How to Create Your Content Marketing Strategy

How to Create Your Content Marketing Strategy

A clear content marketing strategy is a must for any business trying to engage and expand its audience. But a survey by the Content Marketing Institute revealed that only 40% of B2B marketers have a clear strategy. Meanwhile, 33% had an undocumented one, 20% planned to set one up in the next year, and 7% had no such plans.

So, do you have a strategy for your content marketing?

If not, or if you’re looking to develop a fresh one, our Orange County SEO agency has a few helpful tips.

What is a Content Marketing Strategy?

A content marketing strategy covers the planning, creation, and distribution of your content. It encompasses everything relevant to how your business uses content to reach customers, grow your audience, and achieve your objectives.

Building a detailed strategy will clarify how you can help readers, viewers, or listeners better than anyone else.

Creating Your Content Marketing Strategy

Confirm Your Content Marketing Goals

What do you want to achieve with your content?

Identifying your goals can be a time-consuming process, but when you know what they are, rank them in order of priority. That will make it easier to create the right content for your business (and ideally your audience) in the short and long term.

Research Your Audience

To create the most valuable content for your audience, you need to know who they are. What types of content do they enjoy? How long do they prefer blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other content to be? And what content do they want but struggle to find?

Answering questions like these will equip you with the information you need to craft high-value content. You can use the following methods to research your audience :

  • Surveys
  • Social listening tools
  • User behavior analysis
  • Focus groups

Developing a content marketing strategy without research may be a little faster, but you’re more likely to miss the mark.

Brainstorm Concepts, Topics, and Exciting Ideas

Use your marketing goals and data gathered through your research to brainstorm content ideas. You can try various techniques, such as a mind map: write a topic in the middle of a whiteboard and surround it with anything that comes to mind.

Create Personas

Personas can help you create targeted content that’s more relevant and engaging to specific audience segments. They include concise information on a fictional reader representing a group, such as 30 – 40 year-old professionals with lots of disposable income and no kids. In-depth audience research is essential for building accurate personas.

Build your Content Calendar

Setting up a content calendar will enable you to stay consistent, organized, and aware of upcoming topics. That’s ideal if you need to research a subject or book a space for filming a video. It’s also helpful for promoting content via social media and email before it’s published.

Good content is fundamental for any digital marketing strategy. And if you need help with your digital marketing, including SEP and retargeting, leave it to our Orange County SEO agency.

How can we boost your online visibility? Get in touch to find out!

 

Create Better Content with Personas

Create Better Content with Personas

Personas are a popular tool in digital marketing. A software business, for instance, might build user personas to understand who their new product is for. That can reduce the risk of launching a new program that fails to deliver the features that the target users need most.

Similarly, creating a persona for content marketing can help you bring the right information to the right people. You’ll find it easier to build content that engages the relevant audience segments and remains consistent.

But how do you create a persona for your content? Our Orange County digital marketing agency shares some tips to help you get it right

Research Your Audience

To create a persona, you need to know as much about your audience as you can. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind:

  • Send surveys to customers asking their opinion on your current content, the content they like to read, and what they find least appealing about content in general.
  • Chat with sales and support staff about common pain points. What drives customers to contact your business? What issues do they face? These insights can help you develop accurate personas.
  • Check your leading competitors’ content. What types of blog posts published on their site achieve the highest engagement? Which formats do they use most often, and how do readers/viewers react? You might learn more about what your shared audience likes and dislikes.
  • Pay attention to social media conversations related to your industry, business, and content. Social channels give you a direct connection to different audience segments, and can be vital when building personas.

When you gather information on your audience and how they engage with content, you can start crafting your personas.

Consider Your Target Readers’ Goals and Challenges

Use the information you gathered through your research to build a brief character study of your target reader, viewer, or listener. A content marketing persona should include essential details such as:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Occupation (mainly for B2B companies)
  • Goal (what they’re looking for when they come to your content)
  • Challenges (what’s preventing them from getting what they want)
  • Social media channels

You only need to provide basic details in each area — personas should give you and your team at-a-glance breakdowns of the target individual.

