Day Two Highlights from SMX East 2013
Day two of SMX East 2013 brought some of the most impactful sessions of the conference, covering everything from Twitter's evolving role in marketing to the fundamental shifts happening in how search engines understand content. As search marketers gathered in New York City, the presentations and panels offered a wealth of knowledge that remains remarkably relevant today.
The Evolution of Search: From Keywords to Entities
Understanding Semantic Search
One of the most significant paradigm shifts discussed at SMX East 2013 was the move from keyword-based search to entity-based understanding. David Amerland's presentation on semantic search highlighted how Google and other search engines have evolved their understanding of web content. Rather than simply matching keywords, search engines now work to understand the entities--people, places, concepts, and things--and their relationships to one another.
This evolution means that content creators and marketers must think differently about how they structure and create content. Instead of focusing narrowly on keyword density and exact match phrases, the emphasis shifted toward establishing clear entity signals. Modern SEO services now prioritize entity optimization alongside traditional keyword strategies.
The Knowledge Graph Revolution
Search engines have invested heavily in building knowledge graphs that map relationships between entities. For content marketers, this presents both challenges and opportunities. The challenge lies in competing for visibility when search engines can answer queries directly within search results. The opportunity emerges for those who can establish their brands and topics as authoritative entities within these knowledge structures.
Building Entity Authority
Developing authority as an entity requires a strategic, multi-faceted approach. First, ensure consistent naming conventions across all web properties--your brand name, author names, and topic references should use identical formatting everywhere. Second, implement structured data markup using Schema.org vocabulary to provide explicit signals about your content's meaning and relationships. Third, create comprehensive content that thoroughly covers topics from multiple angles, demonstrating expertise that search engines can recognize.
Finally, build relationships with authoritative sources that mention and link to your brand using relevant anchor text. These inbound references from trusted sources signal to search engines that your entity deserves recognition. When combined with consistent terminology and comprehensive topic coverage, these tactics establish your brand as an authoritative source within your industry.
Twitter's Role in the Modern Marketing Landscape
Richard Alfonsi Keynote Insights
Day two's keynote featured Twitter's Richard Alfonsi discussing how the platform supports internet marketing campaigns and the evolving customer journey. The conversation highlighted several key points about leveraging Twitter effectively for marketing purposes.
Twitter has become an integral part of the customer journey, serving as a discovery platform, a customer service channel, and a relationship-building tool. The platform's real-time nature makes it particularly valuable for engagement and conversation, allowing brands to connect with their audiences in meaningful ways.
Content Marketing at the Intersection of Social and Search
The connection between social signals and search visibility became increasingly clear at SMX East 2013. While direct ranking factors remain debated, the relationship between social engagement and content distribution creates significant opportunities for search visibility. Content that performs well socially tends to earn more links, more mentions, and more engagement--all of which contribute to search authority.
This interconnection suggests that content strategies should account for both social and search optimization from the beginning. Rather than creating content and then retrofitting it for social sharing, consider how content will perform across channels during the initial planning phase. Content that is inherently shareable--providing value, sparking conversation, or offering unique insights--earns organic distribution that compounds over time.
The key insight is that social and search optimization are not separate disciplines but complementary aspects of effective content marketing. By understanding how your audience discovers, consumes, and shares content, you can create materials that perform well across both channels simultaneously.
Content Strategy Fundamentals from Industry Experts
Developing a Content Strategy
The SMX East panels featured extensive discussion on developing effective content strategies. The consensus among experts pointed to several foundational elements that every successful content marketing strategy should include.
Understanding business goals comes first. Content strategies must align with broader business objectives, whether those are lead generation, brand awareness, or direct sales. Without this alignment, content efforts can easily become disconnected from meaningful business outcomes.
Research into the competitive landscape helps identify opportunities and gaps. Analyzing what competitors are doing, where they are succeeding, and where they are falling short provides valuable intelligence for positioning your content strategy effectively.
