How to Repurpose the Best Content Formats of 2014

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How to Repurpose the Best Content Formats of 2014 Posted: 17 Dec 2014 04:15 PM PST Posted by Amanda_Gallucci The past year, major publishers have run the full gamut from listicles with clickbait headlines to well-researched, in-depth storytelling. Each format worked for different audiences and contexts, and as publishers repeatedly tested new types of content, they found several winning combinations. By taking a look at the strategy behind why some of the most popular content styles of 2014 performed so well, brands can learn to repurpose and utilize these formats for their own content.  The local snapshot Whether taking the form of a list, interactive map, or article, content that focused in on a certain segment of the population, or compares and contrasts diverse segments, made up some of the most widely shared and discussed content. Example The New York Times created a map that represented America's palate by showing the most searched for Thanksgiving recipe in every state: Thanksgiving Recipes Googled in Every State. Why it works The more closely content is personally tied to the reader, the more they are invested in it, so content that is focused on a particular area or demographic has a high appeal to the people in that group. People feel one of two ways about this type of content: either they find it to be a spot-on representation of their community, or they starkly disagree with how they were perceived. In both cases, the opinion is strong and people want to share with others about either the content's accuracy or their reasons why the author didn't get it right. Moreover, content that pits different places or groups against each other further increases a person's desire to defend their loyalty to their group, as well as strikes up curiosity and conversations when people are genuinely surprised to find out how different they are from others. How to spin it Dig into your sales data and see if you can find any interesting trends as far as different groups of people favoring different products or services. You can also use social engagement tools and social listening to find interesting patterns in online behavior. Depending on the type of insights you discover, you can decide if a map or another type of graphic makes the most sense to present your findings. Objections Investing a great deal of resources into producing a piece of content aimed at only one group can seem to be less of an opportunity than something all encompassing, however sometimes when you try to cover your whole audience at once, you end up reaching no one on a deep enough level. Try out both hyperlocal content and content that compares different local segments to see which performs best. The success formula Whether giving tips from specific celebrities or business leaders, or rounding up the commonalities between "every great leader" or "all accomplished entrepreneurs," content that claimed to give the secret steps to success was quite popular. Just a step up from a listicle, these articles paired first-person accounts and statistics with helpful tips. Example Forbes turned research about how people deal with stress into tips on how to avoid it: How Successful People Squash Stress. Why it works People want to be successful and turn to informational and self-help content in order to better themselves. Pairing tips with people's real stories or data largely increases the credibility of the advice, giving the readers more reason to believe that the content can help them achieve their own success. How to spin it Make the success formula specific to your niche. Go beyond interviewing thought leaders about their backgrounds and general advice. Q&As with bright individuals don't always produce high traffic and social shares because while the person answering questions is successful, the questions and answers don't produce any concrete takeaways from which others can learn. Compile actual schedules and to-do lists that show how effective workers spend their time, describe what tools a professional in your space uses to accomplish certain tasks, or explain the story behind the numbers that show a group or company's growth. Peel away any generic and clichéd recommendations to reveal the details that make up a repeatable method other people in the field can use. Objections Sometimes the "steps" in posts like these are overly simplistic and not completely fleshed out. For instance, "start by setting goals," on its own has very little value and it's something that people have heard before. Giving more specific examples about the types of goals to set, tips and tricks of how to set obtainable goals or keep track of goals, or a behind-the-scenes look at a successful individual or brand's goals with the details of how they were achieved can turn advice into useful content. The nonfiction story While micro content may have excelled in 2014, there were also many notable long-form pieces of strong journalism. Publishers sought to put names and faces to cold facts about poverty, crime, and other important issues that are sometimes glazed over as mere statistics. The combination of detailed accounts and telling photography or data visualizations alongside careful research brought previously hidden subjects to light. Example Newsweek told the story of what really happens in one of the most dangerous cities of America in Murder Town USA (aka Wilmington, Delaware). Why it works Powerful storytelling will always be compelling. Humanizing facts makes people take interest because it allows them to relate and moves them to feel a certain way. How to spin it Start by asking questions about data patterns and doing research to see if you can determine the source of unique trends. This doesn't have to involve extensive reporting; one interview with a person who has a unique point of view can be all you need to tell a remarkable story. Objections In-depth stories are only worth the reader's time investment if the author has something interesting to share, so this format is not easy to produce consistently in every subject. It can be a risk to take the time needed to produce something on such a grand scale only for it to not to gain traction. A big piece of content like this should not be attempted unless the idea is vetted among people in your circle of influence and there is a large enough promotional strategy around it to help it take off. The crowdsourced list The latest trend with publishers like BuzzFeed and Huffington Post is listicle posts that round up the funniest/saddest/most absurd stories from different threads on Reddit or other forums. Editors read through a thread and select what they deem to be the 10+ best posts under that topic, and publish the list either as is or including new images and light commentary. BuzzFeed has also taken this a step further and created posts that are simply open-ended questions people can answer for the chance to be featured in a follow-up post that includes the top answers. Example BuzzFeed turned the Ask Reddit question "What is the most George Constanza-esque reason you broke up with someone?" into this post: The 32 Most Ridiculous Reasons Real Couples Have Broken Up. Why it works Like any listicle, this content is bite-sized, organized, and easy to digest. It also saves people time from reading through mediocre stories if they were to read through the entire forum thread themselves, or helps them discover this type of content in the first place if they aren't a regular Redditor or forum user. If the editor accurately picks the most interesting posts to include, the content