Businesses are now moving to and utilizing online platforms more. The convenience that technology has offered has pushed more customers online for all their shopping.
Customers can now compare products, look for information, buy, and pay for products online. So marketers have now shifted to digital marketing to reach out, connect, and get customers.
Marketers use two main strategies to reach customers: content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). However, while most marketers will agree that these strategies work, they don’t know how to implement the best content strategies and SEO to their business. Hence, it’s easy to get it wrong and lose customers.
Content strategy goes hand in hand with SEO. So when implementing your content marketing strategy, you’ll need top SEO tactics so that customers can get to your content. But first, understanding what the two strategies entail is crucial before you can use them in your overall marketing strategy.
Content Strategies vs. SEO Strategies
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on generating quality content for your audience. The content connects with your audience by answering any questions they may have about your product. The questions could be why they need the said products, what to look for when buying them, or how to solve the problems associated with them. Creating good content will help build authority and trust with your customers.
On the other hand, SEO focuses on optimizing your engine so that it ranks on search browsers. With good SEO strategies, your business will have more visibility and generate more organic traffic and conversions.
As stated earlier, SEO and content strategies go hand in hand. So your content can play a significant role in boosting your SEO. This is because search engines favor websites that are designed to create an excellent user experience. So if your content is suitable to the users, your website will rank. On the other hand, you can employ different SEO strategies for your content to make it valuable to the consumer.
With that in mind, this article will discuss the different SEO tactics that businesses can use for an efficient content strategy.
Must Read: What is SEO Spam and How to Protect Your Site?
SEO tactics for your Content Strategy
For so long, the content strategy was just about getting the right keywords. So when your target audience searched for those phrases, your website would pop up among the search results, and they could click it.
While this strategy worked in getting traffic to your website, it didn’t guarantee a good user experience and conversions.
Therefore, content marketing is more than just keywords. Using SEO won’t only help you rank but also provide meaningful information to connect with your prospects and turn them into buyers.
Here are some SEO strategies you can adopt for your campaigns:
- Create a link-building plan
- Set up a blog
- Conduct keyword research
- Figure out your target audience
- Try different varieties of formats
- Update your information regularly
- Publish content depending on the different buyer’s journey
- Track Your Results
#1 Create a link-building plan
Link building is an excellent option in building off-page SEO and achieving a better ranking. Link building uses inbound linking or backlinking from other high authority sources on the internet to attract traffic to your website.
Leverage your content strategy by using tiered link building strategies where the content hub is connected to resources worth linking to. The content hub is created from the services you offer, then broken down into different blogs.
Marketers can attract more inbound links by guest posting for other high-authority sites. Also, they can share links to other blog sites in exchange for their links, which will mean more sites will carry the links to their sites. This shows that your ecommerce site is a relevant and reliable source of information regarding a specific type of product, and therefore, your site will have more visitors.
#2 Set up a Blog
Having a blog page on your website is a crucial thing to do in your content strategy.
People want to read more about your business, products, and how your products can benefit them. A blog page is important in your content in the following ways:
- Allows you to upload content with keywords related to your products and business. For example, if you’re offering plumbing services, you can have content that talks about why homeowners should get professional plumbing services. If the post provides the information they’re looking for, they can engage your business.
- It allows you to link your content to relevant authorities and also internal pages using anchor texts. This helps to build the authority and credibility of your information. By linking the pillar page to the clutter, you show search engines the relationship between keywords and the overarching topic you want to rank for.
So if you’re considering the best SEO strategies for your business, then you should start with having a blog. It gives you a better scope to provide information to your audience and also links to the services you offer.
#3 Conduct Keyword Research
As mentioned, marketers shouldn’t depend on finding the right keywords to use on their topic. However, this doesn’t mean they have to abandon keywords. Customers will still use keywords to look for products and services online.
The trick is having the right keywords for your topics. This is only possible through keyword research to know what phrases your target audience is using to look for your products or similar products.
Conducting keyword research isn’t a complex task as you can get it right by following the following steps:
- Start with broad search terms. For example, for a plumbing business, a broader keyword term could be ’plumbing services.’
- Narrow down your search scope depending on factors such as top sellers, keyword variations, product features, or suggestions from search engines.
- Piece together the keyword phrases to form a long-tail keyword that is more specific to your area.
- Enter the keyword phrases that you have pieced together into keyword research tools to find out which phrases will yield better results. A general rule of thumb is to avoid keywords that will put you in contention with high-authority domains.
After finding the right keywords, you can use them on your topic and content. When customers look for these phrases, your content will rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs), and they can visit your page.
