When it comes to SEO and promoting your business on-line, content is, and always has been, the single most important weapon in your marketing arsenal.
Content is King
Content should be at the heart of your business marketing strategy, but not just any old content, we need to be producing relevant and current content that highlights our business as an authority in our field and content that appeals to our audience and the search engines alike.
Client Centric Content
There is a different approach to marketing content today, traditional methods and approaches are no longer as effective, we need to be communicating differently.
It isn’t about shouting out how fantastic your business is to anyone who will listen, it is much more focussed around your customers’ needs and how you can help them.
In our messaging and content, we need to talk less about the “features” of our products or services, and more about the “benefits” they will bring to our customers. This will help to create content that appeals to your audience and ultimately convert to sales.
Keep It Visual
They say that we respond to visual messages 60 times faster that we do written content.
The huge growth of visual platforms such as Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram are testament to this stat and these platforms are prompting a shift in consumer behaviour.
We remember visual messages far more readily than the written word, giving our content marketing efforts more longevity and outreach.
Make your content more engaging by adding great images and videos to your pages, infographics and visual stats also help to engage with our audience and solidify our brand identity.
Make Content Good Enough to E-A-T!
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is our good friend Google’s new (2019) algorithm focus when it comes to content.
E-A-T is how Google now evaluates the level of Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness within our web pages and will rank accordingly.
Expertise – “very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area” (Oxford English Dictionary). We need to express this knowledge within our content in a way that Google will recognise and respond to.
Authoritativeness – Making sure that your business is seen as a “thought leader” in your industry by being cited as a good source of information and by having links to your website from relevant sources and other authoritative websites.
Trustworthiness – showing people they can trust you to provide honest, true information that is accurate.
By following Google’s E-A-T guidelines you will be taking a very holistic approach to your content marketing strategy and boosting your SEO in the process.
Be Content Conscious
One of the most regular things we hear from our clients is “I don’t know where to find relevant content”.
We always tell them to be “content conscious”. In other words, when you going about your daily business, or even when you are out socialising, be AWARE of any thing that might make for valuable and interesting content.
The best way to illustrate this is to tell the story of one of our clients, a drain clearing company, who asked us this very question.
Recently, in a meeting at our office we were discussing potential content and the question arose.
Now, they work in an area of South East London and were called to clear blocked drains underneath a pub on the Whitechapel Road. They dispatched one of their vehicles to deal with the problem and thought nothing more of it.
During our chat they told us that the pub in question was “The Blind Beggar”, the pub associated with 60’s gangsters The Kray Twins.
The Blind Beggar is where one of the brothers, Ronnie Kray, shot and killed rival gang member George Cornell in front of witnesses and is also the place where William Booth gave his first sermon, which subsequently led to the creation of the Salvation Army.
There is FANTASTIC content potential in both situations, imagine what one might find in the old sewers beneath such a fascinating pub!
Needless to say we told our clients to be much more aware of the places and people that they come in to daily business contact with as you never know where you might find that next little content gem!
Read our blog about being content conscious here and the follow up about content still being King here
Content Content Content!
So never forget how important content is when it comes to your digital marketing strategies, make a content plan and stick to it!
Images, blogs, video and infographics … they all help to boost your SEO efforts and raise your brand profile, so ignore content at your peril!
