Seach, Social & Content Marketing Blog

The old adage of “out of sight, out of mind” is still true today. To be successful online, businesses must continually put themselves out there in one form or another. Whether you are looking for new customers, customer loyalty, increased sales, brand awareness, or just more website traffic, “In your face” is the new way of thinking and it should be the only way to operate.

So how do you manage providing constant content to your customers and prospects? A content calendar, that’s how. Joe Pulizzi, of Junta 42 and the Content Marketing Institute, created the 1-7-30-4-2-1 plan. For businesses of any size this is a great way to stay on track when it comes to publishing content.

In this installment of expert interviews, we had the chance to discuss the impact Twitter has had on marketing and branding with Guy Kawasaki, the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” that aggregates significant stories on all sorts of topics.  He is also a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures, which is makes direct investments in early-stage technology companies. Additionally, Kawasaki is the author of multiple books. His latest Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions explores how to transform situations and relationships into enduring, powerful relationships.

Elise Redlin-Cook: Hi Guy! You are very active in the Twitter world, how has the way you tweet changed since you started?

Guy Kawasaki: I’ve come to view Twitter as a marketing platform and not just a social network. I push the edge of using Twitter for marketing purposes–and not everyone agrees with my practices.

I truly believe there is not right and wrong with Twitter. There’s only what works and what doesn’t work for a person or a company. My Twitter use is confusing for many people. I have ghosts and contributors for @guykawasaki. They produce tweets that are closer to news updates than personal updates. In this sense, my tweets are like @Mashable.

Paid links are dirty words in link building parlance.

It’s no secret that buying links can lead to ugly penalties that can drop an otherwise well-behaving site pages down the SERPs or even out of them altogether. Yet some gray area certainly exists as far as what is a paid link and what is acceptable.

In my previous post: An Introduction to Content Strategy, I described a content inventory as “your site in an Excel-spreadsheet nutshell: what content is found where, page by page.” Now, I’ll explain how to create this document and what this information can be used for.

I know what you’re thinking – Excel, really? Of course, if you have a more advanced content management system, you can (and should!) use that to intelligently manage your content.  However, many businesses do not have the budget to employ such systems, hence the reason for using Excel.

To complete a content inventory, you will have to go through your site page by page, recording your content findings.  And be aware — content is not limited to website copy!  This inventory should include web copy, photos, videos, forums, infographics, guides… basically any content that is living your site.

Start with the home page. Set up your spreadsheet (or other document) to include the following:

• Unique identification for each piece of content or each page, so you can easily navigate the document later.
• Name, topic or overall theme of the page.  You can usually grab this information quickly from the title tag of your page, or the content heading.
• Link – of course – so you know where to find the page.  You can also use this information to examine URL structure later.
• Type of information on the page—is it a product page, media information or a whitepaper? Be sure to be as specific as possible to make it easier for yourself in the long run.
• Keywords associated with that specific piece of content (Think META keywords, or image tags.)
• Meta description.
• Owner of the content, if you know. Who created the content and who is responsible for updating it? Whoever it is should be known as the content owner.  You may even want to record that person’s contact information in case the content needs to be revised.
• Internal links found on the page, and all of the above information regarding content on those pages.
• Notes on the status of the page addressing revisions or outdated content.  You should also keep track of any broken links or images that don’t load, as well as SEO and usability concerns that need to be addressed.

You can make more columns to cater to your website, though I would recommend recording all of the above information to have a concise and complete inventory. You can create the inventory to include more usability information or more detailed SEO information if you like.

Now What?

Once you have completed your content inventory, there are many ways to utilize this information to improve your site and your content.

Now you have a map of your website content page by page.  This makes it much easier to manage what content needs to be updated and when, as long as you took good notes!  Also, when it is time to update the content, you will know exactly who to contact since you have already recorded it.

A content inventory is a great way to discover outdated or insignificant content that is no longer needed or just flat our wrong.  Also, you can discover if content is missing and content development opportunities.

If you kept track of SEO concerns, an inventory will bring these issues to the forefront that you otherwise might have missed. The inventory will also reveal dead-end pages, poor URL structure and incorrect meta information.  Also, by viewing the internal linking structure page by page you can see what a visitor or customer may experience while on your site.

So, no matter how you format it, a content inventory is a necessary document to organize your website content. But unfortunately, a content inventory is almost never complete.  The second you remove or add new content to your site, you should update the inventory accordingly.

There are many uses for a content inventory, and all are going to improve your website visitors’ experiences on your site. Content is considered the most important component of your website, so keeping it updated and organized is essential.  And though this process is time-consuming, tiring and painstaking, the wealth of information you are left with is well worth the hard work. If you lack the resources needed to complete this task, it is important to understand and consider the benefits. And don’t worry, there are resources, like ourselves, willing to work with you.

What are your experiences with completing a content inventory?  What have you used your content inventory for? Let us know in the comments below!

In this edition of the Vertical Measures employee interview series, I sit down with VM’s first intern Adam Courtney, who now does link building strategy. Adam discusses link building, his love of aviation and what it’s like to be the son of a state senator along with offering some dating tips.

Michael Schwartz: What are your main responsibilities here at VM?

