How to Write an Exceptional Creative Brief

You’re brilliant and creative with the best writers on your team. Do you really need to develop a creative brief?

The short answer is “yes.” A creative brief is more than an outline for you and your client. It shapes and directs your creative work while enticing your clients and managing their expectations.

A creative brief is the foundation of a client-agency project. Unfortunately, most of us underestimate the importance of creative brief. How can you guarantee your next creative brief will keep your team on task and appeal to your client?

Do Your Homework

A creative brief that isn’t backed by thorough research benefits no one. A well-researched brief leads to better directed responses, not to mention an impressed client. Before writing anything:

• Interview the client. How do they pitch their product and define its unique selling proposition? Know their take before developing yours.
• Test it. If it’s a product, ask for a sample. If it’s a service, get access and start using it.
• Document everything. Write down impressions: the good, the bad, and the surprises.
• Research competitors. What’s already available, and how is it sold? You don’t want to copy someone else’s strategy or create something weaker.

With your research completed, you’re ready to develop the strategy. The sections in creative briefs vary, but there are certain standard elements.

A creative brief is the foundation of a client-agency project.
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What Is the Assignment?

Develop an overview of the creative task by describing the:

• Client
• Product/service you’ll be promoting
• Goal of this campaign
• Client’s requests, preferences, etc.

Who Is the Target Persona?

The client likely gave you a list of target demographics, but your job is to dig deeper. Ask:

• Who is the persona?
• What motivates them?
• Why are they the target audience?
• What are their primary interests?
• What do they need? What alternative products do they use?
• Where do they get information, product reviews, news, and entertainment?
• What else is relevant? Political views, sense of humor, favorite types of movies? These things may influence your final product.

What’s the Product’s Unique Solution?

What unique advantages does this product or service offer compared to the alternatives? If there’s nothing else like it, why should it be on the market? Take everything you learned about the target persona and ask yourself:

• What problem does this product solve?
• How does it solve it for them, as opposed to solving it for anyone else?
• What are they using now, and what are the problems with those solutions that your product overcomes?

Consider the Dollar Shave Club. This service solves an obvious problem: It gives men a clean shave. But who cares? So do a thousand other razors! The Dollar Shave Club addresses these problems:

• The expense of most razors.
• Rough shaves and more cuts due to irregular blade changes.
• The inconvenience of going to the store for new blades.

Dollar Shave Club provides the solution: quality, inexpensive razors delivered each month to your door.

How Will You Convey That Message?

Here’s where you separate yourself from other creative teams. You’ve established the problem and provided a solution. You know your target audience and the product’s appeal. Use this section to:

• Set the tone for the campaign.
• Provide a summary of your creative approach.
• Present the key messaging you will use to convey your solution.

What Communication Channels Will You Use?

Your client expects the standard channels: social media, web ads, company blog, short-form commercial, and maybe even a radio spot. Provide more than a list. Explain which channels are important and why. Consider the following:

• Which channels does your target persona use?
• Do they use these channels to find solutions to similar problems?
• What advantage does each channel offer?
• What type of websites, TV shows, radio programs, etc., are popular with your audience?
• Where does your audience live? What stores, coffee shops, etc., do they frequent?

The answers to these questions have a little to do with the product but everything to do with the target audience. Think beyond the traditional solutions. Consider Spotify’s “Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird” campaign. They posted strange, localized data points on outdoor displays to emphasize their ability to match music to any taste. Panasonic did the same with one unusual use of a billboard.

What Should the Customer Do?

You’ve piqued the audience’s interest. How should the client’s customer respond? Ideally, it would be to buy this product now, but that’s not always the best method to attract long-lasting customers. If you’re selling a Little Caesar’s $5 pizza, the call to action is simple: Go pick up a Hot-n-Ready now. What if you’re selling an investment service?

Most customers need education and incentive before committing. You need to define your buyer’s journey. For example, if you’re marketing an investment service:

• Place an eye-catching ad in a magazine your target persona reads.
• Have your ad direct prospects to your website to learn more.
• Collect their contact information, list a call-in number, and provide opportunities to speak with a company representative on your site.

What Are Your Deliverables?

Consider your contract’s scope. What can your team deliver? What won’t they create? Set client expectations and establish internal expectations and requirements for deliverables. Be specific. It’s tempting to oversell yourself, but that only leads to under-delivering.

