Case Study: WinePassionate.com and Web Content

WinePassionate.com is a in-the-works web site that focuses on - or will focus on - selling wine online. I stumbled upon the project on a freelance writing web site, and as a part of the application process, I evaluated the site for web content possibilities. Might as well share the work I did...

Right off the bat, we could do a lot with SEO in regard to urls, page titles and h1 tags.

1. URLs: Making some changes when naming URLs would absolutely affect the site's search rankings. For example, by changing "the whites" URL from http://www.winepassionate.com/c/2/the-whites to http://www.winepassionate.com/c/2/white-wine allows the keyword "white wine" to be included in one of the most important parts of the web site - it's address! Who is going to search for "the whites?" Maybe if it were a band...
2. Content Placement: I am interested to know where the site designer would like place page content, since many of the pages are category product pages contain very large product widgets. On these pages, I'd recommend adding a keyword rich H1 tag before the widget with two sentences (at a minimum) of keyword-dense text. Adding too much content at the top of what is essentially a category page would push the products "below the fold, so to speak," but would still be able to have actual content on the page. On individual product pages, I would take more space to expand on the content to provide more valuable information to readers and search engines, alike.
3. Dedicate a Place: I'd also recommend having a blog for content purposes, since the web site is product/picture/widget driven (which is certainly NOT a bad thing) and using an RSS feed to distribute important content to more trafficked pages on the site. Having a dedicated place for content - like a blog - would take the edge of trying to force it onto product pages.

What do you all thing? Do you have any other web content ideas for this site?

Email Marketing | Use Your Good Content to Stay in the Inbox

Click to enlarge view.

One of the owners of a company I consult for forwarded me this email (right) with the words, "Fantastic email" in the subject line.

I'm thinking, Well, it's kind of great. It's clean. There's some bullets and a call to action. My problem with this email is that it has missed at least one if not two additional opportunities to stay in the inbox of each person on its email list.

For example, when I look at the content of this email, I see the opportunity for three different emails.

1. An email featuring the “all star” speakers followed by a call to action to take advantage of the discounted product.
2. An email featuring the investment topics covered with a call to action to take advantage of the discounted product.
3. And a reminder email sometime before the product discount offer expires.

All of these emails should link to a landing page that includes comprehensive content, of course.

If you can justify emailing your list three times because you have new, valuable information - even if, and especially if, you are using the same call to action - why wouldn’t you?

Don't worry about the whiners. It is harder for a person on your email list to complain about sending three emails instead of one because you are giving them new, important information each time you "blast" them. The upside for you is you get to stay in their inbox on a regular basis without being spammy. (Having said that, yes, eventually you have to stop emailing them, so make a plan and be smart with your content.)

They need to know. If you're offering a generous product discount for a limited time about a topic many people are concerned about in this economy, no less, you should be making noise in people's inbox.

Don't waste your good content on a one-shot email. Break it down, schedule your email blasts and stay in the inbox.

HubSpot says CREATE CONTENT!

To anyone who has heard me talk about my job, it's no secret I am a big fan of Hubspot and Hubspot's message - INBOUND MARKETING. See what HubSpot TV has to say about creating content. Fast forward to 3:30 mins to get the bulk of the discussion on content. (Perk: Get HubSpot's scoop on the next hot marketing book).

For the Content Late-comers

For those of you who are not building content and don't know why you should bother, and unfortunately there are quite a few of you still out there, according to Wikipedia, "content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases...Delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action." What company bottom line doesn't want that?

Most marketers will tell you that creating valuable content for your clients and web visitors is not a new marketing tactic. Seth Godin, who regularly champion-blogs about the unexpected, often Purple Cow value certain companies create, and David Meerman Scott, who interviews any and every successful by-chance marketer in the world, have been talking about it in their blogs and books for ages. Check them out immediately if you are a late-comer to the concept of creating content. Hey, then get on point. Create something valuable!

For the Content Bandwagon Riders

For everyone else, for my fellow veteran, content-creators, this post just a redundant hooray, a broken-record-pat-on-the-back and an admitted effort to support the awesome marketing gurus at HubSpot.

By the way, HubSpot, good for you!

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An inbound marketing pioneer, today Hubspot is the number two fastest growing software company according to Inc Magazine. The founders of HubSpot^® met at MIT in 2004. Both were interested in the transformative impacts of the internet on small businesses and were early students of Web 2.0 concepts. And they wrote a book!
Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs

Valuable Content: The Everyman/woman/baby Creating It on YouTube

At the 2009 Inbound Marketing Summit today, focus was on creating valuable content to serve a company's community while magnetically drawing prospects to it and/or its product. There are many different ways to provide content - variety is important - but we did specifically discuss YouTube.

I don't get a lot of time to "play" on YouTube often - work, work, work - but a co-worker did sent me a Beyonce link the other day (the dancing baby below), which prompted me to search more "Ring on It" videos.

Conclusion of my YouTube-dancing-music-maven research? Beyonce has got a lot of people creating "valuable" and certainly viral content for her latest hit.

As a side note, I have mixed feelings about her "work:" Beyonce's latest hit is catchy and girl-power defiant and the singer herself is a pretty respectable role model considering her female peers in the music industry these days, but the music video and live performance dance moves are overtly sexual with miles of legs and lots of hip thrusting and bottom smacking.

And while, this baby shaking its butt to this popular jam is certainly cute, babies do become three year-olds and three year-olds become tweens and teenagers and collegiate blonds. What does this say or not say about women? Would you want your three year-old smacking her ass on YouTube?

Enter ethics. Maybe dancing-diaper-baby is not the "valuable content" Beyonce needs, however cute it might be.

Next questions: what is valuable content and where do we draw the line with viral content?