Last Updated on May 17, 2023
Using Content Marketing to Improve Your SEO and Social Media
Does your store offer a magazine with recipes, lifestyle advice, coupons, and perhaps a free calendar? Do you have a blog? Do you offer a newsletter with tips and tricks? Do you give away free samples? That’s all considered Content Marketing — using informative, free, shareable, and helpful content to increase brand awareness and brand affinity. Does it help your SEO? Absolutely! Does it make you more popular on social media? You bet!
Content Marketing creates interest in a product or service, helps increase sales and connections, and goes towards increasing your brand identity and trust.
Content Marketing, in all its many forms, gives people free, added value and gives you another way to be found, talked about, and remembered. Best of all, it’s easy to create.
Hot Tip: Bridget Willard and I help your small business, your nonprofit, or your school get the most out of content marketing in our online marketing books.
What is KAKADU and Why is it Important for Content Marketing?
How can you create the best, most effective content for your marketing? By following the KAKADU principle, of course! You haven’t heard of KAKADU? Then you’ll love this post.
I teach SEO at cimdata here in Germany, with my partner Bettina Heuser, and it was here that I first discovered the KAKADU principle. Bridget and I wanted to find an English version of this useful term. What does KAKADU stand for?
The KAKADU principle provides a clear guideline for creating content that attracts attention. Every single backlink, each mention in social networks, or direct recommendation, makes your content more visible for search engines and thus also for further possible leads. A much-desired snowball effect!
Kostenlose Information – Free Information
Aktualität – Up-to-date information
Kreativ/Künstlerische – Creative and artistic content
Außergewohnliches – out of the ordinary content – memorable and shareable!
Downloadable – content people can take with them – think ebooks, infographics, videos
Unerlaubtes – content that’s “on the edge” will be talked about and remembered – but keep it tasteful and safe!
How can the KAKADU principle be translated into English? That question occupied Bridget and I one afternoon. Check out our video chat below!
Warren’s Idea: FACODI (Unfortunately not a term we can imagine sweeping the nation’s marketing agencies.)
- Free
- Actual
- Creative
- Out of the Ordinary
- Downloadable
- Incendiary
Bridget’s Idea:
- X excellent copy is
- A accurate relevant and
- N not boring but
- A amazing especially with
- D downloads that don’t
- U underestimate your audience
XANADU — a much better idea!
How You Can Use KAKADU in Your Content Marketing
We’re used to getting a lot of our content for free. It doesn’t matter whether it’s music, videos, news, games or ebooks. Free content is always preferred to paid content. IF it is of the same quality! If you’re going to give something away, make sure it can generate a lead — don’t give away something you wouldn’t want yourself.
Offering creative content means designing appealing material that’s easy to grasp and provides entertainment for your visitors. Entertainment can also be equated with the concept of “added value.”
If you offer your visitors an actual “added value,” creatively presented and easily perceived, the time spent on your website or social media account will increase and attract others.
Content marketing can help distinguish you from your competitors. Helpful downloads on your topic, especially if they are free, are not only valid for visitors but also very popular on the Internet.
You can offer downloads from partners with whom you are in cooperation and who have the same or similar target group. Free downloads also lead to visitors returning more often, linking to your website and possibly recommending your website to others. Of course, these are all important SEO points to get better rankings in the search engine.
Find something exciting, maybe even “unauthorised” for your business to show to your visitors on the website. If necessary, you can also make this content accessible to registered users only!
Pro-Tip 1: Using KAKADU in Your Social Media
YouTube is an important part of your social media tech stack.
Bridget is big on these three — Website + Twitter + YouTube. Stranded on a deserted island — with WiFi, of course — those are her choices to focus on. Why? They’re the best combo for Social Media and SEO.
Get comfortable being on video. You have a camera — is on your phone. Use it.
Get a cheap ring light. Look at the green dot on your laptop or the camera on your phone. Speak slowly. Aim for 5-7 minute videos.
Then get the transcript of the video using Temi.com. It’s very inexpensive so there’s no reason why you should have CRAPtions (as the DHH) calls them. So many people watch videos without sound — for lots of reasons.
You take the transcript file (SRT) from Temi.com and upload that to YouTube. Now your captions are indexed by Google! How cool is that?
Simple videos that you upload expand your marketing. You can embed them in blog posts or web pages, share them on Twitter or LinkedIn, and also include them in email marketing. Video is content gold.
People get to know you in a different way — through your facial expressions and tonality. That just makes the relationship stronger.
If you publish videos, allow comments and respond to them.
Quick Wins: YouTube
- + Customize your channel with playlists, a welcome video and a video for returning subscribers. Even if you don’t have videos, yet, think of 3 categories.
- + Use Canva.com templates to design cover images for each video. Big fonts. Keep the design focused. People often watch on their phones.
- + Use as much of the 5,000-character limit for the video description as possible. You can use up to 3 hashtags.
- + Use the transcription to highlight timestamps in the video description. You’ve probably seen people do this. Or look at one of Bridget’s later videos.
- + Add the video to a playlist. (You can add videos from other people’s channels to a playlist. Bridget did this with her speaking/presentation playlist as well as interviews with Bridget.)
- + Fill out the location and date of filming when you upload the video.
- + Comment on other people’s videos.
- + Be social!
- + Share your videos!
Pro-Tip 2: Using KAKADU in Your SEO
Turning Your FAQ Page into Content Marketing and Upping Your SEO Game
Why not answer people’s questions before they ask them? Turn that phone call someone makes to ask a question into evergreen content* for your website! Answers to people’s questions equate to the relevant and valuable content people are looking for when they search.
Step 1: Answer the phone call.
Step 2: Enter the Q&A on your FAQ page.
Step 3: Write the (short – 200 characters) social media post.
Step 4: Write the (longer – 600 words) blog post.
Step 5: Publish an eBook and upload it to Amazon Kindle.
Read more about how this happens right here: https://warrenlainenaida.net/a-customer-called-with-a-question-what-happened-next-was-incredible/
* What is Evergreen Content?
Evergreen content means content that is continually relevant and, like an evergreen tree, remains “fresh” for readers.
Content that is evergreen offers the chance to always rank for certain keywords, prove your authority and competence, and bring visitors to your site regularly.
Evergreen content talks about the solution to a problem or discusses a topic that is not directly centred around your product. Think about your audience’s implicit versus explicit intent.
A good example of this would be if you manufactured and sold oatmeal. Your evergreen content would be your oatmeal muffin recipe that did not mention your product. It would be your oatmeal smoothie that did not link to your article in your online shop.
Hot Tip: I show you in my SEO book, how you can use content marketing to improve your SEO.
Use KAKADU for the Win!
If you want to attract and retain people on your social media or your website, providing valuable and creative content is critical. While everyone prefers free, downloadable content, it should be as valuable as paid content, and it should be up-to-date, shareable, and helpful! Create content that’s easy to read and use by integrating videos, graphics, and memorable images.
Providing unique KAKADU-focused content can help improve not only your social media and website traffic but also your search engine rankings!