Why You?

Your client has likely considered other agencies besides yours. Don’t forget to leave your mark. You’re not just selling your experience; you’re selling your unique approach to their product.

• What do you see in this product that no one else will see?
• What makes your team uniquely qualified to present this product to the world?
• Why are you the right voice to speak to their target persona?

A creative brief is a business document; you should treat it as such. Make it professional and concise. However, it’s also a promotional tool. Let it reflect some of your signature style. Don’t bore your clients to tears. Add some creative spice, and sell the heck out of what you do!

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from the strategy team at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

How to Blend Social Media Contests with Offline Events

My first business professor in college said, “Marketing is marketing is marketing”. That has always stuck with me because I knew what the underlying message was. No matter what the vehicle: print, television, social media, etc., how you connect and engage with prospects and customers is always the same.

Social media is the new flashy car on the road. It appears many marketers have forgotten the vehicle isn’t the message. It’s called SOCIAL media for a reason. It’s meant to be a forum for people to connect. Use it properly and you will create loyal customers, and more than likely, brand advocates.

The Dovetail

A great marketing campaign dovetails different avenues to create one cohesive program. This is especially important when running offline events as attendees now rely on social media to easily connect to other attendees, vendors, speakers or sponsors.

Dovetailing online and offline events aren’t just for B2B trade shows, conferences, conventions, and golf tournaments.

Social Media Metrics: How to Choose and Track What Matters

Interested in building a dashboard to track key social media metrics? Wondering which data and metrics to include? With a little strategic planning on the front end, you can select and track meaningful metrics that relate to your business goals. In this article, you’ll discover which metrics to track and how to organize them into

This post Social Media Metrics: How to Choose and Track What Matters first appeared on .
- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

It's Here: The Finalized MozCon 2017 Agenda

Posted by ronell-smith

That sound you hear is the coming together of MozCon 2017.

[You can hear that, right? It's not just me.]

With less than two months to go, most of the nuts and bolts of the event have been fastened together to create what looks to be one of the strongest MozCons in history. Yeah, that's saying a lot, but once you've perused the speakers' lineup, we're sure you'll agree.

MozCon has a rich tradition of bringing together the best and brightest minds in digital marketing, creating a place for individuals across the globe to learn from top-notch speakers, network, share ideas, and learn about the tools, services, and tactics they can put to use in their work and their business.

As a bonus, attendees also get to enjoy lots of snacks, coffee and lots and lots of bacon.

Also, this year we'll offer pre-MozCon SEO workshops on Sunday, July 16. Keep reading for more info.

You will, however, need a ticket to attend the event, so you might want to take care of that sooner rather later, since it always sells out:

Buy my MozCon 2017 ticket!

Now for the meaty details you've been waiting for.

The MozCon 2017 AgendaMonday

08:00–09:00am
Breakfast

09:00–09:20am
Welcome to MozCon 2017

Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz
@randfish

Rand Fishkin is the founder and former CEO of Moz, co-author of a pair of books on SEO, and co-founder of Inbound.org. Rand's an un-save-able addict of all things content, search, and social on the web.

09:20–10:05am
How to Get Big Links

Lisa Myers, Verve Search
@LisaDMyers

Everyone wants links and coverage from sites such as New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, but very few achieve it. This is how we cracked it. Over and over.

Lisa is the founder and CEO of award-winning SEO agency Verve Search and founder of Womeninsearch.net. Feminist, mother of two, and modern-day shield maiden.

10:05–10:35am
Data-Driven Design

Oli Gardner, Unbounce
@oligardner

Data-Driven Design (3D) is an actionable, evidence-based framework for creating websites & landing pages that will increase your leads, sales, and customers. In this session you’ll learn how to use the latest industry conversion data to inform copywriting and design decisions that impact conversions. Additionally, I’ll share a new methodology for prioritizing your marketing optimization that will show you which pages are awesome (leave them alone), which pages aren’t (massive ROI potential here), and help you develop a common language that your teams of marketers, designers, and copywriters can use to work better together to collectively increase your conversion rates.

Oli, founder of Unbounce, is on a mission to rid the world of marketing mediocrity by using data-informed copywriting, design, interaction, and psychology to create a more delightful experience for marketers and customers alike.

