Chances are you’re most likely already creating and using content in your marketing strategy. You’re already aware of the benefits and advantages that content provides for your brand, and we wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve put emphasis on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) within your content.
Once upon a time, that may have been enough to amplify your brand awareness, but nowadays, in this exceedingly competitive content marketing environment, you have to put more effort and work into your strategy. SEO alone is no longer sufficient!
Your content is also going to require a lift, so the SEO and content are both seamlessly integrated to attract your target audience all while supplying them with valuable information.
Read on to discover how you can ensure your content and SEO are holding hands, complementing each other to establish brand authority within your industry.
Analyse Data
Creating content is not necessarily difficult, but creating content with intent can be. If your content isn’t audience-focused, there’s not much point to it. Your target audience isn't going to be interested if it doesn’t provide them with any value or relevance.
To produce content that will pique the interest of your audience, you’ll need to have a firm understanding of who your target audience is.
This can be developed and understood via data! Use your analytics tools on Social Media and other means to research what your ideal prospect’s challenges, needs and interests are.
Dive deep into their demographics too. How old are they? What jobs do they hold? Where do they live? What gender do they identify as?
Answering these questions will unlock content ideas and yield a path to take for general content marketing strategy.
This is also imperative to grasping the kinds of content your audience reacts positively to, allowing you to choose a format that suits your brand and is more appealing to your target audience.
And what about the SEO side of things? Yes, there is some data you’ll have to pay attention to if you want your content to be recognised by the Search Engines. Keywords are key (pun intended) for SEO in content. Now that you have conducted research on your audience, it’s time to transfer that knowledge into finding the right keywords to use in your content that relates to the audience you’re targeting, lifting your ranking in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Craft Content for People, Not Search Engines
When you’re creating your content, we’re definitely not suggesting that you give up on SEO altogether, but your content needs to be more focussed on being valuable to the Customer.
Technical SEO methods aren’t thrown out the window, but it’s certainly not going to be the defining factor of whether your audience stays on the page or not. The content will determine that.
Utilise those keywords you researched earlier throughout the content, but also concentrate on the quality of the content. This means creating unique and original information relevant in your industry, or perhaps a blog that solves an issue that your audience has trouble with, or maybe it’s a behind-the-scenes video from your company’s office. What questions does your audience have? Your content should be addressing them. What problems does your audience have? Your content should be fixing them.
By this point you should be aware of what your Customer wants, so prove to them you’re the prime source of content!
Who you’re generating your content for is the real focal point of this Blog. Build trust among your prospects with your high-quality and Search-Engine-optimised content! If your content and SEO are in perfect sync, it will assist you in ranking higher in the SERP, all while aiding your brand’s authority and conversions. If you ask us, it’s a win-win situation. Don’t hesitate, follow our advice sooner rather than later.