Tag: Content Marketing

JS Named One of Most Reviewed Content Marketing Agencies in Austin

Posted on by Justin

Here at JS Interactive, we prioritize helping our partners attain their desired results for their marketing goals. We’re a comprehensive digital solutions agency that delivers groundbreaking services that leverage modern digital platforms to increase conversions.

Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve been named a top B2B company for 2022. According to The Manifest, a B2B platform that includes company listings in their yearly report, we’re one of the most reviewed content marketing agencies in Austin!

content marketing agencies austin

In 2004, we founded js-interactive to bridge the gap between small businesses and the digital presence needed for them to succeed. Since then, we’ve been working closely with our partners to bring out the best in their marketing through compelling content and goal-driven strategies.

Over the years, we’ve grown to be a seasoned team of adept professionals, empowering SMEs.

clutch review js

The Manifest names the leading companies in the area, and we’re honored to be recognized as one of the most reviewed content marketing companies in Austin. Thank you to our partners for the support they’ve given us throughout the years!

If you’re interested in a partnership with us, be sure to get in touch with us right away! We’d love to hear about your business.

SEO Trends Every Small Business Should Know in 2022

Posted on by Justin

2020 unleashed a historic disruption on a global scale.  Pandemics.  Shutdowns. Civil unrest. In the aftershock of all this, an unprecedented number of American workers quit their jobs.

Remote work, uncertain company futures, and more contributed to many people taking the risk of starting their own business.

With this influx of small businesses and the need for companies to set themselves apart from the competition, SEO is more important than ever. It can help to:

  • Earn higher search engine ranking placements (SERPs) that lead to increased visibility.
  • Drive more traffic to your website, leading to higher conversion rates.
  • Develop brand loyalty and keep customers coming back for future purchases.

Every day, people conduct more than 3 billion searches on Google. To maximize your digital marketing strategy and succeed in the fast-paced, ever-changing marketplace, every small business should know current SEO trends in 2022.

Why SEO is More Important Now Than Ever

It isn’t enough for a company to simply offer quality products at affordable prices. Today’s consumers are more discerning. With the world at their fingertips, shoppers can conduct their own research to find the product that best meets their needs and provides the most enjoyable experience. That’s why SEO is so crucial to your business’s success.

SEO is a robust marketing strategy that aims to improve multiple aspects of your online business. SEO forensically examines website performance through crawl-ability, speed, and indexation. Off-site, SEO serves as a form of digital PR that connects websites to other publications and circles of influence.

Ultimately, SEO ensures you’re creating meaningful content that resonates with consumers’ needs and provides the best user experience.

This helps earn you higher SERPs, which is critical to the success of SEO.  As you can probably relate to,  75% of online users won’t scroll past the first page of Google search results.

SEO has far-reaching effects on numerous aspects of your business and your bottom line. It strengthens credibility, increases visibility, and ensures that you provide a positive user experience.

To capture your share of the market and appeal to today’s judicious consumers, you can see why SEO is more important now than ever.

8 SEO Trends to Follow in 2022

Today’s face-paced market is packed with consumers with desires and expectations that are constantly changing. Search engine algorithms are ever-evolving.

Here are eight SEO trends every small business should know in 2022.

1. SEO-Related Google Advancements

Google continues to find ways to improve the ranking process, and its most recent significant update is BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers).  It utilizes machine learning to understand search intent through natural language processing.

google bert algorithm

In the past, directional models had to read an entire chain of words to understand their meaning. BERT can scan a series of words and instantly recognize their contextual relationships.

This update enables bots and spiders to be more conversational, making it quicker and easier for them to realize the aim of a search.

For example, if a user were to search “algebra books for adults”, their listings would include a general listing of books for a range of ages.

With BERT, the listings still include those results, but a book actually entitled “Algebra for Adults” would be ranked higher.

What does this mean for you? Your content must be created around users’ search intent. If not, Google may find that your competitor’s site contains more relevant information for their users’ queries. So while we already know content is crucial, BERT affirms the need to create content thoughtfully.

