Effective Search Engine Optimization via SEO Content Marketing
“We’re in dire need of some search engine optimisation help, said the founder of a small, well established and successful business located in my local area of Bristol. “My staff are making genuine efforts at marketing the business online, but I’m damned, we don’t get shares, likes, tweets or comments. Our content just sits there, and it’s demoralising for my team, and depressing for me. Luckily we’re doing well offline, using newspapers ads, footfall and a fine reputation.
It’s pretty difficult to work in search engine optimisation in Bristol without hearing these kinds of grievances, again and again.
When things go wrong on a business website, it’s usual for people to point the finger at tech or a lack of an online presence with local SEO. It’s understandable. Organics search, whether it is a local SEO presence of national SEO assault, plays a hugely important role in today’s business strategy.
Although SEO is a huge problem for many a local business and the lion’s share of webpages are not properly optimised for SEO, we often find that content; quality, well-written, engaging content, is simply missing, and is causing a social, lead generation and overall business problems…Missing out on traffic through well executed SEO is, in part, a symptom of a poor content problem.
But it’s noteworthy that many an established and well-groomed local business in the UK is rather naive when it comes to understanding the value of SEO for their business. Consider the power at the disposal of a business that appears in the top spots for a closely related keyword phrase that’s directly linked to the products and services that business offers. Being sat number one in the organic results it’s a jackpot scenario, provided you have wonderful, compelling content for people to drool over once they arrive.
All the SEO-ing in the world won’t fix bad content for the long haul, which is something the business owners from Bristol and the other major cities in the UK, are learning the hard way.
When a client approaches us we shall carry out a site crawl and a content marketing audit, to uncover the issues that stand in the way of a number one ranking in the Google search engines. A rule of thumb is a lack of understanding in effective on-page SEO, closely followed by poorly targeted, poorly written content that holds little in the way of meaningful information.
If a business is yet to spend money on SEO we often see a sense of relief from its team members that problems are identified and there’s a pathway to changing the way client acquisition occurs. But if the business has already spent money on SEO, the decision maker may display frustration because of “all that wasted money. Then it’s time for them to make some hard choices on how to move the business forward online.
SEO or no SEO, specially constructed content that presses the buttons of the prospect is crucial to future online success of any business in the UK.
If you’re serious about inbound marketing, quality content is a must-have, not an “it would be nice. Committing to (and discarding any other possibility) quality content and information yields a plethora of benefits that’s quite hard to match.
But here are just four top reasons:
- Quality content attracts the attention of the right prospects
- Prospects will eat up your information which will move them closer to your offers
- Your brand becomes established as the go-to resource for info in your area
- Dramatically increases the likelihood that prospects and customers will advocate your business via social sharing, tweets, likes etc. This is a wonderfully powerful side-effect of spanking information. If you’re serious about creating content that converts prospects to customers and customers to brand advocates, there are three things you need to work on immediately.
1. Knowing thy business – SEO Advice.There’s no need to suck eggs, that’s not the intention at all. But the better you understand your business, and in particular, the role it plays in the lives of those you wish to serve, the better equipped you’ll be to market your products and services.
So your team should commit to meeting up weekly for a brain storm session. Get clear on the important issues of your brand. Who are we? What are our goals? In the mind of our prospects and customers, how are we representing ourselves? By meeting weekly you’ll compound your findings and integrate them into the fabric of your team. Then you can begin transmitting this understanding through your content.
What does your business brand offer that no one else is capable of replicating easily?
During a session, keep in mind the business’s marketing and overall goals.
2. Knowing your customers.
The heart of your business and its content must be the intrinsic understanding of what it is your customers want.
Social Currency Really, the easiest way to learn about your customers is to go and visit competitors web/media pages where customers are contributing and commenting. Facebook business pages are an ideal venue for this kind of research. Also, if a competitor is selling products on Amazon there may be comments and reviews from customers. This kind of information can be quite valuable and provides ways to look at your business and find unique solutions for the problems or issues people talk about. What can you provide that no one else can?
When searching out comments, pay attention to where those comments are coming from. This helps discern where the bulk of your prospects reside, and highlights where the more active engagers are in your market.
Also, look closely at the sharers of the information: Do they have a large social following? Do they share lots of content on the topic? Are their blogs popular? Are links (SEO Advice) shared as part of their content? Vigilance in this way yields invaluable insight into where to look for other such engagers, in addition to what types of information they are receptive to and share.
3) Thinking beyond production.
One of the more useful guides to creating fantastic content is to become the “best answer for the questions prospects and customers have around the products and services you offer. By answering these bothersome questions and curious comments on your blog and web pages, then sharing and engaging around the content via social media, you are giving your content the sunlight, water and soil it needs to grow and morph into something more.
The by-product
You enhance the potential for site or page visitors to take the actions you want them to take. This may be a like, tweet or share, or an email subscription, phone call or purchase.
So when creating quality content, have the purpose of the content in mind and have the goals of the information set about, before a word is written.
You increase the likelihood for your brand and its content to show up in the organic search, although there are other vital elements that need to be in place too.
You generate the indispensable social activity that leads to social signals, which can result in inbound links (that search engines consider when determining which sites show up on the first page of Google.)
Give it long legs.
Use the information gleaned during your brainstorming sessions to keep your business and marketing goals in line with the new content you produce and share with the audience. Then, search out the comments, suggestions, questions and gripes that prospects are talking about and begin creating information in bite sized blog posts, social media nuggets and 1 minute videos aimed at addressing these issues.
Start with one or two posts a week. Be less concerned with length; think in terms of being the best answer to questions. Use compelling graphics that appeal and resonate with your message and the products/services you provide. Great imagery and unusual “i need to look at that