advanced content creation, seo & storytelling

Advanced Content Creation, SEO & Storytelling

Lisbon | Porto | Copenhagen | Helsinki | Budapest

All startups are in the same business.

The broccoli pizza business.

See here:

http://growthship.com/startuppizza

The Handicap of Selling Innovation

Innovation does a violence that creates disconnect.

Without context = ‘What is this? Why do I need it?’Fear: What the heck is that?!

Projection = ‘Are you saying I’m stupid?’Joy: Who puts broccoli on pizza?!Risk = ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

Disgust: That's it. I'm done. [walks off]

Your Product

Your Channel

Hacking Growth in 1948

Evolution from Medium to Channel

0) The Hyped Next Big Thing1) The Wild Wild West2) The Hockey Stick

3) Tragedy of the Commons4) Governance & Civilization

5) Decline

Growth Hacking vs Marketing

The Medium is the Message

Why the Medium is Paramount

The medium resolves and rewards.

Without context = ‘What is this? Why do I need it?’Projection = ‘Are you saying I’m stupid?’

Risk = ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

Violate at Your Own Peril

Launching innovative product into existing channels = FAILStartup or business unit cannot afford growth on any paid channels = FAIL

Startup go to war against its own customers = FAILStartup fears unconventional sales & marketing = FAIL

Engineering builds a product, sales sells another product = FAIL

ADD origins of Growth Hacking slide

ADD origins of Growth Hacking slide

ADD origins of Growth Hacking slide

ADD origins of Growth Hacking slide

ADD origins of Growth Hacking slide

ADD origins of Growth Hacking slide

MESSAGE:

TupperwarePayPalYour product?TeslaZyngaPebbleApple products

MEDIUM:

Home partiesEbayYour channel?Luxury storesFacebookCrowdfundingApple retail stores

MESSAGE:

???????

MEDIUM:

VR & ARBitcoinAI3D PrintingInternet of Things & WearablesDriverless carsDrones

Evolution from Medium to Channel

0) The Hyped Next Big Thing1) The Wild Wild West2) The Hockey Stick

3) Tragedy of the Commons4) Governance & Civilization

5) Decline

State of Online Marketing Today

The Day to Day Reality

Channel Life and Death

SEM/PPC

Welcome to End of an Era

Cheap startups, cheap talent, and

cheap growth are all coming to an end.

What does that mean?

With acquisition and distribution radically more expensive, differentiated

growth hacking become even more critical than ever.

Today, the most compelling & most differentiated content

a) solves customer actual problems, b) engages by “playing to their priors”,

c) and is more than a blog post.

Advanced Content Principles

Think beyond the blog post. (SERPs have changed.)Differentiation is critical. (Make it harder to copy.)

CRITICAL TO UNDERSTAND:You need to blur the lines between product/content.

The Content Garden Model

Content is deciding what to plant.

SEO is what you nurture and, paramountly, what you prune.

Constellation of Customer Problems

Understanding Your Customers’ Priors

Why did your customer become who they are?

Hidden, unconscious motivations?

Understanding Your Customers’ Priors

What sorts of lies and self-deception?Weird or odd behavior?Unconscious signaling?

Understanding Your Customers’ Priors

How do they think/perceive themselves?What problems do they perceive they have?

How do they prioritize these problems?

Three Segments’ Reactions

The Producer The Artiste The Drowning

Initial Reaction “Whoa. This is amazing.”

“Are you really better than

CoreAudio or OpenSL ES?”

“Can you write code for me??”

Secondary ReactionHave their team benchmark our performance.

Build simple app. Get stuck on code

samples.

Three Segments’ LiesThe Producer The Artiste The Drowning

Lie #1“Everything in my

audio stack is bulletproof.”

“I could have built this.”

“I can program audio.”

Lie #2

“I have the power in my org to make

buying decisions by myself.”

“I understand low-level code and optimizations.”

“I know what I am doing.”

