To do that, you need to know your audience—their needs, their preferences, and their behaviors. Without that vital information, you can’t create content that effectively builds awareness; impacts a potential customer’s decision to purchase your product or service; or keeps current customers engaged with your company, resulting in repeat business or referrals.

When it comes to creating content, perhaps it’s better to think of the customer experience as an hourglass rather than a funnel, as Tricia Smith suggests in a recent SmartBrief post. This would ensure you’re meeting the needs of current customers, creating information resources that are useful after they’ve made a purchase. For example, start a community on your site where customers can help each other or provide the ability to post reviews of your product or service. And these resources can be a great well of information that you can then use to create new content to help build brand awareness, for example.

This underscores a best practice we mention often to our clients: Content types and topics should be appropriate to your audience and their goals—as well as your company’s objectives. White papers, how-to articles, and webcasts are helpful for addressing the awareness and consideration stages of the sales cycle, for example, whereas online demos and case studies are useful for influencing the purchasing decision.

Finally, when you’re creating content for all phases of the sales cycle, don’t forget about SEO. A joint study (PDF) from Google and TechTarget highlights the importance of making sure your SEO efforts, such as keywords and titles, are specific to the particular stage of the sales cycle you’re targeting with your content.

What content are you creating to keep current customers engaged with your company?

Fortunately, my efforts weren’t entirely in vain. Perusing the Web, three social media marketing items caught my eye. You may find them both interesting and relevant.

The social evolution of SEO

Search Engine Watch had an interesting story by Guillaume Bouchard on June 2 about the impact social signals (Facebook likes, Tweets, Diggs, etc.) have on a search engine Web page rankings.

Bouchard points out that while search marketing and social media marketing once competed for budget, they should now be viewed together. Since search engines now use social signals to determine the relevance of a Web page, it only makes sense, Bouchard explains, to integrate your search and social media marketing campaigns. By Bouchard’s logic, search marketing and social media marketing are no longer an “either or” proposition. They’re complementary.

Bouchard also offers tips on how to make your Web page content more “shareable” (i.e., get people to “like” it, Tweet it, and Digg it), build a more engaged audience on Facebook, and use contests to attract social signals for your content.

Leveraging Facebook beyond the “Like” button

A recently published report from eMarketer explores Facebook marketing strategies, offering an in-depth look at how companies are going beyond simply employing the Facebook “like” button on their websites. eMarketer asks this logical question: “With thousands or even millions of ‘likes,’ what’s next?”

This is an important question because while it’s easy to embed a Facebook “like” button on your Web pages, it’s not as easy to keep those customers or prospects engaged after they click “like.” If you don’t have a plan for continued engagement, “Like” will lose its value.

The report, “Facebook Marketing: Strategies for Turning ‘Likes’ into Loyalty,” explores how marketers are using more compelling posts and interactions, as well as rewards, as strategies for building community and engagement on Facebook. It also features case studies for Adobe, Clarisonic, and Discovery Communications. Click here for an executive summary and a link to purchase the report. The full report (free to eMarketer subscribers) is available here.

Convincing your most ardent Facebook cynics

Lastly, I came across a list of interesting, and perhaps useful, Facebook stats.

Despite Facebook’s seemingly continued march to global media domination, every organization harbors one or two Facebook cynics. Perhaps you’re one of them! But it’s hard to question Facebook’s incredible impact on the Web as we know it. So if you’re a cynic, or working with one, I’ve got a presentation you need to see.

On May 31 Marta Kagan wrote a post on the HubSpot Blog titled “12 Essential Facebook Stats [Data],” which features some eye-opening information about Facebook. Have you ever wondered what percentage of total minutes spent online are attributed to Facebook? What about the average number of hours Facebook users spend on the site?

The post includes a link to a Slideshare presentation that also includes some good stats about what B2B marketers and SMBs think of Facebook as a marketing and customer acquisition channel.

Even if you don’t need to convince any Facebook critics, Kagan’s blog post and the HubSpot presentation feature a number of insights that will pique your interest—and perhaps even be helpful for one of your own presentations.

