Why Content is Key to your Digital Marketing Strategy

According to Hubspot, 47% of buyers engage with 3-5 pieces of content before directly engaging with a company. What does this mean? It means that content is key to any digital marketing strategy. By having a clear approach to all aspects of your content creation, your business will be in a much stronger position when it comes to engaging and converting leads to customers.

Content can be used to engage with your prospects at every step of the buying process, which can be categorized as the following:

1. The awareness stage: when a buyer identifies that they have a problem they need help solving
2. The consideration stage: when a buyer conducts research to solve the problem they are facing
3. The decision stage: when a buyer choosing the right solution for them

Here are different types of content you should be including in your digital marketing strategy in order to engage with buyers at every step of the buying process.

Keyword researched blogs

Blogs are an important tool when it comes to generating awareness-stage content. This audience may not be ready to buy from you yet, but when they are you will be front of mind.

Understand your audience’s pain points and then conduct some keyword research to identify what terms they are searching for online. The key is to create topics and generate content around searcher intent. For example, we recently produced a blog on the business benefits of PR because we identified that our target market (CEOs and c level execs of SMEs) were frequently searching for content helping them understand what the benefits of PR were. Think about the challenges facing your own target market and come up with blog topics based on what they are searching for online.

Yes the content then needs to include your target keywords, but don’t forget it also needs to be useful to the reader and better than anything else out there. Create a piece of engaging content that your audience will remember you for, not just Google.

Gated content

If you’re looking to drive leads, then gated content is something to consider. It can be useful when it comes to generating for top of funnel leads, those buyers at the awareness and consideration stage of the buyers’ journey.
Gated content can take any number of forms, including eBooks, whitepapers or explainer videos.

When it comes to good gated content, it needs to be:

• Persona driven – target your content to a specific audience you want to reach, and has need for your service
• Focused on one pain point – the more focused your content, the better-quality download you will get
• Beautifully designed – a piece of gated content needs to be user friendly and appealing

Whatever you choose, make sure it is helpful to your audience, answers the question and also highlights your area of expertise.

Engaging video

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then a video speaks a thousand more. Video is by far the most engaging content a business or brand can take advantage of.

Video can be used at all stages of the buying process. At the awareness stage, videos on social media can be a great way of attracting attention. When it comes to consideration, explainer videos can offer potential customers further insight into what you do while answering a pain point for them. When a customer is ready to make a decision consider using case study videos as these will demonstrate exactly what you do and what your customers are saying about you.

Remember your video content should be one of 4 things (sometimes all of them!) – insightful, memorable, engaging or shareable. Think about who your audience is, how they are consuming their content and what you want them to take away.

Link building

Content doesn’t just extend to content that sits on your own website and social channels. Targeted digital PR activity can help raise awareness of your business among your target customers, give you more content to share on social, and crucially, generate backlinks that support your SEO.

This is where PR becomes a vital component of your digital marketing strategy. The ability to secure a link in online publications (that have a nice high domain authority) will help boost your search visibility.

By drafting an engaging piece of content, you can secure these all-important follow links while also building the profile of your business or brand online.

Good content should be at the heart of any digital marketing strategy. Consider all the elements carefully – including who your target audience is, what they care about, which channels they consume their information on and then make informed decision about which content to produce.

3 SEO Best Practices for Small Businesses

Three practices – on-page SEO, local search optimization, and authority/link building – will dramatically increase your online presence and drive more customers to your business.

If you're a small business owner, you likely implement best practices on a daily basis without being aware of it. Simple tasks such as making sure your books are up-to-date and payroll is done by the right date are just two examples.

The same holds true if you are a small business owner trying to beef up your online marketing efforts.

As a small business owner, it is possible to take charge of your online presence, and it starts with the three-letter acronym SEO. To produce the best end result, you need to be steadfast in your approach to implementing best practices, which discuss below. 

So, what exactly is SEO and why is it important? In short, SEO is the process of optimizing your website, social media profiles and Google My Business accounts with the proper information so it is more easily found online. This is how new and existing customers find your business online.

Poor SEO affects the bottom line of your business in many ways: If someone is attempting to locate a business in your niche, you run the risk of not showing up in a local search if your site's SEO is not done properly. Your small business could also face an additional problem of showing up in a search query, but on the tenth page – drastically reducing your chances of being noticed by potential customers. 

