How content marketing attracts relevant traffic to your website

A smart SEO content marketing strategy can be a game-changer for any business looking to boost their online presence and drive organic traffic. While getting a handle on SEO and content marketing might feel daunting, it’s essential for staying competitive.

So, whether you’re new to content marketing or refining your current strategy, read on for our roadmap to reach your audience, improve your search rankings, and increase traffic to your website.

1. Understand your audience

The foundation of any successful SEO content marketing strategy is understanding your audience. Knowing who your readers are, what they value, and how they consume content is key to creating material that engages and attracts the right traffic.

Do your research

Start by gathering direct feedback from your current customers through surveys and questionnaires. Tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms can make this process easier. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn also offer valuable insights into your audience’s demographics and behaviours through their analytics tools.

Tools like Google Analytics can provide detailed information about your visitors, including demographic details, behavioural patterns, and which pages get the most traffic. Plus, doing one-on-one interviews with your customers can uncover specific needs, preferences, and pain points that your content can address.

Create audience personas

Once you’ve collected enough data, the next step is to create detailed audience personas. These represent your ideal customers and guide your content creation process. Start by compiling demographic information like age, gender, income level, education, and occupation.

Don’t forget to include information like interests, values, attitudes, and lifestyle choices to understand what motivates your audience. Determine the types of content they prefer, the platforms they use, and their purchasing habits. This can help tailor your content strategy to meet their specific needs.

Tailor your content

Using your audience personas, you can create content that meets the specific needs and preferences of your consumers. Personalised content speaks directly to your audience’s interests and challenges, making it more engaging and effective.

Offer various content formats to suit different preferences, such as detailed blog posts, videos, infographics, or podcasts. Focus on topics that address the pain points, challenges, and goals of your audience. Encourage interaction by asking questions, requesting feedback, and responding to comments.

By really understanding your audience, you create content that directly addresses their needs and interests. This boosts the likelihood that you’ll attract and engage the right people, driving traffic that could convert into loyal customers.

Discover why brand stories matter and create content that resonates with your audience.

2. Integrate SEO into your content marketing strategy

Including SEO in your strategy helps boost your online visibility and attract organic traffic. By optimising your content for search engines, you make it easier for your audience to find the valuable information you offer.

Keyword research and selection

Keyword research is the cornerstone of a successful SEO strategy. Use tools like SEMrush to help you identify keywords relevant to your industry and audience.

Focus on both short-tail and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords like ‘content marketing’ are broad and highly competitive, while long-tail keywords, like ‘how to create a content marketing strategy for small businesses’, are more specific and often less competitive.

Read about why long-tail keywords are important.

Integrate keywords naturally

Once you’ve identified the right keywords, weave them into your content. Your primary keywords should appear in key areas such as the title, headings, and throughout the body of your text. Avoid overusing keywords, as this can negatively impact your SEO.

Your meta title and description should include your target keywords and be compelling enough to attract clicks from search results. Creating clean, descriptive URLs that incorporate relevant keywords can improve both SEO and the user experience (UX).

On-page SEO techniques

Effective on-page SEO involves several techniques that make your content more accessible and attractive to both search engines and users. Structuring your content with clear headings (H1, H2, H3) helps search engines understand the main topics and subtopics of your page.

Including keywords in these headings where appropriate also helps boost SEO. Break up your content into short paragraphs, use bullet points and numbered lists, and include images to make your content more engaging.

If you want to save some time on proofreading, tools like Grammarly can help make your writing clearer and error-free.

Linking to other relevant pages on your website keeps users engaged and helps search engines crawl your site more often. Plus, including external links to authoritative sources adds credibility to your content.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO plays a crucial role in how well your site performs in search engine rankings. Improving your page load speed is vital, as slow-loading pages can frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates. Using a content delivery network (CDN) and minimising cascading style sheets (CSS) and JavaScript files can contribute to faster load times.

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help identify areas for improvement. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly by using responsive design techniques. Website security is another important consideration – using HTTPS to encrypt data not only protects your users but also boosts your Google ranking.

As voice search continues to rise in popularity, optimising for voice search by using natural language and conversational phrases can help you reach a broader audience.

By effectively integrating SEO into your content marketing strategy, you make your content easily discoverable by people searching for topics relevant to your business. This targeted approach attracts visitors who are actively looking for the information, products, or services you offer, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Find out why SEO fails and what you can do about it.

