It feels like we just heard the sound of a record scratch, huh?

And there’s a reason you’re here today, right?

Maybe it’s because something about your global expansion strategy is still generating some questions, and those doubts may be related to SEO.

Maybe you are thinking: SEO is already a settled issue in my business; why would it not allow me to take my luggage and venture abroad?

Well, because SEO, first of all, is a matter that never comes to an end. Secondly, what works for you may not work for your friend’s business, and what works in your region or country will not necessarily work well for you abroad.

But stay calm, no more unanswered unrest because experts have already created the notorious international SEO concept, and that’s exactly what you will learn about here.

In this content, we will teach you how to create your strategy in other countries and conquer unknown markets. These are the topics we will address:

The Concept of Internationalization

As you will notice, international SEO is simply a term used on the Internet to talk mainly about decision-making and the technical aspects of making a website international.

It also helps you understand global competitiveness issues, which allows you to plan your digital strategy and analyze the competition, even before expanding your operations.

Before continuing, we should breathe for a second; shortly, we will have time in this article to talk about international SEO.

This abrupt pause is because we would like to invite you to think about some terms that we are using and that we cannot afford to ignore, such as global competitiveness and internationalization.

It’s fundamental to understand that the work in applying them is extensive, and we will need your willingness to embrace these demands, including those of SEO.

Abroad you will find a whole world of opportunity. No doubt this will be your driving force to execute your international project.

And we have data for you, which will surely motivate you even more. According to AFI (International Financial Analysts of Madrid):

“Companies that internationalize, regardless of their size, are not only more competitive but also more productive and are more resistant to micro and macroeconomic changes, in comparison with companies that don’t”.

Thus, it is clear that internationalization is a great advantage, and that is why, if you take the Internet as an ally, it opens opportunities for you to break through the barriers of borders, including physical ones.

Let’s get deeper into this! 

Why is it necessary to go international?

Becoming international is far from an easy task: it presents risks, uncertainties, and costs. 

So, where is the advantage of doing this?

At first sight, there is none. But, in reality, it’s much more fun than it seems, because after great efforts come the best rewards.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not a decision that pays off overnight.

If you are already completely sure that this is the way to go, let’s review the reasons that will support your decision, like: 

• the desire to grow;
• becoming competitive;
• diversifying the market;
• getting out of a financial crisis.

Also, the skills you will need to be able to deal with the multiple tasks that will emerge along the way:

• studying the context;
• evaluating the types of offers and;
• learning not to limit yourself to national markets.

It seems that we are only trying to scare you, but what we really want is to create a shield so that, despite everything, you can assertively say: yes, I want to turn my business into an international brand!

With that, here begins our work: we will help you with your first step! The one of conquering the Internet, using your blog or website to apply international SEO techniques.

What is International SEO?

International SEO is the process of optimizing a website or blog so that search engines identify which countries you want to reach or which languages you should use in your business.

We can define international SEO as the geolocation of SEO, in which, instead of optimizing your website to attract traffic from your city, state, or country, you will be optimizing for different countries and languages.

In other words, despite the name suggesting something rather unknown, international SEO in practice is more familiar than you might think.

What is International SEO for?

Let’s say you’re in Mexico, and your business is really working, both physically and virtually. 

Your presence on the Internet is so strong that you suddenly start receiving visitors from Colombia, Spain, Argentina, among others.

This turns on a light in your head, and you begin to wonder if your potential in these countries is promising.

Mexico, Colombia, Argentina: they all speak the same language!

Maybe you will quickly consider delivering the same content to all three countries, conquering each of these markets.

Wrong!

Well, not so much. But our advice is that you be careful because it is not only ambition that leads us to triumph. 

What you need now is to configure your website or blog to reach everyone at the same time.

And that’s what international SEO is for, not only to indicate to the search engines your languages and regions but also to configure your site in such a way that it sends the indications to the search engines in a proper way and can reach the countries you want through the Internet.

Even so, all that we have said here depends on the type of business you run, your resources, your customers, customer projections, and real needs.

As you have seen, international SEO is full of variations, but that’s exactly why we started talking about it, finding the paths that most favor you.

Among these “it depends”, there are some unalterable principles, which are worth mentioning right now so that you can start planning your expansion.

What are the Basic Principles of International SEO?

When we speak of principles, we are referring to these fundamental aspects, which should be considered imperative. 

So, if your interest is clearly directed at talking to new countries through the Internet, that is what you should know:

1. Keywords between regions

Do the following exercise: Google your country using the anonymous window.

For example, if your country is the United States: google.us, if it is Chile: google.cl. Each country has a specific Google domain.

Then choose one of your keywords and search for it in two different Google domains. 

Very often, the same content with the same keyword will be positioned in different places.

We performed this exercise as well! We used SEMRush to make the search more precise, and these were my results for the keyword: Search Engines, in Spanish, “motores de búsqueda”.

For the Google.mx result, apparently, we are in the second position:

We conducted the same search for Google.es (Spain), and we are taking first place:

But why is that? Many factors! For example, the traffic of keywords, the relevance of keywords in each country, the ways users search, among others.

If you look at our example, the volume of searches for the keyword “Search Engines” in Mexico is greater than in Spain.

Perhaps in Mexico, the first place answers the keyword better than my article. In Spain, it’s likely that people do not exactly look for “Search Engines”, and, therefore, the volume of searches is lower.

Do you understand the idea? Each region of the world has its own language structures, expressions, specific vocabulary, and different information needs.

That’s why content designed especially for your local audience will not always be relevant to the audience in the other country you want to reach.

Imagine: if it is possible to find different positions using only one keyword in the same language, what would your ranking be like in other languages?

If your business wants to speak a second language, it is valid not only to translate the keyword but also to think about how people search for a certain term.

In Brazil, for example, the way people search is different from the way it is done in Portugal or Angola, even though everyone speaks the same language.

The searching habits will always be different, no matter where.

Besides, the medium used to search, be it computer or smartphone, also changes how the search is performed. 

Depending on the engine, the dynamics also change. Google searches will never be the same as experiences in Bing and Baidu.

Tips:

• start searching on Google.X for the region you want to reach;
• use this space to perform deep searches regarding the uses of each keyword that is relevant to your business;
• observe how it is addressed in the country of your interest.

Take the first step by observing who is best ranked on the first SERPs related to your business sector, and look in detail at how they work on each term.

2. Original and quality content across countries

The old and unforgettable premise: original and quality content!

No matter how much we talk about international SEO, this continues to be the same rule that applies to basic SEO. Thus, originality and quality continue to prevail.

If you keep track of your local strategy, it is possible to identify what your buyer persona considers to be quality content.

You can also use tools like Google Trends to see what subjects may be important to cover at a given time. Remember to always compare with what the competition is doing, identifying weaknesses and opportunities.

Now that you have so much information just from your region, imagine what it’s like to do a quality and originality search in several countries?

That’s exactly where the magic of international SEO is: more countries, more analysis, points of comparison, and more information to combine and create.

3. Mobile-Friendly Content and Website

An undeniable trend of search and browsing that should always be prioritized in any content created.

Just like in basic SEO, correct?

If Google prioritizes mobile-friendly content, your site needs to perform well and offer good usability on mobile devices.

4. Do not forget the Hreflang attribute

Finally, something that allows us to distinguish SEO from international SEO!

Hreflangs are attributes that allow Google to identify the URL that should be shown to the visitor, based on their language and geographic location.

When you access a website, it automatically directs you to the correct page.

To apply this indispensable tag, you can follow this tutorial offered by Google itself.

5. Monitor and measure your results

As in any Digital Marketing strategy, including any SEO technique, monitoring and measuring the results is critical.

In international SEO, you must also keep an eye on every move. Any event in your country or elsewhere will reflect on your results.

And if you want to maintain, improve or change, this is a premise that you can never leave out.

So far, in the basic principles, international SEO is just any old SEO.

So, the time has come to go deeper into the subject!

What are the Most Commons Obstacles in International SEO?

Maybe you think that we like to scare readers a little! But we believe that what comes easy goes easy.

It’s not that international SEO is difficult; what we’ve seen so far is very simple, wouldn’t you agree? 

The subject complexity is that you must have the strength to join several ends at the same time. One of those ends that make international SEO more complex is the correct setting of goals.

So, let’s take it in parts.

International SEO Objectives

When companies decide to expand through the Internet, there are three types of goals to develop:

• by language;
• by country;
• hybrid.
  
  

By language 

This objective usually happens when a company offers product X in one region and wants to offer it in another country.

For example, a Brazilian company wants to sell sports shoes in Argentina. Here, it doesn’t matter the country because the product will be the same; this way, the Brazilian company’s main goal will be to speak Spanish.

The same content will be offered. It is only necessary to respect the semantic variations when translating, in case it is necessary.

But let’s imagine another scenario: the same Brazilian company wants to sell sportive shoes in Portugal. The language is the same, but again, because the same product is offered, what matters is the language and not the country.

They have an advantage: they already speak Portuguese! The work now depends only on adapting semantic uses of vocabulary.

Keep in mind the following: if the product or service is the same, it will not matter to international SEO which country you want to reach. What matters is the language or languages your company speaks.

By country

The second option of a goal is by country. In this objective, a company wants to reach other countries with another type of product. 

Taking the same example above: the Brazilian company that sells sports shoes wants to reach Portugal selling watches.

So, its target is not a language, but a country.

Hybrid

Then, we have a third type of target that is very specific: when the need to speak another language in another country is mixed. Let’s see.

We are used to relating countries directly to their official language; for example, when we think about the United States or England, we conclude that they speak English.

However, despite having an official language, many countries are home to entire populations that prefer to use another kind of language on the Internet.

An example of this could be a Japanese company that operates physically in the United States, with actual Japanese employees who address the Japanese public in the United States.

See? A company that speaks to the United States in Japanese and not in English. And this is the third specific objective that many companies want to achieve and that in international SEO is called hybrid objective: country and language.

So, as a company, the first thing you must determine for your expansion process is whether you want to speak a language, speak with a country, or both. Once you have clarified this, you will know exactly what your business needs to do.

If you have concerns about determining your focus, use this ingenious tool from Outspoken Media: Defining your international SEO strategy.

Okay, so far in the article, we have given the go-ahead for internationalization.