To maximize this opportunity, you should:

  • Write naturally focusing on users and the way people would speak.
  • Keep sentences short and sweet, simple and conversational.
  • Identify the questions people are asking online.
  • Make the content relevant by answering users’ questions and addressing their problems.

By keeping your audience in mind, you’ll create content that meets their needs and satisfies BERT’s requirements.

2. Organic SEO focused on User Intent

Organic SEO is built around a company’s website and refers to unpaid methods of earning high SERPs. It focuses on on-page content like metadata, meta titles, descriptions, internal link building, and outbound links.

Organic SEO gives businesses a platform to communicate relevant and meaningful information to their target market by developing content that resonates with users and search engines alike.

To succeed at organic SEO, you must:

  • Know your target audience and understand their motivators.
  • Conduct in-depth keyword research
  • Study your competitors.
  • Develop a content strategy with informative material that addresses the needs of your target audience.
  • Build relationships with reputable online sources and build healthy backlinks.

With organic SEO you can better position your brand and earn higher rankings in search engine results.

3. Local SEO

Local SEO focuses on the use of a geographic brick-and-mortar location. It’s an ideal digital marketing strategy for businesses looking to increase traffic, leads, and brand awareness from local searches.

Local SEO capitalizes on the foot traffic of shoppers searching online within your area via their mobile devices. Oftentimes, these users are in a purchasing mindset and are actively looking for businesses like yours to solve an immediate need.

google local algorithm

To establish a strong local presence, you need to understand how Google’s local algorithms work.

Local algorithms are based on 3 primary signals:

  1. Relevance
  2. Proximity
  3. Prominence

Google’s Business Profile Manager (BPM) is the best place to start if you want to improve your local SEO and build a local brand. Simply create an online profile that includes all the essential information about your business, like your name, store hours, address, and phone number.

Optimize your profile to help your brand become visible in nearby results from Google Search and Maps. If your business profile is engaging and meets the geographic reach of the user’s search, your location will appear among the top results. This drives foot traffic to your building and website, increasing sales opportunities.

Recent updates to BPM have made updating and maintaining your company’s profile easier than before. Business owners can now access their profiles directly through Google Search and Maps.

This allows you to see whether your profile is visible to consumers and make whatever edits are necessary. More importantly, you can better understand your performance and how to boost your online presence for maximum results.

Here are a few tips to optimize your local brand to dominate the competition:

Claim and update all local listings: Not just GBP, but also claim and update Bing and other secondary platforms like FaceBook, Yelp, Apple, Foursquare.  Make it a point to have a consistent Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) for all claimed listings.

Publish content on GBP frequently: Posting regular updates to your profile is a great way to boost visibility. Be diverse in your approach by promoting a product, highlighting an upcoming event, sharing a new feature, or providing a special update and offers.

Also maintain your media library by uploading photos regularly. Use quality images that accurately reflect products, services, and team culture to your online audience.

Build and manage your reviews: Encourage and welcome feedback from your customers. Interact with customers who leave reviews – especially the bad ones.

Most people will skim through good reviews.  But they will read bad reviews – and how the owners respond.

By responding to reviews, it shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business. Be prompt in your responses.

bing seo

4. Bing Webmaster Tools

When people think of search engines, Google is usually the first company that comes to mind. But Bing handles around 12 billion global search requests a month and shouldn’t be overlooked as a valuable SEO opportunity. A free Microsoft tool, Bing Webmaster, helps businesses add their websites to Bing’s index to ensure they can appear on Bing Search and gain more organic traffic.

Bing Webmaster offers a suite of tools that helps track performance and identify areas for optimization improvement. These tools include:

  • Keyword research: find new words or phrases that searchers are using to find sites like yours.
  • Backlinks: identify sites that are linking back to yours.
  • Site scan: locate any technical issues on your website that could be impeding SEO results.
  • SEO reports: pinpoint errors quickly with a prioritized list of issues to resolve.

With Bing Webmaster, you can manage your content easily and effectively. Take advantage of this tool and:

  • Remove pages you don’t want to be included in search engines’ index.
  • Monitor your website’s performance and manage potential security issues.
  • Submit your own content to be crawled and see how Bing indexes your site.