Adam Courtney: I am a link building strategist, so I spend most of my time helping our clients get quality links on relevant websites in order to increase their search engine rankings as well as increase their traffic.

Michael: You were Vertical Measures’ first intern and have now been promoted to part-time status. How big of an honor was it to chart the path for all VM interns that have come after you?

Adam: It was definitely an honor being the first intern here at VM, and it was fun to come back after the summer to meet the new interns and employees who had been hired after me.  I guess you could say that I felt like a “New/Old” employee when I came back to VM in the fall.

Michael: What have you learned about manual link building in your time on the job?

Adam: I’ve learned that quality link building often takes quite a bit of time, effort, and patience.

Michael: You took a leave of absence over the summer to fight fires in Washington. What was that experience like?

Adam: It was actually my second summer fighting forest fires in Washington State for the Forest Service.  It’s an extremely labor intensive job where it’s common to work 12-16 hours a day in hot and dirty conditions and not take showers for a week or more.  But there is also quite a bit of interesting science that goes into preventing and fighting wildfire, and seeing the coordination that it takes among overhead and firefighters to fight a wildfire that may be thousands of acres is impressive.  I am a very adventurous person and enjoyed the physical challenge, not to mention that I have made many life-long friends doing it.

Michael: Another one of your passions is the field of aviation. What kind of experience do you have flying planes and how do you see aviation factoring into your future?

Adam: When I was about 12, I decided that I wanted to become a pilot so I did everything in my power to make that happen.  I was at my local library all the time reading books and magazines about flying.  I used to beg my dad (who is actually terrified of flying) to take me to the Salem Airport every weekend, just so I could walk around and look at planes and talk to pilots.  After a few years I finally joined a flying club back in Oregon and began taking flying lessons when I was 16, and got my Private Pilot’s License when I was 17, in a small airplane known as a Cessna 152.  Unfortunately, the last few years I haven’t flown as much as I have wanted to because of other commitments like school and work, not to mention that it’s fairly expensive.  But I still do fly when I get the chance, and I am seriously contemplating jumping back into flight training in order to get more advanced certificates and ratings.  My plan is to continue to work at VM until I can convince Arnie to buy a Gulfstream 500 so that we can all take trips to Hawaii every weekend.

Michael: What it’s like to be the son of Peter Courtney, a long-time state senator in Oregon?

Adam: Whenever people ask me this question I really don’t know what to say about what it’s “like.”  But I will say that I look up to and admire my dad immensely.  He is by far the hardest-working person I know, and even when he is not working, he still is “working.”  And what I mean by that is that his hobbies outside of work are cleaning the bathrooms, raking leaves in our yard, and working on our dock that we have on the Willamette River next to our house in Oregon.

Michael: What’s the best advice he’s ever given you?

Adam: Probably the best piece of advice he has given me is to be willing to compromise and be flexible with people.  There’s going to be people in life who you can’t stand or who have conflicting views from your own, whether they are coaches, teachers, professors, bosses, or coworkers, but if you want to be respected you have to be willing to make an honest effort to work with them and sometimes compromise even when you would rather not.

Michael: I’m just starting to learn to appreciate sushi, but whenever I want to go you’ve never turned me down. Why are you so addicted to it?

Adam: I’ve always loved fish.  And turning down your amazing company during lunch would be too difficult for me to do, Michael.

Michael: As one of the few eligible bachelors in this office (along with me) the topic of the ladies often comes up in our conversations. What’s your strategy when it comes to attracting the fairer sex?

Adam: Well, just to begin with, I think it’s best not to settle down until you are 35 at the very earliest.  I used to say that I wouldn’t ever get married until 28 at the earliest, but I realize now that 28 is just over four years away for me, so I had to up the appropriate marriage age.  If for some reason I do get married before I’m 35, you have my permission to print out a copy of this interview and give it to me as my wedding gift.  Back to your original question, I’ve never really had a so-called “strategy” but I’m a firm believer that when it comes to the opposite sex, “they want what they can’t have,” so it’s always good to keep that in mind.

Michael: What did you major in at ASU and how has that advanced your future career?

Adam: I didn’t know what I wanted to major in, so for the first year and a half I was undeclared at ASU.  Then halfway through my sophomore year, I received a letter from ASU that essentially said, “You have x-number of credits, you have to declare a major this semester.”  A business degree seemed like a good degree that could be used in a variety of fields, so I chose Marketing.  To be honest though, I believe many college marketing courses are way behind the curve when it comes to the industry today.  The quality of instruction I received was excellent, but with the exception of a digital marketing class I took as a senior, the emphasis is still on traditional forms of marketing such as print, television, and radio.  I was definitely fortunate enough to not only take that digital marketing class that did a great job of covering internet marketing, but to also get an internship with Vertical Measures during my last semester of college.

Michael: What do you like best about working at Vertical Measures?

Adam: I’m going to go with the seemingly endless supply of Coke Zero we have stocked in the fridge.

I guess I also have to really admit, the people I work with are really awesome as well.  I enjoy the fact that each person here comes from such a different background and although we all work in the field of internet marketing, our hobbies and interests are all very different and interesting as well.