We covered how to deal with keywords, the fundamental principles to consider, and established an international SEO objective.

Now we must answer the following question: how to internationalize the website or blog?

How to Succeed in International SEO?

There are two fundamental aspects to consider when doing international SEO: the Content Marketing strategy and the technical part of the website or blog.

Content Marketing for international SEO

To start with this aspect, let us first clarify something: all we talk about and will continue talking about here is assuming that you are already familiar with Content Marketing and have already defined your SEO strategy.

If this is not the case, we invite you to read about these subjects and start your internationalization on the right foot:

Content Marketing — Everything you need to know to become an expert on this subject

Now, let’s see some actions to help your company enter the international market.

After defining a clear objective, the first step is to draw a map showing the countries you want to reach abroad, noting the new markets’ main competitors.

If you have already done this part, the next step is to evaluate the chosen countries’ SEO opportunities. 

That is, perform searches in the corresponding SERPs to see what they have and decide what key points of SEO will strengthen your digital presence.

For this, you will need some basic analysis tools like Google Analytics and SEMRush. Also, don’t forget to open the search engine in an anonymous window.

With this information in hand, here is a 4 step checklist:

1. Define who your potential client is

You probably already have your buyer persona defined in your country. Then, the time has come to create your Persona for the new countries you have chosen.

Yes, you can set it even before you have your first customer. To do so, use Analytics and see the Public – Geo – Local or Languages section.

This will allow you to see not only the trend of your audience but also the potential themes and content to be explored in the new regions.

Another way to define your content strategy is to consult SEMRush or similar tools, selecting the destination country, and observing the keywords that provide a better ranking.

Therefore, always check that the keywords surrounding you are really within your market sector and consider the search volume before using them.

Do you remember the example we provided before about the difference in keywords between search engines in Mexico and Spain? That’s why it is important to talk about volume!

Just to close this part regarding potential customers: use keyword tools to find interesting terms, considering relevance and positioning.

Analytics will help you determine the organic presence in each country or language.

2. Analyze your competition

You probably already know your competition out there, but the tools we have mentioned here, like SEMRush, can also help you confirm your search exercise.

There is one subject we should always consider: focus on organic competition because international SEO is geared towards organic ranking strategies; otherwise, we would be talking about SEM.

Analyzing your competition is important because you must be aware of the challenges you will constantly face to obtain a good Internet presence.

3. Perform an international keyword search

Back to the basic principle of international SEO. In addition to what we’ve already told you, use the tools to compare domains.

Use the Google predictive text or carry out industrial espionage using a competitor analysis tool (like SEMrush) or entering directly into your competitor’s website or blog to analyze which topics they address, which keywords they target, and, then, make sure to create better content.

4. Create content

Once you have chosen your keywords, it is time to create content in the local language.

In the case of companies that aim to reach a country providing the same service, this part will not really be a problem. Perhaps some small adjustments in the content will be necessary. 

For example:

One country could not use the same word in the same way. In the case of our Spanish blog, we constantly face this situation when translating the word ‘Marketing’.

In Colombia, it is called “mercadeo”, but in Mexico, they call it “mercadotecnia”. Which one do I choose if both countries interest me?

So, we decided to target both words at once throughout the contents, using the concept’s definition as the perfect opportunity to talk about the two terms.

As I mentioned, “mercadotecnia” is the Spanish translation of the well-known English term of Marketing. It is also known as “mercadeo” or “mercadología” in some other uses of the Spanish language and its different contexts and regions.

Even so, sometimes, it is convenient to create two different contents to address the two keywords.

Just be careful not to duplicate the content. Analyze the situation carefully so as not to spend resources unnecessarily.

However, for companies that do not wish to speak in another language for the same service provided, for example, this aspect is important.

Many choose to do translations and, contrary to what is said: doing translations is totally valid and, yes, it is allowed by Google! So do not be afraid to use this method.

The only thing you should avoid is translating with automatic translators, which occasionally generates poor results.

There is nothing better than having people dedicated to this job, and if they are native speakers, it is even better.

Automatic translators do not think about the intentions behind words. They do not make correct translations of expressions and don’t care about the proper keyword placement.

So, yes, translations also require research. It’s not just a matter of translating everything literally.

Are original contents using the target language allowed? Of course!

If you identify a keyword opportunity and a significant audience to consume it, create 100% original content; the new region’s audience will appreciate the attention.

This concludes the basic part of Content Marketing for international SEO. 

If you think about it, it’s not too different from what you already do in terms of your marketing strategy, right?

Now, let’s move on to the most delicate part of international SEO, which, finally, is what separates this concept from everyday SEO: the technical part.

Decide on the main technical aspects

Elementary! Defining your international SEO strategy’s technical aspect is indispensable. 

From the server location, choose the right structure for your site, and the correct Hreflang implementation.

Website structure

For this part, you must have a clear and definite goal: country, language, or hybrid?

If you want to focus your efforts on a group of countries that share the same language, opt for an approach based on language selection. 

If you want the content to target a specific audience or country, it is better to choose country segmentation — obviously.

From this, you should choose the structure that most benefits your goal:

• ccTLD country-specific top-level domain: This is basically about obtaining a domain containing the extension of the country you want to reach. This way, you connect and geolocalize your site by default.

That is, if you have a “.com.mx”, you are already automatically geolocalized in Mexico. But remember that if you want to reach more than one country, you will have to work on each domain as a separate project, and each new domain starts with zero authority.

www.exemplo.com.mx

• Subdirectories: Here, the content is geolocalized in a specific subdirectory of a root domain, earning its authority more easily, without the need to start from scratch. The targeting, that is, its geographic destination, can be configured through Google Search Console.

www.exemplo.com/mx

• Subdomains: This is the most viable option if you do not want to create a second-level domain. Google interprets subdomains as independent entities, in the same way as in ccTLDs. Sub-domains must also be geolocalized manually.

www.mx.exemplo.com

• gTLD generic top-level domain: they do not specify a country, and if they are used for the content of a specific country, they need to have geolocation in Google Search Console or Bing.
• Parameter: a URL modifier that tags the path users take to the content and changes the page content based on the URL parameters. It is often used to indicate the language of a page.
• Hreflang: The hreflang attribute helps Google identify which URL should be shown to the visitor, based on the visitor’s language and geographic location. This example would tell the search engine that the website has an English version of the content, shown in American territory.

<link rel = “alternate” href = “https://exemplo.com/us” hreflang = “en-us” />

Do you remember the tool that will help you choose your goal? Well, in this tool, you can also see the technical structure that most benefits you, so: try it again!

Bonus: International SEO vs. Local SEO

While local SEO is meant to appeal to a particular audience within one region, an excellent international SEO campaign is intended to epically expand a brand’s reach across multiple countries and large global regions.

That means the most significant difference you’re looking at with your international SEO campaign is magnitude. 

Here are some more key ways international SEO tends to differ from the more specialized local SEO you’re familiar with.

More Competition

When you’re putting together an SEO strategy on an international scale, you’ll be competing against numerous other brands for the same clientele, keywords, and so forth. 

These brands may include massive global corporations and household names.

More Content

The larger the market you’re looking to expand into, the more content you’ll need to be prepared to create. 

Going international with your SEO efforts also requires deeper market research and more of it, as it’s critical to thoroughly understand each of the audiences you’re looking to reach.

Higher Costs

Since an international SEO campaign is significantly larger in scope, it almost always requires a larger up-front investment, as well. 

Yes, part of this means the need for a larger budget, but you’ll likely need to expand your team and devote more labor to your campaign, as well. 

Bonus [2]: International SEO Tools

Adding helpful tools to your repertoire when expanding your SEO efforts is always smart, as the right choices can take so much of the labor out of the equation. 

Here are a few to consider if you plan to take your SEO strategy international soon.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is such a valuable suite of tools, you’re likely already using it in at least some capacity. However, it’s a definite must for tracking, analyzing, and assessing how your site’s doing on a global scale.

SEMRush

SEMRush is a wonderfully comprehensive tool for managing many aspects of a well-crafted international SEO campaign. Keep easy track of your SERP position, identify the most valuable keywords for your niche, analyze your competition’s backlink profiles, and more.

HubSpot

If you could use some help taking your on-page SEO to the next level and keeping your growing website as organized and search engine-friendly as ever, HubSpot is a great tool to keep in your back pocket for both local and international SEO. It even gives you live on-page SEO tips to make things super easy.

Moz

Regular SEO audits are always necessary, but they’re a must for brands interested in mastering international SEO. Moz makes conducting regular thorough audits simple. It’s also very helpful for keyword research, analyzing backlink profiles, and more.

Ready to go?

In this article, we were able to assess whether it is worth starting your business’s internationalization. 

For instance, we reflected on conquering the Internet as the safest way to expand before picking up the suitcases, the business plan, and reaching another country.

Really, nothing very new was said in these words, but we went over fundamental concepts of any SEO and faced the fear of going international.

Of course, we talk about technical aspects and suggestions when dealing with keywords in your content, but there’s nothing that you can’t deal with when you think about it calmly.

In this article, we also discussed the key objectives and analyzed the competitive environment theoretically. 

We also identified potential problems and finally saw that there is nothing to be afraid of: It is all a matter of organization, a perfectly feasible process.

And yes, the subject is very extensive, and we could spend a lot more time developing the idea. Still, we’d better leave room in this blog to talk little by little about the myriad of topics that hide behind international SEO.

Do you need to leverage your local or international marketing strategy? Talk to one of our experts and learn how our services and product will improve your results!

The post International SEO: Conquer Google From All Over The World With Your Website appeared first on Rock Content.

Today, we are no longer speaking about the importance of dominating the common language, which means, that unique language to communicate with people from different parts of the world. We can say that, nowadays, the common language means to speak several languages; or even more than that, it means to speak the language of the market with whom we are doing business.

This is something that Google understands pretty well. Not dominating languages itself, but the part of speaking the language of the target market.

We’ve been studying Google in many different ways, and today in this post we can share with you three tips about how to perform well on Google in different countries while speaking the market’s language.

These insights come from the Global Marketing Playbook 2023, a new collab between HubSpot, Rock Content and Lokalise. You can download the full ebook here!