3. Create high-quality, relevant content

It’s crucial that your content engages your audience, provides value, and meets the standards of search engines.

High-quality content is more likely to be shared, linked to, and ranked highly by search engines. It builds trust with your audience, establishes your authority in your industry, and keeps readers coming back for more.

Remember, make it relevant – the content you create should align with your audience’s needs and interests, making it more likely to resonate and engage.

Mix things up with different types of content to see what works for you:

• Blog posts – Blog posts are an effective way to provide valuable information, share insights, and engage with your audience. Ensure your posts are well-researched, informative, and offer practical advice or solutions.

• Case studies – Case studies showcase real-world examples of how your products or services have helped clients achieve their goals. They provide tangible proof of your expertise, building credibility and trust.

• How-to guides – How-to guides are highly valuable as they offer step-by-step instructions on accomplishing specific tasks. They address common problems or challenges faced by your audience and provide practical solutions.

• Infographics – Infographics are visual representations of information or data. They are highly shareable and can make complex information more engaging.

• Videos – Videos can capture attention and convey messages more seamlessly. They are particularly effective for tutorials, product demonstrations, and storytelling.

Consistency is key to maintaining audience engagement and building a loyal following. Think about developing a content calendar to plan and schedule your posts in advance. This helps you publish content regularly, keeping your audience engaged and coming back for more.

A consistent posting schedule also signals to search engines that your website is active and frequently updated, which can positively impact your rankings.

Read about how to get web content right and why it matters.

4. Write compelling headlines

Coming up with good headlines is a crucial part of your SEO content marketing strategy. A strong headline not only grabs your audience’s attention but also plays a role in SEO.

It’s worth spending time on this as it’s the first impression readers have of your content and determines whether someone clicks on your link or scrolls past it. A compelling headline is clear, concise, and relevant to the content it represents. It needs to promise value and pique the reader’s curiosity, encouraging them to read more.

So, how can you write attention-grabbing headlines?

• Use power words – Power words are persuasive and evoke emotion, making your headlines more enticing. Words like ‘essential’ and ‘unlock’ can grab attention and compel readers to click.

• Incorporate numbers and lists – Headlines with numbers often perform better because they suggest a clear structure and specific takeaways. For example, ‘7 proven tips for effective SEO content marketing’ indicates that the reader will receive a concrete number of actionable insights.

• Ask questions – Headlines that ask questions engage readers by addressing their curiosity or concerns. For instance, ‘Are you making these common SEO mistakes?’ can prompt people to find out if they’re at risk and how to avoid those mistakes.

• Make a bold statement – Bold or surprising statements can capture attention and intrigue readers. For example, ‘Why most content marketing strategies fail and how to succeed’ challenges the status quo and promises a solution.

• Include keywords – Primary keywords should flow naturally into your headlines. This not only helps with SEO but also ensures your content is relevant to what your audience is searching for. For example, ‘Effective SEO content marketing strategy for SMEs’ targets specific search queries.

Aim for headlines that are between 6-12 words. This length is long enough to convey your message but short enough to be easily scanned. Search engines also tend to display only the first 50-60 characters of a headline, so make sure your key message is within this limit.

Creating headlines that work for you isn’t a one-time task – it takes ongoing testing and refinement. Try A/B testing to experiment with different headlines and see which ones perform better.

Well-written headlines draw in readers who are interested in the topics you cover. By aligning your headlines with your audience’s needs and search queries, you attract traffic that is more likely to engage with your content and convert.

5. Deliver eye-catching visual content

Incorporating visual content into your SEO content marketing strategy is vital for attracting attention, engagement, and improving search engine rankings. Visual content not only makes your material more appealing but also helps convey more information.

People process visual information faster than text, so well-designed visuals can make your content more memorable and engaging – and you can significantly boost user engagement.

Posts featuring images or videos tend to attract more likes, shares, and comments than text-only posts, which can broaden your reach on social media platforms. Visuals also help with information retention. People are more likely to remember information presented visually rather than through text alone, making your content more impactful and memorable.

Importantly, visuals improve the user experience by making content more appealing and easier to navigate. A positive user experience can lead to lower bounce rates and higher dwell times, both of which are beneficial for SEO.

On the SEO front, visual content offers multiple advantages. Images and videos can rank in their respective search results, driving extra traffic to your site. Engaging visuals are also more likely to attract backlinks, which are essential for improving search engine rankings.