is quite informative and/or entertaining, making it highly shareable. How to spin it Create your own version of the crowdsourced listicle by collecting user generated questions, testimonials, or relevant experiential stories. These tidbits can be used for a blog post or combined with visuals to make an interesting SlideShare. Whether openly asking questions on social media to increase engagement and start conversations, or sending out a survey, there are plenty of ways to get shareable information from your audience. Objections While creating a list of other people's responses might appear lazy, having an eye for what people will enjoy reading and taking the time to sift through endless threads and posts is still work. No, not every brand should be emulating the BuzzFeed and Huffington Post "quick content" listicle style, however disregarding it as low quality can also be a mistake. A look at any of BuzzFeed's sponsored content case studies shows that the publisher can create tremendous brand lift, especially in the millennial segment. Quality should be viewed in the eyes of the reader, and so when listicles like these are getting many thousands of views and social shares, they should be seen as inherently valuable to at least a certain group of people. Content before format While format is important in each of the above cases, none of these pieces would have succeeded had they not been backed with substance. Each example includes elements that make up strong content: Use existing resources. While each of these pieces of content was unique, they all pulled from existing content or data sources. Being creative with what's already available is a huge resource saver as well as a great way to include content and data to which people already have a connection. Get specific. All content is better when it's backed up with examples and stories from real people and places. Details are what bring stories to life and make them memorable. Appeal to emotions. Whether you want to make someone laugh, stroke their ego, or raise concern, every piece of content should be tied to a goal of making the reader feel something. People have little motivation to engage with content that hasn't altered their mood or opinion. As you begin to slate content for 2015, keep an open mind for trying out new formats and experimenting with these styles that have proved effective. With the right combination of short and long-form content, you can reach all parts of your audience while balancing your resources.  Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Location is Everything: Local Rankings in Moz Analytics Posted: 17 Dec 2014 03:01 AM PST Posted by MatthewBrown Today we are thrilled to launch  local rankings as a feature in Moz Analytics, which gives our customers the ability to assign geo-locations to their tracked keywords. If you're a Moz Analytics customer and are ready to jump right in, here's where you an find the new feature within the application: Not a Moz Analytics customer? You can take the new features for a free spin... Take a free 30-day trial One of the biggest SEO developments of the last several years is how frequently Google is returning localized organics across a rapidly increasing number of search queries. It's not just happening for "best pizza in Portland" (the answer to that is Apizza Scholls, by the way). Searches like "financial planning" and "election guide" now trigger Google's localization algorithm: This type of query underscores the need to track rankings on a local level. I'm searching for a non-localized keyword ("election guide"), but Google recognizes I'm searching from Portland, Oregon so they add the localization layer to the result. Local tends to get lost in the shuffle of zoo animal updates we've seen from Google in the last couple of years, but search marketers are coming around to realize the 2012 Venice update was one of the most important changes Google made to the search landscape. It certainly didn't seem like a huge deal when it launched; here's how Google described Venice as part of the late lamented monthly search product updates they used to provide: Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename "Venice"] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal. Seems innocent enough, right? What the Venice update actually kicked off was a long-term relationship between local search results (what we see in Google local packs and map results) and the organic search results that, once upon a time, existed on their own. "Localized organics," as they are known, have been increasingly altering the organic search landscape for keywords that normally triggered "generic" or national rankings. If you haven't already read it, Mike Ramsey's article on how to adjust for the Venice update remains one of the best strategic looks at the algorithm update. This jump in localized organic results has prompted both marketers and business owners to track rankings at the local level. An increasing number of Moz customers have been requesting the ability to add locations to their keywords since the 2012 Venice update, and this is likely due to Google expanding the queries which trigger a localized result. You asked for it, and today we're delivering. Our new local rankings feature allows our customers to track keywords for any city, state, or ZIP/postal code. Geo-located searches We can now return rankings based on a location you specify, just like I set my search to Portland in the example above. This is critical for monitoring the health of your local search campaigns, as Google continues to fold the location layer into the organic results. Here's how it looks in Moz Analytics: A keyword with a location specified counts against your keyword limit in Moz Analytics just like any other keyword. The location being tracked will also be displayed in your rankings reports as well as on the keyword analysis page: The local rankings feature allows you to enter your desired tracking location by city, state, neighborhood, and zip or postal code. We provide neighborhood-level granularity via dropdown for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The dropdown will also provide city-level listings for other countries. It's also possible to enter a location of your choice not on the list in the text box. Fair warning: We cannot guarantee the accuracy of rankings in mythical locations like Westeros or Twin Peaks, or mythical spellings like Pordland or Los Andules. An easy way to get started with the new feature is to look at keywords you are already tracking, and find the ones that have an obvious local intent for searchers. Then add the neighborhood or city you are targeting for the most qualified searchers. What's next? We will be launching local rankings functionality within the Moz Local application in the first part of 2015, which will provide needed visibility to folks who are mainly concerned with Local SEO. We're also working on functionality to allow users to easily add geo-modifiers to their tracked keywords, so we can provide rankings for "health club Des Moines" alongside tracking rankings for "health clubs" in the 50301 zip code. Right now this feature works with all Google engines (we'll be adding Bing and Yahoo! later). We'll also be keeping tabs on Google's advancements on the local front so we can provide our customers with the best data on their local visibility. Please let us know what you think in the comments below! Customer feedback, suggestions, and comments were instrumental into both the design and prioritization of this feature. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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