Tip 1: Generate valuable content according to market needs

According to our experience by working with blogs, SEO and contents for different countries and languages, we can say that there are lots of good professionals capable of creating content and applying a clear SEO strategy, but when they face the internationalization word in their strategies, they seem to just forget how to do content marketing.

What does it mean?

In a domestic strategy, we normally begin by understanding the market, running some research, building buyer personas, understanding well the products and services we offer to the market, getting to know the vocabulary that the readers use in front of a concept, etc. Am I right?

When developing an international strategy to perform well on Google, we need to do exactly the same thing. Which is: run complete marketing research to understand behaviors, problems, desires and needs of a market, and produce contents according to it! 

When crossing borders, even online, it is important to deeply understand what the other countries and cultures perceive as valuable.

There is no way a strategy that works for one country, performs perfectly in another. Not even between cities or states does it work without previous research!

So the first tip to perform well on Google in other countries is to invest time understanding the needs of the new market, and create contents that will bring real answers to the market needs.

Tip 2: Google doesn’t work by languages, but by countries

It is pretty common to see SEO experts and content creators going directly to Google to read about a topic and understand how the information is displayed on SERPs, before writing a post to make it competitive for a position.

It is also pretty normal to go onto Google and do some searches using terms in different languages and receiving back results in that same language. Right?

Well, here’s where the problems begin to start. 

During years working with three different languages to rank in three different markets, we learned that Google definitely doesn’t work by languages. But it does by countries.

How come?

Google has been working hard for decades to give users the best experience while using the search engine. And, with my experience, this means Google has been expanding efforts to understand human behaviors according to cultures and to what is relevant for a market to know about a topic.

If English is your native language, you are able to communicate with an American or with a British person. So it happens if your native language is Spanish, you are able to communicate with both Mexicans and Colombians. But, of course, you can say you can understand and communicate, but at the end, both speak differently, because of slang, history, behaviors, accents, etc.

This is exactly what Google understood by working with all those different countries at the same time: no matter if the word is written in the same language, what matters is what a person in that specific market or country expects to find when searching for that concept. 

And this depends, once again, on cultural behavior, which also means: a country, and not only a language.

Extra tip: The user’s search intention is fundamental in digital internationalization and SEO. And for understanding it correctly, we need tools like:

• VPNs; 
• Configure Google according to the desired region and language; 
• Implement a more complete SEMrush plan to identify latent opportunities by region and to better interpret the search intention.  

Google.es or google.pt do not correspond to Español (Spanish) or Português (Portuguese) but to countries such as España (Spain) and Portugal.

This is why there are the domains google.com.co (Colombia), google.com.mx (Mexico), google.com.br (Brazil), etc. The same for English countries: google.com (US), google.co.uk (UK), google.ca (Canada), etc.

Google knows very well that in order to deliver relevant information that satisfies the user’s search intention, it must divide its domain into each corresponding country, to allow for localized searches.

Extra tip 2: Translation and localization are two separate things.

Here comes a question we often hear: is it worth translating content from one language to another?

The summarized answer is: no, it isn’t.

Of course, there will be some cases where we need to translate, then localize, which means to change parts of the text according to research on that culture: change words, expressions, the currency, etc. But in general, countries don’t necessarily coincide with the user intention set on Google.

So, before making the decision to translate content, run a quick research on Google’s target country and analyze if the SERP coincides with your original content, so you can translate it and localize it, or if it’s better to create an original content according to the user intent.

Tip 3: Invest in the Right Technology

The work with SEO and content production never stops, especially when it’s mixed with internationalization issues.

We have seen that regional linguistics are quite present throughout Google and this can represent a barrier for some users. Google never mentioned this important detail which could impair our SEO strategy.

The truth is the following: from Mexico to Brazil it took us 13-hours of direct flight (13 hours because I will not count the layover time at airports). From Brazil to Argentina, we would take perhaps a 3-hour flight.

It is obvious that on the internet we will never take 3 or 13 hours to reach these destinations, but what is true is that charging a website from Brazil to Argentina, could take us a certain number of milliseconds, and for Mexico, a few more.

This is very abstract, but it is as true as it is important not to ignore it.

I also hope that we are very clear about what an extra millisecond means for Google. The search giant doesn’t wait for anyone, not even a user.

But what does this mean?

Google will always prioritize blogs and websites from a specific country, because it naturally means it understands the user, more than a foreign blog. From another perspective, Google could prioritize the domestic website or blog more than the foreign one, because normally the foreign blog will take longer to load information for the user.

Google cares about the technology you implement on your website or blog, this means: pagespeed, domain authority, hosting, and technical SEO factors. So, although we satisfy the market with correct content localization, we must also satisfy Google with optimized digital channels that allow the page to be loaded quickly and allow the bots to analyze the entire digital structure in an agile way. 

But let’s be honest, Google’s recent algorithm update tells us about the Core Web Vitals, but this is not new. 

Technical issues versus UX, good technical SEO practices, the speed of a website both to load and to be found by search engines, are nothing new. For us to take our technology seriously, the algorithm had to make them more visible. 

According to Sam Underwood, from seotoolbelt.com, “SEO skills increase as we develop design, critical thinking, UX and communication skills.”

Invest in more specialized teams and experts in SEO and programming techniques. With this you can:

• Improve the visual style of the website and blogs;
• Improve loading time and release unnecessarily heavy domains;
• Better invest in CDI mirrors that would allow us to perform better in different countries;
• International SEO techniques to make better technology decisions on a global scale.

SEO and digital internationalization are based on people, of course, but also on technology. 

Market research is the fundamental pillar of all digital internationalization. Research is what allows us to understand market dynamics, linguistic, social, economic and political contexts, and what allows us to make appropriate decisions regarding technology and even commercial investment.

In digital internationalization, it’s critical for an enterprise to invest in resources and, specifically, on analytical intelligence. 

Do you want to continue to be updated with Marketing best practices? I strongly suggest that you subscribe to The Beat, Rock Content’s interactive newsletter. There, you’ll find all the trends that matter in the Digital Marketing landscape. See you there!

The post How Does Google Work In Each Country? 3 Tips For Your Global Marketing Strategy appeared first on Rock Content.

We used to think: Who owns the language, owns the power. Languages are tools of power and have been so for centuries, since civilizations first existed. But has it been this way lately?

There is a new order of power. Nowadays, we are more conscious that becoming global is not about implementing common languages, but embracing the languages and the cultures of the markets we work with. 

In generic words, more than relieving The Common Language, for having global impact, it is necessary to build representation through cultural and linguistic diversity. With this in mind, let’s bring McDonald’s into view. 

The brand has launched a new campaign for FIFA’s World Cup 2022, related to one of the most important digital strategies in global communication: localization. 

And let’s be honest. The new approach has everyone talking about McDonald’s. 

Is this a pure example of how a brand acquires global relevance?

Let’s see the lessons left by McDonald’s during this first week of the World Cup, regarding how to get in touch with the world.

Global Camping: Wanna go to McDonald’s?

During the first week of FIFA’s World Cup 2022, McDonald’s launched a new campaign that got the media and marketers talkin.

McDonald’s campaign happens to be a multilingual and multicultural message for world integration. It is not only the famous characters that appear in the global pieces, such as the actor Jason Sudeikis, TikToker Khaby Lame, K-pop sensation ITZY and Twitch streamer Edwin Castro, that makes this campaign interesting and different. 

What makes this campaign so current and joyful, are the 10 languages and 4 dialects in which the campaign has been developed.

The purpose of the campaign was to launch a solid communication message to unify the soccer interests of more than 75 markets in the world at the same time (Thinking global), but considering cultural differences, languages and particular activations following the market interests (Acting local).

The campaign brought to the table the real feeling of people by seeing their countries represented in the world, reminding them that no matter the results of the match, the most important thing is the support we can give to each other. And even better, having this positive support by celebrating the participation of cultures in sport, by eating at McDonald’s.

The main global announcement was launched on social media at the beginning of the World Cup 2022 Celebration. The additional versions, in parallel, were launched in their specific markets, and counted on regional celebrities and particular activations for local markets.

Has your country been experiencing local McDonald’s actions during World Cup 2022? 

Think global, act local

Nothing new for this brand. McDonald’s has been, in the last decades, a huge example of internationalization and also menu localization. So, what is different this time?

The difference, as we mentioned at the beginning, is the way they use the communicating power of language.

McDonald’s, probably more than many other global brands, understands how important it is for people to feel represented and recognized by a brand, thus generating positive business results. 

In other words, McDonald’s used the correct form of localization in their Marketing storytelling, copies, actions and strategies, so people could see themselves in the ads and act exactly as the brand meant them to.

As a large enterprise, the business knows that to impact globally, the secret is to understand local behaviors. Build global goals, but develop local actions for getting those global goals. 

It so happens that hearing your native language being well used following the specific cultural behaviors, generates a sense of property and empowerment. This is what McDonald’s has been doing for so many years, and finally made it more explicit with their World Cup 2022 campaign.

Conclusion

A couple of decades ago, localization wasn’t cheap at all, and it was difficult to implement. Today, with all the internet has to offer, localization is a MUST for every brand with international or global goals. 

Translation is odd; localization is the key for global success, because it deals with the local behaviors of a market. 

Understanding the other helps us build consistent narratives capable of generating representation. In the end, what people look for in a brand narrative is to feel included and represented.

Remember, who owns the language owns the power. Not in a colonizing way, but in a way of embracing the other’s language by entering and being part of it. 

Who owns the language of the audience, has the market power. McDonald’s just simply mastered the skill.

To understand how to start developing a digital, yet global, communication with your brands, Why not understand what Google has to say about it?

Do you want to continue to be updated with Marketing best practices? I strongly suggest that you subscribe to The Beat, Rock Content’s interactive newsletter. There, you’ll find all the trends that matter in the Digital Marketing landscape. See you there!

The post Think Global, Act Local: McDonald’s Successful Strategy During the World Cup 2022 appeared first on Rock Content.

Its adoption has been so great that projections since 2016 indicated that it could become the most important source of search by 2025.

But… It was only a matter of time before the projection fell apart. 

Neither Nostradamus nor The Simpsons managed to foresee the sharp drop in mobile traffic (nor a pandemic that made us all stay at home for several months), but that’s exactly what Semrush’s State of Mobile 2022 report has shown.