Understand What Each Persona Needs at Different Stages of the Customer Journey

Content is important throughout the customer journey, so bear that in mind when planning your publication schedule.

For example, a potential buyer will find certain blog posts invaluable at the start of their journey (the awareness stage), such as a concise overview of a specific product or service.

Your content marketing personas can help you understand different readers’ goals and challenges at each stage of their customer journey. Consider how your content can engage them and encourage them to become loyal buyers. Brainstorm content ideas for each stage of the customer journey across your audience segments.

Our Orange County digital marketing pros are here to boost your business’s visibility on search engines through SEO, SEP, retargeting, and more. Contact us today to get started!

Mobile SEO Tips: How to Help Your Website Rank Better

Mobile SEO Tips: How to Help Your Website Rank Better

While online, consumers all over the world spend more than half of their time browsing websites on a mobile device. But users may not be able to find your website in the first place if it’s not optimized for mobile. And that can have a serious impact on your rankings.

What can you do about that? Our Orange County SEO agency shares a few ideas to inspire you below.

Responsive Design is a Must

Mobile devices generate more than 60% of organic search engine traffic, so customers should be able to visit your site and enjoy a user-friendly experience on any device. Otherwise, you risk losing them: one survey found that 60% of consumers abandon transactions because of a poor user experience.

That’s why using responsive web design is a must for every mobile SEO strategy. Images, text, and other key page elements will be scaled to the appropriate dimensions for the user’s screen.

As Google gives preference to mobile-friendly sites that provide a positive user experience, responsive web design can help boost your SEO ranking.

Maximize Page Load Times

Page speed is critical. If your pages take longer than three seconds to load, you risk losing visitors and their business. Google also considers page speed a major aspect of quality websites and a positive user experience. If your pages take too long to load on mobile devices, it’s time to fix that.

You can increase page speed by:

  • Compressing images
  • Reducing redirects
  • Caching pages
  • Decreasing JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code

These are just a few ideas to help you get started. Keep making improvements until you get load times down to three seconds or less.

Target Local Customers

“Near me” searches have increased dramatically in the past decade, as smartphones and smart speakers allow consumers to find local providers with minimal effort.

More than 75% of people visit a brick-and-mortar location within 24 hours of running a local search on their mobile device, and almost 30% of those searches lead to a purchase.

Optimizing your site for local searches can increase your visibility on mobile. Create content with a local focus, set up a Google Business Profile, and enable customers to review your services. All this can make your site easier to find for local searches.

Create Mobile-Friendly Content

All content on your site should be easy to read and view on a mobile device. It also needs to keep visitors engaged enough to stay on your site and explore.

Try these tips:

  • Keep paragraphs concise to help visitors skim text
  • Embrace white space for easy readability
  • Use brief, punchy headlines
  • Break up text with videos and images (compressed, of course!)

Mobile-friendly content is essential for a great user experience, so optimize yours to boost your ranking.

Need a little help to take your rankings higher? Leave it to our Orange County SEO agency!

We’ll create a bespoke SEO strategy to increase your visibility and deliver a stronger user experience. Get in touch now to learn more!

Struggling for Content Ideas? Here are 6 Simple Tips

Struggling for Content Ideas? Here are 6 Simple Tips

Generating ideas for new content can be a challenge, but our Orange County SEO team has six tips for you to try!

 

Stay Updated on News Stories in Your Industry and Local Area

Tracking the latest events in your industry and local area can provide you with exciting content ideas.

For example, new regulations may come into force that require your business to adjust the way you work or the services you provide. You could write an in-depth post about the reasons for these changes, how they’ll affect customers, and other key points.

Similarly, an event taking place in your area — such as a business expo or conference — could inspire a number of posts. Could you interview any thought leaders in attendance? How about covering your business’s role in an important community event (e.g. raising money for a local charity)?

 

Listen to Podcasts Related to Your Niche

Podcasters discussing topics related to your industry, products, or services can provide you with valuable content inspiration. And with more than 2 million podcasts from all over the world, you have plenty to choose from.

