One of the biggest questions often asked of a SEO Agency is why is my site not ranking? One of the many elements is the content but what does that mean for you? Another of the recent sessions presented at SMX Sydney was on “Copywriting for Search” and was presented by Chris Thomas head of Melbourne SEO firm RESEO.
So the first point that is often mixed up is the idea of are you writing for people or search engine rankings? It can be possible to partially satisfy both requirements with smart planning, structure and quality content. This article seeks to expand some of the points covered in Chris’s presentation with a fictitious example of a Tennis Equipment Store with an expanding Sports Holiday side business and how a web marketing agency can help.
So the first point is to make sure you research your topics to understand that there is a demand for the topic and is there any potential interest in that topic? For this article our case example offers tennis equipment and they have just launched a new WordPress blog to expand the amount of content on their website.
There is no point them taking the time to write a blog topic on a general topic such as racquet types or court services or picking a topic that you don’t understand such as tennis ball material density. Since our fictitious owner is a real Wimbledon fan and makes the trip each year and has recently started a side business selling tennis holiday packages with a local travel agent. He has contacted his local web marketing agency to find out how content writing can help grow his presence online and potential market.
Based on the owners experience their web marketing agency have advised to focus this blog around Wimbledon as this makes it easy for the owner to create relevant content and they understand the industry.
The owner has spoken with his web marketing agency and they have advised a few relevant keywords that he should be initially targeting for their Tennis Holidays. They have also advised that a majority of the interest for Wimbledon is UK based and as will be their competition.
- Travel to Wimbledon
- Wimbledon Hotels
- Wimbledon Tickets
It is possible that the owner can work with the local travel agent to write up some great detailed reviews on hotels, travel options and ticket packages. These topics should typically be targeting around 1-3 phrases for each page/article and each article has to be unique and relevant to our Wimbledon blog.
The other important element to consider is how this Wimbledon content relates to your blog and your overall web strategies. Travel is a very competitive so how would our owner compete with large websites like Webjet & Wotif?
The best way is to make this Wimbledon blog/website a niche or authority on this topic so we need to expand the content on the topic. We need to ensure that based on the audience our articles need to be readable, compelling and interesting. Chris from RESEO advised typically they need to ensure there is a significant amount of text “content” with around 250-500 words per topic.
Another important element is fresh content as search engines love fresh content and our event is only held once a year we need to continue to produce new content each month. This week USA Today had detailed coverage on Wimbledon’s new retractable roof so games can be played undercover. Since a popular newspaper has written an article on this “retractable roof” it is likely people are now searching for more information. There should be enough for at least 3 blog articles on this topic
- Review of the new Wimbledon retractable roof “comparison to last year”
- Past games affected/delayed by playing without a retractable roof “weather”
- Past structural changes to Wimbledon stadium “history”
His web marketing agency has highlighted there is also a general interest around past games, winner profiles and even weather patterns. This is another area of content for the blog that can be added each month to increase the sites authority on the topic of Wimbledon.
Since the owners business revolves Tennis equipment the owner should also look at writing up several articles around past Wimbledon winners. They can examine equipment choices with lots of specific details, images and even video of product in use. If the owner has the resources it will be useful to expand their articles by also offer reviews of the equipment choice by of the rising stars players that maybe the next Roger Federer.
These product articles can help build authority of your equipment website and are also useful for building trust & credibility of your website/blog allowing his library of tennis content to grow.
One of the important points that Chris outlined in his presentation is that you need to consider hiring a copywriting professional to help you. These professionals can with direction produce conversational articles often within hours of receiving a request. You need to undertake quality keyword research to ensure you are writing relevant articles as part of your overall web strategy.
So game, set, match content is the winner.