With total transparency, Bing allows you to see what you need to do to improve optimization efforts and boost your rankings.

5. Authentic Backlinks

Link building serves as an effective inbound marketing strategy. It provides an opportunity to generate traffic back to your website from other authoritative online publications and resources.

This helps give credibility to your website and online material. When a reliable outside company links to your website as a source of information, it’s like receiving a vote. The more votes (backlinks) you get, the more search engines will recognize you as a trusted and valuable source of content for their users.

When it comes to creating backlinks, authenticity is key. Not only do links alert readers and search engines of your credibility and establish you as a leader in your field … they also help search engines gain a better understanding of what your content is all about.

Sites like Google and Bing find relationships between web pages, so it’s more beneficial to receive backlinks from companies within your industry.

In an effort to combat link spam, Google has implemented an update that identifies spam links and disregards weak or low-quality backlinks.

As a result, businesses using link spam on their site earn lower rankings (if ranked at all). To build authentic backlinks, you should:

  • Watch for companies or individuals who mention your brand.
  • Reach out to them and ask about exchanging backlinks.
  • Rework your current content to include shareable lists, guides, videos, and infographics.
  • Repair broken links and alert external websites about those updates.
  • Create guest posts for relevant sites.
  • Post links on social media to reach an audience that could benefit your site.

These are just a few of the numerous ways to maximize backlinks in your SEO strategy.

6. Video Content Marketing

Research shows that 83% of internet users are compelled to watch video content, making it a powerful digital marketing tool.

Video is engaging, entertaining, and allows people to consume information while multitasking. It’s also an effective way to earn backlinks and is highly shareable, which is great for boosting SEO.

To maximize this opportunity, follow these best practices to ensure your videos provide a positive user experience for your audience:

  • Integrate a variety of videos throughout your web pages, but embed the one you want to rank first.
  • Write enticing headlines and descriptions that include valuable keywords to improve user engagement.
  • Use a quality video hosting platform like Youtube.
  • Include video transcripts for people who don’t want to watch the full clip, but still want to receive all the information.
  • Choose a compelling thumbnail image that attracts users’ attention.

Video provides an opportunity to create engaging, informative content that is tailored to your audience. Platforms like FaceBook and Linkedin allow direct uploads to help businesses expand reach.

With a strong CTA, video can the likelihood of earning higher SERPs and strengthening your brand loyalty.

7. E-A-T

To determine whether online content delivers value to its readers, Google’s Search Quality evaluators assess three main focal points of online material:

  • Expertise: is the writer knowledgeable on the topic?
  • Authoritativeness: is the writer an authority in their field? Is the content commanding?
  • Trustworthiness: is the writer and information reliable, accurate, and convincing?

While E-A-T isn’t necessarily a ranking factor, it does impact a company’s SERP indirectly. By providing companies with guidelines for producing quality content, Google is revealing what it considers important in its ranking process.

As you craft custom content, be sure to:

  • Write about topics you’ve studied and researched and link to other knowledgeable sources.
  • Take an authoritative stance to present yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
  • Fact check, confirm sources and be sure all data and links are current and accurate.

Keeping E-A-T in mind will ensure you’re providing relevant, meaningful information that delivers value and quality to your audience.

8. Core Web Vitals

Since user experience is a high priority for consumers, page experience is an essential element of SEO. Core web vitals ensure a user enjoys the best browsing experience possible.

As you assess the page experience your site provides, consider the following vitals:

  • First Input Delay (FID): how long it takes for a web page to respond.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how long it takes for a page to reach visual stability.
  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): the amount of time between a user’s click to when they can see the majority of the content on-screen.

By improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your website’s performance, you minimize user frustrations, reduce pain points, and help deliver a positive experience.

This not only boosts your rankings through SEO, but also positively impacts your bottom line. After all, 80% of people who have a negative user experience are less likely to return to a company’s website.

To earn higher SERPs and build a loyal following of satisfied customers, attending to your site’s core web vitals is imperative for SEO..