Can you expand on what has already been covered in a podcast or approach a topic from a fresh perspective? Mention any podcasts that inspire you directly in your blog post, video, or podcast for transparency, then share your own thoughts on discussions or news.

 

Repurpose Old Content

Take a look at a blog post, how-to guide, or video you published months or years ago. Can you make something new out of it?

Let’s say you have a blog post offering advice to startups trying social media marketing for the first time. You could take any tips that are still relevant and use them as the basis for a new video or podcast. Repurposing your content will help you save time that you would otherwise spend trying to generate entirely new ideas.

 

Welcome Ideas from Across Your Company

Don’t just look to your content team to generate ideas: invite everyone in your company to suggest ideas. People from across different departments will have experience, insights, and opinions that could inspire a wealth of new content.

And your content may be less likely to become repetitive or stale as a result.

 

Check Comments Sections for Helpful Reader Insights

How do readers or viewers respond to content? Read their comments on your site, YouTube, Facebook, etc. to harvest ideas. You may see a question or criticism that inspires a new blog post or video.

 

Study Your Best Content to Discover What Works

Identify the highest-performing content you have published, and explore those posts, videos, or podcasts in detail. Why do they work so well? Why have they attracted so much attention? Consider how you can build new content around your findings.

 

Conclusion

Try these tips when brainstorming new content ideas to make the creative process easier. Want to get your content in front of a bigger audience? Need help with identifying strong keywords? Our Orange County SEO team is ready to help you!

Keyword Research: How to Get It Right

Keyword Research: How to Get It Right

In-depth keyword research is an essential part of building a successful SEO strategy and campaigns. Keywords tell search engines what each page on your site is related to and when it should be presented to searchers.

Not spending enough time on keyword research is a common SEO mistake. Without the right keywords, your website is less likely to appear when potential customers are looking for the exact products or services that you provide.

But researching your keywords will help you understand how to gain visibility on SERPs and get your site in front of buyers. Still, keyword research can be a complex, time-consuming process and difficult to get right.

To help make it easier for you, our Orange County SEO pros share four simple tips below!

 

Generate Ideas Relevant to Your Business and Industry

Start by brainstorming topics related to the products or services you sell, and your overall industry or niche, to generate ideas for potential keywords. For example, these might be topics that you already cover in your blog posts and videos, such as ‘home security’ or ‘beauty products’.

This process can help you get into a buyer’s mindset, and prompt you to think about what users will search for to find specific products or services.

 

Consider User Intent

User’s search intent is categorized into four types:

  • Informational: The user is looking to learn about a topic.
  • Navigational: The user is looking for a particular website or business.
  • Transactional: The user is ready to buy an item or use a service.
  • Commercial: The user is researching a product or service and needs a little more time to consider their purchase before they commit.

The user’s intent will affect the search terms they use, such as ‘how do I make chocolate cake’, ‘best men’s sneakers for basketball’ or ‘women’s jeans free shipping’.

Think about what type of search terms your target customers are likely to use at each stage of their journey.

 

Take Advantage of Tools

The right tools can make keyword research a little easier, especially if you’re new to the process.

You can use keyword research tools to find out what keywords competing websites use, for example, and they can help you turn your initial ideas into effective keywords. Free ones, such as Google Keyword Planner, are available, as well as paid platforms.

 

Work with SEO Pros for a Simpler Journey to Success

The most effective way to get your keywords right is to leave it to a professional team of SEO specialists.

They’ll handle every aspect of researching the best keywords for your business, whatever your industry and target audience. And you can leave everything else related to your SEO campaigns in their hands, too!

 

Our Orange County SEO experts are ready to boost your online visibility and help your business reach your ideal customers. Get in touch with our team to find out more and to receive your free Relevancy & Quality Score (RQS) Grader, packed with expert insights!

What are the Most Important SEO KPIs to Track

What are the Most Important SEO KPIs to Track?

