This presentation shows key ways to create content easily and systematically, even if you don't consider yourself a writer, using eight content creation & marketing strategies. These were proven using a city-based blog, which is now a full fledged publication. In this session, you'll learn how one hyper local event website grew from one contributor to 25 and from zero traffic to 23,000 visitors a month, and is now syndicated by sites like Pegasus News. This is not a Social Media 101 class. Here are some other specifics you'll learn: - The Four Pillars of Online Marketing - Five Goals to Have with Every Post - Eight Tools for Benchmarking, Monitoring & Measuring Success - Six Ways to Blog with More Authority & Credibility We'll dig deeper in the second half of this session and get into the specifics of how to find others who will create content and market it for you, small tweaks you can make for SEO, and get into some case studies that show the results of these strategies. More specifically you'll learn: - Six Maximum SEO Power Positions for Your Keyword Targets - How to Actively Recruit & Pitch Guest Bloggers - Five things to consider when creating backlinks - Three case studies of traffic attraction using these eight strategies

1. Eight Proven Local Content Creation &
Marketing Strategies with Case Studies
Recommendations to Plan for From the Co-Founder & Publisher
Success of ILiveInDallas.com
Neil Lemons
Twitter: @Neil_Lemons,
@ILiveInDallas
Email: neil@iliveindallas.com

2. Who is this guy?
Co-Founder & Publisher at ILiveInDallas.com
Hyper-local Arts & Entertainment publication
More than 25 writers & averages 45-50k visitors a
month (600,000 a year)
2011 CBS Local’s Most Valuable Blogger
2012 D Magazine’s “Best Dallas (Non-Traditional
Media) Blog Nominee (Winner announced in August)
SEO/SEM Manager at PFSweb
PFS is a supply chain management company
offering: fulfillment, customer service, warehousing &
End2End Ecommerce .
300 million dollar public company that makes money
on moving products (transactions).
SEO, SEM, affiliate strategies & implementation for
luxury apparel and consumer packaged goods.
Director at Search and Social Results ™
Consult with SMBs on Internet Marketing
SEO, SEM, SMM, Blogging & Content Strategies

3. Notable Past Internet Marketing Clients

4. Table of Contents
• Early Blogging Beginnings 2001 – 2005
• ILiveInDallas.com + Other Sites Launch in
2008
• Eight Traffic Focused Content Strategies w/
case studies & examples

5. Blogging Beginnings
Personal Blog Sites from 2001 – 2005
handisnack.livejournal.com
tangy-seamonkey.livejournal.com
Community Blogs Managed from 2001 – 2005
community.livejournal.com/northtx_lj_meet
community.livejournal.com/maple_n_company
Lessons Learned: Own your own
domain, have a purpose and end goal or
you’ll give up.
Wrote first blog post on 10/29/2001.

6. The ILiveInDallas.com Story
• Started in 2008 by Jennifer Conley over a beer at Frankie’s after I asked
where I should take a date in Dallas ( we worked together at local agency
LevelTen)
• I helped her install WordPress & hosted the site for free.
• Two years and 250 posts later, in Jan. 2010, she wanted a co-founder
•I wrote two articles which increased traffic over 100% year-over-year.
•Recruited more than a dozen guest bloggers.
•Record month of 48,000 visitors over 30 days with over 410 articles.
General Local Content Strategy for ILiveInDallas.com
• Articles centered around events which have not happened yet (no reviews
of past events without leading to the next event).
• Strictly Dallas, no Fort Worth, Denton, Arlington or Addison.
• Leaning toward non-mainstream subjects & events.
• Festivals, Art, Dining, Local Music, Theater, Fundraisers (Advocacy), Tech
•Target: People who want to live local, visitors, slightly bohemian less
commercialized crowd with an appreciation for art and food.

7. 1) Write About What’s In Demand
•Find what’ s “hot” all the time – Evergreen
Topics. Example: eHow.com, not TMZ.
•Be very specific
•Use keyword research tools
•SEOBook .com’s Tool: Wordtracker
•Google AdWords keyword tool (take with a
grain of salt)
•Popular, but not too popular (KEI, low
competition high volume)
•Four – Seven word long target phrase
•Blog about timely events only AFTER you
have a large following

8. Informational Content Opportunity Analysis
*An exercise like this has been performed several times on minor and
major scales featuring top 100 – 300 phrases with the base word “Dallas.”

9. What’s in Demand : A Case Study
Goal: Rank for Fun Things to Do in Dallas,
Free Things to Do in Dallas
Key points:
This article took two and a half months
to research and write.
This was an Evergreen article which
included only things that met three
criteria 1) strictly in Dallas, 2) Year-
round 3) Under 15 dollars to do
Statistics:
38% of all PageViews over the last 2.5 years
(300,000 out of 800,000 pageviews)
1040 Facebook Likes & Shares to date
54 Retweets to date
Tip:
When making a list article, leave the number out of
any list post URL in case it goes viral.
Lessons Learned: Take the time for
quality, have a methodology or criteria for
your content.