10:35–11:05am
AM Break

11:10–11:30am
How to Write Customer-Driven Copy That Converts

Joel Klettke, Business Casual Copywriting & Case Study Buddy
@JoelKlettke

If you want to write copy that converts, you need to get into your customers' heads. But how do you do that? How do you know which pain points you need to address, features customers care about, or benefits your audience needs to hear? Marketers are sick and tired of hearing "it depends." I'll give the audience a practical framework for writing customer-driven copy that any business can apply.

Joel is a freelance conversion copywriter and strategist for Business Casual Copywriting. He also owns and runs Case Study Buddy, a done-for-you case studies service.

11:30–11:50am
What We Learned From Reddit & How It Can Help Your Brand Take Content Marketing to the Next Level

Daniel Russell, Go Fish Digital
@dnlRussell ‏

It almost seems too good to be true — online forums where people automatically segment themselves into different markets and demographics and then vote on what content they like best. These forums, including Reddit, are treasure troves of content ideas. I'll share actionable insights from three case studies that demonstrate how your marketing can benefit from content on Reddit.

Daniel is a director at Go Fish Digital whose work has hit the front page of Reddit, earned the #1 spot on YouTube, and been featured in Entrepreneur, Inc., The Washington Post, WSJ, and Fast Company.

11:50am–12:10pm
How to Build an SEO-Intent-Based Framework for Any Business

Kathryn Cunningham, Adept Marketing
@kac4509

Everyone knows intent behind the search matters. In e-commerce, intent is somewhat easy to see. B2B, or better yet healthcare, isn't quite as easy. Matching persona intent to keywords requires a bit more thought. I will cover how to find intent modifiers during keyword research, how to organize those modifiers into the search funnel, and how to quickly find unique universal results at different levels of the search funnel to utilize.

Kathryn is an SEO consultant for Adept Marketing, although to many of her office mates she is known as the Excel nerd.

12:10–01:40pm
Lunch

01:45–02:30pm
Size Doesn't Matter: Great Content by Teams of One

Ian Lurie, Portent, Inc.
@portentint

Feel the energy surge through your veins as you gain content creation powers THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED... Or, just learn a process for creating great content when it's just you and your little teeny team. Because size doesn't matter.

Ian Lurie is founder, CEO, and nerdiest marketing nerd at Portent, a digital marketing agency he started in the Cretaceous era, aka 1995. Ian's meandering career includes marketing copywriting, expert dungeon master, bike messenger-ing, and office temp worker.

02:30–03:00pm
The Tie That Binds: Why Email is Key to Maximizing Marketing ROI

Justine Jordan, Litmus
@meladorri

If nailing the omnichannel experience (whatever that means!) is key to getting more traffic and converting more leads, what happens if we have our channel priorities out of order? Justine will show you how email — far from being an old-school afterthought — is core to hitting marketing goals, building lifetime value, and making customers happy.

Justine is obsessed with helping marketers create, test, and send better email. Named 2015 Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year, she is strangely passionate about email marketing, hates being called a spammer, and still gets nervous when pressing send.

03:00–03:30pm
PM Break

03:35–04:05pm

How to Be a Happy Marketer: Survive the Content Crisis and Drive Results by Mastering Your Customer’s Transformational Journey

Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Transformational Consumer Insights
@taranicholle

Branded content is way up, but customer engagement with that content is plummeting. This whole scene makes it hard to get up in the morning, as a marketer. But there's a new path beyond the epidemic of disengagement and, at the end of it, your brand and your content become regular stops along your customer's everyday journey.

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is the CEO of Transformational Consumer Insights, the former VP of Marketing for MyFitnessPal, and author of the Transformational Consumer.

04:05–04:50pm
Thinking Smaller: Optimizing for the New Wave of Social Video Platforms

Phil Nottingham, Wistia
@philnottingham ‏

SnapChat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Periscope... the list goes on. All social networks are now video platforms, but it's hard to know where to invest. In this session, Phil will be giving you all the tips and tricks for what to make, how to get your content in front of the right audiences, and how get the most value from the investment you're making in social video.

Phil Nottingham is a strategist who believes in the power of creative video content to improve the way companies speak to their customers, and regularly speaks around the world about video strategy, SEO, and technical marketing.

07:00–10:00pm
Monday Night #MozCrawl

The Monday night pub crawl is back.

