7. What Do Those Other rel Tags Mean?

You should use rel=”me” when your name appears in a blog post or article, but you’re not the author. This is especially useful for speaker bios on someone else’s page. When you submit a bio to be published elsewhere, hyperlink your name to your Google+ profile, and use the rel=”me” tag, so Google recognizes that it’s you, but doesn’t think you wrote that particular page.

The rel=”publisher”, according to Google’s Webmaster Help, “. . . tells Google that the Google+ page represents the publisher of the site, and makes your site eligible for Google Direct Connect.” In other words, it’s useful for companies and brands that are publishing their website. Link the company name to its Google+ page.

Summary

Setting up your Google Author profile does two very important things for you:

1) It tells Google who you are, so if you’ve written something that shows up in a search, your name and picture will be highlighted, and will appear next to the entry. That’s great for personal branding.

2) When people do a search, Google assumes your Google+ friends will want to read your stuff. That means, the bigger your Google+ network, the more people Google can/will show your content to.

October 3, 2012 By Erik Deckers

Google AuthorRank: A Conundrum for Content Marketers Who Don’t Do Bylines

AuthorRank, Google’s possible new search signal, can have some serious implications for a brand’s content marketing efforts.

And it’s going to create a problem for content managers who don’t believe in publishing author bylines in their websites. Or the ones who don’t want to publish the entire bio at the bottom of a blog post. Those “we succeed or fail as a team; no one is more special than the other” types who learned everything about management from Little League baseball.

If you stick to your guns of never granting bylines, your website’s rankings may suffer. But if you let writers have their credit, you could see big improvements to the posts written by your best writers, because their own AuthorRank will give you a boost.

We’re not sure exactly how AuthorRank will be evaluated, or even when it will be implemented. But according to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, there are people who do really, really evil and wrong things on the Internet, and it would be useful if we had strong identity so we could weed them out.”

Conversely, what Schmidt didn’t say, is that if you can weed out the really, really evil and wrong people, you’ll also need to identify which people are as far away from “evil and wrong” as you can get. The farther those people are, the better their content.

And assuming you’ve hired people who way down on the other end of the “evil and wrong” spectrum, your site should get credit for it.

That’s not to say that if you don’t give them credit, your site is evil and wrong. Rather, it’s just one more positive tool that you should be able to take advantage of and use to your benefit.

It means you should let your writers have a byline and link it to their Google+ profile. It means you should encourage them to write about their own not-evil-and-wrong hobbies as much as they want. Let them improve their AuthorRank as much as they can.

It Also Means You Shouldn’t Delete the Work of People Who Leave

There are companies that will delete the blog posts and work of people who have left their company, as if they don’t want to admit those people ever darkened their door.

This may end up being a big mistake for the the former employer.

Think of it this way: At one point, you thought enough of this person to hire them. At one point, you thought they did some excellent work and were really smart, and you wanted to show them off to your clients and visitors, and to gain all kinds of competitive advantages by harnessing their intelligence.

So you published their blog posts under their name, with their bio proudly displayed for everyone to see.

And, if you were forward thinking, you even used the rel=author tag in their bio to help your own SEO efforts.

So why would you undo that once they left the company?

Presumably, they’re going to work for someone else who thinks they’re smart and do excellent work. And they’re going to want to publish that employee’s work on their own site too.

In fact, the more they write and publish, the higher their AuthorRank could rise. And everything they wrote will get some positive Google juice.

Including the stuff on your own website.

Except you deleted it all.

Who knows, this may all lead to a more interesting problem: a wildly popular employee with a stratospheric AuthorRank who decides they don’t want to be associated with your company at all, and demands you remove all of their work.

Don’t laugh, it could happen.

September 20, 2012 By Erik Deckers

You Can’t Escape Being a Writer

I’m always writing.

I don’t mean I’m always sitting in front of a computer, churning out words, although it certainly feels like that.

No, the boon and the curse of being a writer is that you can do it anywhere. Many times, I’ll flesh out a column or a blog post while I’m driving, puttering around the garage, or in the shower. An idea will take hold, and I’ll start fleshing out ideas before I ever get a pen in my hand.

