I hate clichés.  Should we use them in our content writing? Maybe.  Sometimes to start we need to state the obvious to make a point.

“We live in a Digital Age.”

There I said it. Big cliché.

But what does this mean for you trying to promote your business?

Most customers begin their buying journey by going online. For a company looking for those new customers, maybe as part of an organic search engine strategy, then you need to be easily found by those potential customers in a search engine. And let’s face it, by search engine, we mean Google. 

Known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), this involves continually adding to your online “Digital Age” footprint. But your digital age footprint should not just be restricted to a strategy of being ranked highly by Google, but your business should also be promoting itself in Social Media platforms and online networking forums through a network of like-minded followers and associates.

Web Sites

Most companies have a web site as a way of attracting, educating and retaining customers. One thing is certain for it to be successful, the web site needs to constantly evolve. Change is good! Failure to evolve means being left behind by the search engines, which means less traffic which means less new customers. Your website is the virtual window of your business. Failure to look modern and up to date will say a great deal about your whole business.  It’s not just to keep you highly ranked in the search engine through your SEO strategy, but keeping your business looking current and significant.

So what is required to improve ratings in the search engine, or to be found within an online social media platform, as part of a marketing inbound lead generation strategy?

Basically, relevant content. That needs to be continually generated.

It also helps to have content with a sporadic splattering of relevant keywords and anchor text which further helps with your SEO strategy. The following describes some definitions of content that can be written and produced by Rain Dance: –

• Landing Pages – Websites need themed landing pages. This is a gateway into your website, but is different to a normal webpage. You would not normally have a landing page linked from your home page, or have it referenced within a menu system. It is purely an entry point into your website and has the look and feel of your website. The theme of the landing page is based on a short keyword chain which describes your business. Maybe your business proposition can be described by many different keyword chains. In which case have several landing pages for each one. Researching the most optimum keyword chains for SEO and anchor links is important.

• Blogs – Writing blogs with relevant keyword links to your landing pages. These need to be written based on the theme. They then need to be distributed over the web. And then more blogs need to be written. It is an ongoing process. But blogs should be interesting, relevant, up-to date, and educational. Don’t assume they are only for Google consumption.

• PR – Press releases should be written so that they can be used by news agencies who will sometimes publish them on their websites. They sometimes will keep your keyword links intact. But they need to be written in a journalistic way if they are to have a hope of being selected to be published.

Getting the balance right between an interesting piece of news, compelling to read, and something which will improve your standing in the search engines is a fine line and a balance that must be achieved to be part of a successful SEO strategy.

• Social Media – Writing and generating content for social media is extremely helpful in both acquiring customers and helping with your SEO strategy. Content does not necessarily need to be in the written form; pictures and videos also help.

• Case Studies – Probably the most important thing you can write about is your success stories with real customers. It adds credibility to your company. It’s best to show the issues or pain they had, how your services or product overcame those issues, and the benefits they gained. Companies when buying like to have reassurance that they are buying something that is proven, reliable and gives a good return on investment. Again case studies can be written with keyword links to help with the company’s SEO strategy. Case studies can also be done as a short video format, but it is advised to do a written version as well.

So now you have prospects you wish to close, and customers you wish to retain. Again, social media platforms including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook will keep them up to date assuming you continue to post relevant content.

• Newsletters – Using an inbound marketing and CRM tool such as HubSpot will also help nurture prospects and keep customers informed and feeling relevant. But again, content is needed to do this. The best way is a monthly newsletter – it can be about company news, product updates, new product releases, awards, trade shows, in fact anything relevant and interesting to keep visible in your prospects radar including the blogs and case studies detailed above. Personally, the simpler the better, fancy html emails normally get immediately deleted by the recipient and are often confused as spam. A personal e-mail which address the contact by name with a few simple paragraphs has a better open rate and click through. 

Another cliché to finish, but “sometimes less is more”.