Creating new content, developing a new idea or pouring resources into a new product is always fraught with risk, for businesses both large and small. Even when you’re reasonably sure you’re on the right track (in our case, focusing on agile content creation backed by deep learning), you must wait patiently for that “Aha! moment. ” It’s the point in which you see that your target audience buys into your vision.
Or your changing vision. At Searchmetrics, our bread and butter product has kept abreast of changes in the search engine optimization industry. That often translates into understanding and anticipating technology shifts that Google, Apple, Microsoft and others are embracing and adding to their competing arsenals for search engine domination.
For more than two years now, Marcus Tober, our founder and CTO, has been convinced that SEO would evolve beyond the world of keyword optimization into one where the winners are those who create content that most effectively addresses user intent. To that end, much of the team has been quietly toiling away on a product aimed at helping the online marketer rise to the challenge of data-driven content development.
SEARCHMETRICS CONTENT EXPERIENCE
At industry conferences in the U.S. and Europe over the past two weeks, we introduced the Searchmetrics Content Experience, a pathfinder that lets users create content that best matches what people are searching for online.
Agile content creation backed by deep learning soon could be a new paradigm for search.
There’s a lot of secret sauce in the Content Experience, but at its heart is a deep learning engine, plus the latest in data science and natural language processing. We think it will be an essential tool for helping marketers create a more predictable path to revenue gains and customer wins after publishing by ranking and holistically scoring content before it is published.
At Dmexco 2016 in Cologne, Germany, which hosted 50,700 attendees, many crowded into Searchmetrics’ 65-square-meter booth to check out our SEO suite and new Searchmetrics Content Experience (as well as to sip on “mocktails” such as “Holistic Content Cooler” and “Long Tail Lemonade”).The Searchmetrics Content Experience fit neatly into show themes, which included Connected Worlds, Visual Communication and Creative Storytelling.
A week earlier, Sept. 6-9 at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, our booth also was packed with marketers requesting demonstrations of a beta version of the Content Experience.
The early positive reception we received at both events (and through private customer pilots) reassures us we’re on the right track in using deep learning to aid agile content development.
AGILE CONTENT CREATION BACKED BY DEEP LEARNING
Backing up a little here, this is how we think of deep learning and agile content development. When applied to the development of Web content, deep learning instantly sources the opportunities, themes and research necessary to determine and match that of the user’s intent.
Searchmetrics’ Content Experience Suite deep learning technology is unique in its ability to instantly and continuously crawl vast libraries of text, image and video content based on a single topic. It does so in line with the discovery, optimization and authoring processes of agile content creation.
Agile content creation in conjunction with a deep learning engine is able to pinpoint the exact information needed out of more than 250 billion data points to create content that addresses customer needs.
WHAT MARKETERS SAY
In the world of content marketing, agile content creation through deep learning could be the key to solving pressing needs. Some 88 percent of B2B and 83 percent of B2C companies say they use content marketing to achieve their goals, yet only 30 percent and 38 percent respectively think their organization has an effective content strategy, according to the Content Marketing Institute.
Despite such dismal self-reported rates, half of each segment planned to throw more money at the problem this year despite uncertainty about its effectiveness.
Says Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute: “To reach your audience, you need to truly understand them, with technology playing an increasingly crucial role. The best technologies are combining deep learning and data science so we can communicate more effectively with our audience. We need to do this to create better customers.”
BECOME MORE ENGAGING TO WIN
At DMEXCO, content marketing ranked second among topics relevant to key digital businesses and marketing publications, with 24 percent saying it was high on their priority list. Virtual reality topped the list, at 26 percent.
Creating content that best fits what a user is searching for is becoming ever more important as Google continues to iterate on the SERP. In a preview of our annual Ranking Factors & Extended Search study, we note the number of organic search results has fallen to 8.5 from 10 of years past as Google uses on-screen real estate to provide more rich-answer boxes to queries.
That means you have less opportunity to engage with customers in the crucial first two pages of results unless you have a clearly defined strategy – and one that can stand up to Google’s rigorous “engagement” guidelines.
You’re likely to hear a lot more about deep learning in coming months and years – and most definitely will hear more about how the Searchmetrics Content Experience fits into the puzzle. For now, we want to thank all the partners who’ve given us great feedback on early versions of the product, and look forward to hearing from others as we roll it out more broadly over the coming months.