Advanced Content Creation, SEO & Storytelling Here are the slides for the content marketing, SEO, storytelling, and growth hacking events that Patrick Vlaskovits and I hosted with our partners below across Europe in 2016: - Beta-i (Lisbon) - Porto Design Factory (Porto) - Founders (Copenhagen) - EIT Digital (Helsinki) - Mosaik (Budapest) We broke the events into the following 5 sections: - What really is growth hacking? - State Of The Industry - Advanced Content Marketing & Creation - Advanced SEO - Storytelling All of our examples came from personal experiences that we had not written or spoken about prior. If you have any questions, please contact me (@CaseyA - casey@fullstackmarketer.com) or Patrick (@Pv).

1. Advanced Content Creation,
SEO & Storytelling
Lisbon | Porto | Copenhagen | Helsinki | Budapest

2. All startups are in the same business.
The broccoli pizza business.
See here:
http://growthship.com/startuppizza

3. The Handicap of Selling Innovation
Innovation does a violence that creates disconnect.
Without context = ‘What is this? Why do I need it?’
Fear: What the heck is that?!
Projection = ‘Are you saying I’m stupid?’
Joy: Who puts broccoli on pizza?!
Risk = ‘What if it doesn’t work?’
Disgust: That's it. I'm done. [walks off]

6. Your Product
Your Channel

7. Hacking Growth in 1948

8. Evolution from Medium to Channel
0) The Hyped Next Big Thing
1) The Wild Wild West
2) The Hockey Stick
3) Tragedy of the Commons
4) Governance & Civilization
5) Decline

9. Growth Hacking vs
Marketing
The Medium is the
Message

10. Why the Medium is Paramount
The medium resolves and rewards.
Without context = ‘What is this? Why do I need it?’
Projection = ‘Are you saying I’m stupid?’
Risk = ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

11. Violate at Your Own Peril
Launching innovative product into existing channels = FAIL
Startup or business unit cannot afford growth on any paid channels = FAIL
Startup go to war against its own customers = FAIL
Startup fears unconventional sales & marketing = FAIL
Engineering builds a product, sales sells another product = FAIL

12. ADD origins of Growth
Hacking slide

13. ADD origins of Growth
Hacking slide

14. ADD origins of Growth
Hacking slide

15. ADD origins of Growth
Hacking slide

16. ADD origins of Growth
Hacking slide

17. ADD origins of Growth
Hacking slide

18. MESSAGE:
Tupperware
PayPal
Your product?
Tesla
Zynga
Pebble
Apple products
MEDIUM:
Home parties
Ebay
Your channel?
Luxury stores
Facebook
Crowdfunding
Apple retail stores

19. MESSAGE:
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
MEDIUM:
VR & AR
Bitcoin
AI
3D Printing
Internet of Things & Wearables
Driverless cars
Drones

20. Evolution from Medium to Channel
0) The Hyped Next Big Thing
1) The Wild Wild West
2) The Hockey Stick
3) Tragedy of the Commons
4) Governance & Civilization
5) Decline

21. State of Online Marketing Today

22. The Day to Day Reality

24. Channel Life and Death

25. SEM/PPC

26. Welcome to End of an Era
Cheap startups, cheap talent,
and
cheap growth
are all coming to an end.

27. What does that mean?
With acquisition and distribution radically
more expensive, differentiated
growth hacking become
even more critical than ever.

31. Today, the most compelling &
most differentiated content
a) solves customer actual problems,
b) engages by “playing to their priors”,
c) and is more than a blog post.

32. Advanced Content Principles
Think beyond the blog post. (SERPs have changed.)
Differentiation is critical. (Make it harder to copy.)
CRITICAL TO UNDERSTAND:
You need to blur the lines between product/content.

33. The Content Garden Model
Content is deciding what to plant.
SEO is what you nurture and,
paramountly, what you prune.

34. Constellation of Customer Problems

42. Understanding Your Customers’ Priors
Why did your customer
become who they are?
Hidden, unconscious motivations?

43. Understanding Your Customers’ Priors
What sorts of lies and self-deception?
Weird or odd behavior?
Unconscious signaling?

44. Understanding Your Customers’ Priors
How do they think/perceive themselves?
What problems do they perceive they have?
How do they prioritize these problems?