Three Segments’ Self PerceptionThe Producer The Artiste The Drowning

How they think of themselves

Professional and battle-tested.

Under-appreciated & undiscovered genius.

Unique-snowflake innovator.

Hard core developer.

In reality Mostly professional.

Insecure mediocre middle. Quick to blame software.

Incompetent.

Three Segments’ MotivationsThe Producer The Artiste The Drowning

Typical Question/Objection

What impact does XYZ have on CPU

usage?

How do I do XYZ with your SDK?

Can you write XYZ for me?

Motivations Staying at the top. Getting to the top. Not getting fired.

Three Segments’ Value PerceptionsThe Producer The Artiste The Drowning

What they’re really asking for

Weird edge-case features.

Docs that don’t make them feel dumb.

Ready-built templates.

Job to Be Done

Smooth sailing. Smart and safe choice. Solidifies their position to

management and rest of team.

More in-flow coding. Cannot help them.

Three Segments’ Problem PerceptionsThe Producer The Artiste The Drowning

Problem We SolveThey need a

customizable and flexible solution.

They think they need a customizable and

flexible solution.NA

Adjacent ProblemInfo about latency and future audio

tech.

Ability to test latency.

NA

Adjacent ProblemLook smart in front

of underlings.Look smart in front

of boss. NA

Getting Developers & Marketers on Same Page

Exercise

http://growthship.com/growth

(Copy and fill out)

Starbucks understands growth hacking.

http://growthship.com/starbucksoutlook

Content Production Schedule by SEO

Content Garden Model

Content is deciding what to plant.

SEO is what you grow and prune.

Why NO growth?

Veteran LeadersContent ProcessOptimized SEO

In-house & External Team

Optimized & multiplied their output!

The End Of An Era

The SEO Avocado Tree

Sculpt & prune your site to growth.

The more you cut, the more you grow.

Growing & Sculpting

(not provided)

What are the seeds, or existing leaves and fruit to grow?

PRIORITIZE!

What Content Should I Grow & Sculpt?

Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

What Content Should I Sculpt?

http://growthship.com/analytics

How Should I Sculpt It?

What Type Of Content Should I Add?

What Related Content Should I Add?

Google Wants To Help Shape Your Growth

http://growthship.com/kwp

How To Cluster Your Content

Content Production Schedule by SEO

Google Tools & Recap

Google AnalyticsGoogle Search ConsoleRelated Search Queries

Auto CompleteGoogle Keyword Planner

Pruning Your Site

Do not waste energy on inefficient leaves.

Less is more.Content = Seeds

SEO = Optimizing Sunlight To Grow

Where Do You Start With Optimization?

Paralysis By Analysis

$20,000 for 200 pages, butWHAT DO I DO?

Actionable SEO Audit in Less Than An Hour

Help Google, help you.Google likes to learn.

Exploit unrecognized simplicities.Prioritize your actions to success.

Layups -> Slam Dunks

Keywords On Your Homepage?

Keywords On Your Homepage?

Are You Mobile-Friendly?

Are You Mobile-Friendly?

Site Speed Across Devices

http://growthship.com/speed

What is yours on mobile & desktop?

Duplicate Content & Duplicate Sites?

https://www.YOURSITE.com/marketinghttp://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing

http://staging.YOURSITE.com/marketinghttps://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing/page/2https://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing/page/7

Site Search, Indexation & Crawl Budget

How big is your site? What’s getting indexed?

Site Search, Indexation & Crawl Budget

site:YOURSITE.com

Over-Indexation v. Under-Indexation

Leaves to Sunlight Ratio Off Bugs In The GardenSubdomains JavaScript Staging Environments Crawler ErrorsTag Pages Blocking URLsNo Canonical URL Orphan PagesCustomer Created URLs Robots.txt Broken

Over-Indexation v. Under-Indexation

Under-Indexation: Prune Wisely

Crawl Budgethttp://growthship.com/crawl

Domain Authorityhttp://growthship.com/authority

Crawl budget is roughly proportional to domain authority.

