Google’s June 2019 core update that finished its rollout on June 8, has generated unprecedented reaction among marketers because numerous websites including the top rated and most revered ones in terms of authority and expertise have lost rankings dramatically overnight. The impact of the update has affected websites across the widest range from news and travel websites to retail sites as well as health, finance, and gambling.
After the massive churning, it has become very clear that although the causes of ranking loss are hard to find out an easier way to counter the effects would be to focus on content more intently. Marketing content rather than products or services has become more important than ever before. Although content has always been at the heart of SEO marketing, the June 2019 core update has once again underlined how important it is to go back to the basics of content marketing.
Market Content – Not Products
Marketing content should precede marketing products and services, and that is what we precisely mean by content marketing. Trying to push a product aggressively or devising strategies for outsmarting algorithms to reach to the top of search rankings on the first page is not worth the effort anymore. Instead, a more effective means of marketing is to forge close connections with the targeted audience by presenting them meaningful content that conveys value and connects consumers with businesses and brands more closely that has a long-lasting impact.
It used to be this way, but now the shock treatment meted out by Google through its June 2019 core update empathically reminds us once again the importance of connecting with the audience that has some specific need during their buying journey and then meeting that need. SEO companies have discovered that strategies and practices that emanate from the simple philosophy of consumer bonding create measurable engagement of the targeted audience. Visitors are engaging in various actions like subscribing, downloading, clicking through, and moving to the most important last step – buying.
In this article, we will focus on how it is possible to drive this behavior and improve the prospects of lead generation during the customer journey. Some of the best practices in content marketing adopted by companies will become easy to understand by going through this article.
Inform But Don’t Sell
Selling is the last thing that you must have in mind because content marketing has nothing to do about it. Content marketing is all about you, who becomes the protagonist while pushing products and services to the back seat. Content marketing is poles apart from conventional marketing that creates strategies about hard selling products and services by putting it at the front. On the contrary, in content marketing, the mention of products and services are for the sake of sharing various information about it that the audience finds useful with not a single word spoken about selling. Content marketing aims at building trust with brands, and when the audience finds it trustworthy, they would also find enough reasons to engage in business with it.
Buying is the last thing that the audience has in mind. The process of buying consists of various stages right from the time of selecting a product and then gathering information about it to arriving at a buying decision. Numerous questions come up in the minds of the audience about the products as they want to learn more in-depth about it, and you must provide the answers they seek by presenting appropriate content. The insights gained by the audience enhance the trustworthiness and drives them closer to buying.
Trying to sell products directly can be a great turn-off for the audience that dislikes the approach that they feel somewhat intrusive.
Audience-Focused Content
Be sure about whom you want to communicate with the content and understand completely what they would be interested to know about. You must first concentrate on the type of audience you want to address, and by knowing their interests create suitable content that answers their queries or solves their problems. Naturally, the content must revolve around the specific interest of the audience and their pain points, which in turn becomes the most effective form of communication that serves a mutual purpose. The content must be tailor-made for the audience by considering their position in the buying journey so that it remains most relevant and encourage them to move to the next step. It should elicit a specific response.
Content Optimization
The two most important things to consider about content are that it should be easy to deliver and equally easy for the audience to discover because visibility matters most in edging out the competition. To achieve the goals, you must concentrate on content optimization. You can achieve this by using tools like word counter or a character counter.
Following are the steps you must follow:
- Title – Place keywords in the title and try to keep it to the left as much as possible while restricting the title length between 50 and 75 characters.
- Subheadings – Use key-words in the subheadings too but preferably long tail keywords and even pose it in the form of questions.
- URL – Title matching with URL should be your goal to the extent possible but exclude prepositions and conjunctions. To separate words, use hyphens and lower-case letters.
- Meta description – Create an accurate summary of the content in about 300-320 characters that explains everything and attract users to click on it.
- Images – Select images thoughtfully and describe every image while restricting the image size to 100 kb. Captions and Alt tags should also accompany the images.
Content Publication And Distribution
There must be a well-maintained frequency of publishing content, and doing it consistently holds the key to success. Creating and following a content calendar should help in the consistent publication of content. Depending on your resources, audience preferences, and marketing goals, you must create a schedule for publishing content and stick to it. At the same time, you must arrange to distribute content and promote it for gaining high visibility.
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More on this topic: The June 2019 Google Core Update Brings the Limelight on Google Analytics Once Again