45. Three Segments’ Reactions
The Producer The Artiste The Drowning
Initial Reaction
“Whoa. This is
amazing.”
“Are you really
better than
CoreAudio or OpenSL
ES?”
“Can you write code
for me??”
Secondary Reaction
Have their team
benchmark our
performance.
Build simple app.
Get stuck on code
samples.

46. Three Segments’ Lies
The Producer The Artiste The Drowning
Lie #1
“Everything in my
audio stack is
bulletproof.”
“I could have built
this.”
“I can program
audio.”
Lie #2
“I have the power in
my org to make
buying decisions by
myself.”
“I understand low-
level code and
optimizations.”
“I know what I am
doing.”

47. Three Segments’ Self Perception
The Producer The Artiste The Drowning
How they think of
themselves
Professional and
battle-tested.
Under-appreciated &
undiscovered genius.
Unique-snowflake
innovator.
Hard core developer.
In reality Mostly professional.
Insecure mediocre
middle. Quick to
blame software.
Incompetent.

48. Three Segments’ Motivations
The Producer The Artiste The Drowning
Typical
Question/Objection
What impact does
XYZ have on CPU
usage?
How do I do XYZ with
your SDK?
Can you write XYZ
for me?
Motivations Staying at the top. Getting to the top. Not getting fired.

49. Three Segments’ Value Perceptions
The Producer The Artiste The Drowning
What they’re really
asking for
Weird edge-case
features.
Docs that don’t make
them feel dumb.
Ready-built
templates.
Job to Be Done
Smooth sailing.
Smart and safe
choice. Solidifies
their position to
management and
rest of team.
More in-flow coding. Cannot help them.

50. Three Segments’ Problem Perceptions
The Producer The Artiste The Drowning
Problem We Solve
They need a
customizable and
flexible solution.
They think they need
a customizable and
flexible solution.
NA
Adjacent Problem
Info about latency
and future audio
tech.
Ability to test
latency.
NA
Adjacent Problem
Look smart in front
of underlings.
Look smart in front
of boss.
NA

51. Getting Developers & Marketers on Same Page

52. Exercise
http://growthship.com/growth
(Copy and fill out)

53. Starbucks understands growth hacking.
http://growthship.com/starbucksoutlook

54. Content Production Schedule by SEO

55. Content Garden Model
Content is deciding what to plant.
SEO is what you grow and prune.

56. Why NO growth?
Veteran Leaders
Content Process
Optimized SEO
In-house & External Team
Optimized & multiplied their output!

57. The End Of An Era

59. The SEO Avocado Tree
Sculpt & prune your site to growth.
The more you cut, the more you grow.

61. Growing & Sculpting
(not provided)
What are the seeds, or existing leaves and
fruit to grow?
PRIORITIZE!

62. What Content Should I Grow & Sculpt?
Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

63. What Content Should I Sculpt?
http://growthship.com/analytics

64. How Should I Sculpt It?

65. What Type Of Content Should I Add?

66. What Related Content Should I Add?

67. Google Wants To Help Shape Your Growth
http://growthship.com/kwp

68. How To Cluster Your Content

69. Content Production Schedule by SEO

70. Google Tools & Recap
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Related Search Queries
Auto Complete
Google Keyword Planner

71. Pruning Your Site
Do not waste energy on inefficient leaves.
Less is more.
Content = Seeds
SEO = Optimizing Sunlight To Grow

73. Where Do You Start With Optimization?
Paralysis By
Analysis
$20,000 for
200 pages, but
WHAT DO I DO?

74. Actionable SEO Audit in Less Than An Hour
Help Google, help you.
Google likes to learn.
Exploit unrecognized simplicities.
Prioritize your actions to success.
Layups -> Slam Dunks

75. Keywords On Your Homepage?

76. Keywords On Your Homepage?

77. Are You Mobile-Friendly?

78. Are You Mobile-Friendly?

79. Site Speed Across Devices
http://growthship.com/speed
What is yours on mobile & desktop?

80. Duplicate Content & Duplicate Sites?
https://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing
http://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing
http://staging.YOURSITE.com/marketing
https://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing/page/2
https://www.YOURSITE.com/marketing/page/7

81. Site Search, Indexation & Crawl Budget
How big is your site? What’s getting indexed?

82. Site Search, Indexation & Crawl Budget
site:YOURSITE.com

83. Over-Indexation v. Under-Indexation
Leaves to Sunlight Ratio Off Bugs In The Garden
Subdomains JavaScript
Staging Environments Crawler Errors
Tag Pages Blocking URLs
No Canonical URL Orphan Pages
Customer Created URLs Robots.txt Broken

