Content can support you with a variety of goals. The key is knowing what type of content can help with which goals, so you can be more intentional and strategic about what you create and share.

Sounds good?

Then let’s take a look at your business goals for 2023 and at the type of content you want to create to achieve those goals.

1. Growing your audience/email list

The more you become ‘known’ in your industry, the more customers you’ll attract. It’s that simple.

But even though social media is great and everything, nothing quite beats growing your email list. Having your potential customers’ emails means you can speak to them directly, whenever you want, with little distraction. It’s a powerful tool.

We know this ourselves because we’ve personally managed to grow our business on a tiny marketing budget. All we did was publish the right kinda blogs, convert readers into email subscribers, and, when we’ve built enough trust, sold them our content writing services.

Unfortunately, a lot of small businesses struggle to build a sizeable email list. In a study of over 1000 small business owners by Andrew and Pete at ATOMIC, they found that over half of respondents have an email list of 0-51 people 😬

When you don’t have your own audience, i.e. a list of people you can communicate directly with, you’re reliant on ads (which are pricey), referrals (which are inconsistent) or social media (which can be unreliable).

So how can the content you publish on your website help you grow your audience and your email list?

You can grow your audience by producing more SEO content.

What is SEO content?

SEO content is what you create in direct response to your customers’ internet search queries. It’s in-depth, well-written, engaging content that’s both informative and educational.

And it’s also optimised content, meaning that is written in a way that helps your content pop up in the search results.

The benefits of SEO content

The main focus of SEO content is to help you rank on the first page of Google so that more of your prospective customers can find you.

Being in the search results on the first page is the ultimate aim here because, unfortunately (and you know this as a user yourself), people hardly ever click on the second page or beyond. In fact, according to research, only 0.63% of all Google searchers do!

So for your website to show up higher in the ranking, you need to create SEO content regularly and consistently and always optimise it for search.

This means you need to:

• Research keywords on topics that are relevant to your industry and that are sought-after by your ideal customers (i.e. what are people searching for?)
• Make sure that those keywords are organically (i.e. naturally) included in your content in strategic places (for example, the title, the sub-headings, the description of the images, etc.) You want your content to read well – not sound like it was created by a robot!
• Make sure your content includes both internal and external links to other helpful and related content (just like we’re doing in the next line).

Related content: WordPress SEO For Blogging – How to Optimise Your WordPress Blog Posts.

Examples of SEO content

A simple way of understanding SEO content is by thinking about some of your own web searches. What do you typically search on the internet? Often, we’re after information or tutorials (‘How To’ type of content), such as “How to complete your tax return” or “Best pet-friendly cafes in Liverpool.”

Here are some examples of SEO content on our website:

7 Ways To Write An Irresistible Blog Post Headline.
What is an SEO content writing service? And how does it all work?

What makes for ‘bad’ SEO content?

Having SEO content on your website is a must. But we see a lot of business owners not quite hitting the mark with this.

Yes, your aim is to rank on the first page of the search engine results, which means the SEO content you produce must be driven by the type of searches your ideal customers type into Google. And you can use the internet and other more specialised SEO tools to decide what topics you should create content around.

But that doesn’t mean your content needs to be boring. Or that it needs to be the same as everyone else.

Quite the opposite, in fact!

You want to make sure your voice, personality, and your individual experience and expertise shine in your content. You’re creating educational and informative content, but you need to be doing this as you.

Because that also gives you a chance to highlight how you’re different and to start creating the brand awareness people need to decide to go ahead and buy from you.

Related content: How to use humour in your marketing, so people fall in love with your business (+11 prompts to help you!)

2. Increasing brand awareness

If your goal is to increase brand awareness with your content, you need to create thought-leadership content.

This is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but is an essential part of content marketing. With so much content out there, the only way to stand out is to create that positions you as the leader in your industry.

You can increase brand awareness by creating thought leadership content

What is thought-leadership content?

Thought-leadership content uses your expertise, insight, and experience to help you become the go-to source of information in your industry.

