Last week Google clamped down on companies that use questionable methods to manipulate search results. According to Search Engine Land, these methods include paid links (sites that pay for links from other sites), and content farms (sites that have “shallow or low quality content“) to use Google’s words.

For months now, SEOers and content marketers have been complaining about Google’s search results. Top results for searches often include crap content from sites like Ezine Articles (a site that got penalized by Google in its crackdown — and about time, too), scraper sites and spam blogs.

The problem with all this crap content is that it’s hard for legitimate sites that practice ethical SEO and provide high quality content to rank well for competitive search phrases. The crappy stuff clogs up the search results, making it difficult for people (searchers) to find relevant and insightful information.

So what exactly is “shallow and low quality content” as it applies to B2B? Basically, it’s content you create to help your site rank better versus helping prospects make purchasing decisions. Shallow and low quality content is based on:

Keywords — Content is created based on keyword searches; these keywords are then used in the Title / meta tags and through out the article or blog post.

Quantity — The more content that’s created around a specific grouping of keywords, the better.

Lack of depth — Shallow content is usually a blog post or article that doesn’t give much in the way of insightful analysis or is filled with information you probably already know. It’s usually written by non-experts who write dozens of articles at slave wages.

High quality, in-depth B2B content, on the other hand, takes time (and yes, money) to create. Generally it’s created by companies who genuinely want to help prospects and customers do their jobs better.

If you’re a company like Eloqua (@Eloqua), you’re creating “Grande Guides” that help prospects learn about content marketing, lead generation and the like.

If you’re Ardath Albee (@Ardath421), you’re creating original blog posts filled with insightful information on how to create content that moves prospects along a complex sales cycle (or, how to create better Tweets — love this post, Ardath!)

If you’re Dow Corning (@DowCorning), you’re creating videos that communicate your company’s values to potential employees as well as educate prospects and customers about new products and services.

If you’re Exact Target (@ExactTarget), it’s offering your followers and fans reports, posts and Webinars about social media — and how you can do it better. (Be sure to sign up for their Webinar, The Social Breakup.)

The point is, developing this high-value content takes time. You have to:

• Determine why you’re creating it in the first place (to help people decide to do business with you, to generate leads, to show your thought-leadership and expertise, to get people to work at your company).
• Map out a strategy for creating it and then publicizing it.
• Create the content (the hard part).
• Get it formatted, designed, etc.
• Publicize it.
• Publicize it some more.
• Rinse. Repeat.

This stuff is not easy — and yes, it is much easier to write 15 crap blog posts and pay someone $25 for doing so.

As Google continues its crackdown, creating consistently great, high value content will only become more important — and given that its vaunted search results have taken a real hit of late, we’ll continue to see more sites get downgraded due to poor content and questionable SEO tactics.

I like to tell my small B2B clients that while having top rankings is important, it’s not the end all be all. What really counts are results: are you getting the calls and emails (inquiries / leads) that become sales? To get these results, you need content — content that’s been written for people, not search engines.

What’s your opinion of Google’s crack down?

A prospect called me last week to inquire about my social media services after following me on Twitter for over a year now.

While talking, he asked me a question no one has asked me before: “Who do you have in mind when you tweet?” He also wanted to know my process on deciding what to tweet. These are great questions! To answer them, I had to stop and think for a bit. What does go through my head when I tweet something?

I’m *always* aware that Twitter is a public platform
Twitter can give you the illusion that only the people who regularly respond to you are reading your tweets. The fact is, anyone can read them, whether or not they’re following you, something I’m always reminded of when I’m on a client call and the client will comment on something I’ve tweeted about.

And, posts don’t just live on the Twitter platform. They get indexed by Google and appear in one’s Google Buzz feed and Google Profile (if you’ve activated Google Buzz) and can appear in people’s blog posts.

Hence, I subscribe to the “measure twice, cut once” theory — only I say it this way, “Is this tweet something I *really* want associated with my brand?” If my answer is not a resounding yes, I don’t post it, which is why you won’t find a lot of personal stuff in my feed or content related to politics, to name a couple of things.

I also don’t use location services. Letting people know where I am is just too creepy from a single mom perspective and all. Plus, I don’t think the people who follow me really care that I’ve just checked into the gym.

I look for content that my followers might find interesting
Twitter has become quite noisy and crowded — and unfortunately, it’s become rife with spam, including spam followers, spam DMs, spam Messages and spam links. Then, you have lots of stuff that gets RT’d by hundreds of people.

I know getting RTs is the holy grail, and RTing other people’s stuff is a good thing to do, but really, if half your network RTs the latest Mashable article, do you need to do so too?

So I stick with a few people / bloggers who continually post excellent content that my followers might find interesting — even if it’s not marketing related or a little off the beaten track. And, instead of reading just the first paragraph of a post and then RTing the title, I’ll read the entire article and then develop my own take on it for a tweet. (By the reading the full article, I’m more inclined to leave a comment, too.)

