Brand Growth: How to Develop a Powerful Brand Awareness Strategy
As a small business owner, you might be surprised to learn that more than 600,000 new businesses open each year in the United States.
This statistic represents a lot of competition for customers seeking the products and services they need.
So what is the best strategy for reaching your target audience and building brand loyalty? First of all, you need to focus on building strong brand awareness. Fortunately, this article can help. Here we look at crucial elements of an effective brand awareness strategy that can help take your company to the next level. Keep reading to learn more.
Define Your Brand
Let's start by discussing the importance of clearly defining and understanding your brand. That is an essential part of reaching your target audience.
What is your brand's personality? The more you understand this, the more you will be able to exploit it. After all, you would use a different strategy to sell snack foods than you would use to sell luxury products like jewelry or yachts.
Defining your brand will also help you identify the types of events, media platforms, and promotional items that will generate the most value for your marketing campaign.
Tell Your Story
Next, you need to understand the power of telling a story. After all, everyone loves getting hooked by a compelling narrative. Thus it would help if you remembered that every person and company has a story to share. The key is to craft a corporate narrative that will hook your target audience on an emotional level.
Optimize Your Use of SEO
There's no excuse for failing to invest in a professional website in the modern business world. And once you've built a website filled with quality content, SEO is the most effective way to drive traffic to your business blog or e-commerce platform.
A skilled SEO company will understand how to choose the best keywords to help users organically find your website as they search for the products and services they need. The key is to understand search intent so that you can get the most value from SEO.
Hire an Experienced Marketing Consulting Firm
When it comes to developing a solid marketing strategy, building brand awareness, interpreting marketing metrics, and choosing the right branded content for your company, hiring a skilled marketing consulting firm is one of the best investments you'll ever make.
These industry professionals are experts in every aspect of the marketing process. The key is finding a consulting firm that clearly understands your marketing goals and how to reach those goals as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.
A Guide to Developing Your Brand Awareness Strategy
It's no secret that running a profitable business isn't easy. Fortunately, this guide to developing your brand awareness strategy will help your company stand out from the competition.
Don't hesitate to contact us to discover how we can help boost brand awareness for your small business.
Top 3 Digital Marketing Trends
Money spent on digital ads is through the roof, and it doesn't appear it will slow anytime soon. Digital ads are surging thanks to our addiction to digital devices, which creates a big opportunity for advertisers. Tapping into these audiences is best when you know the best digital marketing trends and digital marketing tips.
Some of the top trends in digital marketing are video marketing, market research, and email marketing. Adding these digital marketing techniques to your toolbox will prove to be invaluable.
Read more about these top three digital marketing trends for 2022.
1. Video Marketing
Video marketing is a great way to add to your existing digital marketing efforts, creating more engaging content. People consuming videos online rises 100-percent each year, which means it's a big trend in digital marketing you must capitalize on!
Video allows you to be more entertaining in your presentation. You can also demonstrate how a product or service works.
Digital marketing techniques using video also allow you to humanize an experience. You can present product testimonials using videos where people show emotion.
Moreover, avoid creating video marketing content on your own. Hire a professional! You don't want a sloppy presentation, which doesn't look good for your business and its digital marketing plan.
2. Market Research
B2B digital marketing trends include market research to discover more about your potential clients or customers. Market research gives you insight into how they spend and their needs. Using this information can help you stay on top of other digital marketing trends in 2022, such as social media and video.
Market research also helps you tackle the competition and learn more about their strengths and weaknesses. You also won't waste money with outdated B2B digital marketing trends.
While you may know the best digital marketing trends in 2022, market research helps you plan for the future. Better marketing decisions also help you stick to the budget.
3. Email Marketing
Reaching people through email is a great digital marketing tip because you can repurpose content from your website or social media channels.
You can include just about anything you want in an email newsletter, including upcoming events, staff news, coupons, and links to content. Create a great 'call to action' to motivate readers to your product or service.
Email marketing is also easy on the budget. While it costs employee labor to produce, it costs nothing to send! There's no post office and no postage stamp.