Is it possible that an apocalyptic future awaits us and that, as marketers, we must throw all our mobile efforts overboard?

Let’s take it easy.

In the last two years of the pandemic we have adapted to the “new normal”. That normal was nothing more than getting used to seeing the dynamics of consumption and communication changing more frequently. 

The predictions we had for mobile traffic corresponded to trends that did not contemplate how radical a pandemic like the one we are experiencing in 2020, 2021 and the years to come would be. 😬

At first, we didn’t want to accept or understand that the pandemic was going to last so long. Nor did it fit in our heads that when we finished it, our routines and vision of the world would change to the point of being impossible to return to the thinking that governed us in March 2020, when the pandemic was formally decreed.

At that time, mobile traffic occupied a large part of our strategic communication efforts, and I am sure that it continues to be a part of our analysis and investment routines. 

That being the case, why is there so much terror with the drop in mobile traffic? Next, I will tell you what Semrush found in its study and what it means for digital marketing.

What the Semrush 2022 study says about mobile traffic

The world was already talking about the importance of taking care of Mobile audiences. Since 2016, this has been the priority, thanks to studies indicating that smartphones would be the main source of information search and hence the high investment in their growth. 

However, the arrival of the pandemic left us with a certain behavioral disorder, which after two years still affects us.

What does the pandemic have to do with traffic? 2020 was the year we saw the first drop in mobile traffic. The restrictions on leaving the house, at first, seemed to be connected to the increase in the use of the computer for organic searches.

We have reached the middle of the year 2022 with more flexible traffic restrictions and with the hope that mobile traffic will resurface. However, it was not. Now in the middle of 2022, mobile traffic continues to decline, thus destroying the equation in which being at home was intimately associated with the use of the computer.

The Semrush study also showed that the mobile phenomenon was affected by budget cuts in companies, paid media and strict social media policies.

And let’s continue discovering what it is that happened to mobile traffic, according to the study.

Mobile traffic vs. pandemic

Something we must bear in mind is that the fall in mobile traffic is NOT synonymous with the fact that we have stopped using the smartphone.

Just think for a second: when was the last time you remember going to the bathroom without your cell phone? 

Yes, it is true that the pandemic led us to make frequent use of the computer. Honestly, working, studying or looking for information continues to be more comfortable on the computer. But this is not the main reason for the drop in mobile traffic.

Companies, faced with the new dynamics of consumption, began to invest in more technologies that would allow them to survive the uncertain economic future. Market research showed that users were not only using smartphones more but that we were generating even more attachment to the device.

Why, then, is mobile traffic in such decline?

The Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) of Mexico demonstrated in a survey the increase in the use of mobile Internet for video calls, online purchases, bank transactions and more.

The need to manage life’s activities through smartphones increased by 200%, only for more specific use of applications.

Here is the crux of the matter. 

Before 2020, apps were going through a tough time; but, after the pandemic began, there was a considerable recovery in which app downloads increased by 27% and have remained so to this day. 

Mobile use has been divided: 49% of the time to using communication applications such as social networks, 36% for the consultation of email, the rest for the use of financial applications, health, education, news, food at home, games, streaming, among others.

What do I mean by these statistics? 

That the smartphone is being used more than ever. But the usage trend has moved away a little from organic mobile search, to make room for the app business where the strict policies of the algorithms encourage the creation of content and exclusive disclosure within the app. As is the case of social networks, with their strategies to prevent brands from driving users out of their platforms.

Mobile usage heads in another direction

Concern about mobile growth remains as strong as it has been since Google’s announcement in 2016. 

What the Semrush study indicates is that the usage experience is shifting to other alternatives, resulting in an invitation to Marketing teams to think about content and communication in a different way than was originally projected.

Similarly, Semrush shows us that the battle for mobile traffic is not lost. 

For most countries, organic search traffic ranks second or third in importance. Therefore, it is essential to continue investing in the strategy; At the same time we need to develop communications that strengthen other traffic acquisition channels such as Direct and Referral.

As an SEO specialist, these statistics are not the ones that make me the happiest, since my goals depend on this third organic channel. At the same time, the study helped me think about the difficulties we are experiencing in SEO, facing so many powerful new channels of traffic acquisition. 

This scenario ended up being the main motivator to continue studying in depth about algorithms, linguistic entities and the local behavior of people and the market.

With the Semrush graph, it is also clear to us the importance of working more on brand recognition (direct traffic) and on strategic alliances with targeted business proposals (referral traffic).

The invitation, therefore, is that as SEOs and marketers, we learn about how to take care of the other acquisition channels.

Information sources have diversified and the smartphone continues to be the pillar of these changes.

How we’re adapting at Rock Content

We’ve been experiencing a critical time for traffic in general. And not just us. Other companies too. 

For years, we at Rock Content have invested wisely in our organic traffic. So it is not for free that we have the ability to impact 7 million people every month, with our blogs in English (EN – USA), Portuguese (PT – Brazil) and Spanish (ES – Mexico).

But we can’t lie, we also got used to the unpredictable dynamics of 2020 where our traffic grew by 200%, after 8 years of blogging. Now, in 2022, we are suffering because the numbers are behaving more like 2019 instead of continuing the frenetic pace that the pandemic brought to traffic as a whole.

On the other hand, when looking at our traffic acquisition channels, we found that mobile engagement itself did not change as drastically as Semrush suggested in the study.

2022:

2021:

As we can see, we saw a lot of growth for our EN (US) blog traffic, but in terms of percentage share per media, mobile remained mostly untouched.

We noticed similar behavior on our PT and ES blogs.

So in reality, despite the study having identified a significant decrease in mobile traffic, in our scenario, the study served as a reason to continue working on the media proposals in which we were already investing efforts since 2021: our media plan and our intention to diversify traffic sources.

Of course we will continue working for our organic growth of 20% quarterly in the United States for our blog in English. But we are also creating strategies to strengthen direct searches for our brand, content and services.

Within the strategy, we created a very strong opinion content section with the main trends of Marketing, Business and Sales of the week—and that type of content, that is not made for SEO strategies, is growing by 100% in traffic for the United States, 188% in Brazil and 198% in Mexico and bringing more than 30k visits each month. And we won’t stop here.

We also created our fully interactive newsletter: The Beat; which is growing in registered users by 15% monthly. And in the number of accesses, there is a 50% growth for the United States and 164% in Brazil. Mexico, here we come! 😉 

And yes, the numbers still look low compared to the grand 7 million organic views, but these numbers are growing and connecting with people in the way that today’s information consumption is demanding. 

So congratulations to the content team at Rock Content! Surely we will not delay in continuing to explore ways to also participate in mobile trends.

What to do to comply with today’s mobile standards?

Being digital is a daily job and by this I mean that we need to be connected with the reality of our users to understand if the market predictions coincide with those of our specific niches. 

Listening to trends is very important to get ideas and stay connected with the world. But listening to your audience and accompanying their daily problems is what will lead us to make the right decisions so as not to have to run after traffic that is not necessarily impacting our results.

Semrush calls us to think about mobile dynamics. But how much of mobile is really impacting your digital strategy? 

It is true that mobile and general traffic took a beating, but it is still there representing a good percentage of visits to your website or blog. The behavior of users must stop being measured according to the pandemic, and yes to the needs and realities of the niche we are targeting. 

The changes we witnessed during 2020 and 2021 were the new normal for two years. Now, let’s wait carefully to see what’s next in the world of communications and digital consumption.

Having good data, closely following your competition and the good references in the sector, through benchmarks, will always bring us better perspectives of current results, more than just following trend waves for no reason. Even more so in a moment like the pandemic, which brought only strong questions that are making us rethink what we want from society.

Continue reading the contents of our newsletter section (if you’re not subscribed yet, I strongly recommend you to do it below), and train your reflection on various topics, based on the opinions of our team of Marketing professionals.

The post Mobile Traffic Growth At Risk. What To Do About It? appeared first on Rock Content.

A buyer persona represents a key customer segment of your business, and many companies will have several different personas, one for each unique customer segment of value. 

However, many marketers aren’t sure how to do buyer persona research and get the right results. 

In this article, we’ll help you understand why buyer personas matter, the different types of personas and research needed to learn about them, and the steps you can take in order to successfully learn how to do buyer persona research.

Why are Buyer Personas Important to Businesses?

While many marketers are aware of what a buyer persona is, they might be less sure about why they are so important to a business. 

Buyer personas are foundational, meaning they are essential to the success of your business initiatives and strategies. 

They allow you to understand your customers better and tailor your content, messaging, and services to meet the needs and concerns of your audiences. 

Without a detailed understanding of your current customers and prospective audiences, you can really miss the mark when it comes to your sales and marketing strategies. 

You need to gather a detailed portfolio of your customers in order to know their backgrounds, goals, ideals, and challenges.

Buyer Persona Example

Think, for example, that your company makes energy drinks and has a significant customer segment of athletes. 

You don’t have a full persona, but you think that their biggest challenge is getting hydrated after playing a sport, so you market your product as an after-workout energy booster. 

However, you were mistaken in the demographics of your audience, and they are older than you thought.

Rather than staying hydrated, their biggest challenge is getting the energy they need before a performance.

Your message doesn’t resonate with them, and instead of increasing sales in that segment, you start to lose them. 

If you had a persona to start with, you could have marketed your drink as a pre-workout energy booster and addressed the real concerns your customers had rather than just guessing what their challenges were.

Different Types of Buyer Personas

There isn’t a set of clear customer profiles that can be filled out for every business, even if that would be easier. 

Instead, each business is unique and will have a different set of personas. 

Even between competitors, there will be differences in customers that need to be addressed rather than a standard list of personas that can be reused by multiple organizations. 

Rather than looking for a profile that you can use or a list of different personas that your company needs, you can instead focus your time and energy on defining the different segments in your own business. 

Then you can use a template to help you simplify the creation process rather than try to shortcut the buyer persona research process. 

In order to know how to do buyer persona research, you first need to know your own business. 

Categorize your audience segments into categories that work for your business, like job positions or company roles, and work from there in conducting your research.

Types of Buyer Persona Research

There are different types of research that you can do in order to gather the information needed to fill out a buyer persona profile. 

You’ll likely want to know how to do buyer persona research in all of these categories, as the processes and approaches in each area are important for well-rounded profiles that address all areas of an audience segment.

