When it comes to unique webpage content and profitable keywords, marketers must walk a fine line. All too often, I witness webpages rife with keywords and devoid of truly relevant information about the business itself. It’s only a matter of time before search engines catch on to this spamming and demote/remove this listing.
As Andy Stack, Project Manager at YouTube, states, “We are all storytellers, and a content strategy helps ultimately for people to sell brands, not brands to sell brands. The best content- video, social, or simply the text on your own website- engages consumers and prompts them to create their own dialogue about your product or services.”
Here are 5 tips to help create content that will attract the attention of both consumers and search engines:
Tip 1: Tell a Story!
Remember the chief rule of Advertising 101- people like narratives. Bullet point lists of information are easy to process; but they are not relatable, and thus not memorable. Try to portray your potential customer’s ideal interaction with your company from start to finish. For a client in the hospitality vertical: try to include all the details of a traveler’s stay—from “welcome cookies” upon arrival, to free airport transportation upon departure. The more descriptive and unique you can be about your assets, the richer your content (and your company) will be. Most importantly, never EVER use stock or stolen copy.
Tip 2: Keywords Should be Exactly That- A KEY Part of Your Strategy (But not your whole strategy…)
Once you get the hang of incorporating keywords, writing SEO-rich content will become second nature. Optimizing your content pays off— in a recent study, social media expert Jay Baer, of Convince & Convert, saw traffic to five blog posts that were rewritten with InboundWriter, a real-time content optimization service, increase 33 percent compared to the 30 days prior to the rewrite.
Begin your content optimization process by visiting one of the widely available keyword generation tools such as Google Adwords to determine what the most frequently searched, relevant keywords are. Think about how customers search for your product—simpler terms such as “mold cleanup” or “mold removal” are more popular than technical jargon such as “mold remediation.” When generating keywords, think about your target audience, what your product/service does, and how you want your product/service to be described. Use keywords as you would use adverbs and adjectives. If you don’t use enough, your story will be boring. If you use too many, your reader will become distracted and disinterested.
Tip 3: Make it Local
Local search is growing fast, and if you are an SMB, this is one sphere in which you can really differentiate yourself and benefit from a high ROI. When creating content, make sure to highlight all the neighborhoods, major intersections/highways, and geographical landmarks near your business. Mention major cities if you’re near them, but don’t change your business to “Shoe Shine Chicago” if you’re actually in Skokie, IL—Google Maps knows your real location and will deal with you accordingly.
Tip 4: If you can Make it Local, then Make it Mobile Too
Have you tried to load your website on your mobile device recently? Have you created a mobile version of your site and reviewed the content? According to Andy Chu, Bing Mobile and Local Director of Product Management, more than 50% of mobile queries have local intent. An AT&T-Nielsen study found that of mobile users who completed a local search, 43% visited a local business, and 22% completed a purchase.
Tip 5: Crowdsource- Allow Your Most Loyal Customers to do Your Advertising
With the rise online review sites comes the rise of “consumer as critic.” When it comes to content, consumer feedback and engagement is key. According to Pawan Deshpande, CEO of HiveFire, “The future of marketing is not about selling so much as it is about engaging. This is what resonates with customers and why marketers have embraced content marketing in such large numbers.”
One of the important aspects of Social Media is sharing; 30% of people share videos they like, and over 400 videos are shared on Twitter every minute. Leverage your investment in social media by converting it into content on your website. Promote a contest in which proud customers create a music video about your hamburgers, or offer discounts to fashionistas who can get 500 friends to like a photo of them in your company’s shoes. If there’s one thing that consumers like as much as (or more than) a discount, it’s 15 minutes of YouTube fame.