Another benefit of email marketing newsletters is that the reader can forward them to a potential client or customer. The pass-along potential can be exponential.
Top Three Digital Marketing Trends
Consider the top three digital marketing trends in your upcoming marketing strategy, including video marketing, market research, and email marketing. Understanding how to use each of these techniques will help grow your business!
You can't afford to put lackluster into your marketing budget or plan. Contact us today and let us help you stay ahead of the latest digital marketing trends!
How to Create an Effective Small Business Digital Marketing Strategy
SEO Description: Is your small business digital marketing strategy delivering the results you expect? Check out our guide for tips to create a campaign that converts today.
Over 70% of leads aren't sales-ready when they first interact with your brand. In fact, 80% will never convert into sales. You don't have to struggle with a solid small business digital marketing strategy.
Instead, you can use the latest digital marketing tips to set your business up for lasting growth.
Not sure where to get started? Read on for the digital marketing advice you need today!
Understand Your Audience
Before applying the rest of these digital marketing tips, take a moment to research your target audience. Understanding your audience will ensure you appeal to their needs and interests. Otherwise, your content might not align with their goals or concerns.
Define who your customers are based on demographics and psychographics like:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Marital status
- Household income
- Buying behaviors
- Online behaviors
- Education
- Career
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Pain points
Break your larger audience into smaller buyer personas based on your research.
Then, gather keyword research to determine what they search for while online.
Optimize Your Website
Optimizing your website is an essential component of your digital marketing strategy.
Make sure your site is mobile-optimized, fast, secure, and user-friendly. Add multiple conversion opportunities across your site, too.
Create Content
Create high-quality, engaging, informative content based on your audience and keyword research. You can create blog posts, infographics, polls, quizzes, and videos.
Then, share your content through social media, email, and other digital marketing campaigns.
Use SEM
Nearly 70% of all experiences online start with a search engine like Google. In fact, fewer than 1% of Google users check the second page. Add search engine marketing (SEM) to your digital marketing campaign.
With SEM strategies, you can appear in front of consumers as they search for your products or services.
You can rank higher for organic searches with search engine optimization (SEO). With pay-per-click (PPC), you can appear on search engines, other sites, and social media platforms. Both SEO and PPC can become time-consuming if you lack experience, though.
Consider working with an experienced digital marketing agency. They'll ensure you develop a robust digital marketing strategy. With help, you can use SEM to generate leads, sales, and a higher ROI.
Stay Social
Social media marketing is a great way to engage your audience in real-time.
Consider hosting live Q&A sessions, video content, contests, or influencer marketing to expand your reach. Keep up with the latest digital marketing trends for each platform to remain relevant.
Hire Professionals
If you need help with your digital marketing campaign, consider hiring a digital marketing agency. You can leverage their digital marketing advice to create more effective campaigns. With help from an experienced team, you can generate leads and sales to boost your ROI.
Better Businesses: Build Your Small Business Digital Marketing Strategy
A strong small business digital marketing strategy can help you generate brand awareness, leads, and sales. Use these simple digital marketing tips to get started. Otherwise, hire an agency to create your digital marketing campaign.
With help, you can set your business up for long-term growth and success.
Need help getting started? We're happy to lend a hand.
Schedule an appointment today to learn more!
Top 10 Nonprofit Digital Marketing Tips
Nonprofits no longer need to rely on glossy mailings and expensive, labor-intensive galas to raise funds. Many nonprofits have embraced online marketing to reach audiences effectively and keep fundraising costs low. This way, you can have more resources going to your cause of choice!
Here are ten digital strategy tips to help you target donors, convey your messages, and encourage people to give.
Use Clear Messaging
People have very short attention spans. Marketers estimate that people will spend no more than 20 seconds on a website before moving on. You have very little time to grab them and keep them there. Your messaging needs to be clear and compelling. You need to state upfront what you do and what you want. You need to let people know why they should help immediately.