Background Research

Background research involves looking at information that already exists in your industry. 

This can come from things like:

• Industry reports
• Competitors
• Social media research

Background research is a great way to start your buyer persona research approach, and it involves creating a baseline of information with data that is already accessible and existing. 

Just remember: this research is often very surface level, and not specified to your own unique audiences.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is research that is gained observationally. It explores data that is collected that is non-numerical. 

That means that it is information collected through methods like customer interviews, focus groups, questionnaires and surveys, and direct observations. 

Rather than collecting hard data and numbers, you instead gather data through observation or communication. 

A great example of qualitative research is customer interviews. You can directly ask your current customers for information in order to gather details about their goals and challenges. 

This allows you to create customer profiles and buyer personas based on real customer information. 

You can then use that information to build out profiles based on real answers and customers rather than your assumptions of them.

Quantitative Research

Qualitative research is research that uses numerical data. 

By collecting hard numbers and data on your customers, you can create insights into their behaviors, actions, and goals. 

You can use this research to impact your decisions and understand more about the actions your customers take and back it up with numbers. 

Because quantitative research is supported by numerical data, it is easy to verify and use to create buyer personas. 

You can use your CRM and other marketing technology tools to help you gather quantitative data. 

This is helpful if your customers don’t want to attend interviews or your qualitative data isn’t giving you enough insights to create a full buyer persona.

How to Do Buyer Persona Research: 8 Steps

Now that you understand the importance of buyer personas and the types of research methods you can use to gather information, let’s discuss the steps you need to take in order to do buyer persona research successfully.

1. Define Goals of Research

The first step in your buyer persona creation process is to define your goals. 

Are you creating brand new personas? Do you have a new segment or market that has opened up that you need to create a profile for? 

Or do you have old buyer personas that need to have new data added to them to make sure they are still accurate?

2. Find Interviewees for Researching Buyer Personas

The next step is to figure out which of your current customers will be the best for research purposes. You’ll want a wide variety of customers, not just your top buyers or newest acquisitions.

3. Recruiting Interviewees

Once you’ve determined who you want to interview, you’ll need to work on recruiting them. 

You might need to offer an incentive like a gift card or a discount in order to compensate your interviewees for their time, especially if they are high-level executives.

4. Use Your Technology Data

Your technologies and platforms collect a large amount of data, most of which, unfortunately, goes unused. 

Start collecting the data you need for qualitative research and determine which groups of customers fit into the data you collect in order to build out your personas.

5. Brainstorm Questions to Ask in Interviews

The next step is to brainstorm the questions you want to ask the customers in the interviews. 

You’ll want a variety of questions that cover the areas you want to fill in your buyer personas. Examples of interview questions include: 

• What is your role in your company?
• How is your job evaluated?
• What does a typical work day look like?
• What skills are needed to do your job?
• What are your career goals?
• What knowledge and tools do you use at work?
• Who are you accountable to?
• Who is accountable to you?
• What is your biggest challenge?
• Where do you get information?
• What would make your job easier?

6. Build Out Detailed Profiles

The next step is to start building out profiles. As you build out, take notice of any areas that could still use more information to complete. 

Then you can schedule additional interviews or gather more data to complete the profile.

7. Distribute Personas to the Team

Buyer personas aren’t much use if your team doesn’t have them. Distribute your profiles to the teams and explain how your marketing will adapt to using them.

8. Constantly Revise Your Personas

Your customer segments are constantly shifting, and your profiles need to adjust with them. While you don’t need to update them daily, weekly, or even quarterly, you will want to revise them as needed to make sure your personas are accurate.

Wrap Up

A buyer persona is a key piece of foundational information needed to successfully create strategies that target your audiences and core customer base. 

Without buyer personas, your company will have a hard time knowing how to attract the right leads and develop approaches that target the right customers needed in order to excel and grow. 

Once you know how to do buyer persona research, you can create and edit your personas as needed.

If you aren’t sure about what a persona should be, then check out our blog on buyer persona examples! 

There you’ll discover both B2B and B2C buyer persona examples to help guide your own persona creation process to get the best results.

The post Tips and Tricks on How to Do Buyer Persona Research appeared first on Rock Content.

There is lots of news in the media that is causing a shock to the data market, announcing that Google’s Universal Analytics or GA3, as many know it, will stop working in 2023, to be replaced by GA4.

I feel like I will be representing many of my colleagues when I say that mixing words like changes, update, or new parameters with the name of Google is scary, and it gives me goosebumps!

This is because, despite the fact that Google is always announcing a change in its way of understanding and disseminating information, it takes us out of our comfort zone and constantly forces us to learn new methods that involve changing our communication strategies.

And in this same dynamic, the tax migration to GA4 impacts us because it means that we must adapt to Google again and that is why digital professionals are expressing their feelings about it on the web.

Are you also worried or afraid of what is to come? First, I invite you to subscribe to our interactive newsletter. Every Friday we send you the main Marketing and Content trends directly to your email – and we will certainly keep you updated on any changes, not just from Google, but from everything that impacts your Marketing strategies.

All you have to do is subscribe below:

Now, let’s find out a little more about what this great new alteration of Google is all about.

Are we saying goodbye to Universal Analytics?

It is not that radical yet, and it is not the first time that changes have occurred in Google Analytics. 

It is not for nothing that the name of the new version is GA4 and the one we use, for most of us, is GA3. This means that a version 2 and 1 of Google Analytics already existed and that big changes in the tool are not new. 

Not to mention that every year, technology advances faster, and intelligence, both human and artificial, accompany these levels of development and new paradigms.

Despite the previous versions 2 and 1, I am too young in the labor market to be able to tell you about the impacts that the implementation of the current version GA3 or Universal Analytics (UA) brought in 2012, replacing GA2 or Classic Analytics (CA); which still works for a few companies, despite the years gone by. 

Let’s move on then, to better understand these changes that afflict the market today. 

But before that, I want to share with you that, on behalf of Rock Content, what we feel most is that this situation is the great privilege of being able to live in a time of inflection for Google, in which now all professionals in the digital market must implement a new organizational structure, analysis, and compilation of information, to receive the GA4 version with open arms and take full advantage of the data. 

Have you already imagined the number of robust communication strategies that will come out of the new implementation of GA? Because we have!

What are the changes that GA4 brings to the market?

Without going into the depths of the subject, because for that we will prepare a complete content, I can tell you that GA4 was created in order to rethink the formulas in which data is arranged without the use of cookies. 

This idea arises from the reputation damage that Google was suffering from when the controversial relationship between the tracking of user information and the privacy problems generated, mainly, by Third-Party-Cookies.

In addition to the problems and keeping in mind more positive arguments, GA4 was created to bring new proposals to the current information age, in which platforms seek to integrate with greater agility and where both Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have taken such relevance. This ceased to be just technologies and transcended to a strategic level of communication, which is impossible to avoid.

And this is what GA4 is promising to deliver.

How will GA4 affect digital marketing strategies?

Today, Marketing professionals work based on performance metrics that tell us whether we are achieving our communication and sales opportunity generation goals.

From this, think of GA4 as a tool capable of alerting us, through notifications, about important changes in the trends of our KPIs. 

The latter, for its part, moves us away from the traditional planning of objectives based on the simple calculation of visits to a website, for example, and brings us closer to complete measurement of the information with which we can deliver specific communications for each market of our interest.

Only the latter, for us at Rock Content who work with international markets, is simply pure gold.

How does Rock Content see the changes to GA4?

Better late than never.

I confess that as the current leader of the top three Rock Content blogs for the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, it’s only today that I came to really concern myself with the system update. 

Well, let’s say that the day-to-day absorbed us as a team, to respond first to the emergencies of recent times. Despite this, I like the idea that GA4 has now become a new priority for the Rock Content team, and we can get to know the tool and reconstruct the information before the change is an inevitable reality.

If I’ve learned anything from working with Google and its various tools, it’s that nothing is forever. And that, as digital communication professionals, flexibility must be the first quality that accompanies us.

That’s why, in addition to working hard on the SEO strategies of Rock Content blogs, we also dedicate ourselves to weekly bringing the main changes and trends in Marketing, business, sales, and content in our newsletter (you can check the latest issue and subscribe here).

It is useless to generate attachments to the old. From the past, it is only better to collect the learning to be able to assume what follows. And as I have repeatedly mentioned, what is coming with GA4 is a new analysis tool capable of taking our knowledge of the market to another level.

As digital professionals, we are holders of the great fourth world power: communication; and making us aware that the changes that will be implemented serve to optimize our resources and protect us more as natural persons. GA4 is simply a tool that will help us become ethical with our strategies and that is priceless.

So the initial invitation here is for us to learn how to learn. We are one year away from seeing the new GA4 version become the main property of Google Analytics, therefore, we must hurry to make the migration, not for fear of losing the data, but because it is necessary for our business health and because simply the Technology advances with or without us. 

So it better be with us. 😉

What have we learned in Rock Content with Google Analytics?

There isn’t a day that Rock Content doesn’t go into Google Analytics. 

And to tell the truth, whoever works with digital channels, at the very least, using the tool should be the first and last thing to do on a working day.

At Rock Content we have several extremely important and interesting data analysis tools, but the amount of information in real-time that GA gives us cannot be compared to the rest of the tools.

We have built our Digital Marketing success based on GA graphs. Our strategies have been consolidated at the same time that we have learned to interpret the data. And, finally, the numbers that GA keeps on our domains tell the stories that we have lived through at Rock Content over our 9 years in the market.

When I say stories, it is not a romanticized metaphor for Google Analytics, but rather a reality that with the metrics that it has given us during this time, we have been able to reconstruct the decisions that we as a company made or did not make. This is true even if we were not the collaborators who defined the paths in the past.

Analytics has already pointed out how we survived domain, hosting, and layout migrations in previous years.

It also tells us how a strategy changed in terms of increasing or decreasing content production, and even when our work teams suffered alterations or rotations.

GA has taught us about behaviors, not only of independent users but also of countries and nations with their customs and thirst for information. It has reminded us, day by day, how the whole world interprets a subject differently and even more beautifully, how it makes use of information to solve its personal problems.

Analytics is a tool that helps us not only to look back at the past to reconstruct and understand it but also to build the future from it and train us in predicting behaviors, which ultimately translate into strategies.