For the uninitiated, "pub crawl" is not meant to convey what you do after a night of drinking.

Rather, during the MozCon pub crawl, attendees visit some of the best bars in Seattle.

(Each stop is sponsored by a trusted partner; You'll need to bring your MozCon badge for free drinks and light appetizers. You'll also need your US ID or passport.)

More deets to follow.

Tuesday

08:00–09:00am
Breakfast

09:05–09:50am
I'd Rather Be Thanked Than Ranked

Wil Reynolds, Seer Interactive
@wilreynolds

Ego and assumptions led me to chose the wrong keywords for my own site — yeah, me, Wil Reynolds, Mr. RCS. How did I spend three years optimizing my site and building links to finally crack the top three for six critical keywords, only to find out that I wasted all that time? However, in spite of targeting the wrong words, Seer grew the business. In this presentation, I'll show you the mistakes I made and share with you to approaches that can help you to build content that gets you thanked.

A former teacher with a knack for advising, he’s been helping Fortune 500 companies develop SEO strategies since 1999. Today, Seer is home to over 100 employees across Philadelphia and San Diego.

09:50–10:35am
Winning Value Propositions for Crawlers and Consumers

Dawn Anderson, Move It Marketing/Manchester Metropolitan University
@dawnieando

In an evolving mobile-first web, we can utilize preempting solutions to create winning value propositions, which are designed to attract and satisfy search engine crawlers and keep consumers happy. I'll outline a strategy and share tactics that help ensure increased organic reach, in addition to highlighting smart ways to view data, intent, consumer choice theory, and crawl optimization.

Dawn Anderson is an International and Technical SEO Consultant, Director of Move It Marketing, and a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.

10:35–11:05am
AM Break

11:10–11:15am
MozCon Ignite Preview

11:15–11:35am
More Than SEO: 3 Ways To Prove UX Matters Too

Matthew Edgar, Elementive
@MatthewEdgarCO

Great SEO is increasingly dependent on having a website with a great user experience. To make your user experience great requires carefully tracking what people do so that you always know where to improve. But what do you track? In this 15-minute talk, I’ll cover three effective and advanced ways to use event tracking in Google Analytics to understand a website's user

Matthew is a web analytics and technical marketing consultant at Elementive.

11:35–11:55am
A Site Migration: Redirects, Resources, & Reflection

Jayna Grassel, Dick's Sporting Goods
@jaynagrassel

Site. Migration. No two words elicit more fear, joy, or excitement to a digital marketer. When the idea was shared three years ago, the company was excited. They dreamed of new features and efficiency. But as SEOs, we knew better. We knew there would be midnight strategy sessions with IT. More UAT environments than we could track. Deadlines, requirements, and compromises forged through hallway chats. ...The result was a stable transition with minimal dips in traffic. What we didn't know, however, was the amount of cross-functional coordination that was required to pull it off.

Jayna is the SEO manager at Dick's Sporting Goods and is the unofficial world's second-fastest crocheter.

11:55am–12:15pm
The 8 Paid Promotion Tactics That Will Get You To Quit Organic Traffic

Kane Jamison, Content Harmony
@kanejamison

Digital marketers are ignoring huge opportunities to promote their content through paid channels, and I want to give them the tools to get started. How many brands out there are spending $500+ on a blog post, then moving on to the next one before that post has been seen by 500 people, or even 50? For some reason, everyone thinks about Outbrain and native ads when we talk about paid content distribution, but the real opportunity is in highly targeted paid social.

Kane is the founder of Content Harmony, a content marketing agency based here in Seattle. The Content Harmony team specializes in full funnel content marketing and content promotion.

12:15–01:45pm
Lunch

01:50–02:20pm
Marketing in a Conversational World: How to Get Discovered, Delight Your Customers and Earn the Conversion

Purna Virji, Microsoft
@purnavirji

Capturing and keeping attention is one of the hardest parts of our job today. Fact: It's just going to get harder with the advent of new technology and conversational interfaces. In the brave new world we're stepping into, the key questions are: How do we get discovered? How can we delight our audiences? And how can we grow revenue for our clients? Come to this session to learn how to make your marketing and advertising efforts something people are going to want to consume.

Named by PPC Hero as the #1 most influential PPC expert in the world, Purna specializes in SEM, SEO, and future search trends. She is a popular global keynote speaker and columnist, an avid traveler, aspiring top chef, and amateur knitter.

