Cover: Effective SEO and Content Marketing by Nicholas Papagiannis
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Effective SEO and Content Marketing

The Ultimate Guide for Maximizing Free Web Traffic

 

 

Nicholas Papagiannis

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I dedicate this book to my friends and family, especially my late father and my mother.

About the Author

Nick Papagiannis is a Chicago-based SEO and content consultant, currently working at Cramer-Krasselt. He has been in the industry for 20 years and has focused on search engine marketing for most of those years. After graduating from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Nick worked at several consultancies and marketing agencies, including Accenture, Razorfish, and iCrossing before joining Cramer-Krasselt. He has done SEO and website work on several notable brands, including Coca-Cola, GM, Cetaphil, Sears, Lands' End, State Farm, and ADT.

He has spoken at several notable conferences, including South by Southwest, and has written for many trade publications, including PR Daily and Direct Marketing News.

In his free time, Nick enjoys running and working out, traveling to his home country of Greece, spending time with his friends and family, and watching his beloved Chicago sports teams.

About the Technical Editor

Sandy Writtenhouse is a writer and editor with a background and education in the field of technology. After obtaining her bachelor of science degree in information technology, she worked for many years managing people and projects.

Sandy has had a love for writing since she was a young girl scribbling down stories in a notebook. When writing manuals and business requirements for IT projects was no longer enough to fulfill her passion, she decided to leave the daily grind to pursue her dream of working for herself as a full-time freelancer.

Now, you can find Sandy's articles on many technology- and Apple -related websites. She concentrates on technologies that make life easier and work more productive. This includes writing tutorials and how-to articles that help others.

Along with her own writings, Sandy has gained proficiency in SEO and works as an SEO editor to assist her clients in setting and meeting their SEO initiatives and goals. In addition, she manages and participates in additional web projects for her clients.

When Sandy is not pounding away at her keyboard, you can find her enjoying time with her husband, family, and dogs in the sunny state of Florida. After spending most of her life growing up and living in the Midwest, she now makes the most of the warmer climate in the South.

Sandy's personal motto is: live, laugh, write. These words motivate her each day to live every moment, laugh uncontrollably, and write because she loves it.

Acknowledgments

Though I loved writing growing up, I never thought I would be in a position to write a book. I never thought of myself as a writer, but life and career choices had their way of putting me in this place. I'd like to thank my family for helping me over the years. On top of being raised in a great family and around friends who preached education and staying away from career complacency, with the help of my good friends from my childhood, I ventured into a college major and career that was still forming and in high demand: digital marketing.

I kept in touch with close friends, including Jonathan Tauber, whom I've known since sixth grade, and saw him succeeding and moving ahead in this industry. He was the first person I knew in the digital marketing industry and one of the most influential people in my career life, who directed me toward a high-demand career path that was still emerging. Jonathan, you are not only a lifelong friend, you are a brother, and I'm happy our paths crossed that day during little league tryouts. Thank you so much for all your guidance and input through the years.

After getting some experience as an analyst in the industry, I came across my mentor who would become one of my best friends, John Doyle. I can't thank him enough. John, you are a gem of a person and knowing you has truly changed my career and life. Thank you so much for everything you've done.

I would also like to thank those who have contributed their feedback via interviews, specifically Max Cheprasov, Gary Opp, Nitin Himmady, Andrew Furman, Christian Dodd, and Caleb Gonsalves.

Introduction

This book came about after many intensive hours in the digital marketing, content, and SEO spaces. I've been in the industry for 20 years and have had all kinds of experiences, clients, and projects: some good, some not as good. This book is designed to offer modern-day marketers the templates, processes, education, and other resources to help them execute free traffic initiatives through effective search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. I've seen many wasted hours on projects that didn't meet goals, and this book outlines how to ensure your program runs as optimally as possible. SEO and organic content are often underutilized and overlooked across the marketing realm. SEO is not merely trying to improve your website ranking on Google. SEO can spark and optimize ideas, and organic content can be the form for those ideas.

SEO is no longer a stand-alone discipline; it has evolved beyond a simple marketing tactic that should be applied throughout the marketing process. I would argue it should be used to inform and regulate the complete marketing process in an effort to optimize free traffic levels to your brand.

In my opinion, maximizing your organic (free) traffic channels should be a top priority, and this book provides insight on how to do that. This is the most effective way to spend total marketing efforts and dollars. From working with social media influencers to steering creative ideas and campaigns, modern-day SEO requires a full-service perspective of marketing and processes. To date, it's hard to find a book that provides a comprehensive view on how to incorporate SEO throughout each marketing discipline and the broader marketing delivery process.

Currently, many books on the market focus mainly on the basics of SEO but fail to demonstrate how and why SEO needs to be integrated into each marketing competency (social media, PR, creative teams, etc.) for the best return on total marketing investment.

The following are the key areas of this book:

  • General education on SEO and organic content execution, and marketing
  • Important search engine strategies and analytic reports
  • Understanding which search engines to focus on
  • How SEO and content can solve business problems
  • Building a new brand through SEO and content
  • Identifying who your true competitors are
  • How to establish research channels that can inform your business initiatives
  • Building personas and audience purchase journeys
  • Prioritizing locations, demographics and countries
  • What needs to be in place to maximize free traffic levels to your brands assets
  • Understanding all the key tasks and attributes for an effective content program
  • Data-Driven Content: Detailed instruction on how to use data to inform content responses, ideas, and asset types
  • Understanding different content asset types from standard items like articles to highly advanced assets like films, podcasts, white papers, and other assets
  • Calculating ROI for SEO and Content initiatives
  • Building an SEO and Content vision through your company with the right content principles, team structure and processes
  • Small business marketing via content and SEO and having the right small business mindset for success
  • Website and content design considerations (accessibility, principles of marketing)
  • Optimizing for the future and looking at other search venues
    • Amazon Optimization
    • YouTube Optimization
    • App Store Optimization (ASO)
    • Podcast Optimizations
    • Optimizing Blogs and other off-site content)
  • Prepping and optimizing for the newest technologies, including voice search, artificial intelligence, and content discovery vehicles
  • How to build an optimization path and programs that drive results and manage risks

The book aims to provide an exponential return on investment by optimizing marketing budgets across paid and owned content via nonpaid tactics like SEO and organic content marketing. It also aims to bring the readers up to speed on the latest and emerging SEO tactics and factors, content marketing principles, and processes. It also provides quizzes for each chapter, checklists, templates to get started, and interviews with industry leaders.For more information on the author, book, contact information, consulting services, and other valuable free content (discussion forums, news) please visit http://www.effectiveseoandcontentmarketing.com.