People tend to confuse brand strategy with content strategy and think they function independently of each other. Nothing is further from the truth. In actual fact, they are symbiotic. Your brand strategy determines and shapes your content strategy, and your content strategy is the vehicle for executing your brand strategy. Ultimately, they work hand in hand to deliver the same goal, which is to strengthen and build your brand.

To put it more succinctly, brand strategy is the blueprint for building and growing your brand. It includes a clear definition and description of your brand identity, brand personality, brand goals, brand vision, and brand message. It is the soul of your business.

On the other hand, your content strategy involves the tools and methodology for communicating your brand strategy to the brand audience.

Having a well laid out content strategy is the foundation of successful content marketing. Yet, according to a report by the Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 B2B, only 37% of marketers have a definite content strategy.

Developing a smart and practical content strategy can be a lot of hard work, especially if you’re not sure of what to include. But it is an essential groundwork that helps makes brand building a whole lot easier.

Here are some proven guidelines to help you align your content strategy with your brand strategy and help improve your brand value, brand visibility and ultimately your business bottom line.

Outline Your Goals and Strategies

Your content strategy is woven around what you want to achieve. So, the first step is to be absolutely clear about these and make sure everyone on the team understands them as well. Ask yourself some critical questions and provide unambiguous answers, such as:

What are your goals?
Why are you creating this content?
How are you sure the content is consistent with your brand message and audience needs?
Which message and audience need is a priority at the moment?
How will you define vital elements, such as a lead?

Target the Market Needs

What matters most to your audience is their needs, which, unfortunately, may not be what matters to your brand or may even be at odds with it. This also underlines the importance of creating brand personas and vetting your content marketing ideas with them. The trick is to find a midpoint between your brand goals and your audience needs with your content strategy. Your brand success rate with your target market is largely pinned to this and being able to subsequently build a rapport with them. Next, smartly move them along your sales funnel and convert them to prospects and eventually customers for your business.

Think About Content Experience

Every piece of content you put out create a user experience. That is, the perceptions and feelings your message triggers in the mind of your reached audience. So you should seriously consider the experience someone will have while consuming your content. Content experience is not just about the message of the content, but also other visual elements associated with your brand, including the look and design of the website, such as how clean, uncluttered and responsive it is.

When developing a content strategy for your brand, think about the ideas and impressions it would create in the mind of the readers. Does it make them feel more informed? Does it give them something valuable to talk about with their friends and other social circles? Is your content easy to read and understand? Can the target audience easily and quickly access it? Does it make them trust your brand more?

Develop a Keyword Strategy

A successful SEO campaign begins with a good keyword strategy. Do your research and find out the most applicable terms and make sure they’re probably embedded in your content strategy. SEO is always evolving, so it’s important that you continue to review current best practices and that your content consistently retains relevance and quality and that keywords are evenly distributed and content published on high-value domains and media channels.

Create an Editorial Calendar

Besides developing a good SEO strategy, you must also be consistent with your message, so your target audience can easily identify the same identity, feel and experience across all platforms.

Creating an editorial calendar helps you to build that consistency. This will not only ensure the quality of output but also outline the volume, theme and timeline of published content. Don’t forget to align your editorial calendar with your audience’s most urgent content needs at every specific time range.

Incorporate photos, videos and GIFs

Today’s content consumers no longer want to read long texts; so you need to devise new tricks to keep their attention to the end or long enough to communicate your key messages. Statistics show that less than 20% of people actually read online content line by line. The rest just scan it, except your content is enriched with compelling visual information or branded content, such as videos, images, infographics, or GIFs. This way you can easily connect to the target audience with your key message.

Promote it on the right platform

Creating a brilliant content strategy for your brand is one thing, but being able to reach the audience it was created for is a different thing. The worst content marketing mistake you could make is not being able to recognize and use the right platform to reach your potential audience. It’s like winking at a girl in the dark or doing business without advertising.

The majority of people are on the major social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, but which of the platforms do your potential market frequent more and therefore you should prioritize when trying to engage them?

Design a Smart Feedback Assessment Module

If you can’t measure your success and re-adjust them for better results, then your content strategy is not really effective. You must identify specific KPIs and develop a module that allows you to review results with metrics or quantifiable results. It should be able to measure the level of awareness, reach and awareness with each piece of content published or broadcast to the market. Other KPIs that could be fused into the measurement model include Audience Engagement, Traffic, Time on Site, Lead Generation Rate, Conversions, Post-Message Purchase Rates, and Product Usage.

Conclusion…

Aligning your content strategy to your brand strategy is a vital task that requires special attention. With the right aim, focus, strategy and execution, it will boost audience engagement, site traffic and ultimately market share.

Search engine optimization can be a tricky business, but the reward is well worth the effort! From carefully crafted meta descriptions to extensive keyword research, there are dozens of strategies that can help you create a strong foundation for organic search results. But if everyone understands the importance of search engine optimization, how can you hope to stand out?

The answer is simple: industry-specific SEO!

Why do I need industry-specific SEO?

Great question! Many business owners assume that all SEO is created equal. While there are some general best practices used by all businesses, the truth is real success happens when you look beyond universal ranking factors. Search engines are constantly evolving as they attempt to show users the most relevant content. By capturing the nuances of searches within your vertical, you can differentiate your business from the competition.

