Recently, content marketing has seen a paradigm shift. Particularly in the last few years, consumer search queries have become increasingly complex, changing the way search engines understand the content on the internet. Therefore, the way we write content needs to develop in line with changing behaviours. Search queries have become more long-tail, so businesses really need to think about consumer intent and create content that can answer all these different long tail queries. Having a strong content marketing strategy is key to the inbound marketing methodology to attract, engage, delight and convert customers at every stage of the buying journey.
Focusing on certain keywords that you want to rank for is no longer enough. Instead as search marketers we must be focusing on having expertise, authority and trust, which can be abbreviated to E.A.T, in a particular topic area.
Connected content, not competitive
Developing your content strategy should be in achieved in a highly thought out and organised way, so that Google and other search engines can understand it easily. In order to organise your content in an effective way, topic clusters should be created so that visibility can be increased for that certain topic.
When organising and planning your content, have a look at what other content is already on your website; is it going to be conflicting or supporting? Producing content that is targeting the same keyword is going to dilute the content you are writing. Theoretically speaking, you will be producing content which is in competition with itself. It is important to think about how your content connects to other pieces of content on your website and create a site architecture that makes sense to the consumer.
Thinking about the topic cluster model will work to your advantage here. In the middle is the pillar content that broadly covers and summarises the topic you want to be a leader in. Your next steps are to create supporting content that you can use to link back to this main pillar that can answer a broad range of specific questions the consumer may have.
Example: Camping
Let’s break this down to understand the process a little further. If camping was to be your pillar content or your central subject, what could the supporting content or cluster content be that links inward and back to that broad topic page?
Examples of complementary pages that you could create include:
- The best places to go camping in the UK
- What are the top ten items you need to pack when you go on a camping trip?
- What is the best time of year to go camping?
- What can I cook when I go on a camping trip?
- How much does it cost to go camping?
Thinking about content in a topic specific way will assist you in creating content that really answers the complex search queries that your consumers are asking whilst enabling you to produce content that is valuable and isn’t repetitive, which will help search engine optimisation and in turn support your business goals.
Creating content in this way will help provide consumers with more detailed information and search engines will evaluate that you are an authority leader for that topic, leading to better rankings and a greater likelihood of your content being found, read and engaged with.
Top tips to develop your content strategy
In order to develop a successful content strategy, there are some important aspects to think about and it all starts with the consumer. Here are just a few to consider:
- Develop your consumer personas and really think about the different consumers your business may have. While personas may be fictional, they need to reflect your actual consumers, not just who you think you want them to be.
- Turn your personas into keywords and search queries. What will each persona be thinking and asking at each stage of the consumer buyer journey: Awareness, Consideration and Decision. This requires you to have a certain level of empathy to understand what the consumer is searching for.
- Create a content plan that has ideas for content that you are going to produce in line with the personas at different stages of the consumer journey.
- Ensure your content supports the keywords you are currently ranking for. Whilst topics are important, it is important to understand what your consumer is currently searching for and where you can develop your content in line with those keywords. Remember though; devising your content plan should exclude repetitive content.
- Make sure your content links back to the pillar page and build your content in this way.
- If you’re looking for fresh content ideas, there are plenty of applications that can assist you. com is particularly useful. You can enter a keyword and the website will then generate hundreds of ideas for content related to that certain keyword.
- Evaluate content performance. For example, use Google Analytics to form content groupings, so you can measure which content has the highest % of clicks, click through rate and conversions.
Put your new content strategy into action
Content is King and producing expert, authoritative and trustworthy content will help you succeed in achieving your business’ digital marketing goals.
If your company would like to find out more on how to create and implement a successful content marketing strategy that supports your business goals, then contact the Innovation Visual team today who will be happy to help.