Setting goals is crucial for measuring the performance of your SEO campaigns and pinpointing problems that could hinder your success. That equates to less wasted time and (critically!) money.

While the nature of your business and your digital marketing strategy will determine the best SEO KPIs for you, there are still some that every company can benefit from tracking.

What are they? Join our Orange County SEO pros as we take a look.

 

Average Time on Page

Engagement is paramount: the more time a user spends on one of your webpages, the more likely they are to convert.

Measuring the average time on a page will show you which ones are the most and least engaging. Study your best pages and incorporate valuable elements into your worst to boost their performance.

 

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) tracks each customer’s value to your business. Not just on the basis of a single purchase, but with regards to your entire relationship.

Analyzing CLV can introduce you to ways to strengthen relationships with your customers and keep them loyal for longer. And if you can boost customer retention by 5%, you could increase profitability by 25 to 95% overall.

 

ROI

Keeping track of ROI generated by your SEO processes will show you how profitable your campaigns are, and help you recognize which activities contribute to your ROI the most.

Tracking this KPI can help you avoid costly mistakes in the future, but it may take months before you start seeing ROI, so this is a more long-term KPI than some of the others.

 

Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate on a specific page means it simply isn’t engaging visitors and giving them no reason to stay. As a result, you could miss out on valuable opportunities to generate leads, convert customers, and build lasting relationships.

Track your bounce rate to reduce the risk of losing potential customers before they have a chance to discover what your business can do for them.

 

Conversion Rate

Conversions refer to a user taking a specific action and moving their relationship with your business to the next level. Common conversion goals include:

  • Buying a product
  • Downloading a free whitepaper/ebook
  • Completing and submitting a contact form
  • Subscribing to your weekly newsletter

When a user converts, you have a fantastic opportunity to foster a stronger connection with them. But if your conversion rates are low, you need to explore why they may not go through with the conversion and how you can direct users to take the desired action more effectively.

 

Page Speeds

Users care about how quickly your pages load. And if that’s longer than 3 seconds, you’re less likely to keep them on your site.

Measure your speeds to find any pages that take longer than they should, and work on bringing those times down.

 

Want to build successful SEO campaigns?

Our Orange County SEO team will create bespoke ones for you and track essential KPIs to continually find new improvement opportunities. Get in touch with our experts today to get started!

 

Beginner SEO Mistakes: Avoid These Common Errors for Better Campaigns

Beginner SEO Mistakes: Avoid These Common Errors for Better Campaigns

SEO can be a complex topic for newcomers, and it’s easy to make mistakes. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t over time organically, but a little expert advice can help you save invaluable time and money.

So, in this post, our Orange County SEO specialists will cover five common beginner SEO mistakes to help you build better campaigns.

 

SEO Mistake #1: Poor Content

Sixty-five percent of companies surveyed find producing engaging content challenging, while 60% admit to struggling with consistent content production.

Creating quality content can be particularly tough for new businesses, but it’s crucial to invest time and energy into building content that makes an impact — it’s one of the top ranking factors, after all.

Try creating a regular stream of blog posts, videos, and infographics to generate interest. Write on topics you and your team know well. Use eye-catching visuals and original research (if possible) to earn more credibility. Share new content across your social channels and encourage feedback.

 

SEO Mistake #2: Missing Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions tell search engines and users what a webpage contains. These are displayed on results pages and encourage potential customers to choose your site over others.

That’s why your title tags and meta descriptions should be clear, direct, and honest. Never promise what a page doesn’t deliver just to draw prospects in — they may abandon your site within seconds when they realize the truth.

 

SEO Mistake #3: Not Providing Google with a Complete Sitemap

Google’s crawlers will index your site more efficiently when you submit a sitemap.

A sitemap tells the search engine what pages are included in your website and reduces the risk that its crawlers might miss pages because it can’t find them. Google may not index new content added to your site without a map, especially if your linking is less effective than it should be.

 

SEO Mistake #4: Weak Internal Linking

Solid internal linking enables search engines to find their way around your site, guiding them smoothly from page to page. Along with a sitemap, internal linking also decreases the likelihood of crawlers missing vital pages and keywords.