Hire an Expert Austin SEO Company

At this point, you may be feeling overwhelmed.  We understand.  Most small business owners want to invest their best energy in what they do best.  Which is usually not SEO.

We can help.  Our team of experts at JS-Interactive knows that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to SEO.

As a digital marketing, web design, and SEO company in Austin and Milwaukee, we help people build their dreams by helping companies build targeted, sustainable, and relevant web traffic.

From local SEO to content marketing strategies, our team knows what it takes to generate qualified leads, establish you as a leader in your industry, and help earn higher SERPs for maximum success.

Reach out today for a free 30-minute consultation and let us help you reach your goals.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy for Your SEO Campaign

Posted on by Justin

Do you think brands would keep spending over $150k a year on something that doesn’t deliver results?

In 2019, the average B2C spent $185k on content, while the average consumer brand spent $230k.

Content marketing is successful because it builds audience trust, engagement, and interest – all of which help you meet your goals of lead generation, positive brand recognition, and sales.

Plus, content marketing is affordable and easy to implement/scale compared to other tactics. That’s why it’s a cornerstone of successful SEO in 2020.

But a scattergun approach won’t work if you want your content to deliver results.

You need a strategy – and not just any strategy.

You must design a comprehensive strategy from the ground up, considering your specific goals, expertise, and audience. You also must consider the latest content marketing trends and current events while developing timeless (evergreen) informative pieces.

Taking this strategy-first approach is vital for ROI and success, but don’t worry. It’s not as complicated as it seems.

Define Your Audience

Before creating any piece of content, you must figure out who you’re talking to and what you want to teach them.

define buyer persona

Let’s say you’re talking to millennials or gen Z, for example. You wouldn’t start writing about pensions because that topic isn’t relevant – pensions hardly exist anymore. Instead, you’d want to create content that solves each group’s specific problems.

If the topic is financial planning, your older millennials might want to hear about 401ks and IRAs while gen Z might prefer info on savings apps like Acorn – maybe throw in a GIF or two for good measure.

Content must be relatable, valuable, and nuanced. Taking a one-size-fits-all approach and creating generic content will render it useless.

Where you share your content matters too. Each social platform caters to different demographics. For example, the average age of an American Facebook user is 40. If you don’t want to reach gen X or older, don’t promote content there. Instead, use apps for younger demographics like Snapchat, TikTok, or Instagram.

Make Your Content Shareable

Here’s where content marketing really pays off – literally.

When you create interesting, relatable, and valuable content, people feel compared to share it with their friends. That’s free advertising from a small investment!

That’s why defining your audience is so important. You need niche content if you want people to share it. General content barely gets read – let alone shared.

Look at the last few articles YOU shared on social media. What stands out about them, and why did you feel the urge to spread the message?

Find Your Voice

If you had a friend who changed his personality based on whoever he’s speaking to, you wouldn’t trust him, right? Brand voice also matters for building trust and relating to your audience.

When people visit your site, what type of voice do they expect? A stern and authoritative voice or a more playful one?

Again, this goes back to defining and researching your audience. Different ages, industries, and products demand distinct marketing voices. What’s yours?

A defined voice ensures your content always sounds the same no matter who’s creating it.

Create a Content Architecture

A framework is vital to ensure consistency across every project. You might have a handful of content creators developing videos, blogs, graphics, and other materials. How can they keep the message unified?

An in-house brand style guide is a great place to start. Your guide should dictate your voice and writing style. Next, list off your audience characteristics and how you want to make your readers feel.

For example, you might tell content creators to avoid “what not to do” examples in favor of positive encouragement. Whatever you decide, be specific.

You shouldn’t have to tell creators what to say, but you should tell them how to say it. If you don’t, you put the pressure on the content creator to decide these things for your brand. You can’t fault them if they don’t guess the right thing.

You’ll be surprised how far you can go with content marketing and SEO when you put together a specific tone and style for your brand.

Research Keywords

Everyone wants that first-page real estate on Google. However, you can’t get there without keywords. These are the phrases and queries people type into the Google search bar.

If you optimize your site around the right ones, you just might show up on the first page of results for your target audience – that’s how SEO works. (You didn’t think we were done talking about your audience, did you?)

