Marketing can be both simple and complicated, effective and frustrating and yet without it, you may never see eyes land on your business or service. There are many different types of marketing available from businesses that are either physical or solely online and one of the most effective forms, is known as content marketing.
Content marketing is the process of creating content, whether this is in the format of articles, videos, podcasts or images, that is suitable or targeted to your preferred audience. Getting together your target audience should be the top of your list, determining age groups, location, gender and most common job position is an advantageous way of deciding the focus and format of your content. For instance, appealing to a younger audience is best done with podcasts and videos which can cost more in resources, while articles and graphics are suitable for a wider demographic and do not cost as much time or effort to create.
Once determined, make a record of who your target audience is and spend an afternoon brainstorming from the point of view of someone in your demographic. If you were this person, what sort of terms would you use to find the business or service your company is offering? Would you use any additional descriptive terms such as location; UK, Sussex, North or cost-driven terms including cheap, cost-effective and discount?
Finding your Keywords
Keywords are central to a content marketing strategy and can help you make a content plan and calendar for regular, on-time delivery of your content. With your determined keyword you can find commonly searched questions using resources such as Quora and AnswerThePublic. For example, an Islamic charity creating content around an important appeal may base content around the campaign keyword, in this case Qurbani, and they will choose to write content that includes terms such as “how are Qurbani donations made” or “who is eligible to pay Qurbani”. Both of which are highly common search terms by an Islamic charities donor audience.
With your keywords determined, consider using online SEO tools such as SEMrush and ahrefs to compare the metrics between different focused keywords and keyword phrases (also known as long-tail keywords). This will allow you to see how difficult it is to gain rankings when creating good quality content around your specific keyword and determine how much content should be created. These tools can also help you perform a SERP analysis, comparing the first few organic search results for your keyword or keyphrase to determine exactly what the target audience is wanting to see when looking at this topic. This can be a great way to find the necessary length or format of the content you need to deliver to best service your audience’s needs.
Why Are Keywords Important?
When using a search engine, more often than not, the search terms being looked for are focused keywords, such as pet tags, holiday homes, artificial lawn and similar. If your website didn’t include any major keywords around the service or product you are offering (although it is very uncommon and difficult not to have ANY keywords). You wouldn’t appear for these search terms on any major search engines, or your page would appear very low down in the search results. Reducing the total amount of visits you are likely to receive and overall visibility of your business and website.
Before you begin your content marketing plan, carefully research your keywords and how you can best utilise them in your content. Not only to improve your visibility but to ensure you are offering quality, informative content to your audience that offers value, not just pushes them through to your service or store which will quickly see your newly gained traffic drop off.