There is a lethal disease eating up businesses these days. Like an epidemic, it is spreading. The readers, the publishers, the content creators – it is eating up everyone. It is called ‘Catchy Title, Useless Content' syndrome. Any business can be a victim to this disease. Even yours.
Symptoms – loads of content, extremely catchy titles, increased web traffic and increased bounce rate. Result – dissatisfied content consumers and lost business opportunities.
It is fairly easy to check, whether your business is affected by it or not. Simply take any piece of content from your website/blog/app and share with any member of your target audience. Make him/her read it, and ask – Did it solve any of your problems? If the answer is anything but no, it is sad to say, but the disease affects your business.
We all have fallen prey to it. While browsing through Facebook or LinkedIn, you come across interesting titles – 5 Ways to Start a Billion Dollar Business, 10 Ways to Know If Your Colleagues Hate You, How to Retire by 30 and Travel the World, and so on. You open the blog with huge expectations, and the content falls on its face. You curse the website for misleading you, and get back to your regular browsing; promising yourself, never to visit this publisher ever.
Fortunately, the cure for this disease is available. First and foremost, treat content as one of your top priorities. Usually, PPC Executives and lawyers to the paid advertising methods, undermine the power of content. ‘Content is King' – despite the overused line, content is probably the most overlooked tool for marketing.
You can be in any business – from a traditional retailer trying to go online in Seattle, a physician in Philadelphia or a web design company in NYC; a website is the face of your business on the internet and the content, your voice. It builds your brand, makes your business reliable, increases goodwill and brings consistent traffic.
But building content that works or solves a problem is not that easy!
Business has a thousand problems to be solved – operational efficiency, people, management, market study and so on; amidst these, taking care of content might not be possible for all. That is where an SEO company comes into the picture.
Now, if followed and observed thoroughly, one can understand the functioning of SEO fairly. It takes years of experience and multiple experiments to get insights of the nuances which help you create great content, built on a great SEO strategy.
Content that has appeal and keeps you engrossed has three aspects:
a. It is relevant.
b. It is reliable.
c. It is understandable.
(And if you still have some breathing space, make it entertaining as well!)
The first part starts with finding the right SEO agency. When looking into the track records of agencies, look into what kind of clients have they worked with and what strategies are they able to devise.
Usually, the agencies working on data backed strategies and tactics are the ones who get the brownie points. You don't have to look for agencies that have big case studies on their websites; companies that are capable of understanding your product/services are willing to research your consumer to give you the right voice, are the ones you want to hire.
You now understand the importance of content and the value of hiring an SEO agency. Now comes the fun part – creating quality content. Before getting into the battle, one needs to know that these days every category is crowded with content of all types. So amidst this herd of content, here are five tips on how to make your content, the king:
1. Hire a local SEO agency: If you are a local business willing to expand, a local company will do wonders for you. These are the people who know the nature of searches done and the ones who have locally relevant data. So, your content backed by their SEO strategies would be more relevant to your audience and would translate into quicker benefits. Simply said, a local SEO company in NYC will be able to connect you with the prospective business in NYC. In coherence with this, your web-design agency should also be from the same geography, so that both your visual and literal content can be tweaked for local responsiveness. In other words, a local SEO company in NYC should be working with a web design agency in NYC to give your content the best local thrust.
2. Quality requires research: Studies have shown that articles with 3000+ words perform better than your relatively smaller articles. Now, you may think the attention span is decreasing day after day; that said, people still appreciate well-crafted and researched content that provides real solutions. Pack the article with long tailed keywords and you’re likely to improve your organic rankings.
3. Focus on Long-tail keywords: Try creating a niche for your content with the help of your local SEO agency and research for long-tail keywords. Don't worry if these keywords have a low quantum; they usually will also have low competition which will help your content soar higher in the organic rankings. A combination of such low competition keywords can do the trick for you. For instance, try looking for a strategy around ‘small business web design problems' instead of ‘web design problems'; this will help you reach out to your specific audience.
4. Distribution is equally important: Once you have written a brilliant blog, it is your job to ensure that your relevant audience gets to read it. For this, you need to put to use apt social media strategies and promote your content. It might also mean, pitching your content to influencers who can share it and give you authoritative and reputable backlinks. A good SEO agency will help you with the list of keywords you need to put in your content; a great SEO agency will help your content get the right backlinks and reference mentions.
5. On-Page and Off-Page are equally important: From getting your keyword mentioned in the title of the page, meta-description of the page and body of the page, to focusing on getting mentions in reputed websites and managing quality links pointing at your webpages – your local SEO agency should be able to focus on both aspects.
Getting the correct local SEO agency is just one part of the story; the rest of the story will depend on how you create and distribute your content. With the right partnerships and the right work behind the content, you can ensure that your content is the king that always rule!
This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at https://hummingbirdwebdesign.com/dont-let-lethal-disease-kill-business-hire-local-seo-company/