To cut down on my own contribution to spam, I don’t bulk broadcast my tweets, nor do I repeat them, nor do I post motivational quotes.

I work hard to have conversations
Because Twitter is like being at a cocktail party, I make it a point to respond personally to people’s tweets — and am always disappointed when people don’t respond back. The whole point of Twitter is to have *conversation,* not use it as a medium to bulk broadcast your boring sales messages.

Thanks to Twitter, I’ve developed relationships that have resulted in paying business — relationships that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago. I’ve also made a whole heck of a lot of friends, which is the best part of being on Twitter, IMHO.

What’s your strategy when considering content for Twitter? Are you a stream of consciousness type? Or are you more strategic? Do you like it when people post personal stuff (i.e that they’re at the gym, the doctor’s or a restaurant)? Post your comments below.

Back in October I wrote a post about how I was looking for ways to offload some of the mind-numbing tasks that eat up a lot of my time — and that prevent me from doing those things that I absolutely love.

The first thing I outsourced was my business bookkeeping. The bookkeeper, who is fabulous and worth her weight in gold, has spent the last two months cleaning out my books, which were filled with errors. She’s also been advising me on how to improve my cash flow and which expenses to cut. Most important, she’s helping me become better focused on bringing in income, which is my strength.

Things moved a little slowly at first and I wasn’t sure I had made the right decision. But last week I realized I had. She came to my office and **while I worked** she paid bills, filled out tax forms and did all that stuff I used to spend hours doing. All I had to do was sign the dotted line on various forms and things. I literally was like, “OMG.”

From there, I seriously began considering how I could better use my virtual assistant. She’s been with me for a couple of years now, but it’s been on again, off again as I really don’t use her to her full capacity. I started changing that by looking at the tasks I do that I *hate.* I’ve been sending more tasks her way — everything from cleaning out my email inbox and ordering letterhead to helping me with some of my project work.

This is still a work in progress as I fight the guilt of sending her tasks that I don’t like doing, but it’s becoming much easier. I love it when she sends me completed tasks — stuff that used to take me hours is all done and ready to go!

The next thing I want to outsource is a big one for me because I have huge resistance against it — hiring a company to come plow out my driveway after a snow storm. Anytime it snows more than four inches, it takes me two hours or more to dig out. And with this series of storms pounding New England, I’ve been digging out — a lot — and it’s seriously cutting into my work time.

I’ve resisted outsourcing this chore because I’m of sturdy stock; I can shovel my own damn snow, plus it’s good exercise, blah, blah, blah. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Do you outsource certain tasks in order to free yourself up to do what you love? If so, what have you outsourced and how has it worked for you?

In the B2B Content Marketing 2010: Manufacturing / Process Industry Report that I produced in partnership with the Content Marketing Institute, 84% of B2B manufacturing marketers surveyed indicated they use content marketing — in fact, manufacturing firms have some of the highest adoption rates for new marketing tactics, including articles (80%), social media (73%) and video (48%).

As someone who does a lot of work with B2B manufacturing companies, I found this statistic quite heartening, especially given the fact that manufacturing is up across the U.S. and it outproduces China by 40%.

In the blog post I wrote for CMI about this report, “How to Resolve a Key Disconnect for Manufacturing Marketers,” I talk at length about the “disconnect” between manufacturing marketers’ number one goal, building brand awareness, and how they measure this goal via Web traffic.

Another piece of data that I found interesting in this report is the chart showing how marketers rated the effectiveness of their content marketing. What’s really interesting is that “while companies may be invested in a number of content marketing tactics, they don’t feel confident in how they’re using these tactics.”

So, while 80% of manufacturing marketers indicated they use articles, only 43% believed this tactic to be effective. (I’m not sure why or how marketers are using articles, but as Jill Whalen points out in her High Rankings newsletter article, “Just Say No to SEO Articles!” it’s a crappy SEO tactic.)

Here’s what I found really interesting about what manufacturing marketers find effective: it’s the tried and true content marketing tactics: In-person events (71%), Webinars (64%), e-newsletters (63%) and white papers (62%).

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that manufacturing marketers figured out how to measure the effectiveness of these more “traditional” content tactics but haven’t yet figured out how to do so for things like articles, social media, and video (is a “view” really a measurable tactic — and what does a “view” get you?).

Which brings me back to the original point of my CMI blog post: manufacturing marketers need to 1) develop content that helps drive the conversions that move prospects along the sales cycle versus building brand awareness and 2) they need to learn how to measure this behavior versus “clicks” or “hits.” (I positively *hate* the term “hits” as it says absolutely nothing.)

A prospect may come to a B2B Website because of a piece of content found elsewhere. However, that initial visit may be the first in a series of visits that take place over days, weeks or even months. Measuring this behavior is what will end the disconnect and confidence gap regarding content marketing and its effectiveness.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Be sure to download the report — you’ll find lots of great data!