When researching keywords for your content marketing, you first want to figure out what your audience types into Google.

As you investigate the stats, pay close attention to the volume and competition. High-volume keywords like “water bottle” might have thousands of searches, but you’ll be competing against massive established sites. Plus, it’s too general to be relevant to your audience.

Instead, go for slightly longer keywords with lower competition.

You’ll integrate these keywords into your content. It’s easy with blogs, but videos and podcasts are a little harder (yet not impossible). Use these target keywords in your titles, tags, and any transcript for podcasts or videos.

Investigate Competitors

No one reads or shares anything they’ve heard a thousand times. Research your competitors’ content marketing so you can figure out how to set yourself apart.

Start by analyzing their most popular content for likes, shares, and comments: The Holy Trinity of engagement. As you research, make a list of their most popular posts. Don’t forget to check brands that aren’t quite competitors but target a similar audience as yours.

You should never plagiarize anything, but you should use competitor content as inspiration. Successful content works for a reason. Don’t be ashamed – if you want to add nuance to the conversation, you must first know what the conversation has already covered.

Content Marketing and SEO Tools Every Marketer Needs

You can’t accomplish anything mentioned above without the right research tools.

If you buy nothing else, at least invest in an SEO suite like Ahrefs and SEMrush. You’ll be able to research keywords, topics, and competitor content for engagement. You can also check your competitors’ successful organic keywords for inspiration.

Other tools like BuzzSumo can help you dive deeper into topics across the web. For example, you can discover what type of engagement specific topics obtain that is relative to your business.

buzzsumo content ideas

Need a Little Help with Your SEO or Content Marketing Strategy?

It’s not easy to create a winning content strategy if you’ve never made one before. Our team at JS-Interactive has the skills and 15 years of experience to help you create an SEO-driven content strategy that boosts visibility and builds sustainable business growth.

We’ve helped countless B2B and consumer companies over the years. Check out our case studies to see our work in action.

Why You Need Both Content Strategy and SEO to Drive Organic Traffic

Posted on by Justin

Most marketers agree that driving inbound organic traffic is important – critical even.

No one’s debating that.

When the question of HOW comes up, though, that’s another story.

One team swears content marketing is the answer. The other believes SEO is the solution.

Content strategy and SEO aren’t competitors: You need both simultaneously to increase long-term targeted traffic, visibility, and conversions.

Below you’ll read about the basics of content marketing strategy and search engine optimization. You’ll also find a step-by-step guide for building an SEO-driven content marketing strategy and drive sustainable traffic.

It’s Not Content Marketing Vs. SEO

Chicken and the egg. Peanut butter and jelly. Hipsters and craft beer.

It doesn’t matter which came first or which is more important because content strategy and SEO need each other.

Why Does SEO Need Content Marketing?

Let’s say your goal is to improve search engine optimization. You can:

  • Speed up your website.
  • Plug keywords in all the right places.
  • Optimize your local search apps.
  • Fix the technical stuff.

You’ll eventually hit a ceiling after optimizing everything above. You only have a finite number of pages on your website to optimize.

Producing regular content gives you more opportunities to show up in Google search results.

Think of it this way: If you’re looking for a new job, would you apply to one company or as many as possible? The more places you apply, the better your chances are of landing an interview, and so on.

That’s why brands that blog enjoy 434% more indexed pages in Google than those that don’t.

Plus, the Google bots like to see a website producing content regularly. It shows that you’re knowledgeable about certain topics and care about sharing your expertise with others.

Google’s job is to answer search queries – not sell things (aside from Google Shopping). You’re much more likely to enjoy better SEO when you churn out high-quality content that answers specific questions consistently

Why Does Content Marketing Need SEO?

Content marketing is critical for demonstrating your value and authority.

web design nonprofits
Source: Tumblr

You could invest thousands each month on expert-level content, but without SEO, your promotion routes are limited. You can only share on Facebook, email, and tweet the same link so many times. Facebook will even repress your reach if you try to share the same link too often.

