Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.
In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:
- Content. Why the future of content is quality over quantity
- Design. 3 quick tips on finding balance between your design and your content
- Technology. How to properly track referrals in Google Analytics
- Strategy. Do you know what your content competitors are producing?
- Bonus. What it means to “double-down on understanding” (and why you need to)
But first …
Last week on Sites
I talked about the power of repurposing — and it fits with our theme of quality over quantity.
This episode includes an example that illustrates my point from one of my own projects.
Listen: [20] Quality Over Quantity: Repurpose Your Best Ideas and Distribute Them Far and Wide
A couple new StudioPress themes are on the way …
We don’t have release dates yet, but Rafal has tweeted out little sneak peek tastes of a couple upcoming StudioPress themes.
Here they are, with the accompanying descriptions Rafal provided in his tweets.
Sneak peek #1: “Hey #genesiswp, here’s a new theme that @cjkoepke and I are working on -– I’m very excited about this one!”
Sneak peek #2: “Another look at the new #genesiswp theme design we’re working on for @studiopress.”
Are you excited? I am. 🙂
And now, on to this week’s links …
Content: Why the future of content is quality over quantity
I talked about this very subject in last week’s episode of Sites.
The gist is that with so much content out there, and so many different elements competing for our time and attention, the days of just publishing any ol’ content on a regular schedule and expecting major results is over.
Most websites see the vast majority of their content success from a small percentage of pieces. And this is leading to a shift in how companies view both their content strategy and their content marketing strategy.
Give this article a read. It will help you prepare for the emerging present and then inevitable future of content.
What Does the Future of Content Marketing Look Like? (Spoiler: Still Less Content) (ThinkGrowth)
Design: 3 quick tips on finding balance between your design and your content
It can be easy to get caught up in thinking about content and design separately, and prioritizing one to the detriment of the other. You should avoid this trap at all costs.
This post from Design Beep (a short, easy read) provides three helpful tips for finding the balance you need between your design and your content:
Form and Function: Finding a Balance of Content and Design With Your Website (Design Beep)
Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?
Now they can.
Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.
Technology: How to properly track referrals in Google Analytics
Loryn Thompson, our Data Analyst here at Rainmaker Digital, wants to make sure you’re implementing UTM parameters properly so that you can accurately track referrals in Google Analytics.
“Attribution is important because content marketers use many different channels to send traffic to our websites. Without attribution, we wouldn’t know which channels actually worked.”
To make sure you know which channels are actually working, learn the basics (or refresh your memory) with this post:
The Content Marketer’s Guide to UTM Parameters for Tracking Referrals (Copyblogger)
Strategy: Do you know what your content competitors are producing?
If you don’t know what other content your target audience is seeing, how can you expect to avoid delivering the same ol’ stuff … and probably being ignored or drowned out?
This is why it’s so important to be aware of what your content competitors are producing. But gathering this information can feel like a monumental, maybe even an impossible, task.
This post from Content Marketing Institute should help point you in the right direction for doing a competitor analysis the right way:
How to Do a Competitive Content Marketing Analysis (Content Marketing Institute)
Bonus article: What it means to “double-down on understanding” (and why you need to)
This short post will take you less than a minute to read, but the impact of its big idea will stay with you for a while.
From the great Bernadette Jiwa, on what we need to do before we offer proof of our product or service:
Knowing What You Don’t Know (The Story of Telling)
So …
Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?
I’ll be back with a new edition next week.
Keep building.