A couple months ago ago, I cited a Lance Mannion blog post (which is still the macho-est name since Dirk Facepunch) who wrote a great article in 2009 about what writing is.

Standing, that’s working. Sitting is working. Pacing is writing. I do my best thinking then. Looking out the window, that’s writing. Brushing your teeth is writing. Anything’s writing,” Rob says. “The hardest writing is showering.’

On the upside, that means that I can be working whenever I’m awake or have a little downtime. On the downside, that means I’m working whenever I’m awake or have a little downtime.

The problem comes when I get a good idea and start fleshing it out, only to forget it later. I usually carry a notebook around with me, but the Indiana State Police frown on people scribbling down notes while they’re driving down the highway.

I’ve also had a great idea that I wrote in my head and then found out that I had already done something just like it a few months earlier (that’s happened more than once).

Or when I’ve just spent the last 6 – 8 hours working, and I just want to relax and shut my brain down for a little while, I can’t stop thinking about new ideas.

So here are a few things I do stop thinking about writing for a while:

Keep a pen and paper on my bedside table. When I have an idea just before I drop off to sleep, I write it down.
Use Evernote on my mobile phone. I store all my ideas, interesting articles, and notes on my Evernote. And one thing I love about mobile Evernote is that I can record an audio note. When I’m in my car, I just hit the Evernote Audio button, and record the idea. It’s uploaded to Evernote, and it downloads to my laptop the next time I fire it up.
Carry a notebook at ALL times: I’m a Moleskine snob and am very picky about my pens — blue Pilot G2 .05mm — and I make sure I have it with me. That way, I’m always ready when inspiration hits.
Use a notes app on my iPad. For whatever reason, I’m not a big fan of the standard Notes app on my iPad, so I bought Draft a few days ago, and I’ve been enjoying that. I use it to take notes at sporting events I’m covering, and even use it when I’m watching TV. I also set it up to forward my notes to Evernote (which is also a note taking app, but I couldn’t tell you why I don’t use it instead. Certainly would’ve saved me $2.99).
Just write the damn thing: I was trying to enjoy a quiet lunch when this blog post popped into my head. I kept thinking about it and thinking about it until finally I just pulled out my laptop and wrote it. Took me 30 minutes, and now I’m done. Of course, lunch is over and I have to go back to work. . .

The idea behind these strategies is that if I write an idea down, I get it out of my brain where it’s been rattling around. That frees me up to think about other stuff, or at the very least, stop thinking about that idea. I can shut down my mental writing for a while and focus on something else.

August 13, 2012 By Erik Deckers

Google’s Changes Makes SEO Harder, Good Content Important

Doug Karr’s SEO Is Dead, Long Live Content talk at Blog Indiana last week was a good lesson in the importance of good content for companies that want to succeed online.

In the past, you could hire SEO firms that would use backlinking strategies, keyword stuffing strategies, and any other black hat or gray hat tactic you could think of. And for several years, they worked great. Spend more money, and the rankings go up. Abandon your SEO company, and your rankings would drop.

Google’s Panda and Penguin updates have all but killed the traditional SEO industry. It’s gotten so bad that small SEO companies have shut down completely, and the big SEO companies have laid off staff members as they retool and redefine themselves.

But the smart companies are retooling themselves into content factories. They finally got the message that they needed to produce words — lots and lots of words — and quit spending so much energy on on-page SEO, page sculpting, and all the other little tricks. Of course, they don’t always produce good content. . .

Why Should You Make Good Content?

Google wants you to make your stuff awesome. They want you to produce good quality content, and they’re not so worried about the old techniques..

This has really helped the social media savvy writers and content producers, because they’re the ones who 1) know how to produce the best content that people want to read, hear, and watch, and 2) they know how to share it to the biggest, but precisely targeted audience.

As Doug said during his talk, “You need to capture the scale of intent for the problems people are trying to solve online and talk to people the way they want to be talked to.”

In other words, speak to the dog, in the language of the dog, about the things that matter to the heart of the dog.

Content Marketing Just Got Harder

This has made marketing more difficult. It is requiring us to turn off Fast Eddie’s Super Fantastic Automatic Marketing Machine, and actually do some old-school marketing, crafted carefully by hand, and done by trained professionals.