Search engine optimization is necessary for getting your content in front of a wider audience. Plus, blogs designed with SEO in mind build more sustainable traffic than social media.

Content marketing and SEO build a cycle of positive reinforcement too: The more content you publish and rank for, the more your website’s rankings will improve.

How to Build an SEO-Driven Content Strategy Step by Step

A content strategy is what you get when you combine content marketing and SEO effectively. It helps you build brand authority and recognition while earning trust and converting leads into customers. Here’s how to build a content strategy with SEO for sustainable and highly targeted traffic.

Set Your Content Strategy and SEO Goals

Before you research a single keyword, you must figure out why you’re developing content in the first place. Do you want to:

  • Generate more leads
  • Create demand
  • Build brand awareness
  • Convert leads into customers
  • Prevent customer churn

You can set different goals for your content too. The point here is to figure out your KPIs so you can monitor metrics and track your content’s performance.

Develop Your Audience Personas

If you don’t write content for specific people, your blogs will never be relevant enough to apply to anyone. Generic content is no good for SEO, visibility, traffic, or conversions.

Develop distinct audience personas using details like:

  • Age
  • Location
  • Whether they’re a parent
  • Interests
  • Favorite media outlets
  • Hobbies
  • Values
  • Gender
  • Problems and concerns they face

develop audience persona
Source: Sprout Social

For B2B, you would develop your personas based on firmographics instead with things like:

  • Company name and industry
  • Job role
  • Buying power
  • Company size and market share
  • Day to day problems

Creating personas ensures that your content strategy and SEO are highly relevant.

Get Your Brand Guidelines Straight

Consistency is key to ensure your brand voice stays recognizable across every channel. Beyond logo and colors, nail down tone in your brand guidelines. Keep in mind that different platforms demand unique voices too. For example, Twitter is more straightforward, while Instagram is more storytelling and airy.

Research Your Seed Keywords for Content Strategy and SEO

Keywords are essential for building your content strategy SEO. They tell you what people are searching and asking on Google. Shoot for long-tail keywords. These keywords are phrases of three-words or more. They’re also:

  • Lower competition
  • Highly relevant and targeted
  • Super targeted
  • More likely to suggest the searcher is further along in the buying process

It’s easy to see why writing a blog around the keyword “best gardening tools for Midwest summers” is better than “gardening tools.”

long-tail keywords search demand curve
Source: Ahrefs

Decide What Types of Content to Create

Long-form blogs (over 1,000 words) are essential because they give visitors and Google bots lots of information to consume. You should also research your personas to figure out what type of content they like to consume. Such as:

  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • eBooks
  • Case studies

A BuzzSumo search for each keyword can tell you which types of content (lists/what/how-to/video) earns the most social shares.

Study the Competition and Successful Content

You can’t add nuance to the discussion if you don’t read everything that’s already been said. Nobody wants to read nor share the same thing they’ve read 30 times.

Run a search for your target keyword and carefully read everything on the first page of the results. As yourself questions like:

  • Are they missing any vital points?
  • How can I add to the conversation?
  • Are any of the stats outdated?

Put Your Topics Editorial Calendar Together

Using your keywords, build a spreadsheet calendar in Excel, Google Sheets, or Airtable. You can use BuzzSumo and the AMI Headline Analyzer to make sure you’re developing topics that stand out.

Make sure to include:

  • Headline
  • Topic notes
  • Links to include
  • Publishing date
  • Who’s working on the project
  • Format (blog/infographic/video/etc.)
  • References for inspiration
  • Places to republish or promote

Structure Your Content for SEO

It’s time to talk about keyword placement. How you structure your content determines whether it shows up in Google search results for your keyword. Of course, other factors play huge roles in your search engine rankings, but this sets you up for content marketing success.

Ideally, place your keyword in:

  • Headline and meta title
  • Slug (URL)
  • Some H2 or H3 subheadings throughout the content
  • ALT text for all your post images
  • Meta description

It’s also smart to run a Google search for your target keyword and pepper in some of the semantic keywords you’ll find at the bottom of the results. For example, these are the semantic searches that appear when we type “hemp oil hand lotion” into Google:

semantic searches google

Earn Your Backlinks through Effective Content Strategy and SEO

Most backlink building is a waste of time. Yes, backlinks are important for SEO. However, your backlinks should come naturally by developing authoritative content people want to link to.