Make Your Website Visually Compelling
With so little time to make an impression, you have to use more than words. Visually arresting images will make someone stop more quickly than even the most beautifully crafted sentence. Use vibrant photos and graphic design to illustrate your mission.
Incorporate Video
Video can tell your organization's story in a fast, attention-grabbing manner. It also uses emotion to tug the heartstrings and purse strings. Video can quickly convey where you are looking for support and how people can provide that support. It can also demonstrate results: projects done, lives changed, awareness generated. By showing how effective your nonprofit is, you can solicit more support.
Encourage Microdonations
Sometimes people hesitate to donate because they cannot give large amounts. Let your audience know that every bit helps, and encourage small one-time or regularly scheduled microdonations. A brilliant digital strategy will allow donors to click and give easily.
Know Your Audience
Your digital presence must appeal to the people you know are following your cause. Web design is never one size fits all. Environmental nonprofits must be attractive to outdoors enthusiasts. Medical research nonprofits may want to emulate the branding of respected healthcare facilities so that audiences find the site familiar and trustworthy.
Make it Easy to Donate
If it is hard to figure out how to donate, you can lose followers quickly. Invest in technology that will allow donors to use credit cards, and remember their information when they return next year. Many cost-effective digital tools can help your organization and members solicit and track donations efficiently.
Distribute Regular Newsletters
Keep your audience informed of what you are doing with the money they give. Collect your contacts in a database and communicate with them consistently (but not so often that you become a pest).
Get Professional Assistance
If you are building or upgrading your website, bring in the experts. It is worth the investment. Marketers can help you use the same tactics big corporations use to raise funds for your cause. Find an agency that can advise on SEO, video, and other online options to increase your reach.
Leverage Social Media
Enable your supporters to follow you on social media. Determine which platform they are using (LinkedIn for more corporate types, Facebook for the 30-60 year old demographic) and keep them up to date with posts that drive them back to your website.
Draw Them In
Your digital strategy should get your supporters to engage with your site. Invite comments and questions—post polls or questionnaires to better get to know your audience. The more you draw people to your site, the more likely they will begin to care, agree, and ultimately decide to give.
Digital Strategy Can Boost your Nonprofit to the Next Level
People order their pizzas and transportation on their phones nowadays. Why shouldn't they expect their favorite nonprofits to keep them informed that way too?
By integrating a digital strategy into your overall outreach efforts, you can expand your nonprofit's reach. Online tactics will help you grow your audience, increase donations, and raise your brand awareness.
Contact us for more information on building the perfect digital strategy, including video, for your nonprofit.
5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From a Digital Marketing Funnel
As counter-intuitive as it might seem, a direct line to a client might not be the best tactic. When operating a small business, a common mistake that most individuals make is trying to make a sale to a potential client.
By using a digital marketing funnel, you can actually boost your sales and create more points of contact with customers before making the sale. A digital marketing funnel is a development of steps that complete a sale. Creating this sales funnel template takes some work, but don’t fret.
Here are a few ways your business can benefit by using a digital marking funnel.
Devise a Plan of Action
Creating a sales funnel template can benefit any first-time small business owner.
A digital marking funnel will use specific marketing strategies and tools you have in place to attract clients to the website. After this, persuasion comes next. You’ll do this through a simple email sign up or another form of information distribution.
Give them time to test the product. This might entice then to purchase based on the trial run. A happy customer will recommend your product and website to friends. It’s the nature of business.
Four Steps to a Digital Marketing Funnel
There are four things you should center your digital marking funnel around; attract, convert, close and delight. These were sort of browsed over above, but how can you use this to improve your business?
Breaking down your marketing strategy and funnel approach beforehand can help you spot gaps in these four key concepts. Once you’ve done this, enhance what is known as your conversion path on your website.
A conversion path is the steps on a website that are used in your digital marking funnel and lead to a sale.
Know Your Audience
When starting small, you want to know your numbers so you can keep track of the growth of your business. Page views are great, but getting paid at the end of the process is the goal. With the use of a digital marking funnel, you’ll receive information with the exact number of customers paying you.