Industry-specific SEO can benefit almost every business, however, there are four verticals that statistically receive the greatest return on investment. These industries are legal, healthcare, plastic surgery, and retail. If your business falls into one of these categories, these tips can help you compete!

Law & Order: Ethical Legal SEO Tips for Your Firm

Across the legal industry, more and more firms have begun to invest in digital marketing. Even legal support services now dedicate a budget for SEO, although defense attorneys and personal injury attorneys still make up the bulk of active marketing efforts. Although all this competition sounds daunting, you could still generate enormous ranking increases with a few small tweaks to your SEO strategy.

First, consider which cases generate the highest profits for your firm. Next, assess the difficulty of ranking for keywords relevant to those cases. (Unless you’re incredibly lucky, you’ll probably face some stiff competition!) Often, this is where law firms abandon their marketing efforts. Those who do are missing out on an incredible revenue opportunity. You need to take things one step further with keyword mapping!

Keyword mapping is the process of optimizing pages based on “keyword intent”. Each keyword has its own ‘intent’. For example, some keywords are used for discovery or information. They are more general and less likely to generate leads. The keywords that you need to look for are often called “money” keywords because they represent the words or phrases people search for when they are serious about obtaining your services.

After you’ve identified your money keywords, you can focus your effort on dominating the SERPs for those terms. With time and patience, your organic reach will grow tremendously, leading to increased revenue and long-term traffic.

Customer Care: Patient-first SEO Strategies for the Healthcare Sector

The quality of your service is critical to patient retention, but visitors to your website cannot experience it for themselves. This means that you have to generate constant traffic to remain competitive. Furthermore, you’ll need to offer highly relevant content to secure conversions.

If you’re unsure where to begin, assess your biggest competitors. What are they doing that works? It’s never a good idea to plagiarize, but it helps if you know which tactics are effective so that you can incorporate them into your own unique strategy. As you’re building this strategy, keep in mind that you need to present a cohesive brand identity.

Your brand identity is a critical component in patient acquisition, but it’s just as important for SEO. When you’re representing your business across platforms, you need to project consistency. Search engines look for consistency in details, such as your business name, your address and your phone number. When these details are inconsistent, it creates a red flag that could make it more difficult for you to rank in the SERPS.

Lastly, don’t neglect your professional reputation! Be sure to take ownership of your directory listings, such as those on Yelp or Google My Business. These listings allow you to respond to customer reviews and connect with your audience. Negative reviews and outdated business information can make you less likely to see organic traffic. By taking ownership of your digital presence, you can create the stability Google is looking for while establishing a foundation of trust with prospective patients.

First Impressions: Authentic Plastic Surgery SEO Guidelines

If you’re a business owner considering plastic surgery SEO, it may help to think of the process as the digital equivalent of preparing a resume! Prospective patients are essentially “interviewing” practices when they search for services. Effective SEO will help you communicate your credentials and rise above the competition.

As you’re creating content, keep search engines in mind. Google doesn’t just look for lengthy paragraphs, it also considers images when determining ranking. Take the time to create galleries of past work and include testimonials from the patients you’ve photographed. Galleries are engaging for viewers, and they have the added benefit of providing social proof. By demonstrating your history of success, your business will appear credible and users will be less likely to click away.

With plastic surgery SEO, you also have an opportunity to address the psychological barriers to purchasing your services. This requires a deep understanding of your consumers. For example, some prospective patients may be concerned about the quality of your work. To reach those patients, consider integrating plenty of testimonials on your site. Using rich snippets, you can even help Google understand the reviews and incorporate your star ranking in the SERPs. Small SEO changes like this could be the difference between a new lead and a lost acquisition opportunity!

Add to Cart!: Retail SEO that Drives Sales

Whether your sales are exclusively online or in addition to a physical location, retail businesses with an eCommerce component can give themselves an enormous advantage with SEO. When you have hundreds or even thousands of product pages, it’s absolutely critical that you follow site structure best practices.

Clear and consistent site structure shows that your business prioritizes communication with both users and Google. If you frequently update your product listings, those updates need to be reflected in the site structure. This will increase the likelihood of your business appearing in organic searches.

Let’s say that you’ve discontinued a product or you’re only offering an upgraded model. In this case, you’ll need to create 301 redirects from the old listing. This tells Google (and consumers who may be looking for the product) where to go to find the information they’re looking for. When you just delete a page without creating redirects or adding a 410 status code, it creates confusion for both algorithms and visitors. By investing in retail SEO, you’ll create a better experience for your users, which in turn drives revenue.

The Final Statistic on Getting Specific

At the end of the day, industry-specific SEO can be a bit more time-consuming, but it produces impressive returns! Over 93% of online sessions begin with a search engine. When you employ the strategies listed above, you’ll increase your chances of appearing in the SERPs. Moreover, you’ll start off 2019 with increased brand awareness, higher traffic, and positive consumer opinions!

Tag: Digital Marketing

How to Align Your Content Strategy and Your Brand Strategy

How Industry-Specific SEO Can Increase Your Revenue