10. 2) Benchmark & Measure Progress
“If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.”
“What gets measured improves.”
Six Goals to Have with Every Post
7.Search Engine Ranking for a Particular Phrase
8.Organic Traffic to that Particular Post
9.Social Media Share (Retweets & Facebook Likes)
10.Number of Comments
11.Backlinks to that Specific Post
12.Pins on Pinterest (sent 6% of all traffic last 2/mo)
Tools for Benchmarking, Monitoring &
Measuring
16.Check Ranking Tools (ShearSeo.com, SEOMoz ,
SEOBook, Raven)
17.Install & Monitor Google Analytics
18.Check Backlinks (Search Status, Google Webmaster
Peter Drucker, World Authority & Best Selling
Author on Management Tools, Open Site Explorer )

11. 3) Make Your Content Authoritative
What’s made blogs like Mashable, TechCrunch, Coppyblogger
Authoritative? Right or wrong, the information presented seems to
be authoritative, even if they are not always correct.
Eight Ways to Blog with More Authority & Credibility
6.Quote Credible Sources
7.Base Your Confidence in the Information Source
8.Give Your Audience Solutions
9.Write at Least 500 – 1000 (even 2,000) Words
10.Link to other reputable sources
11.Ease o f Understanding (More simple, more authority)
12.Sexy Design
13.Add a Short Author Bio at the end of Every Post

12. Authoritative Content : A Case Study
Goal: Rank for North Texas Irish Festival
Key points:
People search for reviews of events from the
year before to decide whether to go or not the
current year. Wrote a better article with more
information that others in top ten.
Statistics:
23 comments
Five images with SEO alt text & file names
Six sub-heads reflecting phrase
Five resource links to other sites
One quote from a reputable source (wikipedia)
Lessons Learned: Start the year before if
you want to rank for events the next year,
eventually become the authority on all
things of that event. Change the year for
same festival the next year. Eventually
your site becomes the authority.

13. 4) Place Your Keywords Correctly
In real estate they say the key is location, location, location. Although, this
helps a great deal, curb appeal is also a factor.
Six Maximum SEO Power Positions for Your Keyword Targets
5.Title or headline of your post, the closer to the
beginning the better.
6.In the URL or page name:
www.YourSite.com/keyword-phrase
7.A couple of times in the first paragraph.
8.Every link you create off-site going back to the post
(anchor text) - highly important & mostly overlooked.
Changed some with Penguin update.
9. Internal links back to your original post.
10.In the individual post tags.

14. 5) Have a Controlled Backlink List
Build your own syndication network of sites going back to
the main hub.
What to Consider
5.What are the linking assets you currently control?
6.Is this backlink static /permanent or does it roll off (blog
roll vs Twitter link)
7.Is this backlink follow or “nofollow” (some say doesn’t
matter anymore, but consider it)
8.Can you use keyword-rich anchor text in this link?
9.Is there relevant content /is the site themed for the
backlink?
Supporting Back linking Strategy
•Created unique teaser content on other sites funneling
back to the hub
•Change the title slightly
•Using keyword-rich anchor text in the link
•Do this on a variety of static websites you have control over.

15. Syndicate & Be Syndicated: Content Partners
for ILiveInDallas.com
Dallas
Foodie

16. 6) Actively Recruit & Pitch Guest Bloggers
Goal: Recruit different “beat” editors for
consistent content in different categories.
Have a constant supply of content to publish
and optimize using people power.
Key points:
I always thought about what the guest blogger’s
values & wants when making an approach.
The most motivated guest bloggers had their
own blog to promote.
Statistics:
ILIVE has 25 active contributors who have posted
at least once in the last year
50/50 on recruiting verses volunteering
One contributor has posted 12 times, another has
written six times.
Question:
What do you think are some of the best ways to
attract awesome guest bloggers?

17. 7) Crowd Sourcing: A Case Study
The article had the opinions of 40 Dallas locals, but only 15 I
could use.
Goal: Rank for Best Mexican Food in Dallas
Key points:
I built up a huge Facebook and Twitter
following of my intended audience.
I asked an innocuous question and keep
probing for responses when unclear.
Example: What one thing about so-and-
so Mexican restaurant makes it the best?
I tagged everyone who participated on
Facebook & Twitter after thanking them
after I published the post. They were
happy to leave it on their wall because
they participated.
Statistics:
40 comments on FB (including mine)
15 unique restaurants I could use
343 words of free usable content
1,500 visits in 24 hours
Lessons Learned: Users don’t mind
promotion as long as they were participants
in the article. Get as many different
opinions as possible for more opportunity.

18. 8) Expert Sourcing: A Case Study
The article had five sub-articles written by the expert
Dallas foodies.
Goal: Rank for Best Dallas Restaurants
Key points:
Each foodie had their own blog, or
a reason to want to participate.
It was a fun, subjective, topic in which
there could be several valid opinions.
There was a team attitude about the
whole thing,
Statistics:
6 authors (including me)
5,186 words
2,472 visits in 36 hours
100 Facebook Likes & Shares in 2.25 hours
495 Facebook Likes & Shares to date
112 Retweets to date
Lessons Learned: Make friends with
content producers (don’t see them as
competitors) & appeal to their self –
interest .

19. Eight Proven Local Content Creation &
Marketing Strategies
1. Benchmark & Measure Your Progress
2. Write About What’s in Demand
3. Make Your Content Authoritative
4. Place Your Keywords Correctly
5. Have a Controlled Link List, Syndicate & be
Syndicated
After your website is more established
6. Actively Recruit & Pitch Guest Bloggers
7. Crowd Source Content
8. Expert Source Content

20. **Bonus: Four Final Local Content Strategy Tips
▫ Foursquare Lists – Create them based on articles w/
branding, backlink for every list (ILiveInDallas.com’s Top
Romantic Restaurants in Dallas)
▫ Start your email list day one – Create a piece of list bait.
▫ Respond to every @ response tweet - Also, CC: companies
& people mentioned in your articles.
▫ Email every business after you’ve written about them -
Ask them to add your article to their press page. You can get 10
– 20 backlinks if you mention lots of businesses.
Presentations: SlideShare.net/DallasInternetMarketing
Twitter: @Neil_Lemons, @ILiveInDallas
Personal Brand: www.NeilLemons.com
Email: Neil@ILiveInDallas.com