What’s the best way for today’s businesses to reach their target audience? Here’s a hint: It’s not radio or television! If you guessed the internet, then you’re on the right track.
This is where it’s all happening – brand building, user engagement, and sales.
A whopping 79% of Americans are using the net to shop for products and services. And an astounding 188 million Americans are shopping using mobile devices.
It’s not enough to have a website. If it’s not easily found, then you’re missing out on a great deal of money. With a content specialist, you can take a piece of the American pie and quickly grow your brand.
But before you can get there, you need a digital marketing strategy. And unless you have the skills to do it all on your own, you’re going to need help.
There are a lot of experts floating around the web, which can make it a bit confusing for small business owners. You have SEO experts, copywriters, digital marketers and social media gurus to name a few.
Now, you hear it takes a content specialist to make a real difference in your Google ranking. This type of expert specializes in everything to do with content marketing.
And as you may have heard – content is king on the internet. Without it, you’re not going to get very far. The content specialist will go over the type of content you need and how to ensure it ranks well in search engines.
This covers both your website content and your blog content. Even your social media posts can be managed by the content strategist.
Let’s look a little deeper in the job description of content specialists. For starters, they’re the creative visionary behind your brand’s content.
In a sense, they act as the medium between your business and its customers. When visitors come to your website, read your blog posts or see one of your ads, they’re reading the text crafted by the content writers the specialist hires (or has on their team).
Their sole purpose is to attract attention, engage and convert your target audience. Content specialists do a lot of research on your target customer and your business to ensure the content aligns with both.
Now that you know the role of content specialists, it’s time to determine whether you want to hire in-house or outsource. This is where it gets a little tricky.
Both come with their pros and cons, but you’ll quickly learn that outsourcing reigns supreme on multiple levels.
For one, it can save you money in the long haul. For instance, you don’t have to pay for benefits, vacation time, sick days and overtime. By outsourcing, you only pay for the work performed. Some charge a monthly fee, while others charge a flat one-time rate.
Of course, you want to have a content expert on your team for the long-term to ensure your content strategy stays on point. A dedicated content professional will only focus on your project. There are many distractions that take in-house teams away from important projects.
This leads to decreased productivity and quality.
Now, let’s focus on why content specialists are key to the success of your digital marketing campaigns.
It doesn’t matter how much you think you know about search engine optimization today. Google and other search engines are always changing their algorithms and guidelines. Most business owners don’t have the time to read up on and stay abreast of updates.
However, it’s something you definitely don’t want to overlook. Just look at what happened to certain websites when Panda, Penguin, and other Google updates rolled out.
Many of them lost their ranking overnight. Some gained it back quickly and others, not so much. While we can’t predict the future changes in Google algorithms, it’s important to adapt quickly.
A content specialist will ensure your content is always within the guidelines of search engines to avoid penalties.
At the end of the day, Google is all about improving the user experience. This means content specialists and search engines have the same thing in common – to please the end user.
As long as your content isn’t spammy, using black hat SEO, irrelevant or low-quality, then it should easily survive whatever future updates Google rolls out. And if it doesn’t, your content expert will ensure your ranking bounces back quickly.
Now, before we go any further, it’s imperative that we discuss the relationship between search engine optimization and content marketing.
Simply put, one can’t exist without the other – at least, not completely. You see, your SEO strategy needs content to work.
For instance, you have a long list of keywords – where will you put them without content? You need articles, blogs and even social media posts to insert keywords into. Even your website needs content on the Home Page, Services Page, and About Us Page to optimize keywords into the site.
With the assistance of a content specialist, you’re getting the best of both worlds. However, if you find one that doesn’t deal with SEO, then continue searching for one that’s an expert in both.
The same goes if you’re searching for an SEO agency. If they don’t offer content marketing services, then continue the search.
A lot of businesses have issues with their Google ranking because both sides aren’t integrated. When your content isn’t optimized with keywords, then they’ll quickly fall in the ranks.
And a poor quality SEO strategy with mediocre content will also fall in the ranks. Google is looking for high-value content that’s relevant, optimized and of great quality. If any of these traits are lacking in your content, then you’ll continue to have poor rankings.
Next, let’s get into how a content specialist can improve your rank in Google and other search engines.
