The two most effective techniques in search engine optimization right now in 2014 is brand building and content marketing. My post yesterday covered a lot of ground on why building your brand is important and how to do it. Today, I want to quickly touch on how to do content marketing.
So what makes content marketing most effective? It’s not about who can write the best.
At Google, the engineers over there philosophically look at each person doing a search as “someone having a question”. And then the websites that are on the 1st page are “possible answers to the searcher’s question”.
So how can a business do content marketing to produce better SEO results and increase sales specifically?
Blog. A lot. And focus on keywords your potential customers search for. And be specific. Everybody writes about “limo service in san diego”. But how many limo service companies have content on “limo service for comic con” or “limo del hotel”. Potential customers actually type these keywords in to Google!
So imagine if you’re a business person going to Comic Con in San Diego. And you want to take a limo to the convention. It’s important to you the driver knows where they’re going so you might type “limo comic con” into Google. And just imagine your relief when you find a website that has a blog post talking about how they specialize in providing limo service for Comic Con and know all the in’s and out’s. So not only is it likely you call that limo company. It’s also likely you become their customer.
Same thing if you’re staying at the Grand Del Mar Hotel and need a limo to the airport. You want a limo company close by that drive you to the airport. And you do a search for “limo grand del hotel” and then find a limo service with a blog talking about how you know exactly where the hotel is and the best and quickest route to take to San Diego Airport. Once again, pretty likely that person not only calls, but becomes your customer.
And if you’re Google, this is the content you want to rank on the 1st page because for people going to Comic Con or people needing transportation from the Del Hotel, your content will answer their question.
So not only do you get your website on the 1st page of Google, but you’re also increasing the conversion rate between phone calls to new customers.
This is effective content marketing in 2014.