Digital marketing is a robust and complex environment. As of right now, there are hundreds and thousands of methods to generate traffic to your business site. However, some practices provide more results over a longer period of time, and that is why your attention should go there.
SEO is a big part of the whole digital marketing game.
Whether you run a startup, small company, or a huge enterprise, Google is your biggest ally if you’re looking to generate a steady flow of leads and customers without having to worry about active promotion.
Of course, it’s not just you who’s fighting to get a piece of a pie. Your competitors are doing it too. The only question is – who does it better?
In today’s post, I’m going to share a few relevant tips and tricks that will allow you to build your content around Google’s needs and expectations, so you can progressively rank up the search ladder and start receiving that steady juice of traffic flow every day.
Establish Objectives
Considering that 68% of today’s online experiences begin with a search on a search engine and 53% of the global traffic is the result of organic search, it’s safe to assume that SEO is one of the most effective techniques to promote your business.
SEO has three huge important components: content, backlinks, and user experience. Of course, there are a hundred other factors, though these are the most important ones.
Let’s start with objectives.
The first thing you have to do before planning an SEO campaign that includes content is to figure out your objective. There are more types of content – blog content, web content, sales content, and the most common goals are:
•Generate brand awareness
•Improve social awareness
•Generate leads and sales
•Improve trust and authority
•Improve search rankings
Generally, if you want to rank up, you need to include more than one type of content. The main point is to offer your users a comprehensive experience on your site, regardless of their needs.
Don’t start an SEO campaign without knowing exactly what you want to accomplish. Once you know, find the right way to track the most relevant SEO metrics and gather all the data you can in order to optimize your campaign in the future.
Pay a Great Deal of Attention to Keyword Research
After you know what you want to do and what you want to obtain in return, the next step is to identify the intention of your prospective customers.
Start by asking yourself…What type of content does your main target audience look for? What do they use search engines for? What do they look for and what are their biggest problems and needs?
Once you’ve done a bit of brainstorming, it’s time to take advantage of a professional keyword research tool (there are many) and consolidate your campaign. Using such tools allows you to discover important data like official rankings, click-through rates, monthly searches, and so on.
All of your posts should have a specific main keyword and other semantic keywords (very similar). The point is to keep it balanced – do not overstuff your content with keywords, but make sure to include your primary keyword/key phrase in the title, headings, and a few times in the text.
Optimize Every Piece of Text You Publish on Your Site and Blog
Why do you think people visit your website?
It’s not because you’re providing a great design or because you have a nice domain name. No. Everyone is busy, just like you.
Let me ask you – why do you read content on other websites? Do you spend your time on websites of which content is mediocre and irrelevant even though it’s supposed to solve your needs?
Too many rhetorical questions.
My point is – most SEO beginners create and perform SEO-based content marketing campaigns that are focusing on pleasing Google rather than helping the readers.
Write for the Users
Your content must be targeted towards users. What do I mean by that is the fact that you should always remember why you’re publishing content in the first place.
As Jane Digweed, the founder of BestEssay.com suggests, “You don’t write because you want to be the best SEO player – you do it because you want people to appreciate your content, so they can trust your brand, so they can purchase your products over and over again.”
Therefore, I’ll give you a nice trick. If you’re the one who’s writing the content, make sure you write as if you spoke to a close friend. Write like you speak and get your point across naturally.
If you have writers, give them this advice and have them improve their SEO writing skills by constantly studying the new SEO trends.
Optimize for Google
Once you’re sure that your content is mainly targeted towards a human audience, you can start the on-page optimization process (additional external and internal links, editing, semantic keywords, meta description, etc.)
Here’s a list of guidelines for optimizing your content for both users and search engines:
•Identify the intent behind the keywords that you focus and deliver the right content
•Write attractive headlines and always avoid clickbait
•Your primary keyword should be both in title, subtitles, and in your first paragraph
•Use images with ALT attribute
•Place your keywords very naturally in the text, otherwise, Google will penalize you
•Optimize every meta description you write and make it look perfect (also use the main keyword)
You can make Google love your content by simply giving your best every day, analyzing, and optimizing your content marketing techniques on a regular basis.
However, let’s not forget about some of the most important yet overlooked aspects that you must handle: editing and proofreading. If your content contains grammatical mistakes or logic issues, you’re in big issues.
That is why investing in a professional research paper writing service is very useful. It can be any type of writing service as long as you trust the editors and proofreaders.
Personally, I’ve recommended an academic writing service because the writers that you find there are – many times – much better than regular freelancers.
Make it Visual
Since we’ve already established that your main goal is to fully attract your users rather than look good for the search engine, you need to offer a full experience.
Nowadays, a great blog post is not a great post if it doesn’t contain visual elements. There are many stats that prove the importance of visual content:
•People only remember 10% of what they hear.
•More than 32% of digital marketers suggest that visual content is the most important type of content that they prioritize.
•80% of marketers are leveraging visual content to perform social media campaigns.
It’s quite simple: you need to offer the full pack and generate an amazing user experience. Since we’re so used to TV, YouTube, Instagram TV, and Facebook Videos, the content that we read on websites should also come in a similar form.
Adding visual content isn’t just for the users. In fact, Google is prioritizing websites that offer a wider range of content types simply because it offers a better user experience.
Offer an Amazing User Experience
Content is one thing, the way you make your prospective clients feel is totally another.
User experience refers to the quality of the experience that your users have while on your site. As I’ve mentioned above, everyone will enter your site for a reason.
Your target audience is seeking solutions, and your job is to give them exactly what they need. Once you get the right content, you need to focus on creating an easy and predictable journey for the user. Think about what he’ll see when he first enters your website.
Is your landing page simple and relevant? Is it specific and useful? Does the user have only one button that draws his attention? Is he advancing in your sales funnel? Do you even have a sales funnel?
These are some of the questions that you may ask yourself before beginning the UX optimization process.
You must know that Google knows what you’re doing. Google knows how well your users react to the experience that you offer, and it knows how well your content performs. Therefore, make sure that everything you do is qualitative!
Takeaways
There are lots of people who say that SEO is dead. It’s not, and it will never be for as long as people will be searching for keywords in a search engine.
On the other hand, it’s understandable – not everyone can get to the first page, and especially in the first three positions. Content is one of the most important factors that will help you get there, as well as the twists that you apply to it.
Remember: Google wants to promote qualitative content that is highly relevant to your target audience. Therefore, if you master the art of serving the potential needs of a specific audience and manage to deliver the right content, there’s no way you won’t succeed.
Study, test, optimize, and repeat.