There are three best practices that will improve your overall SEO strategy. This includes on-page SEO, local search optimization and authority/link building.  

• On-page SEO

On-page SEO is the continued optimization of site content and metatags. What SEO elements should you, as a small business owner, use to optimize your website?

For starters, title tags, metadescription tags, content, URLs as well as image alt text. Optimizing these elements often leads website visitors to a good user experience. They also help your small business appear in more relevant searches. The process of optimization takes time, however.

Second, optimize your site's content. When writing new content, conduct keyword research. This is likely one of the most important research tasks you will perform, as it could lead to an increase in business on many fronts.

Keywords are the words you associate with your business. Keywords should be both unique and naturally sprinkled throughout your website. You must not overuse them as this can come off as spammy for Google's algorithm, which measures user experience, relevance and other criteria. You can always improve your use of keywords and target more relevant ones.

Google includes user experience as an element of ranking and will lower or raise your search ranking accordingly. If your content has a misleading title and content that is totally unrelated, you will be penalized.

• Optimize for local searches

Optimizing for local search begins with opening a Google My Business account, which lets you add details like your business address, phone number, customer reviews and hours of operation.

Essentially, Google My Business lets small business owners take charge of their online presence by providing tools to update local listings. The platform also enables you to interact with customers from your phone, computer or tablet via its FAQ section.

As a result of its ability to add FAQs, the platform provides small business owners the chance to avoid fielding long calls and emails. Finally, you can view key insights that pertain to your business and searches it has appeared in.

The key to success in this regard is to ensure all of the information you've entered is accurate. Once you make these updates, your business will appear in a local search with the correct details.

When is a local search relevant?

Local search optimization is important when you want to gain the business of new/retain current local customers. One of the most obvious use cases is when someone is traveling and in need of a service. They might perform a search for "best places to eat in Indianapolis." If your site is optimized for local search, you will more than likely appear in the results, and your chances of capturing new business exponentially increase.   

When it comes to optimizing your small business website for local searches, don't cut corners. It is free, but it requires a small investment of time. When local search is optimized properly, it pays off in the form of more traffic to your website and physical location over time. There is always the potential for increased sales as well as this is usually a byproduct of good local search optimization.

What's social got to do with it?

Social media optimization is paramount simply because search engines often present social media information in a search query. Optimize many of the same elements you were able to edit when creating your Google My Business account to once more ensure the accuracy of information for those searching.

When a search query is made, all of this information will appear, providing valuable information about your business to the local searcher.   

• Establishing authority

The final component of improving your small business website's SEO is establishing authority. Let's say someone performs a search on "website builders." Although the use of such generic keywords is discouraged, if your business shows up on the first few pages of a Google search for this query, your SEO game is already fairly strong.

This is not the case for most small businesses. There are, however, a few good ways to begin establishing authority.

The process is simple. It is called link building. This is when other credible websites link to content on your website because it is seen as informative and relevant.

Another aspect of link building is sharing your knowledge of small businesses in the form of educational content that appears on outside websites under your byline. The post should include links to your website's insightful content that fits the publication's audience.

Ideally, the publication you write for will match the audience you are targeting in terms of scaling up business. Never expect to see sales from link-building articles. What is most important is the impact on authority.

You should also place links on your site that point to other pages on the site. This alerts Google that your site has not only a solid structure but multiple pieces of relevant content on similar or the same subject matter, which can lead to a better user experience.

Remember, Google considers user experience as a ranking factor when deciding where your page should be placed in a search. Link building or backlinking can be done in three steps:

1. Identify credible and authoritative publications, then select a topic that will provide value to its readers. The topic must also be something that relates to your business but doesn't push a product. For instance, you can provide tips to small business owners who are just starting out.

2. Next, reach out and offer your unique perspective.

3. Follow up if you do not hear back within a few days, it may take several follow-ups, but keep your emails short, sweet and to the point.

The above best practices can put you on the path to small business owner success.

Remember, the process of optimization is ongoing, so make sure to create the best and most informative content you can. Doing so may naturally lead to credible publications beginning to notice and link to your content.

Don't forget about the local searchers – they are an important piece of the puzzle. In most cases, they are willing to spend money on the services they need.

Source: https://www.business.com/articles/smb-seo-best-practices/