By calculating these buyers, you’ll be able to predict the sales volume from the top of the funnel down. Once you've gathered this data, your focus can be on manufacturing and improvement across your products.
Adapt to Customers
If questions are being asked about your product, odds are these are things people want to see change.
Changing your direction doesn’t need to happen often, but if you see a trend in a certain direction through market research, a digital marketing funnel can highlight it. Consider posting in a blog to get customers talking about their concerns and similar questions.
This will act as a hub for the answers and you may find that your answers attract new customers.
Keep Them Looking
Once you have a few customers, the goal is to keep them on your website and get them purchasing not once, but often.
As they move down the digital marketing funnel, a customer becomes more and more likely to purchase. By increasing your conversion rate you can actually see who is more likely to pay for your products.
Non-targeting individuals will filter themselves out thanks to your digital marking tunnel and you’ll see more customers interested in your business.
Harness Business Potential
Formed under a creative and data-driven marking goal, HARNESS is working to make companies and the world around them a better place.
With over 10 years of experience in the field, HARNESS is focused on you and your business. We create compelling video marking campaigns that make your vision come to life. People buy from people not from businesses. We’re here to make sure your marking matches your goal through video.
Let’s chat!
5 Tips for Running a Successful Marketing Campaign
That's in the words of one business owner, Mark Cuban, describing the importance of a successful marketing campaign.
Marketing isn't only an essential aspect of a business—it's what drives the business.
Exceptional marketing campaigns cover a slew of various tactics, from advertising and customer outreach to social media and blog content.
No matter what your event, product, or service, you'll need to figure out who you're marketing to and then speak to them. Doing this doesn't have to be complicated, though.
We've covered a few simple steps that should help you develop an excellent plan for your business or organization.
1. Define Your Target Audience
Before you begin marketing, it helps to know who you're marketing to—i.e., know your audience!
This keeps your campaign focused on the people you're selling to, which maximizes your campaign efforts.
Finding your target market is simple when you answer the following questions:
- Their age and gender
- Their marital status
- Whether they have kids
- Their income level
- Their location
- Their lifestyles—i.e., employed or retired, hobbies and shopping habits, etc.
Answer these questions and then understand the competition marketing to your demographic. See how you can stand apart from your competitors.
2. Set Clear Objectives
The only way to stay on course is to have a plan.
Define clear goals and objectives for your campaign.
Is it to garner a specific dollar amount in profits? Is it to get 1,000 people to attend a convention? Are you trying to sell out of a particular product that's on special?
This step piggy-backs off the first in that having more explicit objectives will make sure your efforts stay focused and specific.
3. Know Your Budget
Likewise, having a budget also helps you stay on course.
It's easy to get mystified by all the options. But having a clear budget in mind will keep your campaign attentive to your goals and audience. You need to concentrate on your capabilities without getting sidetracked by lofty goals.
Making a budget is simple:
- Know your operational costs
- Know your sales funnel (by observing site visits, lead conversions, etc.)
- Know your goals (as outlined in step two)
- Consider scalability
- Observe the current industry and market trends
And remember, a successful marketing campaign is an investment!
4. Create High-Quality Content
Blog posts are an essential part of any successful marketing campaign.
They establish you as an authority in your industry. They humanize your business, giving readers a "tribe" or person to connect with (especially important in this digital era). They allow you to exceed the local limits and reach audiences worldwide.
Oh yeah, and businesses with blogs acquire 126% more leads than those without one!
5. Track Your Metrics
And last, you need to have a method for seeing if your campaign works.
In the planning stage, define which metrics you'd like to measure for their successes or failures. Then implement the correct tools for doing so.
This way, you can build on your successes or alter what isn't working.
Successful Marketing Made Simple
Using these tactics, you should be on your way to a profitable campaign strategy.
A successful marketing plan could mean the difference between profit and loss. Exposure and obsoleteness. Thriving or closing.
In other words, it's crucial.
