Search engines want happy users
For years and years, SEO marketing professionals used to focus their efforts on cold hard techniques, which had nothing in common with what users were looking for. Links were being bought, and keyword stuffing was a common practice.
Throwing some keywords in the middle of a written text just won’t cut it anymore. Search engines are now looking for happy users. But what’s the difference between a happy reader and one that’s not exactly delighted with the piece you’ve written?
Believe it or not, search engines are making a big deal of your bounce rate. Sure, any SEO person wants to lower the figure as much as possible, and this can only be done by providing the right answers to the right audience.
Keyword research is, after all, based on a selfish principle. You might be focusing on your own products or service just a tad too much. Why do you do it? Well, you want to sell. Sure, anyone wants to. But is your audience willing to buy from you? Customers are most likely not tempted to do so, particularly if you’re only talking about yourself.
Search engine optimisation has a strong, undoubtful human side, and it’s up to websites to provide the right answers at the right time. We’re not saying you should offer free solutions, although free trials are a neat way of gathering an audience. We’re only underlining the fact that your users must somehow feel connected to what you’re telling them.
Search is now about your users’ context
You’ve probably heard about Google’s algorithms. They keep changing and changing, and the worst thing about them is that some parts actually remain unknown. Although it might look like we’re all running in circles with no idea of what we’re supposed to do, it actually makes a lot of sense to Google.
Context is based on your user’s intent and on what this person is actually trying to find online. The biggest challenge of content marketing nowadays is providing good answers to the right questions. With compelling content, anyone can bridge the gap between the writer and the reader. It’s actually the whole reason why the highly esteemed websites stand aside from the average ones.
Anyone trusts Forbes, Fast Company, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur. Why do you think they do? All of these websites are focused on providing real solutions to real people’s issues. Age, experience and much appreciated articles have established an almost unbreakable reputation for the aforementioned brands. It would now be difficult for an article on Inc to be considered completely useless. With an impeccable team of writers and editors, readers feel the urge to share and comment upon any published piece.
Online interactions are still human interactions. And even Google knows it.
80% of consumers don’t buy from companies they don’t trust
Joe Meloni once said that “Making it clear that you’re trying to do more than improve sales tells prospects that you want to help them. They’ll be more comfortable buying from you if reliable, informative content populates your site”. And oh boy, was he right!
The trick here is that few website owners actually have the much needed patience to create an audience. You might be busy with projects and withholding from writing on your blog, but the thing is that this is one of the most important and simple things you can do for yourself. Actually, it’s one of the safest ways of landing more projects in the future.
Think about it this way. If you don’t have anything interesting to write about, try to talk about a client you’ve worked for. By explaining to your visitors how you’ve constructively helped someone with a problem, you’re giving them the impression you can do the same for them.
But don’t trust us, trust stats! According to a Digital Report published by Technorati, blogs influence consumers’ purchasing decisions way more than social media. Sure, retail sites and brand sites still lead the way, but blogs actually sell more than Facebook, YouTube and any other social network. This basically means that if you take the time to invest in a blog of a brand site, you just can’t go wrong.
It really goes without saying that integrating crucial aspects of SEO is a must. Any written piece matters, and if you really feel uncomfortable with CMSs, just hire someone else to do it. But don’t ignore the way your links look, the titles and alt tags of your images, and evidently, the keywords you’re targeting.
After all, anything we do revolves around search terms. However, a keyword means nothing when compared to a buyer persona. And guess what, even a buyer persona’s a human being!
Just how much are you spending on content marketing? Are you focusing your efforts on content at all?
We’re pretty experienced when it comes to online marketing. We’ve done anything from classic copywriting to Facebook and even Twitter marketing.
Sure, we still love to write and the neat thing about content marketing is that learning never stops. But we’ve had our share of clients we actually had to convince to start a blog. We’ve worked with beauty parlors and people selling cars, and even with mobile development companies. We’ve always adjusted our strategies, but we’ll tell you this: it’s really difficult to convince a retailer to start a blog.
If they’re selling cosmetics or natural products, they might be more reluctant to developing a blog than to paying big bucks on Facebook Ads. The point I’m trying to make here is that blog content is evergreen content. If it’s well-written and well-documented, it will never grow old.
A Facebook Ad runs for a limited amount of time, but your insights about the industry you’re in are simply priceless and will last forever.
So try to take the time and effort to combine cold SEO tactics with publishing informative articles. On a blog.
