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Welcome to episode 15 of Blue Square SEO & Digital Marketing Podcasts. In this episode I talk about content marketing tips and how to write amazing blog content for your business.
You have probably heard the phrase that ‘Content is King’. Google loves fresh, quality content.
Content Marketing is an amazing strategy to find and engage with loyal customers, clients, or patients. It is only increasing in popularity because 90% of customers prefer to learn about a brand through content rather than ads.
Simply knowing that you need great content is one thing – creating relevant and high quality content is another!
In this podcast you will discover a content marketing strategy and digital marketing tips that help you create great content.
Here are some stats about content marketing:
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Blue Square SEO and Digital Marketing Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Birkett, from Blue Square Management, and in today’s podcast I’m going to be talking about how to write amazing blog posts that keep your potential customers, clients or patients coming back.
INTRO
By now, you have probably heard the phrase that ‘Content is King’. Throughout all the algorithm updates Google has released over the years – one thing has never changed. Google loves to index fresh content.
Content Marketing is an amazing strategy to find and engage with loyal customers, clients, or patients. It is only increasing in popularity because 90% of customers prefer to learn about a brand through content rather than ads.
But simply knowing that you need excellent content is one thing – creating it is a whole other thing altogether.
Google made an appeal to website owners regarding their use of SEO techniques. What the search engine giant essentially said was that these techniques are not the most important considerations for ranking highly in the search results.
The most important factor is that website owners offer relevant and quality information to their target audience. If you do that, Google will reward you with better rankings in their search engine.
This has given rise to the term content marketing, which is simply a new name for a very old concept. By publishing interesting and engaging content for your website visitors, which converts a percentage of them into regular visitors while at the same time, attracting new ones too.
The ultimate purpose of content marketing is to get your visitors to do something that you want them to do. Such as, sign up for your newsletter, visit your brick and mortar shop or store, or buy your products & services.
But that begs the question: what is ‘interesting’ content?
A lot of people get it all wrong when it comes to blog content. Too much self-promotion is the fastest way to get a visitor to click the back button. So, what should you feature instead?
In my opinion, the following two tips are probably the most important when it comes to a content marketing strategy and how to write great blog posts.
Tip #1 : Choose Topics That Interest Your Readers
What you post depends on what business industry or market you are in. Ask yourself what your website is about. And then put yourself in your reader’s shoes. What content would they find useful?
Here are some suggestions for your topics:
- ‘How to’ articles. If you sell products, you can write articles on how to use these products, or how to take care of them.
If you offer services of some kind, you could write about how to get the most out of the service you provide or preventative maintenance to avoid it from happening again
Another idea is to create a buying guide. These are practical tips that many consumers and customers will find useful. And they also establish your authority in your industry.
- List-type articles. Most people love lists. Publishing articles like ‘the top 3 most energy efficient double-glazed windows’ or ‘most popular hair styles of the season for women in their 20s’ etc. You can also publish the top ten worst lists, just to give you some ideas.
Check out many of the list-type articles online, and you will notice that they also generate a lot of comments. Some comments may offer suggestions as to which items were left out from the list, (this gives you valuable insight) while others agree with your choices.
What is undeniable is that these lists can attract a lot of active interest – which is a good thing.
- Head-to-head comparisons. A lot of car magazines pit one car against another car in its comparison reviews, and you can do the same thing with your own products or services. This offers a tangible demonstration of how your business is better than your competitors.
The trick here is to pick a suitable match for your comparison, and then emphasize the ways in which your business is better.
- Answer Common FAQs – Do you find that customers ask the same question over and over? Then it makes sense to create a blog that answers this question.
Instead of repeatedly having to explain it, you can post a link to your blog post on your social media and direct customers there for other great information too.
- Video Posts, also referred to as ‘vlogs’ – Do you own a smartphone, video camera or DSLR that shoots video? Consider starting your own ‘how to’ series on topics in your industry. Post your videos to a dedicated YouTube channel, add them to your written blog posts, and promote them through your social media channels.
How To Find The Questions Your Customers Ask?
But before you even start to write any content, you MUST do you research. You need to find out exactly what questions your potentially customers, clients, or patients are asking. This all comes down to keyword research.
This is a stage that many business owners either ignore, or just don’t do.
