25 Tips for SEO
Earlier this year, John Rampton put together an excellent article for Forbes capturing advice from 25 top professionals in the search engine optimization field. Some of these authors include Joost de Valk, CEO of Yoast, and Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz - a solid lineup of knowledgeable individuals.
Many of these tips point to information that we often share with our clients - content is king. There are many things you can do to on the technical side make your site visible and available to Google, which tell search engines that the site is technically proficient, provides a smooth user experience, and is mobile-friendly. If you are not adding value to your user's day, you are only interrupting it
After that, it is about providing value to users. If you are not adding value to your user's day, you are only interrupting it (this should be a mantra for all sales people in this day and age). Interrupting a person's day without providing something valuable in exchange means that you are going to be unfollowed, unsubscribed, or hung up on if you are making a traditional sales call.
How do you provide value on your website and at the same time optimize for search?
The answer: by creating content that entertains and solves users’ problems.
The truth is that many search engine optimization “professionals” have attempted to create a mystique around the practices supposedly required to optimize a site. It is true that some technical requirements are beyond the scope of most marketers and they involve coding and design that streamlines the flow of information, but beyond that SEO is about content that is valuable to your visitors and is easily shared.
There is a great deal of wrong information on SEO that has been shared on the Internet featuring tips that may have worked a few years ago but will now get your site penalized by search engines due to unethical link building or other areas that create a bad user experience.
Here are some questions you should be asking yourself:
- Which problems are your customers and future customers hoping to solve? For instance, are they looking for entertainment or to find reviews on the latest tech gadgets? Do they need to find a solution for an engineering issue in their plant?
- How can you provide information to solve these problems?
- What phrases might they be using to search for those answers?
- What is the best medium to provide this information?
By answering these questions before ever writing a word of content, you are better able to cater to your users’ unique needs. Define the problems that your prospects are hoping to solve and which terms they are using to find this answer. By building your content (in a way that makes sense without forcing it) around those search terms, you are more likely to provide value and useful information that Google will prioritize.
But what about the medium?
Remember that consumers will reach you in a variety of different ways from both mobile and PC. Visitors are going to consume information in the way that makes the most sense to them at the time. For example, one user may prefer to read a blog post while at work because she is unable to watch a video at the office, but that same user prefers to watch a video over reading articles while on her iPad at home.
People are finding you on mobile, which accounts for over 60% of website traffic on average, will most certainly prefer to watch a video rather than reading a long blog post on their phone. Google and Facebook are giving more weight to video because it adds tremendous value to user experience. On Google, you are 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results if you feature different video on your site. On Facebook, you will see as much as 80% higher engagement with your content that features video.
By utilizing written, graphical, and video content, you can capture a wider breadth of a user while providing a deeper user experience. Google sees this and rewards the sites that are willing to make the investment in creating quality content for their users.
It can get confusing with all of the information that is available on the Internet about this topic. Feel free to reach out to us directly if you have any questions regarding SEO as part of your larger strategy.
Building Relationships with Video Marketing
The key point to why video marketing is successful is the familiarity principle. The familiarity principle is when people are repeatedly exposed to certain stimuli, and then those people develop a preference for that product.
An issue that marketers are coming across is overexposure. In 2016, we are constantly exposed to images of the goods and advertisements. Now it’s important to do things that will stand out. There are two ways to keep in mind when brainstorming ideas that will set you apart from all of the noise:
1. Build a personal connection with video marketing
There are some ways that your company can make a connection with your consumers. Choose the best way your product is going to connect with your audience. For example, General Mills takes advantage of placing cereal at the height of their target demographic, which are children. The reason for putting their product at a child’s height is for their target demographic to ask their parents to buy them cereal.
Another helpful tip to keep in mind for building a personal connection is that eye contact improves the chances of making a connection. Creating eye contact cuts through all of the other exposure your target audience experiences and encourages them to focus on your product.
2. Scale the personal connection with video marketing
While sending out thank you notes or calling to check up on consumers are nice, it’s not easy to continue this over time. Video allows consumers to feel and see human emotions and allows the opportunity to explain things in detail. With video, you can see whether or not a customer is intrigued with your product by tracking minutes watched, where viewers stopped and where they click through. It will help you to comprehend what you’re doing right and wrong.
Keep in mind that video marketing is a successful way to keep your target audience connected to your business and brand. It keeps your viewers feeling connected, and benefits you as well because you can track how often your audience is viewing your material. Video marketing creates human connections, which will help both you and your audience.
Read a more in-depth discussion here: http://wistia.com/blog/video-familiarity