Being such a complete tool, we are simply placing all of our expectations on GA4 to take our next big step.

What do we in Rock Content expect from the change of GA4?

In conclusion, Google Analytics, in all its versions, has been part of the construction of Rock Content’s history. Therefore, if Google insisted today on the implementation of its latest GA4 version, it is because great events are yet to come to the digital and data market.

As much as change causes us terror at Rock Content, we can’t wait to continue participating in this new paradigm of information. 

With the promise of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence that GA4 brings, the more time we take to implement the version, the more time the property will also take to learn and show us insights about the market, human behaviors, and about our businesses. Tomorrow it will be too late..

And here between us; today we are talking about the GA4 as the final version, but I am sure that soon we will be meeting again through this medium to talk about the arrival of a GA5. Because… why not?

We hope, therefore, to pass this first phase of migration in order to be able to bring new reflections on Google Analytics, so that in the future we can affectionately remember the migratory feat that digital professionals had to experience en masse in the middle of 2022.

Stay tuned to Rock Content’s articles. We are going to bring this topic to you many more times, in order to help you migrate to Google Analytics 4 safely. To not miss anything, please, subscribe to The Beat, our interactive newsletter released every Friday.

The post The Old Google Analytics Is Being Retired. What Can You Expect From GA4? appeared first on Rock Content.

That’s because the number of digital buyers in the United States alone sites at 266.7 million people in 2022. Even more people are simply internet users, looking for the next best product online.

The best way to capture more leads from these internet users and buyers is by developing a digital marketing agency plan. 

Digital marketing has advanced throughout the years, making it confusing for some business owners to understand best practices for developing a marketing plan that works for them and achieves results.

Fortunately, there are several sure methods you can use to help manage your existing clients, generate leads, and keep track of important trends through your digital marketing agency plan.

Keep reading to learn more.

1. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is one of the best ways to kickstart your digital marketing agency plan, as well as take a total inventory of your business and where it stands. A SWOT analysis stands for:

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunites
• Threats

Let’s look at each of these points.

Identify where your strengths are, both as a company and as a leader

Does your company already have a loyal customer base? What is your team good at? 

Perhaps you run a company that is now growing in scale. 

Although a bit unmanageable, it shows that there is potential for your company to both operate successfully and get itself organized, with the help of certain project management techniques and a solid digital marketing plan.

Identify the weaknesses in your company

Some of the most common challenges businesses say they face, according to Forbes, are:

• Accelerating digital transformation, such as creating a digital marketing plan that fits into modern social media trends.
• Improving revenue and cash flow.
• Website and cybersecurity.
• Developing strong leaders within their company to help run it.
• Modifying their business models, such as creating a digital presence.

Identifying where you stand within these weaknesses might be tough, but it helps you understand how to better form solutions to address these weak points, as well as be made aware of them.

Look at your opportunities as a business 

This includes looking at your employees, customer base, and the market itself to look for opportunities.

For instance, is there now a high demand for your product but there’s just no way for you to understand how to sell in large amounts? 

Or, is there a sudden change in social norms that now leads customers to purchase from your company due to your values? 

Think about external factors that can help improve your business and boost your sales, and how you can take advantage of these through a digital marketing plan.

Look at the threats to your business

Are customers leaving because there is a better company offering lower prices? 

Will issues with the supply chain hinder your ability to sell your products, even if you do have the customers willing to purchase them? 

All of these are relevant issues that you must take into account when formulating your goals for your digital marketing plan.

2. Develop SMART Goals

On that note, the next step is to develop SMART goals that are:

• Specific, meaning they are divided into both short-term and long-term goals. For instance, a specific goal is to gain 15 new email subscribers every month, not simply “grow email list.”
• Measurable, meaning it is a goal that can be measured using KPIs and other forms of data analytics.
• Attainable, meaning it is realistic considering your resources, time, and budget, such as growing a website instead of creating the next Amazon within 2 months.
• Relevant, meaning it aligns with the bigger goals of your business. For instance, you might want to create a social media platform in order to get in touch with a younger audience.
• Time-based, meaning you set both short-term and long-term timelines.

Short-Term Goals

When creating your digital marketing plan, make sure to have both short-term and long-term goals. 

Short-term goals can be as simple as saying, “I want to grow our following on social media by 100 users in the next 2 weeks.” 

These goals can help boost morale and keep your company on the right track toward growing its digital footprint.

Long Term Goals

Long-term goals can be something set a year or even years ahead. 

For instance, do you want to create a digital marketing plan that helps your company rank first in Google search engineers through SEO in the next year? 

Are your goals to generate 50% more sales by the year 2023? 

All of these are excellent specific and long-term goals that can help you set a vision for your company and digital marketing plan.

3. Identify Your Audience

What good is a digital marketing plan without an audience to receive your plan? 

It’s important to identify your audience for your business before setting out on creating contact or engagement.

Consider who you want your business to attract. These can be broken down in terms of:

• Age
• Gender
• Income thresholds
• Goals
• Social values
• Interests

After you identify the audience, you can use this information to create a buyer persona. This is a sort of template you can use to create your advertisements and content. 

For instance, let’s say your company sells handbags. Do you want to attract a younger female audience or an older audience comprised of business people?

As you can see, often more than one buyer persona needs to be considered.

Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself, “If I was a customer, what would make me want to buy from a company? How would I choose one online business over the other?” 

The answer is as simple as creating content that is useful, relevant, and customer-oriented.

Whichever buyer or audience you choose to market to, focus on building your online services to cater to your customer and provide customer satisfaction. 

In fact, statistics show that 50% of customers will leave a website permanently if its content is irrelevant (meaning not useful to their situation), and (not surprisingly) 50% of people find blog posts useful.

Use this information to your advantage when creating content for your digital marketing strategies.

4. Consider Your Marketing Avenues

There are many avenues to choose from to boost your customer sales and traffic to your company’s website. 

All of these have their own advantages as well, including:

Social media

Businesses say it has helped increase their traffic by up to 75%.

Social media marketing is also quite budget-friendly since it can take advantage of both user-generated content (meaning content from your customers) and even employee content.

Influencer marketing

It is also a great way to not only improve exposure but also help your business develop trust among your customers. 

This type of marketing is effective but can be costly to hire influencers to market your brand on their website, blogs, YouTube channel, etc.

PPC

Pay-per-click advertising is a more traditional form of advertising that drives traffic to your site, while still allowing you to pay advertisers for the amount of clicks you get to your site. 

This makes it budget-friendly, but not great at generating long-term traffic like content marketing would.

SEO

Search engine optimization is one of the best ways to increase traffic online. 

The way it works is your business creates content that other people are searching for, such as “Best ways to clean my home.” 

By creating useful content like blogs, videos, podcasts, and more, you develop a huge digital footprint on search engines like Google or Bing, which can continue to bring you traffic permanently, so long as you continue to produce valuable content. 

This generates traffic to your website and translates to more leads and sales.

5. Develop a Budget for your Plan

Depending on your budget, you can choose to implement one or all of these marketing strategies for your marketing plan.

Once you have a budget in place, you can purchase the necessary items to implement your plan, such as:

• Hiring outside creators to boost your ability to understand digital marketing, as well as leave the content creation in their experienced hands.
• Hiring performance professionals, which can help analyze the market trends of your business’s online marketing strategy, helping you understand which areas are successful, need improvement, and which plans to continue to utilize.
• Purchase online advertisements, domains, and invest in your overall digital content creation.
• Spend money to train your teams to also be skilled in digital marketing, or find outside hires to work for your company in this venture.
  
  

Creating a digital marketing plan might seem novel, but it is necessary in order to boost revenue and ensure your business’s longevity. 

Using these tips above, you can create a marketing plan that works for any type of agency and translates to real results.

It is also important to know how to generate high-quality agency leads for your company. Luckily, we have a great blog post about it! Click on the link to learn more.

The post 5 Simple Tips to Create an Effective Digital Marketing Agency Plan appeared first on Rock Content.

Some days, you aren’t even sure how you can manage all of the tasks that need to be performed that day.

Luckily, you have options available to you: marketing agency software. There are various forms of this all-in-one software that can help you keep things straight while improving productivity and efficiency within your agency.

Here’s a look at the top 7 marketing agency software options that agency managers should consider this year.

1. Improvado

Built by marketers for marketers, Improvado is a popular cloud-based marketing agency software that helps agencies bring all of their data into one, easy-to-access area while also automating client reports. It is often referred to as a data aggregation tool.

Agencies can create their own methods for performance metrics, which can be automatically calculated. Virtually any metric can be measured and compared for campaign performance. In fact, custom metrics can be created to track.

Data can be viewed at the keyword level or the ad level. And, while you can view your data within the Improvado dashboard, you also have the option to export it, visualize it in a tool of your choosing, or send it to a data warehouse.

Improvado says they can reduce your manual reporting time by at least 90 percent. This frees up a lot of your time to focus on other important marketing tasks.

The software integrates with more than 150 different apps, software, and systems. In addition, if you need a custom integration, they’ll work on it for you. Pricing for Improvado is not set, as it is customized based on your needs.

2. Teamwork

It is not uncommon at all for marketing agencies to juggle numerous projects simultaneously, and more often than not, these projects are not for the same client. 

This is why project management software is necessary to help manage the team and prioritize tasks.

Teamwork is just one of the many options available to you. It is an all-in-one, cloud-based platform that more than 20,000 companies use regularly.

Teamwork is designed to help marketing companies manage their projects from start to finish across multiple departments, which helps to guarantee a smooth collaboration. 

This software can improve productivity by helping to keep tasks more organized. Organization can help ensure everyone is on the same page, minimizing missed deadlines, and poor client communication.

Although you can view tasks on a user-friendly interface, Teamwork offers much more. For instance, you can track each project’s progress using the dashboard while also checking the health of each task to ensure each project is on track.

Automated workflows are also possible with Teamwork, which can help improve the delivery and efficiency of projects. Plus, it just saves time.

There are numerous features and tools available through this software, including built-in time tracking, workflow visualization, budget management, and software integration. Teamwork integrates with other tools like Slack, Gmail, Dropbox, and QuickBooks.

Teamwork is free, but the free version limits marketing agencies to 5 team members and two projects at any given time. Therefore, it is great for smaller teams. However, an upgraded version is available.