Rather than a specific type of content, we like to think of thought-leadership content as an approach to content creation. It can be about expressing controversial or outspoken opinions if you want it to be. But it doesn’t have to be.

It’s definitely not about picking fights with people! It’s more about not sitting on the sidelines and letting your audience know what you think about certain topics. We’d like you to see it as content that’s authentically and recognisably you, with a strong brand voice.

So thought-leadership content will typically include:

• Stong and/or controversial opinions
• Evidence of new findings within your industry based on your experience
• A desire to share your knowledge without any limitations – i.e. showing us the why and the how!
• Original research conducted by you and your business and your findings
• A strong voice or different approach to whatever it is you do.

The benefits of thought-leadership content

The main benefit of sharing thought-leadership content is to help you build credibility as a business and be seen as an expert. That’s a sure way to strengthen brand awareness with your prospective customers and clients.

Examples of thought-leadership content

Thought-leadership content can cover the following topics:

• Original research
• Business decisions you’ve made and why you’ve made them
• Expert interviews with others in your industry
• Customer client stories and case studies – ones that show the exact steps you took to overcome a problem with lots of evidence and value. Not just saying nice things about yourself
• Insider looks into your business that is actually helpful for your target audience e.g. publishing your income and expenditure every month and breaking down how you made sales that month (we always love these articles when we see them!)

Here’s an example you might recognise from our website:

How to market your business during a recession: 20 industry experts give us their views

What makes for ‘bad’ thought-leadership content?

Thought-leadership content is almost always a good idea unless you’re trying to be controversial for the sake of being controversial. Remember you’re not trying to pick an argument here!

There’s a difference between saying what you think and firmly drawing lines in the sand and explaining why you believe what you believe and trying to pick a fight with your prospective clients or competitors.

Be mindful of the difference!

Thought-leadership content will typically attract the people who are right for you and your business and ‘repel’ the ones who aren’t. But it doesn’t mean that you have to offend people or burn bridges in the process. There’s no need to criticise a competitor or expose a client, for example. You can express your opinions with objectivity and balance while also being kind to others!

Related content: SEO Content vs Thought Leadership Content: which should you create for your business?

3. Converting more leads

Another goal you might have in 2023 (and you should have this goal all year round every single year!) is to convert more leads. This goal is just (if not more important) than the first goal of growing your audience or email list. Because yes, it’s great doing that, but a large email list doesn’t pay the bills, you’ve still got to convert those subscribers into paying customers.

And that’s something businesses often neglect!

So what type of content can help you convert more?

You can increase conversions by creating sales-enablement content.

What is sales-enablement content?

As it says on the tin, sales-enablement content is what you produce throughout the selling process to engage with your prospects and directly address their concerns.

It shouldn’t just talk up your products or services, but it should also tackle the ‘objections’ your prospective customers have towards working with you. Whether they vocalise them or not, it’s your job to identify them, break them down, and explain (step-by-step) either why they’re not applicable or how are you planning to address them through your work.

For example, if you offer online fitness coaching, someone might think the service isn’t for them because they think they won’t be able to keep themselves accountable unless they have their coach physically in the gym with them. So how do you address that? How can you show them, through your content, that your service can actually help them and solve the problem they’re experiencing right now?

The benefits of sales-enablement content

Sales-enablement content help you gently guide your prospective customers towards making the informed decision to buying from you.

It’s not about being pushy or ‘salesy’ here. You’re not trying to convince just anyone to buy. You’re explaining to the people who are right for you what you can do for them and how, so they can feel reassured and confident in thinking you’re the right choice for them.

Examples of sales-enablement content

Sales-enablement content can include:

• Case studies from clients
• Objection-led content – problems with your industry, products or services, why you’re priced differently, why you don’t do something that others in your industry do etc
• “How to find the right…” type of content, such as “How to find the right Virtual Assistant for your accountancy business.”
• Buyer’s guides
• Use cases
• Content that breaks down the process of working with you
• FAQ style content

Some examples you can find on our website are:

What is our Black Friday offer all about then?
Why is our SEO content writing & blog management service so expensive?
Biggest Problems with SEO Companies (and how you can avoid them!)
SEO Content Writer vs SEO Agency: Which One is Best for Your Business?