Keyword research remains important, though its application has evolved. Rather than chasing individual keywords, successful strategies focus on topic clusters and content hubs that establish authority across related subjects.
Content Strategy for Challenging Industries
For businesses in technical or niche industries, content creation can present unique challenges. The SMX East discussions offered practical advice for these situations.
One effective approach involves shifting the target audience for content. Rather than attempting to create highly technical content for experts, consider creating content that addresses the concerns of decision-makers and influencers who may not be technical experts themselves.
The Customer Service Q&A Approach
A particularly valuable tactic discussed at SMX East involves leveraging customer service interactions as a content ideation engine. Customer questions and concerns represent real, practical content opportunities that directly address audience needs. By documenting frequently asked questions from support tickets, chat conversations, and sales inquiries, you build a repository of content topics that are guaranteed to resonate with your audience.
This approach works especially well for complex products or services where customers commonly have questions at various stages of their journey. Creating comprehensive answers to these questions--available as blog posts, guides, FAQ sections, or video content--serves both customer needs and SEO objectives. The content addresses real queries your audience is actively searching for, making it highly valuable for search visibility while simultaneously reducing support burden.
Best Practices for Content Creation and Distribution
Writing for Your Audience's Needs
A recurring theme throughout SMX East 2013 was the importance of writing for audience needs rather than company preferences. Content that focuses on solving problems, answering questions, and providing value consistently outperforms content that primarily promotes products or services.
When developing content topics, consider what questions your audience is asking, what problems they are trying to solve, and what information would genuinely help them. This audience-first approach leads to content that earns engagement, shares, and links.
Quality Over Quantity
The pressure to produce content frequently can lead to quantity over quality trade-offs. SMX East speakers emphasized that producing fewer, higher-quality pieces typically delivers better results than churning out large volumes of mediocre content.
High-quality content takes time and resources to create, but it pays dividends through better engagement, stronger SEO performance, and greater likelihood of earning links and mentions.
Content Inspiration and Research Tools
Finding inspiration for content creation requires ongoing research and attention to industry conversations. SMX East panelists shared their approaches:
Feedly and blog readers help aggregate industry content in one place, making it easier to spot trends, gaps, and opportunities. Create topic-specific feeds following relevant blogs, competitors, and thought leaders. Review your feeds daily to capture emerging trends before competitors cover them.
Twitter remains valuable for real-time industry conversations. Use lists to organize influential accounts, monitor relevant hashtags, and participate in industry discussions. The conversations happening on Twitter often reveal content gaps and questions that your content can address.
Google Alerts provides value for monitoring industry mentions and staying informed about relevant developments. Set up alerts for key topics, competitors, industry terms, and your own brand name to track conversations across the web.
Basic Google searches reveal content gaps and opportunities. Search for topics in your industry to see what already exists and identify angles that haven't been covered. Pay attention to the "People also ask" and "Related searches" sections for additional topic ideas.
Local Strategies for Content and Link Building
Leveraging Local Connections
Even for businesses that don't operate locally, local community involvement offers significant content and link building opportunities. Industry associations, local marketing groups, and community organizations provide platforms for establishing relationships and earning coverage.
Local events often offer more affordable participation options than national conferences. Sponsoring local events, speaking at gatherings, or simply attending and engaging with other professionals creates connection opportunities that can translate into content collaborations and link building.
Event-Based Content Opportunities
Events provide excellent content opportunities. Event recaps and summaries create valuable content for those who couldn't attend while also demonstrating engagement with the industry. These pieces often perform well socially and can earn links from event organizers.
The "what to do, what to see" style content that local businesses create around conferences represents a particularly effective example of this approach.
Community Site Strategies
Professional organizations and industry groups often maintain community websites that accept member contributions. These platforms typically offer profile pages with links, accept article submissions, and promote content through their social channels.
Building Community Relationships
Effective community relationship building requires a long-term, value-first approach. Begin by becoming an active participant in communities relevant to your industry--commenting on posts, answering questions, and contributing insights before asking for anything in return. Over time, this genuine engagement establishes you as a trusted community member.
