In Part 1 of this blog post How to Leverage SEO to Attract New Business – Part 1, we explored the basics of how to leverage SEO to increase traffic to your website. Here in Part 2, we’ll get a bit more advanced by looking at content expansion, content marketing, and offsite promotion.
Step #3 – Expanding Your Core Content Offering
Now that our existing content is optimized, it is time to think about the core content gaps on the website. That is, we want to think carefully about the topics of interest to our searchers that we don’t adequately cover today with our content.
This process is called content expansion. Doing good content expansion requires quite a bit of input and creativity from the team. For most sites, there are usually a number of different topical areas which could either be covered more thoroughly, or are not covered at all.
The key is to stay focused on core service areas. We want to think about the biggest holes in our content and how we can add value by addressing these. We should think about new pages, as well as additions to existing pages to build out a more robust website.
ABOVE: A simple spreadsheet like this one can illustrate how new pages can be brainstormed and considered for addition to the existing site.
Doing content expansion can take time and energy, as developing new content is always an involved process. However, one of the major benefits to doing this is that if it is done right, the benefits can last for years to come. Once we ‘teach’ Google that we know how to offer valuable content on our website, they are that much more likely to show us to users in search results. This legacy of good content and ranking can pay off in the long run in a big way.
Content Expansion Pro Tip: When doing content expansion, it is helpful to always keep the audience we defined in step #1 at the forefront. We should never develop content specifically for SEO. Rather, we ought to develop good new content because we believe that it will be liked, valued, and useful to our site visitors. When content is developed with this audience-first mentality, it is attractive to both users and search engines.
Section Summary: Content expansion is the process of developing new content (both on existing and new pages) to ensure that our site offers valuable, useful content for all the topics users are interested in. Building content like this can help build good results for the long-haul, and drive attraction to the website for years to come.
Step #4 – Developing Blog & Long-Tailed Content
If content expansion is the process of developing out core content areas, then this next step is the art of also covering all of the details.
In any business, there is always a ton to say and write about beyond just the main focus areas. We are advocates of developing out all of this long-tailed (i.e. not core topics) over time in order to develop a robust set of content that can live on the site and add all sorts of value to clients.
To paint a picture of this, let’s use a colorado white water rafting outfitter as an example. In step #3, we would expect them to build out robust content for all of their core service offerings. This would include things like: river-specific information, details about their trips, specific trips pages, other activity pages, etc. If you go to their website, you will see that they have done exactly this.
But once those pages are built, they can then start focusing on developing content for any one of the multitude of topics related to rafting in general. This could include any number of things, like what to wear on a rafting trip, the best time to go rafting, seasonal updates, and lots more. Their blog covers literally hundreds of such topics, which makes for a very useful resource section on the site.
The point is, you want to think about content development for the long haul. Once the core service areas are complete, you can then dive into exploring all the specific details and nuances of your space. This foundation of detail content can be invaluable to SEO in the long run.
There are many methods to develop out this content, but a few tools include things like:
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Blogs
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White Papers
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FAQs
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Video Content
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Resources Sections
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Etc.
Section Summary: The most successful SEO sites are those which are continually striving to add new, interesting, and vibrant content. Adding detailed, long-tail focused content can help establish you as a trusted resource for a long time to come.
Step #5 – Content Marketing & Promotion
Our final step is about promoting all that good content you just developed. We don’t want all that effort to be in vain, so it is critical that we think about how to do effective content marketing. This ensures that users are finding what we’re producing.
There are many, many different ways to get your content noticed. A few of the common channels and tools we like to use include things like:
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Email Nurturing Campaigns
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Social Media Campaigns
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Customer Case Studies
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Print Materials and PDFs
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Guest Blogging and Content Sharing
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Local Business Listings
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Industry Trade Shows
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And many more.
Whatever the chosen method, the basic idea is to find whatever creative channels we can to distribute our content and promote it online.
From an SEO perspective, this matters because all of that sharing is a form of validation to Google that you are an authority in your given space. We always like to say that Google cares what you say about yourself (i.e. with your content), but they really care about is what other people say about you (i.e. what sort of links and promotion they can see online).
Section Summary: The final, and perhaps most important, way to leverage SEO to attract new business is by promoting and marketing all the great things you are doing online. The more that you can creatively market your content, the better you will look in the eyes of search engines, which only leads to more visits and leads.
Build Great Content and They Will Come
As we said at the beginning of this post, building an SEO channel can be one of the most lucrative ways to attract new business from an online perspective. However, as we have seen, it takes a bit of strategy and foresight to make this channel truly come alive.
But by following the trusted process of defining your audience, optimizing your site for them, building new content that users care about, and then finding good ways to promote it online, the results are almost always SEO success. And of course the beauty of this is that once you have a solid SEO foundation in place, it can continue to drive and attract new customers for years and years to come. SEO is one of the best channels at driving recurring visits and “free” traffic when done correctly.
If you have any questions about of magnetika’s SEO services, or how we can put this plan in place for your site, feel free to reach out to our team. One of our consultants would be happy to help see how we can help you.