#4 Figure out your target audience
When developing your content strategy, you should first know who to target. This is because content without a specific target audience won’t achieve the desired research, such as getting visitors and conversions.
With the right audience in mind, you can create bespoke content that resonates with them. Here’s how you can do it:
- Identify the key characteristics of your current customer base, such as age and engagements, so you know who you’re writing for. It also helps understand the characteristics of your prospects.
- Look at your competitors and discover the people who are engaging them. You can do this through their social media accounts, comments, or reviews. This will give you a clearer picture of your target audience and what they may expect from your content.
- You can also use your products to identify your audience. For example, if you offer plumbing services, then your target audience will be homeowners. Know who’ll benefit from your products, and those will be the audience you target in your content strategy.
After gathering this data, you can segment your audience according to demographics, interests, hobbies, and occupations. This will help create personalized content that can connect to individual customers.
#5 Try different varieties of formats
Another good SEO practice for your content strategy is using a variety of content formats. While blogs can be engaging and allow you to build links to other resources, your audience can get bored at some point. This will decrease the number of engagements in your ecommerce, and you could end losing potential customers.
Therefore, you need to give your customers a variety of content formats, such as videos, podcasts, infographics, and guides. You can use a video editor to create walkthrough videos about using the products to make it easier for customers to use. You can start a podcast to deliver your brand story, how you started, the challenges you faced and how you overcame them, and also where you expect to be.
Such engaging and valuable content will bring more visitors to your ecommerce site. When search engines detect more traffic on your site, then it’ll rank higher, generating more traffic and conversions.
#6 Update your information regularly
One cornerstone of good SEO and content strategy is to regularly have excellent and bespoke content updated on your blog page. Market trends, consumer behavior, technology, and other determining factors in business change regularly.
So you should regularly update your content to keep up with the changing trends. This will ensure that your content remains valuable to customers and gain a better ranking on search engines.
This doesn’t apply to known contents only but also existing content. The resources you linked your article to could no longer be available. Thus, when clients click the link and they can’t find the linked article, they get frustrated, especially if it was linked to research sites and studies.
As a marketer, you should know how customer frustrations affect your business ranking and avoid them early enough.
Updating your content will show visitors and search engines that your site is reliable for fresh, authentic, and helpful information about a particular product.
#7 Publish content depending on the different buyer’s journey
A marketing funnel consists of three different parts: the funnel’s top, middle, and bottom.
Customers will require different content at these three stages, so marketers should know what makes sense at that stage of the funnel. Here’s a broken-down structure of the marketing funnel:
Top of the funnel
This is the customer discovery and customer stage. In this stage, customers discover your ecommerce site. But you don’t sell your products to them at this point. Instead, you make them know that you understand their pain points. Your content at this stage should be easy to consume.
The content you publish should address their problems and provide solutions without selling any product. It’s also a good time to connect with your customers emotionally.
Middle of the funnel
At this stage, you must engage prospective customers deeply. This is a consideration stage for customers where they know their problems have a solution after reading your blog in the first stage. As a marketer, you use this stage to gain your customers’ trust by guiding them toward the best solution.
One way to do so is through case studies, comparison guides, or free samples. However, while offering a guide to the customer, it should lean more toward your products.
Customers at this stage will do intensive research on the products or services that solve their problems. So your blog content should show them why your product is the best.
Bottom of the funnel
This is the purchase stage where customers will put their money on the product that interests them the most. Their decision at this point is depended on what you did in the first two stages. Suppose you educated and guided them well. Then they’ll purchase your products.
At this point, you can use emailing and chatbot to remind customers of the value of your products. This helps keep your marketing message in front of the others and ensure prospects turn to buyers.
#8 Track Your Results
Your content strategy isn’t a one-time thing where you get results, then abandon it.
Instead, it’s a learning process where you use experiences and results to develop a more efficient strategy. But first, you need to track your results and know what targets your meeting and what you’re falling short of.
You can measure your results through organic traffic and conversions. Also, you can check your ranking as a higher ranking reveals a more successful content strategy.
Moreover, if you’re having better returns on investment, then your content strategy is working. Failure to meet these metrics means you have to adjust your future content strategy.
Conclusion
Your SEO and content strategies should work together to achieve better ranking, more conversions, and a higher ROI. When your ecommerce appears on search engines, it should have valuable content that consumers will benefit from.
Therefore, you can follow the tips discussed here about using SEO tactics for an efficient content strategy. When you implement these strategies, you can ensure your marketing campaign’s success.
