When you choose Seattle SEO Consultant, you come for our expertise and results. While the content marketing services strategy we develop for each of our clients will be nuanced to fit their particular niche, ideal customer demographic and industry, there are some tenets for effective SEO that we consistently apply to every client. One of these is how we develop content for your website.
We’ve all heard that “content is king” and that remains true – but not all content will get the results you want. The SEO maxim should be modified to read “targeted, keyword specific content that is optimized, informational, valuable and updated regularly is king” – but that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite like the oversimplified quote you’re more accustomed to.
Overall Content Marketing Services Strategy
The overarching content marketing services strategy we apply with all clients is that content must meet certain criteria to be worth the bits, bytes and dollars you devote to it. First, content must be highly relevant. Second, it must be fresh. Third, it must be locatable. Fourth, it should be readable. Fifth, it should be sharable. Finally, it must be actionable. So what do we mean by these definitions of content? Read on.
What Makes Content Relevant?
Content must relate not only to your industry, but to your niche and even your geographic area. Your content must provide answers to questions your potential customers have. It’s questions and unfulfilled needs that send people to the web looking for answers. If your content is highly relevant and meets the other criteria for SEO, potential customers should be able to find you, consume your content and then transact with you.
What Makes Content Fresh?
When it comes to SEO, websites that are updated frequently with quality content will score higher. At Seattle SEO Consultant, our strategy includes developing two primary types of content for our clients. There are landing pages which explain your services and spell out who your company is and what you offer. Landing pages will include a main page, service offerings page and contact page. Depending on the nature of your business, other pages may include locations page, prices page or a page devoted to your staff or company history.
We also look for keyword opportunities within your niche and write keyword driven pages to get you found in the search engines for common questions searchers need answers to. As searchers find, read, bookmark and share your pages it brings authority to your site.
One of the best ways to keep your website ranking high on Google and other search engines is to offer new content, but you don’t always want to change your base landing pages. This is what the second type of content is perfect for: blogs. Our experienced writers create highly relevant blogs which engage your customers and potential customers and keep your site performing well for SEO. Every website should have a blog page that’s updated every month – but preferably every week to keep you tops with search engines.
What Makes Content Locatable?
By locatable, we mean easy for potential clients to find. This is where we really dig deep to produce results for you. We do extensive keyword research for your industry, niche and even geographic area so we know what questions your clients are asking when they search for information on the web. Even if you have the answers they want, if they can’t find you, it’s a lose-lose.
By ensuring your content – both landing pages and blogs – are enriched with the keyword phrases your clients are searching for, we make sure your content will be easily found – and found is what you want to be! In addition to keyword research, we perform competitive analysis so we see what your competition is doing on the web, how effective their SEO strategy is and what keywords they are using with the goal in mind to maximize your web presence and make you able to more effectively compete in your niche.
What Makes Content Readable?
Have you ever come across a website where you can tell it was written by a non-native English speaker? This is the danger of outsourcing writing to all corners of the globe. The resulting pages won’t read correctly and website visitors will sense it right away – and even worse, so will Google. The analytics Google has developed (and is constantly refining) sniff out language that doesn’t make sense and pages that are over-stuffed with keyword phrases. When Google sniffs your site and doesn’t like what it finds, you can get a Google slap, time-out and lots of other negative SEO penalties you don’t want.
Content should be optimized for readability – meaning the keywords people are searching for must be in the title and within the content. But many people overdo it – if you try to cram in too many keywords you get content that readers won’t like and Google will punish. Our expert writers understand how to optimize pages and blogs to be highly readable with eye-catching high SEO performing titles, headers, bullets and other tools that make pages scanable, easy on the eyes and inviting to the reader.
What Makes Content Sharable?
Social media is an ever-growing facet of SEO. If content is king, sharable content is King Kong. If you create content engaging enough to tempt readers to share it on social media, you’re getting a marketing boost that costs you nothing and can pay off big. By tagging all pages and post with social media sharing icons, you offer readers the instant ability to like, share or pin your content which then invites an exponential number of additional readers (and potential customers) to come check you out.
In addition to social sharing, linking is important. Linking is when other websites link back to your content. Google loves this. By creating quality content that is relevant and refreshed regularly, Seattle SEO Consultant creates a natural linking profile for your website that can boost your SEO results significantly. Google puts a lot of weight on what other people think of your site. Links and shares are how they rate positive opinion, so an important part of our content strategy is positioning you for this SEO boost.
What Makes Content Actionable?
Simply, actionable content is content that invites you to take an action. Each and every page on your website needs a call to action and when we create that content for you, part of our strategy is to ensure that not only is there a call to action on every page, but that it’s compelling and provides links that makes the action effortless.
Have you ever been on a website where you struggled to figure out how to contact the company or what steps you needed to take to transact with them? Not only is it frustrating but it costs you money every time a customer leaves a page because there was no follow through to encourage them to do business with you. This is key to our content strategy. Every page and blog should always be encouraging people to act in a way that benefits your firm.
How Do We Pull All These Content Marketing Services Together?
There are a lot of aspects to an effective content strategy, but we’ve mastered them. After we develop an overall strategy with your goals and needs in mind, then we develop a content strategy. From there, we layout writing assignments months ahead of time to ensure that you have a stream of fresh content that is launched over a period of time.
Gone are the days of a website “launch” where you hold back, develop all of the pages and then push them all out at once. Google doesn’t link content dumps and it doesn’t benefit you SEO-wise to do it this way. By rolling each page out as they’re developed, we are ensuring that your SEO is steadily improving so that you see results sooner rather than later.
We have a roster of excellent writers and match client style, preference and industry with wordsmiths that are experienced in your niche and have a tone that you like. You interact with your writer (or writers) in our content conduit Basecamp so that you can share feedback and ideas with the team on your preferences as we develop your pages and blogs.
Once your writer develops a page or blog, it’s given over to our technical team for optimization, links, graphics and uploading to your website. You’ll always have the opportunity to approve, edit and offer feedback on every piece of content before its posted to ensure you’re absolutely thrilled with every word we write about your company.
Let Us Talk To You About Content Today
We would love to talk to you about your website and how we can help you get the results you want. Contact Seattle SEO Consultant today for a free 30 minute consultation about your SEO wants and needs. We’ll take a look at your site, your existing content and SEO rankings and offer you advice about what we can do for you.
Are you ready to do great things together? Call SEO Consultant today at 888-574-6067 or book your 30 minute FREE consultation online.