What makes for ‘bad’ sales-enablement content?

When creating sales-enablement content, you don’t want to be overly promotional. But there’s an easy way around this – think about your customers and what they need. Put yourself in their shoes:

What are they worried about?
What’s holding them back from going ahead and working with you? Is it money? Lack of time? Lack of self-confidence? Something else?
And what fears or doubts might they be experiencing right now?

Spend some time thinking about these questions (or even better, ask your prospective customers directly, if you can) and address them in your content. This will allow you to create sales-enablement content that does its job of helping you convert leads into sales while also being helpful and not pushy.

Related content: How to increase your sales using objection-led content and How to Make Content Part of Your Sales Process (so you get more sales, faster!)

4. Retaining more customers

The last goal you might have (and one that completes the sales cycle quite nicely) is retaining customers.

You’ve done all the work to attract people into your world, wow them into becoming your customers, and now you want them to be loyal and stay. You want them to be so happy with the results they get from working with you that they buy from you again and again.

You can retain customers by producing customer service content

What is customer service content?

This is content that helps your audience achieve their goals by using your product or being part of your service.

Remember you’re addressing your customers now – not just leads and prospects. These people have already bought your product or service – they already know you’re brilliant!

But they still have questions about how to use your product or what to do next. So think about what type of content you can create that helps you serve your existing customers.

Ultimately, your aim with this content is to make your current customers reach their goals faster and more efficiently – which is good for both you and your customer!

The benefits of customer service content

The good thing about sharing customer service content is that it helps both you and your customers. How?

For one, it saves you time in answering questions. If one customer has a question about how to use your product or service, chances are that others will too. So answer these questions at scale and through your content – you do it once, and you don’t have to keep repeating yourself.

And when it comes to your current customers, it keeps them super happy. Have you ever been in a position yourself where you’re not sure about asking a question about a product or service you bought? You may feel embarrassed or think it’s a silly question. But if the business owner has already pre-emptied and answered that question, you don’t even have to put your hand up and ask!

One of our SEO content writing clients recently told us that their customer service team shares our content with customers every single day, and it has saved them hours every week in admin time! 

Isn’t that brilliant when you can just find all the information you need? That’s exactly what customer service content can do for you.

Examples of customer service content

An example of customer service content we wrote back when we were web designers is How To Write Your Website About Page.

We used to create the design and graphics for our website design clients, but they’d need to write their own copy. So we served them with content that helped them make the most of the service they were buying from us.

Another example we think is brilliant is this blog post from ScoreApp – 29 Simple Ways to Launch Your Quiz Lead Magnet.

Once you’ve set up your quiz, ScoreApp also produces content that helps you launch it, so you can take the next step. That’s customer service for you!

What makes for ‘bad’ customer service content?

The only thing that makes customer service content ‘bad’ is the lack of it! We don’t see many businesses regularly producing this type of content. And ‘product updates’ don’t quite count, especially if they sound technical and boring. This isn’t customer service.

Customer service content still needs to be helpful, engaging, informative, educational, and in your own voice. The only difference from the other types of content we talked about is that it’s aimed at your existing customers rather than your prospects.

You’ll often find that customer service content is all helpful for non-customers too. They’ll find it, learn more about you and your business and become a lead. So there are no excuses!

Would you like our help to achieve your business goals for 2023?

In this blog post, we discussed four different types of goals. You may have decided to focus on one or two as priorities for 2023 or you may want to work towards all four. There’s no right or wrong answer here.

But whatever your goals, content marketing can play a big part in helping you achieve your objectives, as long as you produce content that aligns with your goals. If that sounds overwhelming and like too much work for the time you have available, we can help!

