Library

How to fill your content calendar with the targeted blog post ideas based on keyword research, audience relevance, and sales funnel considerations.

📓 Article

Tips for getting started with research for topic clusters in your content marketing campaigns.

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A page needs to be aligned with search intent in order to generate search traffic. This post will explain this problem and provide tips for fixing it.

📓 Article

Why did we create an app for organic content performance management? Ottimo engineer Dylan Stark tells the tale.

📓 Article

Customizable template that content managers can use to make sure that every piece of written content is optimized for organic search before it’s published.

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Before you get lost in brand comparisons, figure out what exactly you need out of a tool for content marketing analytics. This post will help you do just that.

📓 Article

For marketers who are new to content performance, we’ll introduce a few simple but essential metrics.

📓 Article

Bounce rate is technically still available in GA4, but it’s not as valuable as it once was. Instead, we recommend focusing on engagement rate.

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Five core principles that inform Ercule's approach to content strategy, production, and performance.

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A step-by-step guide to creating a keyword strategy for your brand’s organic search content. No experience necessary. Customizable template included.

🌈 Keyword Strategy

Overwhelmed by the GA interface and all of the engagement metrics in there? Focus on these two metrics.

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An introduction to tracking traffic in Google Analytics. We’ll look at 2 basic traffic metrics, and what they mean for marketers.

📓 Article

How to use a product positioning statement for streamlined production and new content. And how to write a positioning statement if you don't have one already.

🍿 Newsletter

A product positioning statement is the core of your brand message. Here’s how to leverage it for content ideas – or write one if you don’t have it already.

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What marketers need to know about Google's Helpful Content Update. Tips for creating content that stays competitive.

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What's a content hub? How do they benefit your users (and your conversion rate)? How do you get started?

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Google's latest algorithm update is taking aim at generic, derivative content. Here's how to stay ahead of the curve... or start catching up to it.

🍿 Newsletter

A look at content hubs, what they can do, and how to start building them on a budget.

🍿 Newsletter

Some pages play a strategic role that typical performance metrics can't capture. Here's how to identify those pages so you can cut the true stinkers.

🍿 Newsletter

Performance data alone cannot tell you which pages deserve to be deleted from your site. Incorporate these strategic factors for a clearer view of what to cut.

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Your best performing pages can be used to create new material that converts as well. Here's how to start adapting them.

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The difference between pages with high conversion rate and high conversion volume – and how to turn each of those groups into more conversions.

🍿 Newsletter

How to group individual page performance by topic to better understand your audience and your brand's existing content strategy.

🍿 Newsletter

How to track content performance on the level of topic groups, in order to answer macro-level questions. No new data required.

📓 Article

A quick introduction to the Impressions metric in Google Search Console: using it to understand your organic traffic, identify major factors, and take action.

🍿 Newsletter

How to understand the causes of organic traffic decline by using the Impressions metric in Google Search Console – and actions you can take in response.

📓 Article

How to figure out what's driving organic traffic down on a page. And how to build a plan for fixing it.

🍿 Newsletter

This simple data will point you to the causes of a page's organic traffic decline – and the revisions that will get the page's traffic back on track.

📓 Article

When it comes to managing and updating content for your blog, many key decisions can be made by completing this simple statement: "Here's how we can help..."

🍿 Newsletter

Product-led content can actually be a *service* to your reader. Helpfulness sells. Let’s look at refreshing your library through the lens of helpfulness.

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How to get started with product-led content by focusing on your existing library. Integrating your product in a way that's useful for readers (and easy to do).

🍿 Newsletter

Ready to embrace a product-led approach? No need to create entirely new content. Start with your existing library. It's quicker and more effective.

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The results of Ercule's first-ever marketing industry survey, focused on Jobs To Be Done.

📓 Article

Sites that you rely on for backlink equity might not be helping it at all. Let's look at 'nofollow' links, relationship ('rel') tags, and how to deal with them.

🍿 Newsletter

Sites that you rely on for backlink equity might actually be blocking you altogether. Let's look at 'nofollow' links and how to deal with them.

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The value of internal links, assessing your link data in Google Search Console, how to fix up site's links, and start building a smart internal strategy.

