Hey there,

In this week’s newsletter, Sam shares 11 in-demand digital marketing skills you should master, while Patrick shows how to create great content. 

Meanwhile, Mateusz will teach you how to optimize your homepage for SEO, and Priscilla has some tips on optimizing your content for search, conversions, and social shares.

Finally, I have two posts: The first is a guide to video marketing, and the second, a guide to organic marketing. 

As always, click through to read each post. Or if you’re busy, read the tl;dr below each link.

New on the blog 🎉

The Simple (But Complete) Guide to Video Marketing

We hopped onto the video bandwagon in 2015 and never looked back. Today, we have more than 300,000 subscribers and 14 million views, and that has led to thousands of new customers.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Define your audience

2. Define your primary objective — Are you creating videos for brand awareness, education, or entertainment?

3. Create your videos

   1. Planning — If you’re creating educational content, you can use Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer to see what kind of topics or questions people are searching for on YouTube.

   2. Video length — This is usually determined by your primary objective.

   3. Scripting — This will make your video recording smoother, prevent bad speaking habits like “ums” and “ahs,” and so on.

   4. Recording — Choose a location where you can control the environment and use a decent camera (smartphone or DSLR); teleprompter (if you’re scripting); shotgun or lavalier mics for audio; key lights and fill lights for lighting; and furniture or foams for soundproofing.

   5. Editing — To learn about it, watch this video.

4. Promote your videos

How to Create Great Content for Search

Patrick Stox

Creating content is hard work. But to truly make something special takes even more work, resources, and expertise. You need to have a great process and the right team in place.

Here’s a framework that may help:

1. What content should you create? — Start with page-level research and then work backward to keywords and topics. Do this by plugging each of your organic search competitors into the Top pages report in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and export the files.

2. Keyword research — Plug a term into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and go to the Matching terms report.

3. Create an outline or content brief — Use the data from the keyword research process to come up with the main content you want to include. From there, add any important points, data you have, and additional insights or expertise that will be useful to readers.

4. Producing the content — A single person isn’t likely able to create great content. It usually takes a team of people with different skills. The team Patrick usually wants includes an SEO, an expert, a writer, and an editor.

The roles required for great content.

Organic Marketing vs. Paid Marketing: What's the Difference?

The difference between organic marketing and paid marketing is that organic marketing focuses on attracting traffic for free while paid marketing involves paying for traffic. Both have their uses, and one isn’t inherently better than the other.

At Ahrefs, we use both organic and paid marketing.

Content Optimization: The Complete Guide

Priscilla Tan

Here’s how to optimize content for SEO:

1. Make sure you’re targeting a keyword with traffic potential

2. Make sure it aligns with search intent

3. Make sure it covers everything searchers want to know

4. Make sure it’s easy and enticing to read

5. Make sure it has a compelling title tag and description

6. Make sure it has enough backlinks

Here’s how to optimize content for conversions:

1. Make sure it targets a keyword with business potential

2. Make sure it shows your product in action

3. Make sure it includes a persuasive call to action

Here’s how to optimize content for social shares:

1. Make sure it includes expert quotes

2. Make sure your social share buttons are visible at all times

Homepage SEO: Yes, It Exists & Here’s How to Do It

Mateusz Makosiewicz

Here’s how to optimize your homepage for SEO:

1. Choose the target keyword

2. Create content for your homepage

3. Build high-quality external links

4. Add internal links

New on YouTube 📺

11 Digital Marketing Skills You Should Master

The skills are:

1. Copywriting
2. SEO
3. Data analysis and interpretation
4. User experience
5. Expertise with Google Sheets
6. Communication
7. Problem solving
8. Creativity
9. Teachability
10. Self-motivation
11. Dependability

What we’re reading 🤓

The Writing Well Handbook

An incredible handbook from Julian Shapiro on how to write well. It covers five main areas:

1. Ideas — Identify what to write about
2. First Drafts — Generate insights for your topic
3. Rewriting — Rewrite for clarity, intrigue, and succinctness
4. Style — Rewrite for style and flow
5. Practicing — Iterate toward mastery

BrightonSEO 2022 Decks

Click the link above for a compilation of all the decks from BrightonSEO 2022!

Till next time ;)
Cheers,