Our Blog Writing and SEO Agency is the ultimate time-saving solution for ambitious and time-poor businesses. So if you’d like us to help you research and write your content for you, get in touch!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post What content do you need to create to hit your business goals in 2023? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But did you know that you can become a thought leader yourself?

You can then integrate this into your content strategy, to help attract customers and grow your business.

In this blog, we’re looking at the difference between SEO content and thought-leadership content to help you decide which is best for your business.

What is SEO content?

At Jammy Digital, we spent years designing functional and beautiful websites. And everyone always thinks that’s enough for the business to come flooding in.

But the truth is, it’s difficult for your website to rank without a stream of in-depth, informative, and educational content. Google isn’t too bothered about how ‘pretty’ your website is (just that it works!)

It’s estimated that the number one listing on Google accounts for 27.6% of all click-throughs. And only 0.63% of all Google searchers continue through to the second page of results.

So it’s not only crucial that you create content, but that you create content that ranks on search engines. Otherwise, your potential customers will struggle to find you online.

SEO content is well-written, engaging, and informative content, with a primary focus on getting your website to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s all about creating content your customers are searching for, so you show up higher in rankings.

SEO content harnesses the knowledge of SEO and keywords, optimising content for search engines, so the right people find it.

Related content: SEO content writer vs SEO agency: which one is best for your business?

What is thought leadership content?

First things first, let’s define thought leadership by itself, before going onto the content.

Thought leadership is the delivery of content that uses expertise, insight, and experience to help you become the go-to source of information in your industry.

Thought leadership isn’t so much a type of content, but rather an approach to content creation, created by tapping into the expertise, insight, and experience within your business and the wider community.

People often think that thought leadership content has to include controversial or outspoken opinions, and it can, but it doesn’t have to.

What it does need to be is authentically and recognisably you, with a strong brand voice. No sitting on the sidelines; it’s about letting people know what you think.

Thought leader content can include:

• Stong and/or controversial opinions
• Expertise
• Experience
• Authenticity
• A desire to share their knowledge

This type of content helps businesses and individuals build credibility and be seen as an expert.

The different types of thought-leadership content marketing

I like to split thought-leadership content into different categories including:

• Original research content…
• Business decisions content…
• Expert interview content…
• Customer client stories content…

Examples of thought-leadership content

1. Original research content

This could be via surveys or analysis, for example, reviewing websites and reporting your findings.

If you do this right, you can become the ‘original source’ for a particular topic, meaning lots of others will link back to your article, which can skyrocket your rankings.

An example is from Backlinko, which analysed 3.6 billion pieces of content to better understand evergreen content.

2. Business decisions & strategies content

Want to stand out as an expert?

Give a little insight into your business and the decisions and strategies that you have implemented.

You can detail why you made those decisions and whether or not they worked. If not, you can let people know what went wrong – and what you learned from it.

In this example, Orbit Media shares its 15-year-old content strategy, detailing what worked and what didn’t. It’s a great way to showcase their expertise in SEO and content strategy – the service that they offer.

3. Expert interview content

As much as you would like to be, you probably aren’t an expert in everything.

So, why not capitalise on the expertise of others and bring that knowledge to your audience?

This can be done via guest blogs, but a great medium for this type of content is podcasts.

A great example is Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO podcast – where Steven interviews different leaders and CEO, bringing you their top tips, learnings, and insights from their careers.

4. Client stories content

You can tell your potential clients how great you are, but it’s much more believable if it comes from someone else.

So, why not let your clients do the talking?

This blog from Buffer puts one of their clients at the forefront and lets her write her own case study on how she used the scheduling tool.

It’s common for people to write blogs on product and service features, but this type of blog talks about them in a way that actually teaches potential clients something. It’s a powerful way to show the impact that your product or service could have on a business.

SEO content vs Thought leadership content: what results do they get your business?

Results! Let’s face it, most of us aren’t creating content (thought-leadership, SEO, or otherwise) just for fun. As exciting as creating content can be, I’d personally rather be eating chips on the beach or reading a good book (or both).