🍿 Newsletter

Internal links offer a kindness for your readers and a better conversion rate for your site. They help with organic performance, too. Here's how to get started.

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Documentation is a basic task – and that's a strength! How to make your content strategy better (and easier) by writing out a single source of truth.

🍿 Newsletter

It's tempting to skip the basic steps of content strategy – especially when you're experienced. But the benefits of writing out those early steps can be huge.

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Sometimes an image on your blog can ruin the user experience and search performance. We use a content optimization checklist for those finer points of UX.

🍿 Newsletter

A look at how image files influence user experience (UX) and search performance. Tips for how to use images. Plus a checklist for optimizing blog page UX.

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A strategy guide for writers and marketers interested in using (basic) analytics to boost performance of their site’s existing content. No experience required.

🍿 Newsletter

Our guide includes a crash-course in analytics, a tutorial for exporting Google Analytics data, a tool to crunch it all, and tips for getting started.

📓 Article

Optimizing a blog post begins with making sure structure and language (especially keywords) are consistent. Our action item checklist will get your started.

🍿 Newsletter

The first step to optimizing a blog page is aligning its language and structure. Download this action item checklist and start aligning all of your content.

📗 Field Note

A look at the basic performance metrics you need to gauge a page’s success. Also, itemized checklists for page updates based on performance.

🪴 Content Optimization

How a content optimization strategy helps you analyze, prioritize, and begin updating your entire content library.

🍿 Newsletter

How to start analyzing and updating your content library. We made a tool for it. No data expertise required. We'll walk you through Google Analytics, too.

📗 Field Note

How successful posts can inform your content strategy moving forward, and how to make sure those pages stay successful.

🍿 Newsletter

So your page is high-traffic and high-conversion. Congrats! Here's how to build on that momentum and keep the page competitive for the long term.

📗 Field Note

How to identify hopeless blog posts and what to do with them so they don't drag down the rest of your site and lead gen.

🍿 Newsletter

So your blog post is low-traffic, high-bounce, low-conversion... a total dud. More than falling flat, it might be harming your overall site. Here's what to do with that hopeless content.

📗 Field Note

Your blog's conversion rate is amazing but too few leads are actually seeing it. Let's look at why traffic volume is low, and how you can increase it.

🍿 Newsletter

What to do when a post's conversion rate is high but overall traffic is way too low. How to fix the optimization and distribution problems that affect traffic.

📗 Field Note

Your blog post went viral, but it's not converting leads. Let's look at why that might be, and how you can improve it. (And also imagine robots making pizzas.)

🍿 Newsletter

A high-traffic page is great, but if it also has a high bounce rate then it's not actually converting leads. Let’s look at common causes and solutions.

📗 Field Note

Bounce Rate is how many visits start on a page, then end without another pageview. Exit Rate is how many views of a page are the last one in a visit.

📗 Field Note

Google Analytics uses 'Direct Traffic' as a catch-all for unidentified traffic. A lot of it comes from key channels like email, ads, and social. You can track that data better and decrease Direct Traffic bloat at the same time.

📓 Article

If you feel like you don’t have an answer to the revenue question, be assured that that’s pretty normal. And you can get way ahead of the game by starting to tackle it. Here are some places to start.

🍿 Newsletter

If you feel like you don’t have an answer to the revenue question, be assured that that’s pretty normal. And you can get way ahead of the game by starting to tackle it. Here are some places to start.

🍿 Newsletter

If you feel like you don’t have an answer to the revenue question, be assured that that’s pretty normal. And you can get way ahead of the game by starting to tackle it. Here are some places to start.

📓 Article

The paid team has data that helps organic strategy, and the organic team has content skills that improve paid conversion. Here’s how to bridge the gap between teams.

🍿 Newsletter

Paid search generates data that organic teams can use. Organic teams have writing skills that can improve paid search budgets. Stop competing with each other! Start building an alliance. Here's how.

📓 Article

Looking at the Retained Entrances metric to see how many visitors a page is *actually* engaging. (Hint: it's not always the page with the best traffic numbers.)

🍿 Newsletter

For content performance analysis, entrance metrics alone aren’t very useful without factoring in the bounce rate. To understand engagement in real terms, we track Retained Entrances.

