Did you know that majority of digital marketers believe SEO is the most important marketing strategy for 2018?
Effective SEO establishes you as an authority and leader in your profession. It helps companies obtain leads, win over new customers, and keep current ones.
It is part of a soft-sales strategy. Remember, most customers ignore overt marketing tactics. Your content is key to attracting savvy customers.
Blog posts, podcasts, photographs, and videos help tell your brand’s narrative. It advertises your services to visitors while giving a solution to a problem.
These tips will improve your company’s SEO campaign and increase website traffic.
1. Keyword Searches and Popular Topics
Keyword searches are an essential content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) tool. You can identify top words that individuals type into search engines.
This research will help you locate phrases that people use to search for products. Popular keywords can help you get ideas for your next blog and drive traffic to your website.
Your search terms will also help you to learn more about your audience. Start your keyword search off with a seed keyword. These are ideas and topics based around your business that you can build keywords from.
Basically, a seed keyword is your foundation for building long-tail keywords. So if your seed keyword is “weight loss” the long-tail keywords you could build from it include, “weight loss calculator,” “weight loss pills,” “weight loss program,” etc.
This is why you should start with seed keywords–you’re starting with topics that are relevant to your business and building them into keywords.
2. Keyword Generators and Search Engine Tools
You can gather keywords from topics found in online groups and forums related to your services. Jot down each keyword phrase and place them into a spreadsheet or document to refer to later. Once your list is complete, use a keyword tool to search for popular terms.
Two free tools are Google’s Keyword Planner and SEO Book Keywords List Generator. You can also generate keywords by using Google’s Search Bar. Extra search hints will pop up when conducting searches.
You can also search Twitter or Facebook for popular trending topics and write blog posts and show videos related to these hashtags. But be careful to remain professional and stay away from issues that can alienate your audience.
Additionally, Google’s results pages list the most asked questions and related topics–after all, the easiest place to see what people are searching is the search engine itself.
3. Use Quora to Find Blog Topics
Use Quora, the question-and-answer site that launched in 2009, to generate new ideas for blog posts. This popular site features MIT professors, politicians, and Hollywood actors.
Quora can be a long-term source of traffic for your site. It will also help establish you as an authority, and your business can get noticed by major publications–all by answering questions your customers are asking there.
Community-run sites will also feature popular trending topics related to your business. You’ll also learn which questions are most popular with users.
Once you find a popular topic, write it down. Develop a post on the subject. Other sites you can use are Avvo, Stack Overflow, and Yahoo Answers.
4. Ask Your Employees to Contribute Blog Posts
Another way to generate content is to ask employees to contribute blog posts. Your workers have relevant knowledge about your business–after all, they interact with your customers on a daily basis.
Before you let your employees write blogs for you, lay down ground rules about what is and isn’t acceptable for blog posts. This will prevent employees from writing posts that could get them in trouble. On the flipside, you can provide incentives and rewards for employees that write high-quality blogs so that employees are excited to write them.
You should also create a list of great online blogs to follow so that your employees have a model to work with. Once they post, make sure to share your employee posts via LinkedIn to establish your company’s reputation (and give your employees credit!) You can also use their content to promote conversations with your customers on Twitter and Facebook.
Ask your employees to act as experts on question-and-answer sites. Popular ones include Yahoo Answers, Awo, and Quora. Link their posts back to your Wog on your website to generate more traffic.
5. Run Contests
People love to take part in contests to win free stuff. Not only is it a fun way to generate content, it’s also an easy way to get customer leads. Visitors are willing to provide valid contact information for a chance to win.
You can gain new subscribers by asking individuals to follow your page. Sweepstakes and contests also increase engagement on your site. You should not hold sweepstakes at random periods.
Your contests should always celebrate a recent milestone. For example, a nutrition site can give away a blender when they reach 10,000 Facebook followers.
Your contests should feature calls to action (CTAs). Ask contestants for their contact information or comments to enter the contest. Ask them to follow you on social media follows for extra entries.
6. Ask Basic Questions
Businesses can achieve better SEO by encouraging audience participation. Asking questions is an easy way to increase online engagement.
Most individuals enjoy self-revelation. You can pose general questions unrelated to your business. Don’t be afraid to ask ordinary questions.
These warm-up questions will start conversations and boost engagement.
Here are a few examples:
- Who is your favorite superhero?
- Name three famous people you would like to meet?
- What advice would you give to younger self?
Ask customers meaningful, business-related questions in follow-up posts. Their answers will be useful in your market research.
Find out about your customers’ problems by listening to their answers. Their responses will help you to build quality buyer personas. Always ask open-ended questions designed to get longer responses.
You can also include trending hashtags related to your business. Not everyone likes hashtags, but they increase visibility for your posts.
7. Feature Customer Stories and Testimonials
Businesses should include customer testimonials in their marketing strategy. These critical reviews will boost your company’s local search engine optimization rankings.
Enthusiastic reviews also lend an authenticity to your business’ products and services. Using testimonials is not only great content for posts but they also promote your company.
Consumers rely on internet reviews when purchasing products. Testimonials are not considered self-promotional. Instead, the customer is promoting your products and services.
Good reviews should:
- Use real customers that represent your target demographic (or buyer persona).
- Be genuine. A testimonial should not be too stoic or emotional.
- Show how your services and products are superior to competitors.
- Demonstrate how your products beneficial. Don’t be afraid to ask customers to promote your products and services.
For SEO posts, you’ll need to be selective. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Identify customers you’d like to feature in a promotional video or post.
- Testimonials should be professional.
- Only choose customers that reflect your branding and image.
- Vet individuals by interviewing them.
Ask yourself: are they warm, authentic, and articulate when speaking about your brand? If so, this is exactly the kind of testimonial you want on your site.
8. Tell Your Business Story
According to Forbes Magazine, customers desire transparency and authenticity from companies they patronize. They would rather conduct business with entrepreneurs that are human and real.
Tell your business brand’s unique story through your posts. Create videos about your company’s origins or show films that highlight behind-the-scenes operations. Post pictures of employees working.
Craft posts about your leadership style, business philosophy, and community contributions.
Talk about your workplace culture or stories that will interest your audience. Submit professional action shots with your posts. Hire a professional photographer if you can’t take great pictures and always choose photos that tell your brand story.
Remember: show your customers your authentic business, a brand journey and personal story they can relate to.
9. Re-Use Quotes from Your Blog Posts
Re-purposing blog content helps you to reach new audiences. It helps connect users to older, quality content they may have missed the first time (plus, you already know that they liked the content the first time around).
There are many ways to reuse older content. Here are a few examples:
- Create YouTube videos based on your best content.
- Rewrite posts and use them as tutorial guides that your users can download.
- Use quotes from older interviews and blogs in new posts.
- Use paragraphs from your articles on Instagram and other sites to generate new posts. Pair them with professional pictures.
- Create a slideshow or infographic. Use free tools like Piktochart, Canva, or Infogram to create graphs from your content.
- Construct a weekly tips newsletter using old content, and send the publication to your email subscriber list.
Only re-use your most popular content. You can identify your most popular posts by using analytical tools on Facebook or Google. And don’t forget to link back to the original post to help boost traffic!
Boost Your SEO Campaign
Once you’ve implemented your SEO strategy, make sure to analyze the results and tweak the strategy as needed.
For example, if blog posts featuring interviews with local experts prompt more people to visit your site, it’s a good idea to schedule more of those posts in the future and fewer of posts that just aren’t working.
An SEO campaign offers great opportunities for growing your customer base, and we are seasoned professionals who know how to take advantage of that potential. Please contact us to learn how we can help you.