We can offer data-driven, creative videos to your marketing plan to solidify its success. Contact us today to see what we can achieve for your company!
Creative Marketing Tips for Non-Profit Organizations Big or Small
Are you looking for innovative ways to promote your non-profit organization but don't know where to start? Though online marketing campaigns are great for generating leads, they can be time-consuming and costly.
Luckily, there are creative ways to build awareness about your organization and keep the costs low. You'll stand out from the crowd and people will flock to your website to learn more.
From fun, educational videos, infographics, and social media contests to urban in-person marketing, you can play around and see what works best.
Here are 5 simple, yet creative marketing ideas that'll put your non-profit organization on the map.
Fun and Educational Videos
Video marketing is the future, and companies of all types and sizes use videos to promote their products and services. It's visual, engaging, relatively easy to make, and shareable.
There are many tools and software to create stunning videos, so all you need is a creative idea and a little time. Start by making one creative video and track the response. If people like it, you can easily turn it into a series, and tell the story about your organization.
Caption and Photo Contests
Organizing contests on social media are an effective digital marketing tactic that can help you build engagement and brand awareness. The most popular types are caption and photo contests where people either think of a caption for a photo you post, or they post a photo using your products or brand hashtags.
This creates engagement and brand visibility, which is exactly what you want to promote your non-profit.
Infographics
Infographics are visual marketing tools that outline essential information in a long vertical image. It's one of the most popular creative marketing strategies because it displays clear, concise messages in a fun, colorful way that's easy to consume.
The best places to post infographics are in the body of a blog post and Pinterest. When people click on your infographic, they'll land on your website and learn about your non-profit.
Gamification
Gamification is a creative marketing strategy that uses game elements with the goal to engage the users. It works great in marketing because it provides instant gratification and a sense of connection to the brand.
You can use gamification on your website, on social media channels, fundraising campaigns, and even in-person marketing.
Urban Marketing
One of the best creative marketing techniques is urban marketing, i.e. going outside and interacting with people directly. Aside from handing out flyers, there are many creative ways to spread the word about your non-profit organization.
Some great ideas include:
- Commissioning a beautiful mural related to your organization
- Performances related to your organization
- Decorating street elements like manhole covers, stairs, sidewalks, and benches
Anything that would catch people's attention and make them stop and interact is a perfect opportunity to promote your non-profit.
Use These Creative Marketing Strategies to Promote Your Organization!
There are countless ways to spread the word about your non-profit organization and it doesn't have to be expensive.
The more creative you are, the more people will be interested to check you out, and hear about your story.
Need more creative marketing ideas? Check out the most powerful marketing trends that ruled in 2019.
7 B2B Marketing Strategies That Lead to Sales
Over the past few years, B2B marketing has changed. To succeed and stay ahead of your competition, you need to have a digital presence. 85% of B2B marketers confirm that lead generation is vital to the survival of a business.
B2B marketing strategies are beneficial to the business. How? They improve brand awareness and engagement. Not only that.
They help businesses find new customers and partners online. What is more, businesses are able to enter other markets much easier.
Looking for the best B2B marketing strategies?
Read on and learn the 7 B2B marketing strategies that lead to sales.
1. Be a Specialist and Not a Generalist
Want to drive sales to your business? Start marketing your B2B agency as a specialist and not a generalist. How do you go about this?
Find your niche and specialize in it. By doing so, you become the indisputable leader. As such, whenever customers are looking for products in your niche, you are the first stop.
Moreover, they now have a company to recommend to family and friends.
2. Create Buyer Personas
How do you know what your clients want? To find out what your clients want, we recommend that you create buyer personas. What is a buyer persona?
This is a semi-fictional representation of your target customer based on your research. When creating buyer personas, it is wise to consider the following:
- Behavior patterns
- Goals
- Demographics
- Motivations
By doing so, you are able to create an accurate representation of your customers.
3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile
Over 51% of smartphone users have been able to discover products or businesses through their phones. To ensure that your customers are able to find you online, optimize your website for mobile. To do so, hire a professional web design company.