📓 Article

Generally, you shouldn't have UTM parameters on internal links, but there is one specific case where it can be useful.

📓 Article

Google's latest computational update brings exciting potential for organic B2B marketing.

🍿 Newsletter

Google's latest computational update is MUM (Multitask Unified Model). MUM will be better than its predecessors at understanding topics, beyond keywords. And for organic search marketing, this could be a huge opportunity.

📗 Field Note

Keyword cannibalization, and why it's maybe a positive.

🍿 Newsletter

When numerous pages on your site will rank for the same keyword or topic, SEO people call it “keyword cannibalization.” It's actually a good problem to have, and sometimes an opportunity to leverage.

📗 Field Note

A keyword strategy is a prioritized list of which specific keywords you’re aiming to rank for in search.

📓 Article

Backlinks vs. inferred links, Google changing your page titles on SERP, Gravy and cold email schooling.

🍿 Newsletter

Your pages might start looking different on search result pages. If Google thinks your title tags aren't clear, concise, and accurate, they're going to change its appearance.

📗 Field Note

Are you still pursuing a backlink acquisition strategy? Google is not a fan. But more importantly, it might not be the best use of your time. That's where inferred linking comes in.

📗 Field Note

Content velocity and your pipeline, customers blocking your Google Analytics trackers, cooking spray in outer space.

🍿 Newsletter

More and more users are blocking Google Analytics trackers. This doesn't mean you should give up on tracking data. Just a reminder to base your strategy on your goals - not Google's.

📗 Field Note

Defining 'content velocity' and identifying the steps in your production pipeline that might be slowing down your team.

📗 Field Note

Branded search traffic can feel like a content marketer's enemy, but don't discount it altogether. Branded search data can open up conversations that lead to new content opportunities.

📗 Field Note

Tips for small startups who feel ready to try a paid search campaign, courtesy of Vincent Barr and Operator.

📗 Field Note

Paid search for small teams, ways to leverage branded traffic data, "About This Result" updates, Rick Astley's archaeological importance.

🍿 Newsletter

Why paid search depends on quality content, a cookie-consent game, looking into Google Search Insights, and better web accessibility practice.

🍿 Newsletter

Boosting site speed by cleaning JavaScript, the marketing power of shared value, nurture tracks as a distribution channel.

🍿 Newsletter

A lot of companies send nurture tracks to new users or new leads (or both). Content marketers can serve this potentially huge audience – and boost their content performance along the way.

📓 Article

When you quote someone for a piece, they’ll probably share that piece with the world. It's community-building that benefits everyone's business. So, how can you make your own marketing projects more valuable by including others?

📗 Field Note

Some JavaScript can be useful. But too much JavaScript will slow down your site, frustrate your visitors, and hurt your rankings and conversions.

📓 Article

Simple search metrics that your team will like, opt-in banner puzzle games, and everything you need to know about Google Tag Manager.

🍿 Newsletter

Google Tag Manager is a way of putting JavaScript tags on your site – and managing them – more easily. Activating (or re-activating) it for your site can lead to some quick wins for your site performance and lead tracking.

📗 Field Note

Share of search is a relatively new metric. It helps you make the case for visibility in organic search – and therefore, in investment in content – in a way that should get your colleagues excited.

📗 Field Note

Giant image files, more on Core Web Vitals and Google Search Console, URL lengthening, and other nice things.

🍿 Newsletter

Third-party cookies are going away. Should you care? We use the word "Romanesque", a critical metric most keyword strategies overlook, and captioning and content calendaring.

🍿 Newsletter

Determining the relevance of a topic to your brand is a core marketing skill, and it's overshadowed these days by big data metrics like search volume and competition.

📗 Field Note

How you should relate to AI copywriting tools, and our new guide to content outlining. Plus getting out of Zoom meetings. And pugs! (That last one’s at the end, you gotta earn it.)

🍿 Newsletter

GPT-3 is generating a lot of buzz among marketing folks. Does this mean that copywriters and content marketers should be gearing up for a war against the machines?

📗 Field Note

Core Web Vitals, things to worry about with Hubspot, rappers, and malware. (Well, we're not sending malware, we just mention it.)