When reaching out for content opportunities, reference your existing community participation to demonstrate authentic interest rather than purely promotional intent. Many community sites welcome member contributions, and having established credibility increases acceptance rates significantly.
Consider offering exclusive content or resources to community members as a way to provide additional value. This could include detailed guides, research findings, or tools that benefit the community while showcasing your expertise. The relationships built through consistent value creation often lead to ongoing collaboration opportunities and natural link acquisition.
Technical Content and Implementation
Structured Data and Entity Markup
Implementing structured data markup helps search engines understand content and recognize entities. Schema.org vocabulary provides a standardized format for marking up content in ways that enhance search engine understanding.
For content marketing purposes, relevant schema types include:
- Article markup for blog posts and news content
- Organization markup for brand information
- Person markup for author content and bylines
- Product and service markup for commercial content
Schema Implementation Example
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Your Article Title",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Author Name",
"url": "https://yourdomain.com/author/author-name"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Your Company Name",
"logo": {
"@type": "ImageObject",
"url": "https://yourdomain.com/logo.png"
}
},
"datePublished": "2025-01-06",
"dateModified": "2025-01-06",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://yourdomain.com/your-article-url"
}
}
</script>
Content Optimization for Entities
Optimizing content for entity recognition involves consistent naming and terminology throughout your content. Implementing relevant structured data markup provides explicit signals about content meaning. Building inbound links that mention entities using relevant anchor text supports entity recognition. Ensuring brand mentions across the web, particularly from authoritative sources, helps establish brand authority as an entity. Partnering with an experienced SEO agency can help ensure your technical implementation maximizes entity recognition potential.
Key Takeaways and Action Items
Priority Checklist for Immediate Implementation
High Priority - This Week:
- Audit current content for entity signals--ensure consistent naming and terminology
- Implement Article schema on all blog posts using JSON-LD format
- Document 10 customer questions from support interactions as content opportunities
Medium Priority - This Month:
- Research and identify 5-10 relevant community sites for outreach
- Set up Feedly feeds for 20+ industry competitors and thought leaders
- Create a topic cluster strategy identifying 3 core topic areas for content hubs
- Develop a Twitter monitoring system for real-time industry conversations
Ongoing - Build Into Workflow:
- Prioritize quality over quantity in content production
- Create event recap content for any industry events attended
- Build relationships with community sites through consistent contribution
- Monitor Google Alerts for brand mentions and industry developments
For Content Strategy Development
Organizations looking to improve their content strategies should begin with a thorough understanding of business goals and audience needs. Research competitive landscapes, identify content gaps, and develop a plan that focuses on quality over quantity. A comprehensive content marketing approach integrates strategy, creation, and distribution into a cohesive system.
For Technical Implementation
Structured data implementation should be considered for all content types. Entity signals should be strengthened through consistent terminology, comprehensive topic coverage, and authoritative inbound references. Technical SEO foundations support broader content marketing objectives.
For Community and Relationship Building
Local and community involvement creates opportunities beyond immediate content and link benefits. Build genuine relationships with industry communities, contribute value consistently, and approach outreach as relationship building rather than link acquisition.
Conclusion
SMX East 2013 Day Two highlighted the evolution occurring across search and content marketing. The shift toward entity-based understanding, the integration of social and search strategies, and the emphasis on audience-centric content creation all point toward a more sophisticated approach to digital marketing.
The principles discussed at SMX East 2013--writing for audience needs, focusing on quality over quantity, building genuine relationships, and understanding how search engines interpret content--remain relevant and actionable. These foundational concepts provide a framework for developing content strategies that deliver meaningful results across search and social channels.
By implementing the tactics outlined in this recap--entity optimization, social-search integration, community relationship building, and audience-first content creation--you can position your content marketing efforts for sustained success. The key is treating content marketing as an integrated discipline that spans technical optimization, strategic planning, and genuine value creation for your audience.