Although search engines frequently tweak their algorithms, Google threw a significant curve ball when it changed its algorithm a couple months back. The search engine now assigns a lesser ranking to low-quality sites like “content farms” or others that use duplicate or recycled content.

The significance of this change is something we at Tendo have been advocating to our clients for years—content is key. If you want to ensure that your company gets found online, you need to create original, high-quality content. It’s this content that will create relevance for your site and improve your ranking on SERPs.

Producing new content on a regular basis certainly requires more time and effort. Here are a couple suggestions for creating original content:

• Start a blog. This is a great way to generate a regular stream of content. And if you’re looking for fodder, listen to what your customers are saying on your social media channels and location-based services such as Foursquare.
• Write on a topic important to your customers and/or to your industry. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just make sure to add your own unique take on the subject.
• Use content you already have. If your company produces original research, in-depth reports, or other analysis pieces, turn those into a series of articles for your site.

In defense of keywords
Although meta information, keywords in particular, hasn’t been the key to SEO success in years, that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. In fact, keywords are very important to your content. You should use language your customers use—not jargon or marketing speak—and base your content around those keywords. This will help make it clear to search engines that your page is relevant to those keywords. Also, you can use your keyword research to help identify themes for new content.

The only thing you can count on with SEO is that it will change. Creating informative content that’s relevant to your audience—customers, partners, or both—will ensure that your site gets found and give you the best chance at converting visitors into customers.

What’s your company’s strategy for creating original content for your website?

To that extent, we’re going to make it easy for you marketers to combine your profession with your portable. We’ve rounded up some of the best iPhone apps that marketers should have on their phones, everything from the real-time searches of social media to Web analytics. We’ve left few stones unturned–with more than one billion apps in the Apple iPhone store, it’s always tough to find the gems. Here are a few of the best:

SEM Calculator
(Free)

This application builds in a number of calculators that you can use to evaluate different parameters of a Web marketing campaign. You can evaluate potential cost-per-thousand and cost-per-action figures in a number of different ways, including direct cost-per-click to cost-per-thousand analyses and an evaluation of the maximum amount of money you should be spending on CPC based on your goals and conversion rate.

Analytics Pro
($3.99)

Want the power of a Google analytics database at your fingertips? Analytics Pro is perfect for the marketer who just can’t get away from the stats and figures: Carry your website’s traffic measurements, target goals, and visitor details wherever you go. For a slightly pricer version with a different interface and feature-set, you can also check out Analytics App ($5.99).

SalesForce Mobile
(Free)

If you rely on the comprehensive databasing functionality of the SalesForce platform to manage your business relationships, then you’ll appreciate the ability to pull this information onto your mobile device. Navigate customer records, send emails, call contacts, and create queries, amongst other features–all you need is an unlimited SalesForce account or one with a working mobile license.

TweetDeck
(Free)

If you’re serious about marketing, it’s imperative that you know exactly what your customers are thinking and saying about your brand at any given moment. Enter TweetDeck: Unlike most other Twitter clients for the iPhone, TweetDeck allows you to structure incoming Tweets in a column-based format. You can set up real-time searches for specific words and phrases in addition to the general Twitter functions like friends lists and customized groups. It’s the easiest way to know exactly when JoeSmith01 is hacked off at your customer service or, for that matter, when he’s praising your efforts to all of his 341,402 followers.

Pokeseo
($0.99)

It’s not extremely comprehensive, but this 99-cent iPhone application does deliver a quick way for checking the page rank of any website on Google. You can also see just how many links are funneling into your site on Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and AOL. For access to Alexa data as well, check out the Domain Tracker app (free).

Domain Scout
(Free)

Looking to build out a new Web presence? Have a great idea for a new website on-the-fly, but you’re not sure whether the name is actually available for purchase? Check out Domain Scout, a free application that tells you if your potential domain name idea is free or purchased. A full history of your searches allows you to go back and stalk old ideas that might have lapsed past their renewal dates.

Ember
($9.99)

Contribute to your company’s Campfire network with this helpful application. This application (and Campfire) is a great way to save and archive corporate communications from anywhere in the world–a solution that’s far more elegant than your typical instant or text messaging conversation. Keep your team on the same page without having to scroll through endless email replies in your already overflowing inbox.

