It is an accepted fact that if you want visitors to come to your website, and potentially make a buying decision there, that you often need to draw them in with content that answers their search queries. Many people tell me that they are writing blogs and that they are publishing them regularly, but it’s still not garnering quality traffic to or leads for their website. This is a common problem with most businesses – they are producing quantity over quality, and have confused the term “content is king” with “content is anything.” Content needs to be targeted and designed specifically for your audience, while maintaining relevance to the brand.
ICE CREAM SHOP EXAMPLE
Say that you’re a local ice cream shop, competing for authoritative space on Google against the big guys: Baskin Robbins and Dairy Queen. They’ve got more traffic than you could dream of having, and they have been around for a lot longer. You know that your quality and price is better than theirs, but people browsing for options aren’t able to find you on the first page of their search results. With 67% of the clicks going towards the top 5 results on a search engine results page (SERPs), you know that your website needs to work hard to rank.
“Content needs to be targeted and designed specifically for your audience, while maintaining relevance to the brand.”
It’s the summer, and, as a local ice cream shop, your target market is typically children and also their (paying!) parents. You hope to draw them into your locations after sporting practices, for birthday cakes, and for similar events. You know from past surveys of your market that the younger customers, typically aged 11-17, are the ones who recommend you to their parents. Online, they have also found you while searching for nearby ice cream shops. To drive organic traffic beyond the local/maps searches, you start writing blogs to attract your audience. You write about xbox games, TV shows you believe they watch, and other listicles decorated with memes. You’re starting to get more traffic, but a lot of it is bouncing, and no traffic seems to lead from the blog to the contact section for cake reservations, the map to find a nearby location, or the e-commerce platform where customers can order tubs for pick-up.
The content seems targeted at your audience. It’s answering questions your audience may be typing into Google. So, why is this not working?
You need to ask yourself: If the content you are producing for your website is frankly irrelevant to your overall business, why would the individual who landed on that specific blog post pursue any further? You are guilty of this, too. You input a query into Google, a website spits out an answer to your question, the website is irrelevant otherwise, so you bounce. Your audience is wondering what TV shows are out on Saturdays this year, and your blog lists the trends, the audience gathers their information, and they leave your website, not even sure what it was all about. The content misses the point completely. Further, if your content is centred around irrelevant keywords, you’re not going to rank for ice cream or birthday cakes – you’ll be ranking for television shows!
Yes, your content needs to answer the questions that your audience is asking of Google – and that may be upcoming TV shows. That said, your content needs to have relevance to your overall brand to attract quality traffic that will land on your page and navigate from there throughout your website. This is not saying that every blog you write needs to end with a sales pitch, but, if you’re an ice cream shop, you should consider writing the best ice cream cakes seen on TV shows that are relevant to your audience, than a blog entirely about trendy shows for 2018. Whether you’re sharing a blog on personal experiences or trying to grow your business, content has a huge impact on your online success. Keep your content relevant to your audience and your brand, and you’ll succeed in ranking on search engines and garnering the quality web traffic you are looking for.
