One of our philosophies at Gravity is all businesses have inherent value. It’s true. You wouldn’t be in business if there wasn’t an audience of people or organizations that valued your expertise, capabilities, products, services or knowledge…and most importantly, how it helps them accomplish something.
I’m regularly asked to make sense of search engine optimization (SEO) for our B2B marketing clients and it goes hand-in-hand with the above philosophy. Google, Yahoo, Bing or any of the search engines only care about one thing: that they point the user to the page that best answers the question or phrase entered in the search box. It’s that simple, know your audience, provide the content that best answers their questions, and the search engines will provide the traffic.
Content marketing isn’t anything new, it’s why trade shows, industry publications and magazines have existed for ages. People are constantly seeking answers to challenges. You simply need to commit to providing content that helps them discover or solve a problem. Ten years ago, you could place an ad alongside an article in a magazine and expect results, today you need to write the article.
There is a lot of misinformation out there, and frankly, many SEO service providers who are taking advantage. Beware of companies that emphasize the technical side of SEO. Optimizing content that no one values isn’t going to fool the search engines. There’s a reason some people consider SEO to mean swindles every organization.
It’s imperative that you have quality content that your audience is searching for. The more complex your product or service, the more you have to focus on content that describes solutions to challenges rather than features and competitive advantages. If you don’t help your audience realize they have a problem and the importance of solving it, you’re stuck hoping and praying they’ll realize they need you.
While Gravity has launched a new monthly service that makes producing content easy and affordable, any company can get serious about creating content. Here’s our exact process:
- Identify your top audience – who they are, including their roles, industry, possible challenges, etc.
- List the top ways your audience is likely asking questions
- Identify your internal subject matter experts
- List and prioritize topics that answer the questions
- Create a schedule for delivery
- Assign a professional writer to conduct interviews and compile the content into a quality article
Of course, if day-to-day business tends to get in the way, take advantage of our no obligation offer to develop your content map for you.
Simply visit our Gravity Content page for more information.
