Building a Content Strategy That Search Engines Love - Dylan Sellberg

1. Creating A Content Strategy
That Search Engines Love
(and that you love too)
2017 Design Bloggers Conference

2. Who is HubSpot?
A Global Movement - INBOUND!
- HQ in Cambridge, MA
- HubSpot Offers a Full Stack of Products for
- Marketing
- Sales
- Customer Relationship Management
- 21,000 Customers in 90 Countries
- 2.3 Million Social Followers
- 19k+ Annual Registered INBOUND Attendees
- 54k HubSpot Academy Certifications
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3. Who am I?
Dylan Sellberg
- Implementation Specialist at HubSpot
- Started first business at age 11
- Managed multi-million dollar marketing campaigns
- Consults with 30+ marketers each week on marketing
and sales best practices
- Favorite social platform is Twitter @DylSell
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt
@HubSpot | @DylSell

4. 2017 Design Bloggers Conference
Diving In

5. Design Bloggers Conference
Your Current Content Strategy
Oh, I have an idea - I’ll post it!
Today’s Search Engines
How they work and what is new
Your New Content Strategy
This is a big idea, hang onto your hats
Building a Content Strategy That Search Engines <3 and
you do too
My goal is to introduce a
content strategy that will help
you and your business
Use #EVENTHASHTAG and I’ll
respond to any questions from
the Twitter Thread both during
and after this talkQ+A
Let’s go DEEP here
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How It All Fits Together
How a new content strategy will change your results

6. What is going on with Search
Engines?
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7. How does the Google Machine Work?
The goal of search has
always been the same.
Enter a question...you
get an answer. But...
questions have changed
as users have become
more sophisticated...
The New Search Engines
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8. 1. Obtain backlinks to your site
2. Add keywords in your meta description, and H1 tags
3. Add a lot of keywords in the body of your content. The more, the
better.
4. Add “hidden” keyword mentions in the HTML of your page.
5. Rinse & repeat
The New Search Engines
Before now
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*This system is easily gamed by SEOs, marketers, content writers, everybody

9. But search has evolved

10. Inside Google’s Search Algorithm
Inside the machine are
various algorithms that take
hundreds of factors into
account to deliver the most
relevant result to the
searcher.
Each update is just another
piece of the overall Google
Search Algorithm.
The New Search Engines
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Mobile
Panda
Rankbrain
Penguin
Hummingbird

11. 3 Most Important
Ranking Factors
1. Content
2. Links
The New Search Engines
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3. RankBrain

12. A machine-learning artificial
intelligence system that’s
used in the Google Search
Algorithm to help process
results.
RankBrain is intended to help
primarily understand long-tail
queries and user intent.
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13. HubSpot Internal Only
RankBrain is “involved in every query,”
and affects the actual rankings
“probably not in every query but in a
lot of queries.”
Jeff Dean
Computer Scientist, Google
(plus it’s the third most important factor affecting search)

14. Target searchers' intent and
concepts, Google will do a good
job recognizing content and
figuring out the keywords that it
maps to
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2015, Content Marketing Institute
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15. Your current
content strategy

16. Your Current Content Strategy
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A spontaneous idea equals a blog post

17. 1. You have limited bandwidth
2. Have a hard time creating content on a
consistent basis
3. Unable to connect content to your goals or
mission
Your Current Content Strategy
Roadblocks with this “Strategy”
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The “See What Sticks” Strategy

18. 1. Difficulty generating concrete ideas
2. Difficulty connecting content generated to your
business goals and strategies
3. Trying to mesh your pages with keywords
conflicts with your writing style
Your Current Content Strategy
Roadblocks with this “Strategy”
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The “Keyword Research”
Strategy

19. You are not alone.
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20. The majority of marketers don’t
have a documented content
strategy. In fact, Only 35% of B2B
marketers and only 37% of B2C
marketers have a documented
content strategy.
@HubSpot | @DylSell
2015, Content Marketing Institute
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21. A Story

22. @HubSpot | @DylSell@HubSpot | @DylSell
2 years ago, HubSpot
launched the our CRM
and created an Inbound
Sales Framework...

23. And...we launched a TON of content
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25. And it was SO keyword optimized...
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26. And, the results were like...
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27. Then, it hit us...
Write for humans, not for robots
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28. So we tried a new framework...
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29. And the results were like...
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30. @HubSpot | @DylSell@HubSpot | @DylSell

31. So, how can you do
this?

32. Develop a content strategy!
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33. That search engines love...
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34. And you do too...
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35. Introducing...
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36. The
Content
Cluster
Framework
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37. Topics Over Keywords
Key
Sub Topic
Core Topic
Hyperlink
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38. Topics Over Keywords
● Links off to sub-topic / cluster
content and resources
● This is the anchor of topical
content on your site
● Typically a web page on your
main site
Pillar Content | (10x Content)
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39. ● Holistic view of where you stand on
a given topic
● Will increase authority on topic to
return results no matter the search
● Google takes care of parsing a
search query and returning your
result
● This can be a blog page, checklist,
case study
Topics Over Keywords
Topic Content
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40. Topics Over Keywords
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Scandinavian
Design
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Minimalism at
work
Emerging Scandinavian
Design Companies
Functionalism at work
in office spaces
Which Nordic
country produces
the best products
Is Scandinavian Design
played out?

41. How to put this into play
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Map out 5-10 of the
core problems that your
buyer has
Build out each of the
core topic with
subtopics using
keyword research
Map out content ideas
that align with each core
topic with corresponding
subtopics
Validate each idea with
industry and competitive
research.
Create, measure, and
refine
Group each of the
problems into broad
topic areas

42. Creating A Content Strategy That Search Engines Love (and that you love too)
@HubSpot | @DylSell
3 Most Important
Ranking Factors
1. Content
2. Links
3. RankBrain

43. Thank you.
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44. Q+A
Please, no softballs
Out of time? Dsellberg@HubSpot.com

45. 1. Matthew Barby (and his blog)
https://www.matthewbarby.com/blog/
2. Angela DeFranco
3. Joseph Del Bene
4. How to create 10x content (Moz)
5. Anum Hussain Topics over Keywords
6. All About RankBrain (Search Engine Land)
Thank you’s + resources
The Real Pros
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