You have probably heard once or twice (or more!) that the strategic placement of your keywords are an important part of your company’s search engine rankings. At a high level, we agree that the path to improved search engine optimization is paved with the effective use of keywords in your B2B marketing content.
However, in the great effort your team expels to make sure that your keywords are effectively used throughout your website, you can overlook an important factor: publishing information that’s actually useful to your audience.
Considering that people today have worse attention spans than goldfish, this is especially important if you are actively blogging for your business.
So how do you know if your digital marketing content is not only serving the search engines but also effectively serving your increasingly distracted audience?
This short list will help you understand some of the boxes you should be checking when publishing new marketing content and help make sure your blog doesn’t sound like it was written by a robot for robots.
When you are regularly publishing blogs, it is a fact that you will also boost the number of links to your website, improve your search engine rankings, and see an increase in website traffic. And using a strategically selected collection of keywords will help ensure that you attract the right traffic even.
But the goal isn’t just more visitors. It is more sales (and newsletter sign-ups, qualified leads, etc.). So your goal isn’t really about improved search engine rankings, it is actually about getting more conversions.
Karon Thackston’s eBook from 2011, The Write Way to Build More Links, offers four points that are still relevant today for marketers that may be guilty of giving little or no consideration to what their website visitors may actually want to learn, as well as who their specific readers (i.e., ideal buyer personas) even are.
1. Who is your reader?
Has your marketing team gone to the effort of profiling your ideal customers, and mapping out the different types of industry professionals that are considered decision-makers that are in the process of purchasing your products or services? If so, then it should also be focused on creating content that it knows will serve these audiences. How well do you really know your ideal customer?
2. What is his/her relationship to the subject matter (and how experienced are they)?
Again, this question points to your understanding of not only your ideal customers, but where they actually are in their buyer’s journey. Because not every visitor to your website can be considered an active lead who is ready to buy today.
Does your company’s strategic marketing content, blog and emails spend most of its effort talking at your ideal customers about your products and services? Or is it educating your visitors in a way that helps them make smart choices?
I can’t emphasize enough that today’s consumers are more distracted than ever, and are aware that they have more choices than ever before for gathering information that will help them solve their problems. Are you doing enough to be considered a trustworthy source they will want to visit again and again?
3. Why is your reader interested in your content?
The more you know about your target audience and trends that motivate this audience, the better quality you will produce in your marketing content. In the B2B world, you just don’t get married after the first date.
4. Does your reader have fears/skepticisms/anxieties about the topic?
What makes your website visitors hesitant to invest in your products or services? If your marketing and sales teams understand what motivates your ideal customers, then you should be addressing these issues so that you can build bridges with them.
Your blog content, as well as your social media pages, provide your organization with countless opportunities to engage your prospects with compelling content that not only serves your SEO objectives, but also builds trust with your ideal audience.
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