And good internal linking helps human users explore your site, leading them logically to the content, products, or services they’re looking for.

 

SEO Mistake #5: Failing to Research Keywords Properly

Keyword research is paramount when building an SEO campaign. Using keyword research tools will help you find the best keywords to reach your target customers, avoid high-competition keywords, and increase your visibility.

Working with SEO experts is a quicker, simpler option: they’ll identify crucial keywords for your business and incorporate them into carefully planned campaigns.

 

Our Orange County SEO agency will help you get your brand in front of the customers you’re looking for, increase your domain authority, and provide you with the ideal SEO package for your budget and goals. Contact our team to start building better SEO campaigns today!

 

5 SEO Trends for 2022 You Need to Know About

5 SEO Trends for 2022 You Need to Know About

SEO evolves from year to year, and it’s crucial that you stay up to date with the latest trends to avoid falling behind. With 2022 here already, we thought it was time for our Orange County SEO specialists to share five top SEO trends for the year ahead.

Greater Focus On Website Accessibility

As the Internet becomes increasingly embedded in our lives, every website should be optimized for improved accessibility. Many people may struggle to use your site properly if you overlook this key issue: for example, around 12 million people in the U.S. have vision impairment and approximately 15% of adults experience some level of hearing difficulty.

Enhanced accessibility can provide all users with a high-quality browsing experience, regardless of their capabilities. It will also reduce the risk of dissatisfied visitors leaving your site with a negative impression of your brand.

More Websites Catering to Voice Search

Twenty-seven percent of the worldwide online population uses voice search on mobile devices. This trend will drive more and more businesses to optimize their websites for voice search in 2022, but what does that involve?

  • Incorporate keywords into questions users are likely to ask, especially on mobile devices, such as “where’s the nearest pizza restaurant to me?”
  • Implement long-tail keywords for accurate targeting.
  • Write in a conversational style.
  • Create FAQ pages packed with relevant, conversational questions and answers.

Increasing Popularity of Featured Snippets

Featured snippets appear on around 19% of SERPs, and they give users a faster way to access information. Ideally, a featured snippet will provide an answer but still compel users to click through for a more detailed insight instead of scrolling down.

In 2022 (and beyond), more brands will structure their content to earn featured snippets. One technique is to use more questions and answers in content, beginning with “who”, “what”, or “why”.

Mobile-friendly Websites Becoming More Prevalent

More than 92% of Internet users around the world went online via their mobile devices as of January 2021.So, it’s no surprise that brands will increasingly optimize their websites for mobile devices in 2022 and beyond.

Mobile-friendly websites are critical to deliver the best user experience and prevent frustrated users from leaving your site.

Combining Video and Long-form Content for Better Results

Brands will continue to embrace longer content in 2022. This typically gives readers more valuable information and encourages visitors to stay on your site for longer, unlike a short piece of content.

And video will remain a key part of SEO strategies the world over. Ninety-three percent of businesses win new customers thanks to videos they post on social media, and companies that use video grow revenue 49% faster than those that don’t. Combining long-form content and videos can help businesses improve SEO campaigns significantly.

Our Orange County SEO agency is here to help you achieve better results, whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to overhaul your current SEO strategy. Get in touch to find out how we can help you today!

What are Featured Snippets

What are Featured Snippets on Google and How Can They Help You?

Google continually develops new ways to help searchers find the information they need. That’s one of the many reasons why it’s the most popular search engine, with a market share of more than 86% as of September 2021.

And featured snippets could be considered one of the best additions to Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) in recent years. But they’re more than just a convenient way to deliver bite-sized answers to queries — featured snippets can help your business increase its visibility and attract clicks too.

Featured Snippets Explained

Featured snippets appear at the top of the organic results on a SERP, and display a few lines of text from a website. This snippet should answer the user’s question concisely, but the link to the website is included underneath if you want to learn more.