OmniFocus
($19.99)

This expensive organization tool is the crème de la crème for keeping your busy life in order. You can keep track of your tasks by categories, locations, involved people, or dates. And like the iPhone’s native calendar integration, you can synchronize OmniFocus wirelessly via Apple’s MobileMe or a WebDAV-supported server. Never miss an engagement again.

Scribble
($0.99)

Ever find yourself having trouble articulating a concept in a business meeting or lunchtime discussion? Can’t find your pen? Wouldn’t you love a way to diagram your thoughts without having to turn to the back of an easily lost napkin or non-existent whiteboard? That’s where Scribble comes into play. Draw your thoughts into a quick, finger-scribbled diagram, then email your doodle to all interested participants.

Air Sharing Pro
($9.99)

Transform your iPhone into a portable storage device by connecting it to your company’s wireless network and mounting it via your laptop computer or any connected Internet browser. From there, you can transfer files to your device and–better still–view these files on-the-go. The application supports documents like PDFs, Microsoft Office files, iWork files, and more. It’s a perfect tool for practicing your PowerPoint presentation sans laptop.

Have any favorite apps of your own? From marketing to games, what tickles your iPhone/iPod Touch fancy? Let me know, and I’ll feature your submissions in a future article!

When you’re optimizing your conversion rate, try giving each page — or better yet, each piece of content (video, podcast, blog) — a numeric monetary value.

For example, in our Breville case study, we showcased how content can increase conversion rates. Let’s say, the price of an espresso machine is $100. If Page A sells 5 espresso machines and Video B sells 20 espresso machines, then Page A is worth $500 and Video B is worth $2000.

This helps you to visualize what is working and will suggest ways to replicate and build on your successes.

“Working your content until it works” is a great call to make sure we’re combining SEO, content & keyword and metrics strategies, because they all work together to boost the effectiveness (and dollar value) of your content.

• There are 14 billion internet searches done each month (Comscore, March 09)
• CNN moved their search ranking from #4 to #1 and got 50 million more visits a month on their website
• Spending on on-line marketing is forecasted to increase 11% in 2009; search is expected to increase 14%; 60% of respondents expect to cut traditional marketing (Forrester, April 2009)
• 68% of the population of people who use search only access the first page of Google search results (Jupiter, 2008); of the webinar attendees, 30% visit the first page only and 48% visit the first two pages (but attendees are presumably more advanced search users).
• In 1998, Google indexed 26 million pages; in 2008 that number rose to 1 trillion, which means your competition for search ranking has increased 400 million percent in the last 10 years.
• If your search term delivers 5 to 10 million results, that’s considered a “competitive” term or keyword. “Disaster recovery”, for instance, delivers 19,700,000 results.

Some SEO basics:

1. Make sure your keywords are used in the content of your page. For B2B sites, the webinar speaker recommended that 100 to 500 pages of content are needed to match competitors’ search rankings.
2. Make sure your meta page descriptions are unique for each page
3. Insert your keyword(s) in the URL
4. Target inbound links to increase rankings

The new Google revisions and how they affect your content strategy:

• Go to www.google.com and search on something (try disaster recovery); on the search results page, right under the Google logo, click on Show options.
• Notice the time parameters? Those are new-which lets you sort results by when they published. And that means that fresh, keyword-rich content will become increasingly valuable for your SEO ranking.
• Also, search queries have evolved over time, such that people have increased the number of words they enter into search engines. That means the “long tail” of search becomes more relevant and that a larger number of keywords might optimize your search rankings. Those who are searching on the long tail terms are much more qualified leads than those searching on one- or two-word common terms. The depth of their search means they’re more educated and/or interested in the topic, and more likely to want to find your site and/or buy what you’re selling.
• Now, back to Google. See the Wonder wheel at the bottom of the options navigation? Click on that. It delivers a graphical taxonomy of search terms around your original term. Cool, huh? This might be helpful for your keyword strategy-e.g., use keywords that surround your original term.

The webinar was only an hour, so it just touched the surface of Google’s new functionality. But I learned enough to know that as search technologies evolve, not only should your SEO strategy evolve but also your content strategy. Make sense?