By incorporating responsive design, the expert will optimize your business website for mobile. As such, it will be easier to browse from any device despite its resolution.
4. Try Content Syndication
As one of the most popular B2B marketing strategies, content syndication allows you to reach audiences you have yet to reach. Simply put, you will be leveraging audiences of complementary brands. By doing so, you get to increase your business presence and generate more leads.
This translates to increased sales and revenue.
5. Include Social Media as Part of Your B2B Marketing Strategies
The use of social media is on the increase. In fact, 3.2 billion social media users are active daily on various platforms. This translates to 42% of the global population.
The question is which is the right social platform for a B2B company?
LinkedIn has proven to be the most popular social media platform for B2B companies. The reason for this is due to the presence of other B2B companies. Other social media platforms include Instagram and Twitter.
6. Collect More Leads with Gated Videos
One of the most effective B2B strategies is gated videos. With gated videos, you can collect more leads. How?
Simply make your video content to be available for watching after registration. For non-registered users, you can offer a small part as an introduction. To watch the rest of the video, they have to register.
This helps you generate more leads.
7. Avoid Cold Calling
Cold calling is an ineffective sales technique of reaching out to potential customers. The reason why you should ditch cold calling is that it's outdated. There are far better b to b marketing strategies that will help you generate more leads.
They are email marketing, viral advertising, content marketing, and SEO.
Drive Sales and Leads with B2B Marketing Strategies
To take advantage of B2B marketing strategies, make a plan, test your campaigns, and review the results. It is also important to identify success metrics and keep testing. By following these creative strategies, you help your brand to stand out.
Want to create lasting connections with your target audience? We at Harness Consulting can help. Contact us today and take your business to the next level.
Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing in 2019
Print isn't dead yet!
According to this study, 51 percent of people still exclusively read printed newspapers.
Meanwhile, we can't go online or use a smartphone app without seeing signs of digital marketing.
The digital marketing vs. traditional marketing debate isn't over, either. Between the two, there are billboards, PPC, flyers, SEO, business cards, geofencing, and so much more. When developing a marketing plan, you have to ask: what's best for my business?
Keep reading to discover the details surrounding the traditional vs. digital marketing debate. Once you're able to recognize the core differences between the two, you can decide which strategies are best for your business!
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing encompasses any online strategies that advertise your business. This includes websites, pay-per-click ads such as Google Ads, social media, and videos.
Advantages
Instead of sending your marketing materials out into the world, digital marketing focuses on a narrow target audience. This target audience is made up of the people most likely to need your product or service.
With a focused target audience, you won't burn through your budget on people unlikely to convert into paying customers.
A powerful digital marketing strategy also gives you more control. If you need to make a change to your campaigns, you can go online and make adjustments in an instant.
This allows you to cut down on mistakes and wasted ad spend.
In the digital marketing vs. traditional marketing debate, digital marketing also wins on analytics. With this timely data, you can determine what's working (and not) throughout your campaigns.
This analytics is essential when trying to optimize your campaigns.
Disadvantages
Unfortunately, digital marketing sometimes requires time to provide helpful data. Since it isn't tangible, digital materials can also cause an emotional disconnect with potential customers.
Digital materials also don't linger. That means you need to make the most out of that first impression.
Traditional Marketing
Meanwhile, traditional marketing covers tangible print materials. These include flyers, billboards, business cards, and newspaper ads.
Advantages
Since traditional marketing materials are tangible, potential customers can look at them over and over again. This helps you linger in their minds, giving you more than one opportunity to gain their attention.
Traditional materials are also great for local audiences. You can hand out flyers and make a personal connection with potential customers.
People are also more familiar with newspaper ads and other print materials. You can leverage that familiarity so people feel more comfortable with your company.
Disadvantages
Traditional marketing doesn't offer immediate data. You also can't make changes after these materials are already printed.
These methods are also expensive. Without analytics, you can't determine an ROI that proves the costs were worthwhile.
Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
For some companies, the digital marketing vs. traditional marketing debate has a clear answer. However, a balance between these two types of marketing strategies can help you optimize opportunities to reach customers.
When deciding on online marketing vs. traditional marketing, consider what your company needs most.
For more information to help you decide traditional marketing vs digital marketing, check out our blog.
The Anatomy of the Post [Ideal Outline of a Blog]
You may have heard that blogging is essential for content marketing success, but did you know that blogging helps to position you as an expert in your field, presents a valuable resource for your site visitors, and creates new opportunities for your site to rank on Google results? So what is the ideal outline of a blog for SEO?
Businesses that blog acquire 126% more leads than those who do not.
Do I really need a blog?
It’s critical to have a blog on your site so that you can help answer your visitors’ questions. Sharing your expertise, assisting the visitors to solve issues that they are encountering, and improving your overall site experience with your blog is what helps to get your rankings on Google up.
Don’t be confused, though. Blogging for SEO requires more than simply stuffing keywords into your posts and waiting for traffic to pour in. Bloggers should focus on writing content about subjects surrounding target keywords so that they can provide a breadth of knowledge on a given topic with the intent to help visitors rather than merely trying to drive traffic to sell more stuff.
Blogging on topics is great for user experience, helps people answer their questions, and will keep people returning to Google (and hopefully your blog) to solve future issues, the reason Google created the ranking algorithm after all.
However, there is a formula that works for creating individual blogs well for SEO. And, yes, it does involve ensuring that your target keywords are included in specific sections in the post to squeeze the most out of each article.
Blogging for SEO
So how can you ensure that people see your posts and that you blog yields traffic? We encourage our clients to use this method:
Keyword Research
Use multiple tools such as SEMRush, Keywordtool.io, and Answerthepublic.com to find long-tail keywords that surround your area of expertise and your industry.
Long-tail keywords are phrases that are more specific to your niche. They will usually have a lower number of monthly searches, but also fewer people competing for top results.
Look for words that have high traffic with relatively low competition.
Let’s consider one of HARNESS’s areas of expertise: video marketing.
The search term “video marketing” has 4400 searches per month, which is relatively high.
However, it also has a keyword difficulty (a score between 0-100 rating how difficult it is to rank on the first page for that keyword) score of around 68.58.
That search volume means it’s a popular keyword and one for which we want to rank. On the other hand, it has a high keyword difficulty (KD), so it will likely require many blog posts to hit that front page with this search.
What if we modified that keyword to find a long-tail search on the same topic?
Let’s try this one: video marketing services.
The term “video marketing services” has 480 searches per month with a keyword difficulty score of 41.01. The search volume level is lower compared to “video marketing,” but we can rank for this keyword with only a few blog posts.
Further, even if the 480 people are searching for this term, we want to talk to all of them as they are likely to be qualified traffic to our website. Heck, if only one person is searching for one of our high-value keywords, I want them to hit my site rather than my competition’s page.
We consider these low-competition keywords the low-hanging fruit, so we advise clients to start there. Higher difficulty keywords will have more traffic but require more work. Those are long-term goals, so work on those over time.
Titles - Use Your Keywords
Use your keyword to create a title that makes sense to your reader. Note: you must use the exact phrasing of the keyword in the title; otherwise, the keyword difficulty and volume will be different.
Your title should read naturally and help to start the process of the blog to educate, solve a problem, answer a question, and/or entertain. Creating titles can be one of the most challenging parts of the process.
You want a title that will grab attention and make people want to jump in. However, do not use clickbait titles unless you want to aggravate your readers. While clickbait titles will generate more traffic on the front end, if it’s all flashy title and no substance, you will send your readers to the next site looking for better, more informative content.
Title Generators
There are many title generators out there that can help with ideas. Hubspot offers one, but it tends to be pretty superficial in the ideas it generates. Portents is another option.
Let’s use our example of “video marketing services” in these title generators.