Content is all part of a wider marketing effort to increase traffic, leads, and ultimately sales. If your content is not getting you results, then it’s a waste of time and energy – two things you don’t have to spare running a business.

So, in order to compare the two, we need to understand the results that you can get from each.

What does SEO content help you achieve?

When creating SEO content, it’s all about getting your website to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). The goal is to discover exactly what your potential customers are searching for and create content to answer those questions.

As the stats show, if you don’t rank your website within the first couple of search results, then it’s unlikely people will click on your website.

So, great SEO content should help you to:

• Increase your search engine rankings for a variety of keywords
• Increase your website traffic
• Increase your backlinks from high-authority websites

Plus, there are the intangible benefits of SEO content, that enable you to attract the right customers and have better quality conversations.

But ultimately, the primary goal of SEO content is creating content that helps you rank highly and get found online.

Related content: How to 10x your website traffic

The results of thought leadership content

Unlike SEO content, thought-leadership content is not about what people search for. It’s about building authority and positioning yourself as a subject matter expert.

However, while the content is not focussed on ranking, it does still have some pretty incredible results when it comes to traffic and conversions. According to SEM rush, 81.4% of thought leadership content results in organic traffic. And if that’s not enough, 47.6% generates the all-important leads and sales.

Why?

It’s partly down to the fact that by the very nature of thought-leadership content. It’s WAY more likely to get you backlinks from other content creators.

For example, let’s relook at “original research” content – one of the types of thought-leadership content previously mentioned. This is a style of content that Brian Dean at Backlino has absolutely nailed. He carries out in-depth research on relevant topics and creates content with details and specificity that no one else has covered.

Thought leadership is not necessarily an SEO strategy. However, it increases the likelihood of backlinks (we’ve even used some in this article), establishes expertise, and optimises the website for rankings. Therefore it does benefit SEO, although it’s not targeting that.

The mechanisms that enable thought-leadership content to drive your business include

• Brand credibility and authority
• Generates backlinks, shares, and mentions
• Attract potential customers

SEO content vs thought-leadership content: when should you use it?

Content is sold as the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to growing your business. But the truth is, there is no one size fits all, and not everyone will need to implement the same content strategy.

But which one is right for you?

When should you use SEO content?

Relying on referrals to grow your business?

Struggling to bring in leads?

SEO content is all about utilisng and capturing the existing search traffic within your market in order to drive revenue and grow your business. And it’s extremely valuable at helping you rank and convert when correctly implemented.

This is why we recommend that all businesses implement an SEO content strategy, assuming you have the following in place:

1️⃣ An up-to-date website (that wasn’t designed in the 90s)

2️⃣ A website that’s easy-peasy to navigate (no use getting loads of traffic to your website if all those people end up getting lost and then leaving.)

3️⃣ Decent and clear website copy

4️⃣ Products or services that sell right now (great content will not make up for a bad product/service)

5️⃣ Access to your actual website and blog (ie. your web design company isn’t holding it hostage)

Assuming you have these things, you can get started on creating a successful SEO content strategy that helps you will all the benefits we’ve already discussed. Start by thinking about what your potential customers are searching for and create content around that (or hire us to do it for you).

Related content: Why referrals are bad for business (and what to do instead)

When should you use thought leadership content?

As we now know, the point of thought-leadership content is not to rank, but to influence and gain authority.

The challenge is, that without an existing audience it’s hard to gain traction with thought-leadership content.

This is why thought-leadership can be seen as a more advanced form of content, that builds upon an existing content base. Think of SEO content as your BA honors, and the thought-leadership as your Master’s course. You need the foundations of the SEO content and the audience that comes along with it in order to really make an impact with thought-leadership content.

There are also undoubtedly industries that lend themselves to thought-leadership content more easily (such as business and marketing), as there is no one right way to do things. Although this creates huge potential in more traditional industries, as no one else is creating this type of content.

So, if you are already creating content, and driving organic traffic via search, then I’d recommend starting on a thought-leadership content plant too.