Types of visual content can include:

• Infographics – Infographics are a great way to present complex information in a visually engaging and easy-to-digest format. They can summarise data, illustrate processes, or compare different concepts. Infographics are highly shareable and can attract backlinks, which boost your SEO.

• Videos – Videos are effective for engaging audiences and conveying messages. They can be used for tutorials, product demonstrations, customer testimonials, and storytelling.

• Images – High-quality images help with the visual appeal of your content and can help break up text to make it more readable. Use relevant images to support your points, illustrate concepts, or evoke emotions.

• Charts and graphs – Charts and graphs are excellent for presenting data and statistics. They make numerical information more accessible and understandable. Visualising data helps your audience grasp complex concepts quickly and effectively.

• Slide decks – Slide decks can summarise key points from your content in a visually engaging way. They are particularly effective for presentations and can be shared to reach a broader audience.

• When it comes to visual content, think quality over quantity. A few well-made visuals are far better than numerous poorly designed ones, which can detract from your message and harm your credibility.

Consistency is key. Maintain a visual style that aligns with your brand identity using a cohesive colour scheme, typography, and design elements. This creates a unified look across all your content, making it instantly recognisable. Optimise your visuals for SEO by using descriptive file names, alt text, and captions. Compress images and videos to reduce load times without compromising quality, ensuring your site stays fast and user-friendly.

Accessibility should always be a priority. Include alt text for images and transcripts for videos to make your content accessible to everyone and comply with accessibility standards. Lastly, incorporate interactive elements like clickable infographics or interactive charts. These can engage users and encourage them to spend more time on your site, making your content more memorable and providing a richer experience.

6. Promote your content

Creating high-quality content is only half the battle; the other half is making sure it reaches your target audience. Effective content promotion is crucial for driving traffic, increasing engagement, and maximising the impact of your SEO. Here’s how to promote your content effectively:

Social media – Post actively on social media platforms to maximise your content’s reach. Share your content across all relevant social media channels where your audience is active. Tailor your posts to each platform’s unique features and audience preferences. For instance, use visually appealing images and concise text on Instagram, while sharing more detailed posts and links on Facebook and LinkedIn. Engage with your followers by responding to comments and encouraging discussions around your content. Consistent and strategic posting can help build a loyal community around your brand.

Find out how to create a social media content calendar.

Email marketing – Email marketing remains a powerful tool for content promotion. Regularly send newsletters to your subscribers featuring your latest content. Personalise your emails to address the specific interests and needs of your audience segments. Highlight the value of your content and include compelling subject lines to increase open rates. Also, use automated email campaigns to nurture leads and guide them through the customer journey with relevant content.

Influencer collaborations – Collaborating with influencers and industry leaders can significantly boost your content’s visibility. Identify influencers whose audience aligns with your target market and reach out for partnerships. This could involve guest blogging, co-creating content, or having them share your content with their followers. Influencer endorsements can lend credibility to your content and attract a broader audience.

Guest posting – Guest posting on reputable websites within your industry is another effective strategy. By contributing valuable content to well-established sites, you can tap into their audience and drive traffic back to your own site. Ensure that your guest posts include a link back to your website to enhance your SEO and referral traffic.

Online communities – Join online communities and forums to share your content and engage with potential readers. Participate in discussions on platforms like Reddit, Quora, or niche-specific forums where your audience is active. Provide valuable insights and link to your content when relevant, positioning yourself as an authority in your field.

Paid advertising – Paid advertising can also be a valuable tool for content promotion. Use platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to target your audience with precision. Promoted posts, sponsored content, and display ads can increase your content’s visibility and attract high-quality traffic. Set clear objectives for your ad campaigns and monitor their performance to ensure a positive return on investment.

Repurposed content – Repurposing your content into different formats can help reach a wider audience. Transform a blog post into a video, podcast episode, or infographic to cater to different content consumption preferences. Share these repurposed formats across various platforms to maximise exposure.

Ensuring your content ranks well in search engine results is crucial for driving organic traffic. Use keyword research to identify terms your audience is searching for and incorporate these naturally into your content. Prioritise meta tags, headers, and images.

Finally, track and analyse the performance of your content promotion activities. Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing metrics to monitor traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. Regular analysis helps you figure out what’s working and refine your strategies for better results.

Want to know more? Get in touch with the Submerge team and find out how we can help your business reach its content and SEO goals.