5 Tips for Creating Content — Consistently | FunctionFox Newsletter
In the February 2012 Functionfox.com newsletter, I provide clients of web-based timesheet and project tracking system Function Fox with some tips on how to keep the content monster fed and happy. Read the article: 5 Tips for Creating Content — Consistently.
(P.S. I use the FunctionFox Timesheet program to track and report on client time. Awesome tool.)
More on Weaving Findable Content with AdWords
The purpose of last week’s post ” Weave a findable content tapestry with Google Adwords,” was to convince you that, in addition to producing content consistently, you must also begin to be conscious of the key word content in your posts, to ensure that your missives actually will be found. (Ensuring they are read and shared, well, that is another post .)
To reprise: Using the Google Adwords search tool is great for finding relevant (if basic) key words and phrases that you can incorporate into your posts. It’s a great way to get your feet wet. If you’re new to SEO, go back and hit that post first and play around, then come back here, because this post assumes you’ve played with the Adwords tool and are starting to grasp the concept.
Adwords is a great place to start, but as @randfish from SEOMoz points out in this post cautioning us to be careful when using Google AdWords, to get the real gold, you have to dig. Once you have culled the basic words, you should go back and type in other key phrases that you think or know people are searching on to find you and that will kick out a whole different list of suggestions.
To keep track of these, create a spreadsheet. Then, when you are scheduling your posts in your editorial calendar, schedule in the keywords you’re going to roll in, too.
The key to success here is to work at it a little bit at a time, consistently. Push the snowball, as Chris Penn posted recently. Maybe you create an event around it such as “Keyword Wednesday” where you spend the last 15 minutes of your day searching for new phrase options. The important thing is that you begin to address the need.
I’m not claiming to be an expert in SEO. My job is to call your attention to things that are critical to your business’ success, help you understand their importance and get you moving. Convinced? Want to find out and do more? Here are two good resources: SEOCopywriting and SEOMoz.
Weave a Findable Content Tapestry With Google AdWords
I know you have tried to read stuff on keywords and keyphrases 100 times and it always makes your eyes glaze over. Key phrases look like this: pr public relations. Or business marketing company. Or pr for marketing. (You’ll see what I did there in just a minute.)
Stick with me here. You seriously have to get this. Let me pare it down. Way down.
Each piece of content you produce can be thought of as an individual thread that composes the tapestry that represents you online. So you need to think of the search engines as your loom.The “color” of the content “thread” will vary depending on the “pattern” you need to create.
To ensure you use the right color, you need to know what the buyers of this beautiful tapestry really want. What are they searching for? Crimson red? Royal blue? Bright green? Translation: Marketing company? Marketing consulting? Packaging design? Branding consultant? You need to have a handle on how your clients-to-be are attempting to find you. You need to know what they are typing in the box.
Luckily, Google is willing to clue us in via its Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Open this tool (it’ll launch in a new window). I’ll wait.
First, you should see how you’re doing, so type in your URL into the website field.
If the list of keywords seems generally relevant, congratulations, Google understands what your company does. If the words are off the wall, type in the URL of your nearest competitor and see what words come up and start to incorporate some of those concepts into your content.
The only time this doesn’t work is if said competitor has a Flash splash screen between you and the content. In which case the only clues you get are Flash related. (This just happened. I can only imagine what that splash page is doing to his search results. Egad.)
Scan the list of words for concepts people are search for and then work the phrase into your piece, preferably in or near the first paragraph. Bonus if you can work it (naturally) into the title.
Next type in the more specific key phrases you think your clients are using to find you. If they register at all (ex. US monthly searches on “pr for marketing” – 18,100) add them to the list.
The key to this is to realize that content marketing is a long tail strategy that is executed consistently over a period of years. While the primary purpose of content is to engage and inform our clients-to-be, unless they can FIND it via search, we’re only doing half the job. Also consider, the more specific you can get with the search string, the less competition you’re going to have for the page results.
Challenge: Start to roll in some of the key word phrases you discovered into your next few blog posts.
Convinced and ready to refine the process even more? Check out SEO Copywriting. Heather and Co. will guide you well.
Related post: Make your website title bar descriptive.
