eMarketing Case Study: Content Can Achieving Multiple Marketing Goals if You Do It Right

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

set up some Google Alerts to help me research an article I’ve been asked to write for a CPA Journal. An alert on “forensic accounting” took me to a page that had a link to an intriguingly titled study:

“The Long Tail of Investment Research:
How Economic Forces Are Reshaping the Research Industry”

I was really impressed with the study on several levels and decided to blog about it because it’s an excellent example of how good content can perform multiple jobs.

Goal #1: Good Content Builds the Perception of Expertise
This white paper has really good content! It’s new, it’s different and the information has many applications. It’s not too technical and it educates the reader while give them the subtle message “We know what we’re talking about!”

I’m an idiot when it comes to investment research but I know how to research all kinds of other stuff and I learned something from their analysis of what constitutes good research. The criteria they use to describe what constitutes good investment research applies to good web copy, newsletter articles, blog posts or articles for social media.

The following is a graphic from the white paper that drives the point home:

One of the things they do particularly well in this white paper is use graphics to drive home a point. First, they describe the concept. Then, they give you an image that makes it memorable.

Goal #2: Ranking Well for Good Key Phrases
I thought I was going to be telling you about the great long tail key phrase coup this white paper made for Integrity Research but I can’t! I figured that pairing key phrases like “The Long Tail” and “investment research” were a match made in heaven. I planned to tell you a story of long tail key word success that would drive people interested in investment research to their site. I was wrong.

To back up my claims of long tail key phrase dominance, I searched Google on the following key phrase combinations (plus others I didn’t include here because they seemed repetitive):
- “the long tail”* + investment research
- long tail + investment research
- “the long tail” + white paper
- long tail research white paper
- “the long tail” + “research white paper”
- the long tail of investment research
* (Quotation marks tell the search engine “I’m looking for these words in this order.” Otherwise they will show pages that have the words any where on the page.)

However, the only key phrase I got a hit on was the exact title of the white paper. That’s not good. How often is a potential client going to nail the exact wording of your blog post or article?

This white paper didn’t rank on the first page of Google for any of them! I’m so bummed. I really wanted this to be a success story. Maybe their lack of results in more informative.

I figured that by pairing popular a popular key phrase like “the long tail” with their service key phrase “investment research” they would cover both ends of the key phrase spectrum. That is: general key phrases that are used but hard to rank for AND specific key phrases which are easier to rank for but used less often.

So why doesn’t this white paper rank for the key phrases it could? I’m not sure but here’s what I think:
1. The website isn’t updated all that frequently and Google hasn’t indexed it yet.
2. It’s a PDF instead of a blog post and Google indexes blog posts almost immediately.

Anybody else got any ideas? I’d love to hear them.

Tags: emarketing, investment research, key phrase selection, the long tail
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