Let’s face it, you don’t have all the time in the world to think up topics, create outlines and flesh them out into beautiful award-winning articles. However, you can hire someone who can – a content specialist.
Their top priority is to ensure your content is fresh, timely and optimized. All the research they did on your audience pays off at this point.
The content they manage will meet the needs of your audience, increasing the chance of them clicking on your links. When Google sees all this activity on your website, it will show your content is relevant. This will, in turn, help boost your ranking.
Another ranking factor that Google looks at is whether or not a piece of content is shareable. One way to know is if users are sharing it on social media.
Content specialists can manage your social media pages, sharing the content you publish on your blog. This will help build awareness for your blog posts. If Google sees users sharing your posts, then this will help your SEO.
Also, it’s a good idea to have your web developer include social media share buttons in your blog posts. This way, users can share the posts directly and send social signals to Google – again, helping your rank.
Now, what makes content shareable is it being relevant, high-quality and high-value. Your content strategist will have a profile of your customers, their problems, and common questions they have. Content is then crafted around this intel.
This will make your content sought-after by your target market.
What if you already have a blog filled with content? Yet, it’s outdated, poorly written or improperly optimized. In this case, a content specialist can review everything and rewrite or repurpose it.
It’s a clever way to quickly publish fresh content without starting from scratch. This is a good idea if your old content is evergreen and still a hot topic in your industry.
Some posts can be fleshed out more to include a more in-depth analysis of a given topic.
Let’s not forget that content is more than just the written word. A content specialist can repurpose your old blog posts into an e-book, guide or presentation. However, there are other methods they can use.
For example, creating a video or podcast based on an old blog post. The video can be a presentation-style format or include people or a spokesperson.
The key here is to determine what format your audience prefers for a given topic. For instance, for a blog series, an e-book or guide may be better for your readers.
On the other hand, how-to posts and lists may be easier to digest. Research and testing are key here.
A content specialist is always testing different headlines to see what yields the best results. Just like in journalism, the title of your posts can either cause users to engage or ignore your content.
Overall, your headlines should be valuable, simple, relevant and appealing. Some titles users find attractive include those that contain facts, numbers, top 10 or warnings.
Here are a few examples:
If your content expert insists on using clickbait titles, then fire them quickly. This will only tick off your audience and increase your bounce rate. And once that soars, your rankings will plummet.
The great thing about images is that it appeases both users and search engines. No one wants to read long blocks of text without a visual in sight.
Graphs, charts, photos, and infographics can all make content more engaging. Since users love this, so do search engines.
However, since search engine bots are unable to crawl images, it’s essential to include Alt text for each image. Your content specialist will take care of this for you.
Optimizing all of your images is key, so each one shows up in search engine page results (SERPs). When people search for your keywords on Google, your images will show up. These can help drive more traffic to your site.
For example, if you have images of tooth decay for your dental practice, people looking for images to self-diagnose may click on the image and arrive at your site. Some may even convert into clients.
Choosing the right keywords to optimize your site and content with is critical to your campaign. If the key phrases you choose are high-competition, then you’ll have a very hard time ranking for them.
And if there aren’t enough people searching for that term, then ranking high for them won’t do much for your traffic either.
It takes a bit of skill to pinpoint the best keywords for your niche and audience.
Link building continues to be front and center of most SEO strategies. At least, this is true for those that are in-the-know about making it to the first page of Google.
The key to building your backlink profile is to have quality, relevant content for other blogs and sites to link to. Since you have a content expert working on your pieces, you don’t have to worry about this.
Reaching out to webmasters and bloggers and asking for backlinks can also work. This is a relationship-building method and requires time to pull off.
Another option is to write guest blog posts for 3rd party sites within your niche (but aren’t a competitor). Your link is present somewhere in the content to help point some of their traffic to your site.
A content specialist is a handy tool for your digital marketing strategy. And if you can outsource to an agency with all the bells and whistles, then even better.
This means finding a provider that offers content marketing, web design and development, mobile marketing, reputation management, social media marketing and email marketing.
If you’re currently looking to improve your Google ranking, we have all the tools you need to do so. Contact us today to learn how we can put your business on the fast track to a higher ranking on Google!
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