Thought leadership content vs SEO content: can you outsource it?

As a business owner, you wear a hundred different hats every day, and content is just one more thing to think about.

But can you successfully outsource content that sounds authentically you?

Or, is it something that you have to keep in-house?

Can you outsource SEO content?

A good SEO content marketing strategy requires a near constant supply of high-quality, search-engine optimised content – and that takes time to create ⏰.

In fact, we estimate that it takes around 10-16 hours in total per blog to create high-quality content, which includes:

6-8 hours: to write, edit & proofread your content
3-4 hours: of content design & formatting
1-2 hours: optimising each of your blog posts

Yes, you can pump content out at a much faster rate, but if you want to create in-depth and engaging content that ranks, then you’ll need to spend a little longer on it. This is why a large part of the reason why over half of businesses outsource their content marketing.

In addition, most owners know their business inside out, but that doesn’t mean they can write about it in a way that’s going to rank. SEO content writers are experts in writing engaging content that speaks to potential customers AND the Google algorithm.

While some argue that you can’t outsource SEO content writing, we definitely think that you can.

In fact, not only do we believe that you CAN, we think that it’s a positive step for your business. That’s why we’ve built our SEO & blog management service around outsourcing your content.

Yes, the content still needs to be informed by a subject matter expert in your business, but partnering with a talented SEO writer to outsource content can be a brilliant business decision.

Outsourcing to SEO content writers helps fill a skills gap in your team while saving you time and making you money.

Related content: Why is our SEO and blog management service so expensive?

Can you outsource thought leadership content?

You might think that thought-leadership content is harder to outsource. After all, it’s so dependent on your voice and expertise that surely it’s impossible to replicate via an outsourced writer.

And we agree, it is harder…but not impossible.

In fact, you might be surprised to find out that 48.7% of businesses outsource thought-leadership content.

However, it’s not something that an ad-hoc freelance writer will be able to achieve.

To successfully outsource thought-leadership content, you will need to develop an ongoing relationship with a writer or content marketing agency. But once you have a writer that you trust and that understands you, it’s possible to create high-performing thought-leadership content.

Again, it’s important to work with an experienced writer or agency that is able to translate your expert knowledge into influential content. But assuming you have a way to communicate that knowledge, there is no reason that you cannot successfully outsource thought-leadership content.

This is part of the reason that we don’t offer ad-hoc writing but, instead, a full SEO and blog management service. It allows us to form a relationship with our clients, understand their business, and convert their expertise into clear, informative thought-leadership content.

Can you have thought leadership content that also ranks?

Ranking on search engines is not the primary aim when it comes to thought leadership content, but it’s certainly not impossible.

As mentioned previously, the nature of thought-leadership content means that you are more likely to get backlinks from other relevant content creators. These backlinks are essentially votes from other websites, alerting Google to the fact that you have created helpful and relevant content.

The latest update from Google “the helpful content update” is an effort to ensure that searchers are seeing more “original, helpful content, written by people for people”.

So, while ranking is not the priority for thought-leadership content, it’s certainly possible. Originality leads to backlinks, which in turn build domain authority and ultimately boost SEO.

Plus, it’s certainly still possible to ensure that any content created is optimised for search engines (whether it’s the main aim or not) to make sure it’s positively viewed via algorithms.

Are there agencies that do both SEO and thought-leadership content?

While SEO content and thought leadership are separate, they are not two entirely distinct strategies. And while the results and means differ slightly, ultimately, both are aiming to increase revenue.

In our opinion, thought leadership content should be a part of a wider content strategy. You can’t become a thought leader without creating consistent content, it does not exist in isolation. However, it’s a brilliant way to set yourself apart from the increasingly noisy marketplace – and all the millions of blogs being published daily.

SEO content serves customers who are currently searching for what you offer and driving consistent organic traffic, while thought leadership content allows you to position yourself as an industry expert.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post SEO Content vs Thought Leadership Content: which should you create for your business? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.