Today's consumers are more sophisticated than ever. They expect interesting content, personalized marketing, and a seamless site experiences.
It doesn't matter how creative your style is or how clever your infographics are; if your pages take forever to load or your site looks obnoxious on smartphone screens, people will not engage.
The human element is the most important part of any marketing strategy. You're trying to get people to click, read, share, or buy, and the only way to accomplish that is to get inside their heads and uncover their unique tastes. Accordingly, all your content and user-experience (UX) designs should reflect the type of experience you want people to have every time they interact with your company.
Pay attention to your user data, and you'll know which direction to head in:
- What do consumers want from you?
- What search terms resonate with them and describe what they're looking for?
- How are they interacting with videos, images, social, e-books, and other forms of content?
- Which site features are most popular?
Start simply with website surveys. You will be pleasantly surprised with the amount of actionable insight you receive from your visitors. Employ pop-up surveys to find out what people want more of on your site. For instance, a simple dialogue box might ask, "What topics would like to see us write about next?" Then develop your blog posts, videos, and articles around what interests your users.
Search engines reward companies that publish well-written, human-sounding content. Blog posts and articles should sound natural and conversational (not as though they were cranked out by a machine) to increase audience engagement. And make sure you're assessing how easy it is to comprehend your content.
The terms people search by differ depending on whether they are speaking or typing; for those conducting voice searches, include long-tail keywords to increase your rankings.
Structure your posts so they're easy to read. Incorporate HTML semantics to break articles up with H2 and H3 subheads, bold text (use this sparingly), and bulleted lists. Add plenty of rich media to enhance the writing. Photos, videos, infographics, tables, pull quotes, and additional trust factors will make your posts pop and add a level of credibility to the experience.
Reputation affects your ranking. Write articles that showcase your expertise, and track your analytics to see which articles resonate most. Then, create similar content for added exposure.
Go deep on the topics you're passionate about. The vast majority of organically top-ranking articles on Google are longer than 2,000 words. People crave genuine insights, so share that controversial opinion or unique take you've been ruminating on. Don't hold back. Having a distinct voice will raise your profile even further.
There was a time when SEO engineers could develop pages around primary and secondary keyword phrases alone. Now you need to account for a wider range of terms that people might use to find your content or website.
Once you've built out a comprehensive list, work those phrases and terms into your articles. Obviously, the writing shouldn't sound forced or stilted. But if you're selecting the right keywords, they should flow naturally within your posts.
As noted earlier, search experience optimization includes things like site speed, mobile responsiveness, and strong information architecture.
Users should see a logical navigational path between the homepage and subpages. That's because bad UX doesn't offend just audiences; it also makes it difficult for algorithms to categorize. Clear page structures make it easier for search engines to index different parts of your site.
Take stock of your current pages, and remove any duplicate or thin content. A short article that says little but is stuffed with keywords isn't doing you any favors. Edit old articles for spelling and punctuation errors as well. Misspellings look unprofessional to your audience, and they look like spam to Google's bots.
Courtesy of MarketingProfs