In this example, Google answered our question with a snippet from USA Today and a few images. This provides a concise answer with multiple options if we want to explore it in more detail.

What Featured Snippet Types Appear on SERPs?

Google displays four types of featured snippets on its SERPs:

  • Paragraph
  • Table
  • List
  • Video

Let’s take a closer look at each:

Paragraph

A paragraph snippet presents a carefully selected extract from a site that matches the query best.

Table

A table snippet presents data in a reader-friendly format, ideal for comparing figures or statistics.

List

A list snippet breaks information is the simplest way to answer some queries. Lists may be bulleted or numbered (e.g. a step-by-step guide).

Video

A video might offer the most appropriate response to a query. If so, that will appear at the top of the SERP, ready to play. This can be particularly useful when searching for visual directions, such as makeup tutorials.

Benefits of Featured Snippets on Google SERPs

Here are three benefits of owning a featured snippet:

Boost Brand Awareness

Having a snippet from your site featured on a Google SERP creates an opportunity to increase awareness about your business, even if users don’t click on the link to your website immediately.

Attract More Clicks

If Google presents an eye-catching snippet of information from your site with a link to the relevant page, users are more likely to click on it than if it were further down the page (or on another page altogether). It can help you get to the top of the organic results instantly.

Adds Credibility to Your Site

 When Google chooses your site to answer a user’s query with a featured snippet, that implies that your company is the most relevant resource online. This can build credibility and trust.

You can optimize your website for featured snippets, but it’s a complex process demanding in-depth research. That’s why it’s best to leave it to the experts.

Our Orange County SEO specialists can optimize your site to increase its visibility, authority, and conversions. Get in touch for your free marketing analysis now!

5 of the Best Ways to Repurpose Your Content

5 of the Best Ways to Repurpose Your Content

Do you struggle to create content that engages your target audience and helps you climb the SERPs?

If so, you’re not alone: 65% of marketers feel the same.

But a successful content marketing strategy isn’t just about producing new material — it’s knowing how to make the content you’ve already created go further too.

How?

Here are five ideas for repurposing your old content and making it fresh.

Collect articles, interviews, or case studies as ebooks

Gather content on a similar theme (e.g. hiring employees, sales techniques) and collect it into an ebook. You can use articles, interviews, or case studies — just make sure there’s a clear reason to bundle them together.

When you’ve made an ebook, you can offer it as gated content to generate leads.

Build a podcast from old blog posts

Around a quarter of the U.S. population listens to a podcast each week, with 16 million Americans describing themselves as “avid podcast fans”. That’s why a podcast can be such a fantastic addition to your content marketing strategy.

Whether your business has an existing podcast or you want to produce a one-off episode, your blog posts are a terrific place to source material.

But don’t just read them aloud into a microphone: look at the posts with fresh eyes and consider how you can break them down into an audible format.

And invite one or more people on to make the podcast into an engaging, insightful conversation rather than a monologue.

Expand and refresh existing content with new data or perspectives

New research may have been published on a specific subject since you wrote a blog post or article on it. Your work might appear outdated or even irrelevant to a newcomer looking for reliable information.

But you can fix that by updating old content to align with the latest insights. You won’t need to start from scratch, and you can keep inaccurate information off your site (which could harm your credibility).

Transform data into shareable infographics

Infographics convey information (such as statistics or tips) in a visual format, so they’re quicker and easier to digest than a blog post or article. And they’re highly shareable on social media, especially when they cover material your audience will value.

If you have stats or other data from research, bundle them into a colorful, eye-catching infographic. Bloggers or other businesses may use it and add a link, driving traffic back to your site.

Make a Q&A video from social interactions

Videos are a must for any content marketing strategy, and can help you improve engagement on your site.

You should find ample inspiration for videos in the questions visitors ask on social media or in comments on blog posts and videos. A brief Q&A video will provide useful information in a quick, visual, shareable way.

Want to take your content marketing to the next level?

Our Orange County SEO agency is here to help. Get in touch to find out how we’ll build the right content marketing strategy to increase your business’s visibility, reach, and engagement!