02:20–02:50pm
Up and to the Right: Growing Traffic, Conversions, & Revenue

Matthew Barby, HubSpot
@matthewbarby

So many of the case studies that document how a company has grown from 0 to X forget to mention that solutions that they found are applicable to their specific scenario and won't work for everyone. This falls into the dangerous category of bad advice for generic problems. Instead of building up a list of other companies' tactics, marketers need to understand how to diagnose and solve problems across their entire funnel. Illustrated with real-world examples, I'll be talking you through the process that I take to come up with ideas that none of my competitors are thinking of.

Matt, who heads up user acquisition at HubSpot, is an award-winning blogger, startup advisor, and a lecturer.

02:50–03:20pm
How to Operationalize Growth for Maximum Revenue

Joanna Lord, ClassPass
@JoannaLord

Joanna will walk through tactical ways to organize your team, build system foundations, and create processes that fuel growth across the company. You'll hear how to coordinate with product, engineering, CX, and sales to ensure you're maximizing your opportunity to acquire, retain, and monetize your customers.

Joanna is the CMO of ClassPass, the world's leading fitness membership. Prior to that she was VP of Marketing at Porch and CMO of BigDoor. She is a global keynote and digital evangelist. Joanna is a recognized thought leader in digital marketing and a startup mentor.

03:20–03:50pm
PM Break

03:55–04:25pm
Analytics to Drive Optimization & Personalization

Krista Seiden, Google
@kristaseiden

Getting the most out of your optimization efforts means understanding the data you’re collecting, from analytics implementation, to report setup, to analysis techniques. In this session, Krista walks you through several tips for using analytics data to empower your optimization efforts, and then takes it further to show you how to up-level your efforts to take advantage of personalization from mass scale all the way down to individual user actions.

Krista Seiden is the Analytics Advocate for Google, advocating for all things data, web, mobile, optimization, and more. Keynote speaker, practitioner, writer on Analytics and Optimization, and passionate supporter of #WomenInAnalytics.

04:25–05:10pm
Facing the Future: 5 Simple Tactics for 5 Scary Changes

Dr. Pete Meyers, Moz
@dr_pete ‏

We've seen big changes to SEO recently, from an explosion in SERP features to RankBrain to voice search. These fundamental changes to organic search marketing can be daunting, and it's hard to know where to get started. Dr. Pete will walk you through five big changes and five tactics for coping with those changes today.

Dr. Peter J. Meyers (aka "Dr. Pete") is Marketing Scientist for Seattle-based Moz, where he works with the marketing and data science teams on product research and data-driven content.

07:00–10:00pm
MozCon Ignite

Join us for an evening of networking and passion-talks. Laugh, cheer, and be inspired as your peers share their 5-minute talks about their hobbies, passion projects, and life lessons.

Be sure to bring your MozCon badge.

Wednesday

09:00–10:00am
Breakfast

10:05–10:50am
The Truth About Mobile-First Indexing

Cindy Krum, MobileMoxie, LLC
@suzzicks

Mobile-first design has been a best practice for a while, and Google is finally about to support it with mobile-first indexing. But mobile-first design and mobile-first indexing are not the same thing. Mobile-first indexing is about cross-device accessibility of information, to help integrate digital assistants and web-enabled devices that don’t even have browsers to achieve Google’s larger goals. Learn how mobile-first indexing will give digital marketers their first real swing at influencing Google’s new AI (Artificial Intelligence) landscape. Marketers who embrace an accurate understanding of mobile-first indexing could see a huge first-mover advantage, similar to the early days of the web, and we all need to be prepared.

Cindy, the CEO and Founder of MobileMoxie, LLC, is the author of Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are. She brings fresh and creative ideas to her clients, and regularly speaks at US and international digital..

Exceptional Customer Care, and How It Changes Everything

Exceptional customer service is redefining what we, as customers, expect—and that affects all customers and all brands, including yours.

Takeaways

• The bar is higher than ever before regarding your brand’s customer experience.
• Tesla’s customer support goes above and beyond in routine service appointments.
• Exceptional customer service leaves a lasting impression and makes customers feel valued.

Anthony: Exceptional customer service is redefining what we as consumers expect, and that affects all industries and all brands, including yours.

