Which do you need to bring in more sales and grow your business?

First up, here’s the three-word executive summary so we can get right to it. 

1. You
2. Need
3. BOTH

The thing to understand is how SEO and Content Marketing fit together — and how that combination applies to your digital marketing strategy, whether you want to: 

• Generate more leads for your sales team, or
• Generate more sales through your e-Commerce website

SEO for your business: here’s what you need to know

SEO isn’t about smoke and mirrors or geeky ‘propeller-head’ trickery.

Google’s big Hummingbird update in 2013 brought ‘intent’ into the algorithm. It meant that it now judges the intent of a person carrying out a search, to determine what they are trying to find out.

In our view, a lot of positive things clicked into place for marketers with that update.

It meant that good websites, with high quality content that is easy-to-navigate, are likely to get a big ‘tick’ from Google.

Yes, the technical aspects of your site still need to be ship-shape. Yes, (non-spammy) link building is still important. Yes, you need to get your keyword strategy right. And yes, you need to promote your content to draw traffic. 

But in the main, if you understand your market and what they are looking for, and if your website has the answers, you are well on the way.

How to make SEO and Content Marketing work together

That part, right there in the paragraph above, (“understand your market and what they are looking for”) is a big clue as to how your SEO and your Content Marketing strategy should work together. 

The objective is to add content to your website that gives your potential customers the information they are looking for.

And this is where you will be challenged — PARTICULARLY if you have been in your game a long time and you know a lot about your products and services. 

Your natural inclination will be to talk at a high level, because you assume that everyone knows as much as you do.

Yes, some will. Those potential customers who have bought from you before or used similar products will be across a lot of it.

But what about all the others?

What about those potential customers who still don’t know up from down, Arthur from Martha, or inside from out?

These people are EARLY in the Buyer’s Journey. Their questions will be more basic. And you need to cater for them too.

Here’s the thing…  (And you know this already)

You will make a lot more money if you give people what THEY want, rather than what YOU want them to have

Think about this for a moment — and how it applies to your website.

Is your website content ONLY about you and what you do? And is it mainly focussed on people who are ready to buy?

If so, then you have a problem.

The art behind the science of a profitable Content Marketing campaign is figuring out what your potential customers are looking for DURING the Buyer’s Journey — and making sure that your website has the answers.

And get this…

If your content is rich with information and relevant, helpful answers, your SEO is automatically going to be in good shape. With nary a smoke nor a mirror to be seen.

Seriously. How good IS that?!?!

Case Study: how Content Marketing works

We have a client, Wickham Terrace Dental, which is an awesome dentist. 

I go there myself. They are friendly. They are very professional. They take a great deal of pride in doing high quality work. They follow up. They are knowledgeable.

Seriously. It isn’t like I enjoy going to the dentist — but it is a close-run thing with this mob. They get great reviews and they deserve them.

Like any business, they faced the challenge of communicating their expertise, service levels and general ‘vibe’ to people who are strangers.

It is the same for you.

Until customers have a relationship with you or experience what you do, you are “just another gumby trying to sell me something”.

So, we set up a Content Marketing strategy for their dental practice so that their potential clients could get to know them.

Here are some of the steps we’ve taken. You can do this for your business too: 

1. Developed the personas of the people they can help.
2. Figured out the questions that they have as they are moving through the Buyer’s Journey.
3. Written content for the website blog that answers those questions.
4. Set up a nurturing system to provide more relevant, helpful information to help win their confidence to the point where...
5. They are ready to make an appointment. 

It has really helped their business. A lot.

See what Wickham Terrace Dental have to say about Crockford Carlisle here

Did you notice point number 3?

Google looks for pages with relevant, helpful answers. So, by making SURE that the content on your site is relevant and helpful for the people you want to connect with, you are going to be Google’s best maaaaaate!

Use Content Marketing to nurture your potential customers

OK, so you have worked on adding relevant, helpful content to your website.

Your SEO strategy is starting to bite, and your heart is pounding with excitement as you watch that blue “Audience Overview” line in Analytics steadily rising.

The problem is, you can’t make money gazing at that blue line.

Getting traffic with great content is one thing.

But CONVERTING it is an entirely different matter!

That’s where you need to move into the next step, with automated follow up systems to keep people engaged as you educate them over time, to bring them to the point where they are ready to do business with you.

Does Content Marketing work?

Yes. It does when done right.

Content Marketing is a fully integrated, data-driven approach that attracts total strangers to your brand, who then become regular visitors and eventually loyal customers and ultimately staunch promoters of your business.

One of the great advantages of Content Marketing is that It is an “inbound” strategy, and therefore it isn’t disruptive.

As you will read in our free Inbound Marketing Explainer, Outbound Marketing is becoming less and less effective:

• Firstly, your average person is now inundated with over 2000 outbound marketing interruptions every day. Little wonder they’re figuring out more and more creative ways to block them out. 
• Secondly, learning about a product or service online is so much easier than going from store to store or phoning around.

By being in the right place at the right time and publishing the right content, your marketing will be relevant and helpful to your customers… not disruptive.

And…

It costs around 60% less-per-lead than traditional marketing!

If you’d like to talk about how you might use Content Marketing to grow your business, please call us on (07) 3891 3800.

We’d be happy to look at your specific challenges and objectives, and give you some insights that will help you to move forward with confidence.