For every new dollar of digital advertising budget spent in Q1 of 2016, Google and Facebook earned 85 cents, according to Brian Nowak, a Morgan Stanley analyst cited in the New York Times. This stat should serve as a wake-up call for the hundreds of high-quality content publishers competing with these giants.

It's no secret that video is the darling of the advertising industry. It is a highly engaging format that attracts both advertisers and publishers alike. This affinity has publishers quickly looking for ways to capitalize on a piece of the video pie.

Few companies have felt the effects of a changing publishing climate more than Leaf Group, formerly Demand Media. Once a prime example of how search-engine-optimized articles produced in large numbers could rake in traffic and ad dollars, the company was hit hard when Google changed its algorithm in 2011, punishing "content farm" sites that churned out a high number of low-quality, spam-like content. Now, Leaf Group is going back to the basics, prioritizing the production of higher-quality articles in less volume and creating dedicated verticals for its most popular categories of content.