Crawl EfficiencySite Structure, Internal Linking, Speed, Robots.txt, Sitemap

Finite Resources

Where should the sun shine?

Where should Google help you crawl?

How much sun do you get?http://growthship.com/crawl

Optimize Crawl Budget

4.5%

Google wants the most important pages to remain the ‘freshest’ in the index.

What Is Your Domain Authority?

http://growthship.com/authority

How big is your tree?What is your DA? How many pages do you have indexed?

What Is Your Domain Authority?

Is it low?

Even more important to properly optimize your site.

What Is Your Crawl Budget?http://growthship.com/crawl

What Is Your Domain Authority?http://growthship.com/authority

Crawl budget is roughly proportional to domain authority.

How Can You Improve Crawl Efficiency?Site Structure, Internal Linking, Speed, Robots.txt, Sitemap

To prune or improve?

Pruning Your Dead Leaves

Indexed Pages v. Organic Landing Pagessite:YOURDOMAIN.com Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

Total pages indexed?Last 30 days?

Last 6 months?Where can you prune? No tree is the same.

Indexed Pages v. Organic Landing PagesOrganic Landing Pages:

199 v. 232 in past 30 days

Behavior > Site Content >Landing pages

(filter Organic Only)

More Pruningsite:YOURSITE.com -inurl:www

Over-indexation: Total indexed pages for each subdomainSecurity: Staging sites & customer data

What Leaves Should Get Sunlight?

How can you shift your internal ranking bias to your more important pages?

As quality content becomes table stakes, channeling PageRank becomes paramount.

Sculpting PageRank

http://growthship.com/internal

Trunk : Branches : Leaves & Fruit Homepage: Categories : Content

Optimize Crawl Budget

0.87%

Where Should I Sculpt PageRank?

Google Analytics (filter Organic Traffic Only): Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

Sort by:Sessions

Conversions

Audit Recap

Basics: Title, H1, Content, URL, Alt, MetaBasics: KWs, Mobile, Speed, Dupes

IndexationOrganic Landing Pages

Sculpt PageRankOptimize Crawl Budget

Content Clusters + Tiered Internal Linking

Questions

STORYTELLING

The Universal Human Data Format

Story beats are encoded into your DNA.

Stories, not facts or figures, but stories.

Simplest Story

A problemand

A solution

How Apple uses story to sell the making of memories (ie iPhones).

https://youtu.be/nhwhnEe7CjE

Disney hit film Frozen is a ‘Quest’.(Star Wars set in medieval Scandinavia.)

Anna (the special hero)= LukeKristof = Han SoloSven = ChewbaccaRock trolls = EwoksOlaf = C3PO/R2D2

https://youtu.be/TbQm5doF_Uc

Rocky is a ‘Rags to Riches’.

Rocky is an un-special hero who ‘wins’ only by perseverance, grit, & hustle.

https://youtu.be/eMhDQFLwrAA

Taken is a ‘Revenge Story’.

Some injustice has happened in a far off land. We must go and deliver justice. The ends justify the

means.

https://youtu.be/uPJVJBm9TPA

Once Brothers is a ‘Love Story’.

Two opposites meet. Become one. Then separate. Then unify once again.

https://youtu.be/h_FTjCe1C7Y

PS Think beyond ‘Romeo & Juliet’.

Edge of Tomorrow is a ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’.

Something big has happened to reshape the landscape. Your old magic doesn’t work. You must

learn and master the new magic for the new landscape.

https://youtu.be/fLe_qO4AE-M

The Five Fundamental Stories*

The QuestRags to Riches

Stranger in a Strange LandLove StoryRevenge

*Based on the work of Dr. Nick Morgan of http://www.publicwords.com/

Pro Tricks to Tell Better Stories

No conflict, no interest.The counter-intuitive hook.

The protagonist makes it worse.The payoff matters.

Structure. Structure. Structure.

Your turn. Write a story that plays to your customers’ priors.