3. SEMrush

SEMrush is one of those software that any marketing agency should have in its arsenal due to everything it brings to the table, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), PPC, social media, and content features.

There are thousands of agencies that use this software to identify targeted keywords for their campaigns, and with these keywords, agencies can get their clients’ websites noticed in the SERPs. 

The SEO keyword research tool will help agencies determine the difficulty of a given keyword as well as a client’s competition if they move forward with said keyword.

At the same time, SEMrush can assist you with your PPC and paid advertising campaign by providing you with an estimate of the cost of each keyword. By integrating other apps with SEMrush, you can easily track the entire campaign.

The Client Manager features of SEMrush allow you to manage clients, prioritize tasks, configure and store projects and reports, and track individual project tasks.

SEMrush can integrate with social media platforms, WordPress, Google products, and more. The Pro Plan begins at just under $120 per month for a maximum of five projects.

4. Sprout Social

A social media management platform, Sprout Social aids marketing agencies as they work to organize and manage content. 

This particular platform makes use of scheduling and calendars, along with an easy-to-use dashboard.

Agencies can integrate a number of social media platforms with the Sprout Social software. 

Sprout Social makes it easy to post to social media and allows you to see your scheduled posts by the week and month. This allows you to quickly and easily see where you are lacking content for the week/month.

Sprout Social has a number of built-in features and analytics that help you in the tracking of each post and social media channel. 

You can easily see which posts are performing well, which hashtags seem to be getting the most attention, and when followers are more likely to interact on each social media platform.

Sprout Social can easily be integrated with Facebook and other social media platforms, as well as Slack, Google Analytics, and Canva. The Standard Plan for Sprout Social begins at $89 per user per month.

If your agency juggles a lot of social media work, then Sprout Social is a must-have software.

5. Screendragon

Screendragon is a software that is best for managing processes, projects, team members, and profits on one platform. 

It offers incredible functionality for project and workflow management, forecasting, budget and asset management, and time tracking.

The interface is both intuitive and easy to use. Task management features allow agencies to go between different features like interactive Gantt charts, visual Kanban boards, and list views.

The software is highly configurable, allowing agencies to customize dashboards, forms, workflow rules, templates, notifications, permissions, reports and more. 

It’s easy to review and approve tasks thanks to numerous features for visual proofing and real-time collaboration. Automated approvals can also be set up.

Screendragon can integrate with multiple apps and systems like PeopleSoft, Slack, Google Drive, Trello, Microsoft Dynamics, and Microsoft Office 365. The tool is available as a free demo and then plans start at $20 per user per month.

6. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is another excellent marketing agency software option for agencies that focus a lot on social media. 

Not only does this software allow you to manage your social media calendar, you can also build marketing campaigns directly inside of the dashboard.

There are plenty of built-in templates that can be used to help ensure everything is organized and on track. You can allocate tasks to team members and automatically push social media posts for publication.

In the event you ever need to change the date or time of a post, it is easy to do with the drag-and-drop feature of the software. Simply drag it from its original day to the new day and drop it!

When something is changed in CoSchedule, all members of the team that are connected to that particular campaign will receive a notification. This ensures everyone is on the same page.

CoSchedule can integrate with major social media networks, Google Docs, MailChimp, DropBox, and more. The Marketing Calendar plan begins at $29 per user per month.

7. Calendly

Marketing agencies who find that their schedules are jam-packed may benefit from using Calendly. 

This software is designed to find spaces where meetings can be held without you having to lift a finger.

When you have multiple calendars that hold your meeting times and personal appointments, things can get hectic trying to move from one calendar to the next attempting to find an open time slot to schedule a client for a meeting.

On top of that, you don’t have to go back and forth with emails or phone calls trying to determine the best time for your client. 

Instead, all you need to do is send a link to your Calendly calendar. This allows them to see the times you are available and choose the time that is most convenient for them.

Once a time and day are chosen by the client, it will automatically be scheduled into your calendar.

Calendly doesn’t only save your agency time, but it is also incredibly flexible and customizable. 

For instance, you can create different types of events that will allow the scheduling of meetings of different lengths. While a 15-minute call may work for an initial meeting with a client, this likely won’t cut it for a client you’re discussing campaign strategy with.

Calendly integrates with a number of software and apps like MailChimp, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Zoom. 

There is a Basic Plan that is free of charge, but if you want access to additional features, the Premium Plan is available for $8 per user per month.

The aforementioned is just a brief look at some of the best marketing agency software options available to you and your agency. 

All offer something a little different, but when you know what it is your agency needs, it will be easier to find the right software to streamline and scale your agency processes.

As you move forward with the streamlining and growth of your agency, familiarize yourself with a few ways you can boost lead generation with quality agency leads!

The post Marketing Agency Software: 7 Options to Streamline Workflows and Grow Your Agency appeared first on Rock Content.

It’s undeniable: interactive content like those really grabs our attention!

People like creative and stimulant content, which escapes from the ordinary and lets them interact.

For brands, such materials are much more effective than traditional approaches to advertising and sales. That’s why this kind of content is gaining more space in marketing strategies. 

Interactive content is the new strength of Content Marketing. Until recently, this strategy included mostly static materials, such as ebooks and blog posts.

The time has come to encourage your audience to participate and engage with your content. And that’s what we’ll talk about in this article.

Next, you’ll find information about the following topics:

What is Interactive Content?

Interactive content is any type of material that conveys its message by encouraging user participation. Because of it, the content experience evolves from passive consumption to active engagement.

Interactivity can appear in calculators, quizzes, ebooks, videos, and animated infographics. They don’t necessarily need to be digital. Still, it’s on the internet that this type of content gains a myriad of formats and generates new possibilities for user interaction.

The power of media interactivity has leaped forward with the emergence of the internet, especially after the popularization of blogs and social networks.

Since then, brands have started to get used to the participation of consumers in their content.

However, Content Marketing relied preponderantly on a logic of passive consumption. In other words, brands publish content and wait for feedback from users, through likes, reactions, comments, shares, or browsing behavior analysis on websites and blogs.

It’s already much more interactive than we had in offline marketing or the early days of the internet. Still, brands could go further.

Then, interactive content emerged to provide a more exciting and fun approach for the consumer, given the vast amount of material they have to consume on the web.

This type of content demands that the user interacts with the material to receive the information they want in a much more attractive way than just reading a text.

Each interaction with the content represents a sign from the user to the brand. Vitor Peçanha, co-founder at Rock Content, defined interactive content as something that leads people to give feedback.

It’s different, for example, from when the consumer downloads a PDF or reads a text on the blog, since, in these cases, there are no feedback during content consumption.

Thus, interactive content allows brands to understand whether people have actually consumed their material while providing a much more exciting experience for the consumer.

What are The Benefits of Interactive Content?

Interactive content is increasingly gaining strength in marketing. But do you want to understand better whether it is worth investing in this kind of material in your strategies?

So, let’s list now what the main benefits of interactive content are!

Combine content and experience

Ebooks, infographics, and blog posts are valuable for educating consumers because they bring a lot of information.

When they become interactive, they add something that attracts and engages people: fun.

Interactive content, therefore, combines information and entertainment. Thus, the user feels stimulated to consume that content, which contains triggers to hold their attention.

For example, a quiz requires the person to go through all the questions and get the answer, which can be more difficult in an ebook or blog article.

So the content stops being passive and static to provide a better consumer experience for your audience.

This change is even more relevant if we consider generation Y — the millennials, born between 1980 and 1995, who are in the market dictating trends and influencing consumer behavior.

These young people have seen the internet being born, and the world becomes faster. That’s why this generation is dynamic and immediatist.

There’s no point in offering static, boring, and irrelevant content; they need innovation, challenges, and experiences. Interactive content, therefore, meets their desires.

Concerning the generations that come in the sequence, the dynamics of content will no longer be a choice, but a necessity to communicate with them.

Increase engagement

Offering an interactive consumer experience instead of static content is the way to increase your engagement rates. This is the great benefit of interactive content, which becomes a solution in marketing.

Content Marketing has grown so much that it has saturated consumers with many stimuli and posts on blogs and social networks, often lacking quality or relevance.

With little room to attract this information-rich consumer, brands need creative ways to capture their attention. Interactive content solves this issue.

Passive content makes room for the emergence of interactive formats, which increase the time of engagement and the level of involvement with the brand.

When reading an interactive infographic, for example, the user is surprised by a new way of consuming information, much lighter and more fun. This encourages them to read all the material, grasp the message, and even share it with their network.

This increase in engagement is evident when analyzing metrics such as time spent on the site or link shares (referral traffic).

In addition, you can also analyze consumption metrics to understand if users actually consumed all the interactive content.

Get more feedback from users

Another benefit of interactive content is the ability to receive a rich array of feedback data from users.

As we have said, passive content does not show whether the consumer has actually consumed a material.

For example, you only know how many users have downloaded or scrolled to the end of a blog page. But you can’t tell if they read the content, can you?

Interactive content, on the other hand, collects data during content consumption. You can identify views, clicks, and interactions with each element of your interactive material, as well as evaluate exit points.

According to Rock’s survey, 60% of organizations that use interactive content can better measure their efficiency, while this percentage is only 25% among those that use static content.

For example, let’s say that you’ve created a questionnaire so that the client understands what solution they need to solve their problem.

Each question answered represents a metric to verify your strategy’s efficiency and get to know the user better.

So you can verify that users have covered all of your content and collect valuable data about your audience, behaviors, pains, and needs, which can then be used to optimize your strategies.

Therefore, the benefits of interactive content are not limited to Content Marketing — they can contribute to your entire marketing strategy.

Optimize lead generation and conversion rates

Interactive content not only generates more engagement — it also brings results in lead generation, sales, and revenue.

After all, dynamic content, with visual appeal, provides a richer experience and is capable of awakening consumers’ desire. Besides, by holding their attention, this type of content can also guide them on their journey to conversion.

For this, you can count on tools to create interactive content (later on, we will introduce some of them).

Some of these tools offer features to optimize conversions and test applications to determine which ones work best.

For example, you can test two layout versions of your landing page to find out which one generates the most conversions.

This way, you make the user experience more interesting and reap better results from your content.

What Types of Interactive Content Can You Produce? 

