Amplifying content for search success

Defining your goals

If your ultimate goal is to increase traffic by 40% year-on-year, you need to put a plan in place that will help you see visible improvements, be it through local search optimisation, effective social integration or building new content.

To begin with, take a detailed look at your analytics to see what opportunities there currently are to drive traffic with your existing assets. Perhaps the most obvious way of doing this is to look at your current keywords.

Ideally, you should be focusing on keywords that convert and drive volume based on intent. These terms should be your long-term target, particularly with Google’s new paid search layout pushing organic results further down the results page.

Prioritising your content

For quite some time, the biggest challenge in SEO was creating content that was relevant enough to rank. However, contemporary SEO extends far beyond that, and is more about publishing content that is relevant AND useful. Achieving this sought after combination is exactly what Google is looking for from those publishing on the web.

To summarise, you should be looking to prioritise based on intent, striking distance, volume and conversion metrics.

Evaluating your existing setup

Do you feel like you’re getting your point across, but not quite hitting the mark when it comes to encouraging users to interact?

You can determine where you need to develop content by looking for obvious gaps.

Every organisation needs content that aids the user journey, as this allows you to capture queries for different forms of intent.

Whilst many understand the need to appear in search results for high-converting keywords (queries that signal intent to act), they often overlook the value of being visible in SERPs during the other phases of the user journey.

In the digital age, journeys are rarely linear, so you need to be present at every stage in order to succeed.

We take the route of reviewing content and segmenting it based on intent. In other words, figuring out what stage of the user journey specific content caters for. From there, it becomes that little bit easier to establish where gaps exist – allowing you to build out as necessary.

It is also incredibly important to understand how your competition is performing. You should be looking to determine where they’re visible on the web, where they’re not and which keywords they’re ranking for. Take advantage of where they aren’t present by tweaking or building content in those key areas.

Reaching out to those around you

Maintaining open communication ensures that you are aware of important initiatives that need to be further prioritised and optimised. At Connect, we pride ourselves on our open, agile approach to project management.

Listening to the digital noise

Social listening can give you a detailed review of the social landscape and competitive marketplace – helping to identify key social trends, which can drive your strategy by uncovering fresh opportunities and trends that happen in the moment.

Promoting your content

Once you have prioritised, created and optimised your content, it’s time to promote it. The age-old idea that “if you build it, they will come” is sadly inaccurate when it comes to content marketing and SEO. Your content needs to be promoted, and a catalyst is required to get the ball rolling.

Search needs content, and content needs interaction. You should focus on informative, engaging content that can be shared via social to attract endorsements and links. This reciprocal notion will help improve visibility and aid the optimisation process.

You must iterate and build with the user in mind at every turn, so that you can move the needle and achieve your goals.

Do you need help optimising your content for search? Connect with us today.

We are Connect – the original web development agency. We have been providing best-in-class web, data and development services to public and private sector clients since 1994.