🍿 Newsletter

This guide will show you how to generate outlines for clear content that is built with purpose and primed to perform.

🏖 Content Outlining

A quick breakdown of where to start.

📗 Field Note

Lots of ways to serve language-specific sites, but just one that we recommend.

📗 Field Note

A big culprit we're seeing for slow site speed these days is oversized images.

📗 Field Note

A short list of places to look for building your seed keyword list.

📓 Article

Aside from its importance as a marketing channel in general, organic search creates trust, doesn't depend on spend, and is a helpful lever for thinking about your strategy and site in general.

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You don't have to spend a lot of time to build a really high-quality keyword strategy.

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A lot of content marketers freak out about duplicate content, but they don't need to. Here's why.

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Choosing a CMS is one of the most important decisions you’ll make with your marketing tech stack.

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Content marketing is hard. Here's how to build a minimum viable content marketing engine.

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Your team's most important skill isn't writing, or promoting, or crunching engagement numbers. It's learning.

📗 Field Note

Content marketers assigned to complex SaaS products? Don't stress. Team members and colleagues can help you write well about the tech.

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Marketers can learn a lot from developers, as one developer advocate explains – especially those developers who resist very the idea of ‘marketing’.

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How to put together a page comparing your product to your competitors.

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Why Markdown is a helpful tool for content marketers.

📗 Field Note

Product marketing is about finding the best way to talk and think about your product. Here’s how that applies to content performance and SEO.

📓 Article

Google Discover isn't worth prioritizing for most B2B marketers right now.

📗 Field Note

Why you probably shouldn't host your B2B blog on Medium, and what to do instead.

📓 Article

A simple marketing attribution model that is realistic to implement but supports sophisticated analytics.

📓 Article

Speed really matters for content performance – and we're talking more than just a site's basic load time.

📓 Article

You can create content on a daily basis without compromising quality or draining your labor budget. A content pipeline can be low-touch, high-yield.

📓 Article

Why does Google do what it does? Self-interest. Make peace with this fact and you can start building a more robust web presence on (and beyond) Google.

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Use unmoderated user testing to learn how visitors read your site.

📓 Article

Our content stack audit covers all the things that matter for content performance on your site.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Make sure your site avoids fundamental issues that can hamper performance.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Usability is surprisingly important for overall site performance.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Images are a critical way to communicate, but can also cause problems for content performance.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Help your visitors easily find what they're looking for.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Build calls to action that are easy to find and use.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Keep your forms as easy to use as possible.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Prevent common problems that make your site harder to find on search and in social media.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Make your site easy to use for search engines.

✅ Content Stack Audit

Make sure you're tracking performance correctly.

✅ Content Stack Audit

How to interview customers and get their words into your content strategy.

📓 Article

Is trust more important than attention?

📓 Article

What startups should focus on for A/B testing – even if they don't generate much traffic data. Traditional A/B principles can be applied to smaller scale tests.

📓 Article

How to focus on SEO fundamentals.

📓 Article

Why better (and better-performing) marketing is ongoing, iterative, and value-focused.

📓 Article

Why email marketers should make it easy for receipients to unsubscribe.

📓 Article

What does a post-Google-Analytics future look like? Do you even need it today?

📓 Article

At a minimum, users, sessions, and pageviews, and of course entrances, bounce rates, and retained sessions.

📓 Article

The most important things to do on your 404 page.

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Let your visitors opt out of Google Analytics tracking.

📓 Article

The measures that matter for content marketers.

📓 Article

Customer language is what your customers say – and how they search for you.

📓 Article

There's a more flexible way to think about your blog.

📓 Article

Writing for humans these days means you also need to write with robots (data and algorithms) in mind.

📓 Article

Yes, sometimes they can! Here's why.

📓 Article

A better way to think about the term "SEO".

📓 Article

Live chat doesn't help directly, but indirectly it can make a big difference.

📓 Article

The content stack involves production, distribution, conversion, strategy, and analytics; here's how these layers work together.

📓 Article

Structuring your navigation bar is mostly about usability.

📓 Article

Your users can't take in everything you want to say right away. How can you pick strategically?

📓 Article

Why it's important to expire (or better yet, update!) your out-of-date content

📓 Article

An important story.

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