Hello. I’m Anthony Helmstetter, strategist with Convince & Convert. Exceptional customer service is changing the way we as consumers look at everything. I had a recent experience I want to share with you in the next 90 seconds about having my car repaired in my own garage.

I drive a Tesla Model S, and they can only be serviced at an authorized Tesla service center. I’m fortunate I have one about 30 minutes away, so one weekday morning at 7:30, I fired off an email to the service center explaining this problem with a door handle that intermittently wouldn’t work from the outside. Kind of a hassle. I wanted to know if I needed to make an appointment and how soon I could get in. I took my son to school and ran a few errands, and back home about an hour later, I had an email reply already.

They apologized for my problems. They said they’d be happy to make an appointment, or if I prefer, they would send one of their mobile service technicians—a Tesla service ranger, they call them—to my house and do the repair here. I also had a voicemail—again, this is one hour later—from Jack, the service technician, the ranger, who said he would be available within an hour to come to my house to make the repairs. I called Jack back and set an appointment for 10 o’clock that same day.

Jack arrived on time, Tesla truck, necessary parts with him, and he proceeded to dismantle my car door in my garage. I mean everything. He took the glass out, inside panel off, wiring harnesses to get the handle out, replaced it with the right version, put it all back together. He cleaned the glass. Then he did the annual service maintenance check. He made sure the firmware was the current version, and he made sure the log files had no errors. They didn’t, and then he topped off the windshield washer fluid. My warranty expired at 80,000 miles, and on the day that Jack visited, I had 86,000 miles on the car. Total cost to me: zero.

That is exceptional customer service. Tesla didn’t have to do that. They chose to, and by doing so, they raised the bar of expectation against all their competitors. And we as consumers, when we’re treated like that, by all companies and all brands, there’s a lesson to be learned here, my friends. Look at your customer service, and strive for being exceptional because your customers, if they don’t already, soon will expect it. Until next time, take care.

Which HTML5 Elements Are Important for WordPress SEO?

HTML5, the most recent HTML version, has been around for a few years now (though it was the first major HTML update in 14 years). However, there are still some mysteries about how it differs from previous HTML versions as well as some misconceptions about how HTML5 elements impact SEO.

If you use a CMS tool like WordPress, it’s important to understand that their standard themes are not an out-of-the-box solution for SEO and HTML5. For best SEO results, you will either need to develop your own HTML5 theme or edit an HTML5 theme that someone else has created. In the content below, we will go over HTML5 elements and why using them in your WordPress theme is important for SEO.

Most standard WordPress themes are not an out-of-the-box solution for your SEO and HTML5.
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What Are HTML5 Elements?

HTML5 was developed in order to create a more consistent communication between browsers and web content as well as to make it easier for search engines to identify certain elements of your web page. Previous HTML5 versions used non-semantic elements for coding, such as <div id=”nav”> to indicate navigation:

• <h1>
• <h2>
• <title>
• <p>
• <ul>
• <ol>

These sorts of tags gave no real indication of what the content is, which could make things confusing both for developers and search engines. HTML5, on the other hand, uses semantic elements—easy to identify tags that clearly describe different parts of a webpage.

For example:

• <header> Used to identify the header of an article or page.
• <footer> Used to specify footer information for a document or page. This can be used to identify a blog author, copyright information, etc.
• <article> Used to identify independent content, such as a blog post or news article.
• <figure> Used to give written context to images on the page.
• <figcaption> Used to give a caption or explanation of an image.
• <nav> Used to indicate major links to search engines. This should not be used for every link on your site.
• <time> Used to specify the time that something was posted, such as a blog post.
• <main> Used to identify the main body of content on a page.
• <mark> Used to indicate a highlighted or specially marked passages.
• <section> Used to identify a new section of a document, typically used for section headings, such as “introduction” or “conclusion.”
• <summary> Used to provide a visible summary of the content for the user. It is used in conjunction with the <details>. When the summary is clicked, additional hidden information or content place inside the <details> element becomes visible.

With previous HTML versions, developers could use their own definitions for page sections, and the inconsistency could make it more difficult for search engines. However, HTML5 uses standard semantic elements, which makes it easier for search engines to identify different sections of your webpage. This is one reason why using HTML5 elements in your WordPress theme is very important for on-page SEO. Additionally, using HTML5 rich content means that there’s no need for external plugins like Flash to play audio or video.