84. Over-Indexation v. Under-Indexation
Under-Indexation: Prune Wisely

85. Crawl Budget
http://growthship.com/crawl
Domain Authority
http://growthship.com/authority
Crawl budget is roughly proportional to domain authority.
Crawl Efficiency
Site Structure, Internal Linking, Speed, Robots.txt, Sitemap

86. Finite Resources
Where should the sun shine?
Where should Google help you crawl?
How much sun do you get?
http://growthship.com/crawl

87. Optimize Crawl Budget
4.5%
Google wants the most important pages to
remain the ‘freshest’ in the index.

88. What Is Your Domain Authority?
http://growthship.com/authority
How big is your tree?
What is your DA? How many pages do you have indexed?

89. What Is Your Domain Authority?
Is it low?
Even more important to properly optimize your site.

90. What Is Your Crawl Budget?
http://growthship.com/crawl
What Is Your Domain Authority?
http://growthship.com/authority
Crawl budget is roughly proportional to domain authority.
How Can You Improve Crawl Efficiency?
Site Structure, Internal Linking, Speed, Robots.txt, Sitemap

91. To prune or improve?

92. Pruning Your Dead Leaves
Indexed Pages v. Organic Landing Pages
site:YOURDOMAIN.com Behavior > Site Content > Landing
Pages
Total pages indexed?
Last 30 days?
Last 6 months?
Where can you prune? No tree is the same.

93. Indexed Pages v. Organic Landing Pages
Organic Landing Pages:
199 v. 232 in past 30 days
Behavior > Site Content >
Landing pages
(filter Organic Only)

94. More Pruning
site:YOURSITE.com -inurl:www
Over-indexation: Total indexed pages for each subdomain
Security: Staging sites & customer data

95. What Leaves Should Get Sunlight?
How can you shift your internal ranking bias
to your more important pages?
As quality content becomes table stakes,
channeling PageRank becomes paramount.

96. Sculpting PageRank
http://growthship.com/internal
Trunk : Branches : Leaves & Fruit Homepage: Categories :
Content

97. Optimize Crawl Budget
0.87%

98. Where Should I Sculpt PageRank?
Google Analytics (filter Organic Traffic Only):
Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages
Sort by:
Sessions
Conversions

99. Audit Recap
Basics: Title, H1, Content, URL, Alt, Meta
Basics: KWs, Mobile, Speed, Dupes
Indexation
Organic Landing Pages
Sculpt PageRank
Optimize Crawl Budget
Content Clusters + Tiered Internal Linking

100. Questions

101. STORYTELLING

102. The Universal Human Data Format
Story beats are encoded into your DNA.
Stories, not facts or figures, but stories.

103. Simplest Story
A problem
and
A solution

104. How Apple uses story to sell the making of
memories (ie iPhones).
https://youtu.be/nhwhnEe7CjE

105. Disney hit film Frozen is a ‘Quest’.
(Star Wars set in medieval Scandinavia.)
Anna (the special hero)= Luke
Kristof = Han Solo
Sven = Chewbacca
Rock trolls = Ewoks
Olaf = C3PO/R2D2
https://youtu.be/TbQm5doF_Uc

106. Rocky is a ‘Rags to Riches’.
Rocky is an un-special hero who ‘wins’ only by
perseverance, grit, & hustle.
https://youtu.be/eMhDQFLwrAA

107. Taken is a ‘Revenge Story’.
Some injustice has happened in a far off land. We
must go and deliver justice. The ends justify the
means.
https://youtu.be/uPJVJBm9TPA

108. Once Brothers is a ‘Love Story’.
Two opposites meet. Become one. Then separate. Then
unify once again.
https://youtu.be/h_FTjCe1C7Y
PS Think beyond ‘Romeo & Juliet’.

109. Edge of Tomorrow is a ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’.
Something big has happened to reshape the
landscape. Your old magic doesn’t work. You must
learn and master the new magic for the new
landscape.
https://youtu.be/fLe_qO4AE-M

110. The Five Fundamental Stories*
The Quest
Rags to Riches
Stranger in a Strange Land
Love Story
Revenge
*Based on the work of Dr. Nick Morgan of http:
//www.publicwords.com/

111. Pro Tricks to Tell Better Stories
No conflict, no interest.
The counter-intuitive hook.
The protagonist makes it worse.
The payoff matters.
Structure. Structure. Structure.

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