It means you can’t automate. You can’t phone it in. You can’t ignore the quality of the writing. You can’t ignore the grammar and punctuation. And you can’t do a half-assed job in your writing.

It means you need to hire people who know how to write good stuff. Who can shoot good video. Who can record interesting podcasts. Who know how to build community online and effectively communicate to them.

It means you have to pay attention to your audience and what they want. You have to know what interests them. You have to know what they want. Basically, you have to listen to them.

July 31, 2012 By Erik Deckers

Our Content, Like Our Music, Sucks: Challenge Your Thinking

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but today’s music isn’t as good as it was when I was growing up. It lacks soul and depth and is not nearly as good as the stuff I grew up listening to.

My parents said the same thing about my music, only I have science to back me up.

According to a new study from Scientific Reports, researchers performed a quantitative analysis of nearly 500,000 songs. What they found is that since the 1960s, music has decreased in timbre (sound, color, texture, and tone) and pitch (chords, melody, and tonal arrangements). What it has increased in is loudness.

This is the Ouroroboros. It’s also how we’re coming up with new content ideas.

It’s understandable. Artists like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix were pioneers in music. What they did took real artistry. But as record companies decided what we would hear on the radio, and signed artists who are marketable rather than talented, music has become so homogenized, groups like Nickelback are considered “pretty good,” while songs like “Call Me Maybe” and “Baby” go gold.

If you’ve ever thought today’s music all sounds the same, you’re right. And it’s not because you’re getting old.

It’s Happening To Our Content Too

This sin of sameness is happening to the rest of our popular culture. Movies are predictable and identical — hell, they’re remaking movies that aren’t even 30 years old. Books are formulaic and characters are painted from the same palette (food-obsessed mysteries starring female detectives who are also chefs and have rich divorced friends overrun my library’s shelves). Every TV comedy tries to be Friends or Cheers.

Even the online content we create resembles each other’s.

Part of this is just the sheer coincidence of big numbers. If you and I each write a blog post about blogging lessons we’ve learned from watching Tennessee Tuxedo, that’s a pretty big coincidence. Until you realize that with a few million bloggers, it’s more surprising that two people don’t write about it.

A bigger part of this is laziness and a lack of creativity.

Too many of us draw inspiration from each other, like some Ouroboros. David writes something that Sheila likes, so she writes about it. Helen likes what Sheila wrote, so she responds to it. Meanwhile, Steve is inspired by Sheila and writes his own interpretation. Of course, David is a big fan of Steve’s, so. . .

Ouroboros. The snake that eats its tail.

Very few people are able to come up with a shiny new idea at all, whether it’s movies, books, TV shows, or blog posts. As Mark Twain said in his biography:

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.

Be Original. Everyone Else Is.

It’s not that we shouldn’t try. It’s not that we should give up. But we should be willing to experiment. We should be willing to break out of the rut so-o-o-o many of us are in. Stop trying to win readers and increase traffic. Start writing stuff that’s interesting to you and makes you happy.

Be a pioneer. Take the road less traveled. Boldly go where no one has yada yada yada.

For one week, stop reading other people’s stuff. Stop being inspired. Stop seeking new nuggets of wisdom in other people’s rivers. Turn on the creative faucets, put on your thinking socks, and come up with some of the wackiest shit you can, and see what you can do with it.

Everything I Needed to Know About Networking I Learned From a Banana
What Baseball and Corn Flakes Have in Common
What My Day Would Be Like if I Had No Personal Gravity

Turn your idea into a 300, 400, or 500 word blog post. Don’t write it to appeal to readers. Write it to stretch your thinking. Write it to find new connections and patterns where you’ve never seen them before. Write it so you don’t sound like every other blogger and content creator trying to jump on the latest Twitter hashtag, hoping to eke out a few extra readers.

Be yourself. Better yet, be someone you haven’t been yet. Come up with the weirdest idea, turn it into a blog post, and then leave a URL in the comments section.

Let’s see what you got.

Photo credit: Leo Reynolds (Flickr, Creative Commons