This week, take a behind-the-scenes look as the two companies reveal what happened when they decided to change elements of their content operations. Then use the results from Facebook's random test to test the resilience of your own content.
For Service Direct, proof is published
When Service Direct, a business that markets to service providers, wanted to increase search traffic, they knew they had a long way to go. As the company recently shared in an article on my website the team hypothesized their main roadblocks were website (structure and background) and content marketing.
So the team set new goals, overhauled the site, and changed elements of its content strategy.
Fixes include:
- Migrate the site from an in-house created system to WordPress to ensure it follows or can be easily updated to follow best practices without using technology development resources
- Create a normalized URL structure, including the main structure key word targeted by page content
- Create a landing page new for all high value service categories and optimize for primary and secondary keywords
- Increase article length from 750 to about 1,500 words
- Publish unique content exclusively for site categories
- Write content for long term ranking -tail keyword
- Include customer experience
- Update all meta descriptions to put the most important text at the top
WHY IT'S HOT: The strategy worked. Service Direct's efforts increased organic search traffic by 348% and the number of keywords it ranks for by 188%. And it says organic search now accounts for 71% of revenue from new customers. The team also wisely captures the strategy, step-by-step approach and results in an article that serves as a valuable piece of content. And then they head to content marketing stores (like this one) to get some media coverage.
@ServiceDirectHQ increased organic search traffic by 348% by addressing content and site barriers. It then turned the experience into great #content to market its services through @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
The Atlassian Work Life team treats work like a scientific project
The Atlassian Work Life blog team made a real work life experiment perform a four-day workweek for three months.
They treat it like a scientific project – develop a hypothesis, conduct an experiment, and analyze the results.
Their hypothesis:
- Teams can be as productive four days a week as the traditional five-day workweek.
- Switching to a four-day workweek will have a positive effect on the team's work-life balance and -present.
During testing, the Work Life team managed to maintain eight hours Monday through Thursday. They've blocked their calendars and set their Slack status as absent every Friday.
To gauge their success, the team used both quantitative and qualitative measurements. Quantitative numbers include blog readership as measured by total page views, newsletter subscriber growth, and the number of days they work longer than eight hours.
Qualitative assessments included the team's self-reported energy level at the beginning and end of each workweek, their Monday afternoon confidence level in their ability to get things done, and Thursday afternoon satisfaction level.
Result? Team members feel more motivated and confident in their ability to be productive throughout the week. Readership is up 5.2% year-on-year in 2020. Newsletter subscribers have grown 8% (slightly lower growth than in previous months, although the summer drop is typical. brand image).
WHY IT'S HOT: The Work Life team didn't continue with the four-day workweek, but that was never the goal. They tested a popular work trend because that's what Work Life is all about. In the process, they have a summer on Fridays for “life” – and a piece of engaging content for their readers. They also demonstrate a streamlined approach to content team operations. If you want to make a change, think of it as a test project. Set priorities and detail how you will measure success. Let the results tell you whether to make the changes permanent.
The Work Life @Atlassian team modeled the change treatment for #content team activity as an experimental project. Set priorities and measure success before you start via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
Are you ready for a Facebook outage?
This week's Facebook outage is seen as an impromptu experiment in life (and work) without the company's self-titled platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp. And that experiment proved the downside of relying solely on leased land to communicate with your audience.
But that's not the only way. #FacebookDown has undermined all aspects of Facebook's operations. According to media reports , employees cannot help but use their swipe card to enter the building or the conference rooms. And its tech engineers couldn't quickly access the servers to troubleshoot. It seems that every aspect of Facebook's operations is connected to Facebook's systems.
WHY IT'S HOT: It's more like a hot potato – something content marketing teams can avoid with adequate preparation. Create a crisis communication plan. First, review every platform used to connect with your audience – from your CRM and CMS to your websites and social channels to make sure they can work individually even if they are often out of date. are connected with each other. For example, if your email newsletter software goes down, will you be able to access the email addresses in the database to reach your audience (even if it takes a longer time, less automatic)?
Second, jot down a plan of what to do if one method of communicating with your audience goes wrong. Take the example of an electronic newsletter. If you can't access your standard templates, would you still send the newsletter? If so, how? What are the steps and who is responsible for each step?
The questions and insights will be unique to each brand, but the outcome should be the same: You don't consider one software, tool, platform, etc. to be the only way to connect with your audience. me. And if there's a disruption, you'll have a plan in place to tackle that challenge.
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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