Here we’ll show you what types of interactive content you can publish and give you some examples to inspire your production.

Some of these materials are interactive in nature, like quizzes and calculators. On the other hand, there is content that can be turned interactive, such as ebooks and infographics. 

Also, keep in mind that you can merge different types of interactive content into one material. 

The same page can present an interactive infographic and, in the end, include a quiz for the user to test their knowledge on that subject (and for you to check the efficiency of the content).

Now, let’s learn about some of the best types of interactive content and get inspired!

1. Quizzes

A Quiz is a form of interactive content that has already won many fans! They have become popular on the web with Buzzfeed tests and have become interactive tools for several brands.

They can be used to educate and entertain the audience, usually with a light and fun language, as well as capture insights into their maturity in the subject matter.

When they are creative and relevant to the audience, they also have a good chance of going viral!

See, for example, this quiz that seeks to solve many myths about washing machines.

2. Calculators

Calculators are interactive content that helps show how your product can be positive to the customer’s budget.

You can show how the client can save, make money, or plan financially, depending on the type of solution you offer.

This type of content can be combined with material that explains the value of your product to the market, so that the calculator corroborates what you’re saying.

Here at Rock Content, we have created a CAC (customer acquisition cost) to help marketers understand how much they spend acquiring new clients. 

3. Ebooks

Instead of delivering a static PDF to your audience, how about creating interactive content to present the information in an ebook?

You can combine text with videos, images, graphics, and animations. With interactivity and visual appeal, ebook consumption becomes much more interesting and enjoyable.

Here, you can see an example from Salesforce, which has turned an ebook into an attractive page full of animations.

In this example, anyone who still wants to save the material in PDF format can download the file after entering their contact details.

4. Infographics

Infographics are already a way to transmit data and information with visual appeal. But did you know that you can make them even more attractive?

Just add points of interactivity with the material, so that the reader participates in the content.

Take, for example, this interactive infographic that explains complex information about energy microgrids. The material includes interactive buttons, statistics and facts.

Netflix has another good example of how to transmit information and data in a way that is attractive to the reader.

Cocainenomics is a case of branded content used to promote the Narcos series and brought a lot of data about narco-trafficking. In the end, it also includes a quiz on the information presented.

5. White Papers

White papers usually present more technical content than ebooks and blog posts. They go straight to the point and act as a manual or guide for executing a strategy or action. 

So making them interactive is one way to make this material more attractive and understandable.

6. Landing Pages

A landing page has a clear objective: to generate conversions.

Adding interactivity to these pages can help to trigger the visitor’s desire and convince them to leave their contact details to become a lead.

Below you can see an example of a DHL landing page with visual and animated content that makes the experience more interesting.

7. Lookbooks

A lookbook is a very visual material, usually composed of photographs, widely used by fashion brands to present products, models, photographers, and designers (although it can be used in any niche).

However, lookbooks are usually static, in PDF format, or even printed. To make them more attractive, you can create interactive lookbooks.

Travel operator Northstar Travel has created an interactive lookbook to present Los Cabos destination and has included a quiz and contact form at the end.

8. Questionnaires

The questionnaires are similar to the quizzes, but generally feature more serious language and more in-depth content. The intention is not only to entertain but mainly to help the consumer in their journey.

At the beginning of the journey, the questionnaire can help them identify their needs. At the end of the journey, the material will help you to show what solution they should adopt to solve their problem.

In this way, you can also collect data about this consumer to determine what stage of the journey they are at. 

Based on that, you can decide what marketing and sales approaches should be used.

This questionnaire, for example, helps companies identify their contract management needs through six strategic questions.

In the end, the user provides their data to receive the results and recommendations from the company.

9. Resource Library

A resource library brings together different content that a company has already produced for its Content Marketing strategy.

Instead of offering a list of links for users to access these materials, you can create an interactive page to make it easy for them to find what they want.

This is what Symantec has done with its resource library, which is divided into categories and also includes restricted access areas.

10. Solution finder

The solution finder also reminds us of a quiz or a questionnaire.

However, it has a more specific goal: to guide the consumer through questions to find the right solution to their problem.

For example, this site helps consumers choose the right extended warranty for their car, which can be difficult and boring to describe.

With the final answer, the user is directed to a page where they can sign up for the plans the company offers.

11. Vídeos

Videos are already a kind of engaging content because they have a more dynamic look and narrative than textual or static content. But they can be even more attractive if they invite people to interact with the content.

For example, YouTube allows you to insert interaction buttons that direct users to other videos they might want to watch.

It was based on this feature that a New Zealand pizzeria create an interactive experience for users on YouTube.

The content invites people to help a pizza delivery guy do his job without getting killed by zombies. Throughout the story, the user is invited to choose the alternative that will take them to the next content. Cool, huh?

12. Search results

Presenting the results of a survey, full of data and graphs, could become boring for the target audience.

Therefore, creating interactive content to present this data can be more efficient for people to grasp the information.

An interesting example is the Selfiecity project, which investigates the ways people take selfies in different cities around the world.

On the site, you can browse the data collected in interactive graphics and better understand the search results.

13. Maps

Since Google Maps became popular, interactive maps have become increasingly used for different purposes.

They are useful to entertain or inform, in a similar way to an interactive infographic, but with geolocation data.

Want an example? In the Cocainenomics project, which we presented earlier, Netflix used an interactive map, based on Google Maps, to show the routes of narco-trafficking in recent decades.

How to Produce Interactive Content? 5 Tips to Take Advantage of This Strategy!

To produce relevant content, you need to think about the buyer persona first. 

Who is your audience? How do they behave? What are their pains and needs? From then on, you have the public in mind to produce your materials.

To produce relevant content, you already know that you need to create a persona, understand your audience’s pains, and set goals before anything else. These steps apply to any kind of content.

Now, we’ve selected a few tips that are also valid for your entire Content Marketing strategy, but that can really help with interactive content.

#1. Use content you already have

At the beginning of an interactive content strategy, you can use materials that you already have and that have the potential for interactivity. 

Thus, you give them a new format and a new purpose.

Select, for example, an ebook that has generated enough engagement to turn it into an interactive page. In the end, you can add a quiz to test the visitor’s knowledge.

Try WriterAccess’ free trial and start creating interactive content that combines information and entertainment. Bring your audience into the conversation by creating quizzes, calculators, ebooks, videos, and more.

With interactive content, you’ll capture their attention and provide a fun and exciting experience.

#2. Produce interactive content for the funnel steps

With an eye on the buyer persona’s pains and marketing goals, define what content you will produce thinking about the funnel stages.

This is essential if your interactive content is to fulfill its function in the sales cycle — making the lead advance in the funnel faster — rather than wasting efforts on pointless publications.

A visual and attractive lookbook, for example, can be used at the top of the funnel to attract the lead’s attention.

A calculator is ideal for the bottom of the funnel, when the lead is already at the final moment of the buying journey and needs to realize the financial benefits of acquiring your solution.

#3. Create interactive content with responsive layout

You already know how important it is to adopt responsive web layouts, in a context where the consumer uses their mobile phone for everything, at every stage of the buying journey.

That’s why responsiveness also applies to interactive content.

Since this type of content involves many buttons, animations, and user interactions, you need to make sure that all elements work well on any screen size. 

Content creation tools usually already include this functionality, but it is always important to test them before publishing them.

#4. Optimize strategies with collected data

The interactive materials allow one to collect a vast amount of data about the consumer. 

As we have said, you identify whether the user has downloaded content and whether they have read the entire content and absorbed it.

But this data is only of value to your company if it’s used to generate insights and optimize marketing strategies.

They can help you to:

• get to know the consumer better;
• build the brand persona;
• optimize the segmentation of marketing campaigns;
• customize marketing approaches;
• improve sales approaches.

#5. Capture visitor contact data

Don’t miss the chance to collect visitor data to nourish them along the sales funnel.

When you offer a quiz or survey, you can release the answers only after the user has informed their contact.

In a solution finder, you can request the visitor’s email address to send them personalized directions.

It is important to show the benefit you will offer if the user informs their contact details.

What Are The Best Tools to Produce Interactive Content?

So, do you want to start producing interactive content, but don’t know where to start? Some interactive tools can help you with this task!

Instead of hiring a developer to create each piece of interactive content, you can create dozens of them on your own, using templates and easy-to-use features.

Let’s show you some options now!

Ion

Ion, Rock Content’s platform, is the main reference in interactive content production.

It offers templates with a responsive layout for the different types of interactive content we presented in this article, without you creating a single line of code.

It also offers optimization testing capabilities to know which materials will generate more conversions. You can also measure their performance to see if they have achieved the results you would like.

Below you can get an idea of what the tool looks like and how easy it is to use:

Dot

Dot is another example of a platform that allows you to create interactive content. 

Through simple-to-use features, you can create quizzes, calculators, lookbooks, questionnaires, among other types of interactive content, all on your own from templates.

Thinglink

Thinglink is another platform option for creating interactive content. The tool allows you to create interactive infographics, presentations, maps and videos, and includes features for photos and videos in 360 degrees.

Typeform

The Typeform is already a well-known tool for creating online forms with a simple, beautiful, and responsive layout.

But maybe now you’ll notice this tool with fresh eyes since it allows you to create interactive content and embed forms, surveys, quizzes, and polls wherever you want.

Mapme

Mapme is very good for creating interactive maps. You can add photos, videos and 3D buildings, create location categories (e.g., restaurants, schools, museums, etc.) and customize the map with colors, shapes, icons, and pictures.

Wrap Up

Now you know the importance of interactive content for your strategies, and you understand what you need to do to start producing this kind of material.

Realize that we are talking about a type of content that can differentiate your publications from your competitors, considering so many blog posts and ebooks that overload the consumer with information.

In an interview with Rock, Vitor Peçanha said that this is a trend for the next few years, which is already noticeable around the world. Creating less content, but with more accuracy and impact, is what will bring more quality to digital strategies.

Ready to elevate your content strategy and boost engagement? Unleash the power of interactive content with ION! Seamlessly create, launch, and measure personalized interactive experiences.

From quizzes and polls to assessments and calculators, ION empowers you to captivate your audience. Start enhancing your marketing efforts today – discover what ION can do for you!

The post Interactive Content Guide: How to Bring Life to Your Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Rock Content.