Every business, what ever that is, will have questions that their customers, clients, or patients ask. So, you need to find what those questions are, and create content that answers those specific questions. Pretty simple!
So, the next question is, how do you find those questions?
The answer, or should I say, answers, is simple. There are a number of free and paid online tools that will help. I will be looking at three, free online tools.
Tool 1 : Answer The Public
Go to answerthepublic.com. There is a free and paid version of this. The free version only gives you a limited number of questions that you can ask a day.
So, how do you use it. You just start of by adding your main industry or market keyword. For example, if you are a plumber, just type in ‘plumber’ and select the country you would like to target. You are then presented with the results. These are split into:
Questions : You will then be presented with the ‘questions’ that people ask that are related to your keyword, in this case ‘plumber’. These will be split into:
- Are
- Can
- How
- What
- When
- Where
- Which
- Who
- Why
- Will
Next, you have:
Prepositions : You will see ‘prepositions’ people ask:
- Can
- For
- Is
- Near
- To
- With
- Without
Then comes:
Comparisons : You will see ‘comparisons’
- And
- Like
- Or
- Versus
- Vs
And finally:
Alphabetical : Where everything is listed in alphabetical order
Tool 2 : Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool that is free as well as having a paid option. I would suggest signing in with a Gmail account if you can, as you get bit more data as well as being able to create ‘projects’ within your account.
Just like Answer The Public, add your main keyword and select your targeted country and click ‘search’
You will be presented with keyword ideas as well as the search volume.
Tool 3 : Google Search
Google Search is often forgotten about when it comes to keyword research, but it provides an enormous wealth of information. Though sometimes it does require a little more delving into.
Just type in your main keyword and you will be presented with search results related to that keyword.
You will get paid ads at the top of the Search Engine Result Page (also known as the SERPS), followed by Google Maps (not always though), then organic listings, followed by more paid ads.
You may also see a ‘People also ask’ section. These are questions that people ask about your target keyword. Write these down. When you click on the question, it expands with an answer, as well as adding more related questions.
Go back to the search bar and click after your main keyword and add a space. Google will reveal 10 additional related keywords that people are actually searching for.
You will also see at the bottom of the results page ‘Search related to your keyword’. Again, these are actual searches that your potential customers, clients or patients are putting into Google.
If using Google Chrome, you can add free extensions that help with your keyword research. Here are a couple:
- Keyword Surfer
- Keywords Everywhere
Once you have a list of questions or topics, you can then create your content. Once created (include images, graphics and video, not just text, use SEO to optimize the article), add it to your website and syndicate it to your social media to get the word out.
Tip #2 : Know Your Audience
The best way to engage your audience is to know who your audience is and what type of profile they have. By understanding your target audience and their profile, you then have a much better idea of who your visitors are. You then can create content that they would find interesting, even if the topic isn’t directly linked to your products or services.
The tone of your blog content matters too. It’s not just what you say… It’s how you say it. For some businesses, like a landscaping service for example – a casual ‘write as you speak’ tone might work best. Giving tips on how to get a greener lawn should probably be written in a more ‘neighbourly advice’ tone.
But for other industries such as legal services, a more professional tone will likely be more appropriate. But again, it all depends on your audience.
There is, however, an exception to this rule. For many smaller businesses, where you are the ‘face’ of your own business, it is also important that your readers get a sense of who you are.
In this circumstance you’re aiming for a more ‘intimate’ relationship with your blog, so people can identify with you. This will help you to build your personal brand. Video is, in my opinion, the best tool for this.
As mentioned, blog articles should not be purely words. Graphics, images and video should be used to help illustrate your message. Also, consistency is critical. Updating your blog regularly has a multitude of benefits – including a much better SEO ranking.
Do not be afraid to delegate – you don’t have to write ALL of your content yourself. Guest bloggers or even your employees can contribute articles. A blog that is not updated often will eventually lose its readership.
There are many ingredients to creating amazing content for your blog. Hopefully by implementing some of these suggestions you can create a content recipe for a successful blog that has your visitors coming back for more! And ultimately, turning those visitors into customers, clients or patients.
I hope you found this episode helpful and see you in the next Blue Square SEO and Digital Marketing podcast.
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