This document discusses how brands have become overly focused on content marketing at the expense of customer experience. While high-quality editorial content can help drive awareness and influence purchases, ranking that content for transactional queries may not provide the best experience for customers looking to make a purchase. The document advocates optimizing content to balance informational needs with conversion opportunities through techniques like testing calls-to-action, recommendations, and personalizing content based on user intent.

1. When our affair with content means we cheat
on customer experience

2. A little about me.
Kirsty Hulse
@kirsty_hulse
Head of SEO Best Practice
@linkdex
Founder
@manym1nd5

3. We’ve fallen in love with content marketing
@kirsty_hulse

4. Over 85% of
brands are
doing it
Content Marketing Institute

5. We spend a
quarter of our
budgets on it

6. 70% of brands created more content this year
than they did last year

7. Retailers are becoming publishers and
publishers are becoming retailers

9. 27% brand growth 2012 vs 2014
Jan 2012 Jan 2014Jan 2013 Jan 2015

10. This is great, but we’re missing something

11. When you have high authority editorial
content...

12. ...that content will rank for transactional
queries

13. ...which actually
isn’t always the
best customer
experience

14. ChinosDinner Jackets Tom Ford

16. BackpacksUnderwear

17. Long form editorial
content is perfect for
capturing
informational queries,
driving brand
awareness and
influencing purchase
decision

18. GIMME
ALL
THE
SHIT I
WANNA
BUY
STUFF

20. “You are looking to buy a new dinner suit. Which page do
you think best suits your needs?”
84% 16%

21. CX Content
ALL THE MONEY

22. Optimising editorial content for
conversion
Optimising editorial content for conversion

23. Audit your
old blog
content.
Which posts are
driving traffic?
Where are the
opportunities?
Where are you
missing out?

24. Content performance increases long
after launch date

25. Don’t hide your CTAs

28. Test, test, test

30. Image
quantity and
quality and

32. Don’t hide
product
recommen
dations

33. Signpost product pages

34. Un-optimise
editorial
content for
transactional
product
keywords

35. This doesn’t feel very sophisticated

36. Content personalisation
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2334157/how-personalizing-websites-with-dynamic-content-increases-
engagement
Content personalisation allows you to alter the content you
surface depending on different factors such as search
keywords, source etc meaning we can better align our
content with user intent
Lovely resource here

37. Group keywords according to ranking page,
and edit content according to source

38. 1. Expensive
2. Dynamic URLs?! No way!

39. $49/pmFree! £95/pm

40. Include hard-coded text links behind dynamic content
Submit an accurate sitemaps
Keep both static and dynamic URLs short
Make AJAX crawlable
Create static URLs that link to the same content as each dynamic URL.
https://econsultancy.com/blog/66827-penalisation-for-personalisation-google-dynamic-content-seo/
Lovely resource here
Personalisation SEO Considerations

41. Thank you!