Gated and Ungated Content

The Let's Talk Tech Show

One of the challenges we face is attracting an audience and attracting visitors to our website. And a common strategy to build an audience is to offer an opt-in gift.

The next piece of tech to understand is how to transmit that gift while protecting it from the search engine spiders and from visitors who might stumble on it through the right combination of terms.

There are other times we use special handouts and they might actually be open to the search engines because we have a different strategy for their use.

In general this tends to be called gated and ungated content.

I know I struggled to get my head around this concept and how do you protect the stuff you want to be gated?

When I first launched this podcast in the beginning of January 2016 there were several topics that I got requests to cover and this is actually one of them.

So this episode is going to cover the topic in a fairly broad, big picture sense. You’re going to hear from Amelia Wilson who’s the Content Marketing Manager at web hosting giant Hostgator.

Hostgator is my web hosting provider and they were also among my first guests on the show. The past episode which I did with Kyler Patterson has been consistently among Let’s Talk Tech’s top 10. So I’ll include a link to that episode.

Listen in as Amelia explains:

• The difference between gated and ungated content and when and why to use each of them
• How to get content on to your website and transmit it to your audience
• Things to consider when creating your strategy to use gated or ungagted content
• A strategy Winnie used to maximize SEO value while attracting highly qualified potential clients
• How to decide if you should upload and gate content yourself or get someone to do it for you
• As always listen all the way to the end to get your reflection exercise and action step for this episode

Terms Used in This Episode That Might Be New to You

A-B Test - Used in marketing. When you test two different elements of one thing. So same website page, two different headlines. Or Same website page and two different prices. The first web visitor sees A and the second visitor sees B.

Autoresponder - A message that goes out automatically after someone signs up or makes a purchase or takes some other action where they give you their email address

Cache / cached - A collection of data in memory.

Code - the language that makes up a website

Content - information on a website that educates the web visitor and elevates the site owner or company

Conversion - When someone takes action, usually talked about in terms of numbers. So when you talk to 100 people the number of sales you make out of those 100 talked to is the number you converted from potential client to client.

Developer - A person who builds and sometimes maintains websites or applications or software

Drip Content - Information that's released over time to a website subscriber. This is done through an autoresponder system.

FTP / File Transfer Protocol - an application that helps transmit data between servers.

Gated Content - information that's protected by opt-in. Site visitors only get the content once they've opted in for it by sharing their email address or contact information

Header tag - Code that represents a container for introductory content or navigational links

Index - A database used by a search engine. People say "my site isn't indexed" meaning it's not appearing in a search engine.

Markup text or Markup language - This is code on a website that provides instructions. It's separate from the words that are on a website.

Media Library - The place where things like images, audio, and video get stored on a website, especially a Wordpress website

“No index” tag - instructions that tell a search engine not to review an individual page

Opt-in - an action or a giveaway that entices a website visitor to share their email address in exchange for the giveaway

PDF Download - A type of saved document that's used because of it's readability on different platforms. Opt-in giveaways are commonly PDFs.

Plugin - Code that adds functionality to a Wordpress website or other content management system

Robots.txt file - A collection of instructions to search engines / web robots.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization, used to refer to the process of making sure a website can be and is found by search engines, especially Google

Tag - Code that conveys instructions about the words within the tag. There are many different types of tags.

Ungated Content - Content that's open to the search engines and therefore can be found by web visitors

Value proposition - A statement that clearly identifies the benefits a customer gets when buying a product or service

VA / Virtual Assistant - an independent contractor who provides services usually for business people and who works at a remote location away from the person paying them

V-8 moment - one of those "aha" moments when you hit yourself on the head

Wordpress Exclusive hosting - a service provided by some web hosting companies that gives special focus and service for the users of the Wordpress content management system

Guest Links

Hostgator

Amelia Wilson on Linkedin

Other Episodes That Relate to This One

What is Hosting with Kyler Patterson of Hostgator

Resources

Amazon S3

Dropbox

Wordpress

Yoast SEO Plugin

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About Us

Winnie Anderson is an award-winning copywriter and brand strategist, a best-selling author, and respected instructor. She writes books, creates courses, and provides limited one-on-one consulting with and for introverted entrepreneurs who are ready to get their message out in a bigger way and who hate selling. Learn more about her here or connect with her on social media including Facebook and Twitter.

Judy Jordan is a virtual production assistant who helps entrepreneurs get their message out in a bigger way using live and recorded virtual events like webinars, teleseminars, live mobile streaming, podcasts, and virtual conferences. Learn more about her at her LinkedIn page or connect with her on Facebook.

Sue Brettell is brand developer and designer who acts as Winnie's creative director. Sue helps entrepreneurs communicate their brand essence by creating compelling visual brand elements and coordinating them into a strong, unified visual brand. Learn more about her at her LinkedIn page or connect with her on Facebook.