Content Marketing Inst. 

With so much data available through Google Analytics, sometimes it’s easy to fall into the trap of always looking at the same things – reviewing keyword referrals or landing pages, or simply looking at traffic trends. However, a wealth of available data is often overlooked. Sometimes reviewing something different, or slicing the data in a new way, is all it takes to find a great new opportunity or diagnose a long-standing problem. Here are three top features in Google Analytics for giving a fresh look to data you may have looked at too many times before.

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When asked to rate themselves on their effectiveness in maintaining a “unified consumer view” in their online and cross-channel marketing, marketers, agencies and publishers  alike give themselves a failing grade. It’s not a shock that most marketing and agency pros blame the complexity of the technology, multiple emerging channels and lack of unified measurement for losing their lock on consumers. But publishers? When publishers lose track of their audience, and their ability to find and engage consumers regardless of medium, there’s something seriously wrong with the picture.
Working with PulsePoint and The CMO Club in late February and early March, Digiday’s State of the Industry Survey drew 689 opens and more than 400 completed “Digital Marketing Capabilities Assessments” from digital media and marketing pros. Marketers gave themselves consistently low ratings across a range of capabilities, but said they ranked worst in providing a “unified customer view” and “social listening for content and influencers.” Publishers also gave themselves the lowest scores on those subjects, followed closely by how well they deliver a “paid, owned and earned” media framework, and “seamlessly execute across programs.”

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Think of them as mini headlines – lyrical ensembles – the eye candy of prose. They’re called bullets. And these handy weapons, which are available in the arsenal of every writer, not only give a logical order to your thoughts, they also work to make your physical content easy on the eyes and much less intimidating for your readers. Unfortunately, their benefits are often underestimated – even overlooked – in an era where instantaneous connections are being forged and the need for speed has never been greater.
Web writing has, with few exceptions, put an end to the days of long-winded, verbose content, and has ushered in an era of quick, concise pieces you can read on the fly, while  still reaping the benefits of the information gathered. So, how can these little black dots help transform your copy from good to great and help you draw readers in? Here are some easy-to-follow bullet point basics that can help make your content pop from the page:

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For the past few months, I have been practically living in an analytics dashboard, constantly monitoring my clients’ organic search data for even the smallest hint of a Google slap. If you haven’t noticed, Google has been busy updating their search products (see: Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar). On top of those changes that they have publicly documented, we are also seeing additional SEO-specific updates by Google. We’ve had a “page layout algorithm” update, Panda updates and even a bug in Google’s system that caused sites to accidentally be delisted.

Now, there’s a Penguin in the mix. Pandas, Penguins and bugs – Oh my! It’s like I’m at the zoo. And a zoo is pretty much what the SEO world feels like right now.  Also in the mix was the Matt Cutts announcement about a penalty for overly-optimized sites. And then a few weeks later, we started hearing more and more about ‘negative SEO’, which is essentially the process of sabotaging someone’s organic search rankings by generating tens of thousands of “bad” links to their website.

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NEW YORK (AP) — In a flashy presentation to advertisers, YouTube promoted its new channels of original programming, while pledging to spend $200 million to help market them. That’s roughly twice what the Google Inc.-owned video site has spent launching some 100 channels of niche-oriented programming. The channels are an ambitious initiative from YouTube, approximately halfway through its rollout.

YouTube hyped the initiative Wednesday night at New York’s Beacon Theatre, where it urged advertisers to purchase spots alongside its new programs. It was YouTube’s first “upfront,” an annual TV tradition of getting advertisers to purchase ads to their upcoming programming slates.

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Just as gadget-crazed as consumers, advertisers are expected to accelerate their nontraditional media spends through 2012. MagnaGlobal now expects spending on Internet media (including national and local) to grow by 12.2%, this year. That’s up from the Interpublic unit’s previous forecasts of 10.9%, and, if correct, will represent $35.6 billion and a 20.2% market share. “Encouraged by the rise of smartphone and tablet usage and the availability of scalable platforms, mainstream advertisers are now fully embracing all mobile formats (display, search, video, in-app),” said Vincent Letang, EVP and head of global forecasting at MagnaGlobal.

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Productivity is a universal challenge in content marketing, where success often depends on consistent performance, not isolated genius. Under the right circumstances, many professionals are capable of preparing great content for blogs, books, and online sign-up incentives. But only a few can consistently produce quality marketing content on a daily basis.

Those who do usually have a system or process in place to help them meet the daily deadline challenge. There are three productivity tips I would like to share from the world of writing and publishing (where deadlines are absolute). Use them as the core of your own system for preparing content on an ongoing, stress-free basis.

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“Digital marketing is all about reading signals and mapping patterns. And it has to matter right now or it doesn’t matter.” So said Brad Rencher, Adobe Systems’ senior vice president and general manager, Digital Marketing Business Unit, Wednesday morning, as he kicked off the company’s Digital Marketing Summit 2012, taking place this week in Salt Lake City. Rencher, playing to a full house at the Salt Palace, told attendees that Big Data is getting bigger, while the details are getting smaller—but it’s those details that drive success.

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