First, let’s plug it into the Hubspot Blog Idea Generator:
- Video Marketing Services: Expectations vs. Reality
- Will Video Marketing Services Ever Rule the World?\
- The Next Big Thing in Video Marketing Services
- Video Marketing Services Explained in 140 Characters or Less
- This Week’s Top Stories About Video Marketing Services
Mostly garbage, right? It does, however, illustrate the way we work to include the phrase in the title.
Next, let’s try the Portent title generator:
- The Hunger Games Guide to Video Marketing Services
- 8 Freaky Reasons Video Marketing Services Could Get You Fired
- How Video Marketing Services Aren’t as Bad as You Think
- True Facts About Justin Bieber’s Love of Video Marketing Services
- Where Video Marketing Services are Headed in the Next Five Years
These are also pretty rough, but they are unique at the very least. Number five is not terrible, but will this compel our users to click? That’s the question you have to ask yourself.
Do you need a title generator? No, not at all. You can quickly brainstorm 50 ideas with your keywords. Answer the Public (referenced above) provides some great ways to phrase questions around your keywords.
Some of your phrases will require more creativity than others to arrive at a compelling, natural sounding title, but that’s part of the fun.
A Note on Title Length
Let me make it slightly more complicated :)
- The perfect blog post title is 60 characters
- Titles with 8 to 12 words are shared more often on Twitter
- Titles with 12 to 14 words are shared and liked most often on Facebook
Keep those additional thoughts in mind as you work on your list of title ideas.
The Outline
Note: there are many ways to write a blog. The following is just one example format, but it tends to be very successful because it is the same format that many successful public speakers use to present information on a massive scale. It also brings the keyword in at appropriate times for SEO.
Check out our other posts for other templates such as the How To Post, the List-based Post, and Curated Content.
Now onto the layout -
Killer Title (H1 Tag)
- Use your keyword as discussed above
- Beautiful Picture or Graphic
- Ensure that your keyword is in the title of your photo and your alt text in a natural way
Introduction
- Keep it concise and punchy. Perhaps you can present a common opinion or idea and then disagree or agree with it. Ask a question. Tell them what you are going to say. Anything that will help to excite the reader and warm them up for the main content.
- Important: Be sure to use your keyword in the first sentence of your first body paragraph.
Main Content
- The main body is where you support your thesis from your intro. Why do you disagree with the argument? What is the answer to the question? What are the top five reasons that dogs can’t drive? Present the meat of your article here.
- Use synonyms of your keyword in these supporting paragraphs. You can reuse your keyword if it reads naturally. Don’t force it.
- Use subheaders to divide up content into easily scannable heading
Conclusion
- Don’t write your conclusion like an essay in high school but do bring it all together for the reader. Summarize what you said in a clear, concise way and present your commentary as needed.
Feedback/CTA
- Invite interaction and engagement by providing a space to comment or create a call to action to take users to the next stage of your sales funnel. You can link to a content offer here as well.
Meta Description
- The meta tag is not part of the post that your users will see, but will be the text that will display on Google search results. This description should be helpful to users in deciding whether or not it solves their query. Include your keyword in the meta info.
Important SEO Areas
These are the areas to ensure you use your keyword to maximize your chances of ranking.*
- Title (H1 tag)
- First Paragraph
- Image Alt Text
- URL
- Meta Description
*Remember that your main goal should be to create content that is inherently valuable to readers and then focus on SEO and rankings.
Just creating content based on keywords and stuffing them in as many places as possible can get you penalized by Google. The intent of your content should be to present information with practical value.
Avoid fluff content. Don’t waste your users’ time by presenting superficial garbage. Your blog must be high quality, comprehensively answer questions with relevant info, and it must be easy to read across devices.
Conclusion
So is blogging for SEO easy? Yes, once you get the hang of it, but it takes some planning and practice just like most things worth doing. This type of formatting becomes second nature after you write a few posts.
Does this seem like too much trouble?
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. HARNESS is an inbound marketing agency that specializes in creating content for each stage of your unique sales funnel. We can help to get you in front of your target customers, taking them from a new visitor to brand evangelist.
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