Don’t hound websites with cold emails or comments. Instead, develop well-written long-form content that answers questions. Build relationships by networking with other brands and influencers – earn those backlinks.

Find the Best Places to Guest Blog and Promote

You can also earn valuable backlinks through guest blogging. Not only that, but it gets your brand message in front of a wider audience. Ideally, always write 100% original content for guest blogs.

Choose specific websites where either your current target audience or markets you’d like to reach hang out online. You can find some excellent opportunities by following industry influencers on social media and noting the domains they share.

Boost Your Content Strategy and SEO with Expert Help

Every content strategy should be 100% unique. Our expert content marketers and SEO consultants take time to learn about your business, goals, and audience before jumping into action. The team at JS-Interactive has over 15 years of experience helping both B2B and B2C brands develop winning blogs, email, and other content.

Let’s talk about what you’d like to accomplish with an SEO-driven content strategy. Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation now.

5 Features of Results-Driven, Creative Content

Posted on by Justin

We all know we need to develop quality, creative content. It creates traffic, conversions and ultimately, sales. However, knowing content is necessary and understanding the type of content that drives results are very different. As the owner of an SEO company, I get that results-driven content creation isn’t always instinctive. By integrating a few basic features, you can produce the kind of content that will help your business grow and thrive.

1. Strong, Compelling Headlines

The adage “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” rings true with content as much as it does with face-to-face meetings. What is your first impression? Your headline, of course. This is your one and only chance to let your audience know what you have to say and why they need to listen.

power of words web design

A few simple principles will help you create attention-grabbing headlines. First, keep it short and sweet. Today’s attention span is even shorter than it was when that adage was first coined. Second, make it catchy with power words that invoke the reader’s curiosity. This can be formatted in many ways, some examples include:

  • Posing a question remains one of the best ways to engage a reader
  • Adding benefits to your headlines – make an emotional appeal
  • Eliciting feelings that help prompt decisions
  • Quotes from a speech or interview that provides a great introduction to good content

Finally, avoid sensationalism at all costs – the age of yellow journalism is over, and readers are looking for authentic, honest content stuffed with usable information.

2. Readable, Shareable Content

Quality content is easy to read. It is straightforward, interesting and even humorous when appropriate. Your reader should get to the end of your article without putting forth an exorbitant amount of effort to understand what is written. The best content has a personality that allows the reader to engage directly – as if they were enjoying a conversation in a local coffee shop with an expert on a topic.

Readable content performs well. Even better – readable content is more likely to get shared. Shared content expands its reach, gets seen and earns results.

creative content analysis

3. Unique, Useful Information

The digital age has brought a myriad of information to our fingertips. Some content is helpful – other content, not so much. If you want to stand out from all the online noise, you need to provide information that is both unique and useful. Hook readers in the first paragraph by stating what your content is about and why they should care. This is no time for fluff, so keep your content relevant, interesting and valuable.

One of the best ways to help your content stand out from the crowd is to become a master storyteller. Gone are the days where an audience just wants to absorb facts. Today, the reader is looking for a way to engage with everything they read. Open with a problem your reader can relate to and then lay out your solution. This formula for creative content is simple but highly effective.

4. Visually Appealing Imagery

No matter how good your content might be, if your audience sees nothing more than words on a page, it is unlikely to get read. In a world where GIFs and infographics rein, content’s kingdom has expanded considerably. Stop thinking of content as just text and expand your horizons to visuals designed to get and keep attention.

Visuals are a proven way to improve the performance of your content. When images are inserted about every 75-100 words, content is twice as likely to get shared. Videos are another valuable resource, increasing organic traffic, shares and time spent on a website.