More SEO Reasons to Use HTML5 for WordPress Themes 1. Your images and videos will be more searchable.

It’s cool enough that HTML5 makes the sections of your page more clearly organized, but did you know that it also has the power to make your images and videos more visible as well? Using <figure> and <figcaption> or <caption> and <subtitle> tags allows you to explain these elements to search engines. This helps search engines better identify and index your images and videos so that they appear in relevant searches.

2. Page rank priority.

In the past, there wasn’t really a way to let Google and other search engines know which navigation links should take priority in search engine results. With HTML5, you can use the <nav> tag to let web crawlers know that that internal link should have priority over others. This way, your main navigation pages will have better ranking.

3. You have more control.

Using HTML5 means that you can change any detail of your site just by adjusting part of the code. Even if you’re using someone else’s HTML5 template instead of creating your own, an HTML5 template is much easier to adjust than a regular WordPress theme. Plus, with an HTML5 template, you can pick and choose which features to include instead of having a bunch of extras that you don’t use. Eliminating unnecessary and extraneous pages can also have a positive impact on SEO.

4. It’s relatively simple to use and understand.

Even if you’re not a coding nerd, HTML5 is built to be more legible, both for you and for search engines.

Now that you have a better understanding of why HTML5 is important for SEO, you can select or start developing an HTML5 WordPress theme. While Google still hasn’t made any clear announcements that HTML5 is given any sort of priority when it comes to SEO, they also haven’t given any evidence to the contrary. And, given their history over the last 18 years, it stands to reason they they will continue to evolve with current trends.

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from the strategy team at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

How to Make Sure Your Content Gets Seen

This may be the best content marketing integration I’ve experienced.

And that’s an increasingly important topic, as content marketers fret about how to get eyeballs and ear holes to their creations. Should they use social? Search? Ads? Influencers? All have their merit.

But the very BEST way to make sure your content gets seen is to integrate it into your operations, and that is precisely the genius of Gulf Wild.

I was recently in Galveston, Texas for the first time and dined at the BLVD Seafood restaurant, right on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.

insert into grouper

I ordered grouper, as it’s one of my very favorite entrees. To my surprise, when Mr. Grouper arrived at my spot at the bar, he had a little notice sticking out of him, like the world’s smallest Realtor sign.

I pulled out the sign, and upon closer inspection realized it contained a unique tracking code and a URL to learn more about the life and times of this Grouper.

Intrigued, I grabbed my phone and headed to MyGulfWild.com, where I entered my code, and Presto! All sorts of fascinating details were served up.

(Yes, I do realize this sounds like the plot of a famous episode of Portlandia!)

For example, I learned precisely where the fish was caught, by what method, and using what bait.

I also learned the history of the Chelsea Ann, the fishing vessel that captured Mr. Grouper. The Chelsea Ann is 51 feet long, was built in 1978, houses four fishermen and the captain, and goes out on five to seven day trips to harvest 8,000 to 12,000 pounds of fish per journey.

tales of captain billy

Speaking of the Captain, his name is Billy Wright. He is a third generation fisherman, who was running his own charter boat by the age of 15. I presume he knows a LOT about fishing, and probably has some amazing stories. He should have a podcast!

I also learned why my grouper tasted a little different than grouper I’ve had before, mostly in Florida. Turns out, my dinner was a “scamp” also know as a brown grouper, a slightly different type. And, in the category of “the more you know,” young scamp undergo a gender transformation from female to male as they age, which is a fact that cries out for additional explanation.

the other grouper

And of course, I learned that Gulf Wild is a content marketing and differentiation initiative of a non-profit organization of accountable, progressive and conservation-minded fishermen called The Gulf of Mexico Reef Shareholders’ Alliance. Their goal is to promote seafood sustainability and fishery conservation throughout the Gulf of Mexico.

They do this through Gulf Wild branding on fish sold in stores all around the gulf, from Florida to Texas. And they do this through participating restaurants including the MyGulfWild information sign in their dishes, to encourage patrons to learn more about keeping the gulf fishery healthy and sustainable.

It worked on me.

This particular initiative is called Transparansea, and it’s a terrific example of integrated content marketing that resonates.

The BEST way to get your content seen? Put it right in front of your customers. And with so little time and attention being paid to content marketing for customer retention, this kind of program could have a big impact.