5. Targeted to the Right Audience

Good content won’t get you results until it gets to the right audience. Think about what the purpose of your searches should be:

  • Navigational: Searchers are on the hunt for a specific site to get information about the company. This is a website a user and wants to visit directly.
    navigtional search query
  • Informational: Searchers are looking for websites that offer specific information around a certain subject matter. For example, step-by-step instructions to complete a task or basic facts about a medical condition.
    informational search queries
  • Transactional: Searchers want to perform some type of function, such as to receive rates or purchase an item.
    transactional search query

Knowing the intent of your audience will help you pinpoint your content to your precise target. Not only will you attract those that are interested in your business, but you will also find the audience most likely to take the appropriate action.

Great content development does more than showcase your business – it gets results. Whether you are crafting blogs, e-commerce or social media posts, when your content drives traffic and increases your conversions, it is worth every word.

Using SEO And Content Marketing To Boost Your Online Growth

Posted on by Justin

By now most probably have a basic understanding for why SEO and content marketing are important. They are both big game changers in the digital marketing space.

The benefits of internet presence is obvious. Online visibility helps build brand awareness, credibility and it increases audience reach. It makes your business accessible to the virtual world 24/7.

Having a well-functioning website with great usability is fundamental to your online business. But being visible to a relevant audience is what really drives growth for your business.

SEO and Content Marketing for online success

SEO and Content Marketing intertwine with each other. SEO is a technical process that aims to maximize website visits through natural, organic search. Content marketing provides valuable content relevant for search that encourages customers to take profitable action with your online business.

SEO will never be what it should be without a content marketing strategy. SEO is built around content marketing. Content Marketing is most successful with SEO.

Finding the right language, keywords, metadata is imperative to SEO success. Google search engines are smarter than they’ve ever been. This is why in 2020, both SEO and Content Marketing are essential tools to really boost digital growth.

Keyword Strategy

While we are long past the days of meta keywords and keyword stuffing content, keywords remain relevant and essential to SEO. Researching relevant keywords and making use of them in your content helps gain visibility in search engine results pages. Keywords are most useful when implemented within site titles,  page headers and body content.

Just remember that using keywords excessively (keyword stuffing) in an attempt to rank does nothing for your SEO. In fact it could have a negative impact on your results. In your strategy it’s important to know who your site visitors are, and to establish keywords with creative content that’s relevant. Your content marketing strategy should speak primarily to your audience – and not search engines. There are a variety of FREE SEO tools available to find the right keywords to help position your business in front of the right audience.

Quality Content

In your content strategy you want to be favorable with Google by creating relevant, unique content on a consistent basis. I try to encourage my clients to get into the mind of their customers. What key questions do they ask? What solutions do you offer to the problem they want to solve?

Consider the variety of ways to provide useful content to customers:

  • Blog posts
  • Case studies
  • Press releases
  • eBooks
  • Video and more

The key is to brainstorm creative ways to produce topical subject matter that includes important keywords. With the right keywords, you can position yourself online before the right audience.

User Experience (UX) Design

Relevant content needs a relevant experience. One may not consider UX design as part of an SEO and content marketing strategy, but it actually plays a significant role. Good User experience includes:

  • Creative content and engagement
  • Website accessibility (to both users and search engines)
  • Site architecture
  • Web design
  • Actionable steps in the context of a user’s immediate need

From a technical SEO standpoint, your website becomes accessible to search engines when content intentionally addresses title tags, header tags and URL structure. In your customization of this content, consider your keywords and how they fit into your strategy.

On the other hand, creative content strategizes hierarchy of importance and relevancy with what a user first sees on a webpage. It organizes content in a way that makes it useful for readers and easy for search engines to understand.

Quality Leads

Content created with user-intent in mind will generate qualified leads. An effective strategy for lead generation also includes off-site content and link building.  Link building is an SEO strategy that generates referral traffic back to your website. The market-relative content that gets published on other websites, directories and media channels link back to your business.

The more authority a referral site has, the more beneficial it will be for your SEO and visibility online. With Google’s demand for quality and creativity, good content is needed for your SEO and inbound marketing strategy.

My thoughts? Let SEO and content marketing work for you.

Stay in the race. Better yet – get ahead of your competition. SEO and content marketing can help empower businesses to grow online.

Not sure where to start? Let’s chat.

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