Businesses With Great Content Succeed
When you meet somebody at a networking event or you see somebody online, what's the first thing most people do? They go to the search engines and Google them. If that person is you, are you even showing up on search results? That’s the reason why you want to rank high on the search engines. Here’s how Paul is helping small businesses get the visibility that they desire and actually need.
Be Visible
Today, there are people out there who will tell you that you don't even need a website. If you have your social media links, or if you're running events you could just do that over at Eventbrite or other places that allow you to host that kind of stuff. However, for Paul, that's not the best strategy. Because then, if anybody wants to find out about you, they’ll have to look all over the web, go to all those different social media platforms, and kind of piecemeal the information that they want to learn about you from these different sites.
Maybe you’re familiar with this experience. You go to social media, be it Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin. When you go there, how many times do you ever just get what you want and leave? Probably never. In terms of social media, you're going to the site you're looking for and then something else catches your eyes: a post from somebody else, an image or a video, and next you know 10 minutes, 15 minutes even more is gone. So having a website where you can put all of your content is going to be paramount to doing a lot of things for you.
Examples of Content You Can Create
One good example of content is case studies where you can show before and after results of your clients. “For a lot of you in the health and wellness industry Karen, Lisa, Rachelle, Denel this is a great idea. A picture speaks a thousand words and right away you can have 2000 before and after content. You could really show people the difference. Let them know how you work with them and what this person did and that can really entice people to want to work together with you.”
Another piece of information that you can provide when it comes to content is checklists. You can write about “Here's what you need to do in order to accomplish XYZ”. For instance, you can talk about how people mess up their videos by simply using an iPhone. You can come up with a checklist on your website to say “Here are the things that you need to consider when working with an iPhone and taking video”. A lot of people are amazed at how good the iPhone quality is since Apple's running commercials that say “shot entirely on an iPhone”. Offering something like this will want to have people come back to your website and more.
Video Content Creation
Putting videos on your website is also going to be helpful. Although having a video is not as great for SEO purposes they are a great way to build engagement. When people see you repeatedly, they hear you, they hear the inflection in your voice, that's more of a connection than somebody just reading and maybe skimming what you're writing in text.
These are different ways and ideas that you can add additional information to your website. It is important to build content and continually add new things. It is going to take time and effort to come up with all this content. What's the benefit? It's going to position you as an expert in your field. When people see how much content you have, what you're writing about, the depth of your expertise, they're going to think you really know what you're doing, and they would want to be working with you.
Website Content Creation
Content could be your standard pages that every website typically has, but it also means adding new content ideas to the following:
Home page
About page
Products
Services
Contact
Things that you do
Blogs
Case studies
Checklists
Videos
It's also a way that you can develop a following, and develop a reputation. Paul calls websites a destination for validation. And so, when you meet somebody at a networking event or you see somebody online, the first thing most people do is Google them. When they go to a website they're going to check if this person's legit. Whether or not that person is or isn't, that perception is so important. So make a good first impression by presenting your website with all that important information out there. Looking good and professional is going to be in your best interest.
Another great thing about creating different types of content is, it's good for your SEO. When people are searching for you, you want to get ranked high on the search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This way, people are not going to page two or three because having all that information is going to make it easier for the search engines to find you. If you just have a one-page website versus a website that has a hundred pages of content it's certainly easier to find a hundred pages of content than just one. It’s like going through that needle and haystack, and there's just one needle, you're not going to find it as quickly as if there were a thousand needles in that haystack. That’s why having more content is going to help you with the search engines.
Internal Linking for SEO
Having content on your website also allows you to link from one article or page to another this is known as internal linking. Here’s an example: If on a blog post you're talking about the nutritional value of kale, you also might have a blog about similar types of vegetables may be celery or lettuce. You can then add a link to that other blog inside your website. Having those links internally actually helps with the search engines. And even though you're linking just to yourself, that's going to be valuable.
Keep in mind that it's not just volume. It's not quantity but the main thing is quality. You want to make sure you're writing good stuff. You want to make it so that people want to read it, they want to learn about it. And it's good to always write for the visitor, always write for your target audience. You never want to write trying to think about how you can get this rank. Keywords and all that kind of SEO technical stuff are definitely important but the number one rule is: always write for your audience first. Then go back and tweak it. There are specific ways that you can do that on all pages and blog posts or any content that's on the website to help the search engines know what's on that page.
Lastly, when it comes to content even if it's information for your visitor, always have a call to action. Have something that you want them to do. Be it to give you a call or to fill out a contact form. In some cases, it might be as simple as just leaving a comment. Ask questions like “let me know what you think about this? Have you ever done this? What has your experience been?”. This is a way that you can help generate interaction between visitors to your website. And if somebody does leave a comment, always try to go back and reply to them. You can actually have a threaded conversation about something on your website through those comments.
Q&A
Lisa: Are websites like Linkedin where if you go in and refresh your page, you change something, does it show up higher on the Google search?
Paul: It can help if you're updating things. It all depends upon the website and how often Google knows to go back and check to look for those changes. It's a lot easier to tell the search engine when you're in control. So if you update content for your website, it's a lot easier to do that than to tell Google “hey go over to Linkedin on this page on this post that I wrote you know maybe a week ago and I’ve tweaked it so now kind of update it so that can help. Honestly, you're always better off trying to optimize for your own website because you're in control of it.
Dennis: I don't have a question but I want to agree wholeheartedly. Especially, most of us are in the professional services type of arena where we're dealing on the service side. Do you want to have somebody lead you down a back alley, into a hole, into a basement, and say “hey here's my office”? Probably no one will go. Even if there are other ways that you're getting the traffic you need, that website is your face to the world. It's the first thing everyone checks. Whether they're coming to visit you live, they're really going to check your website.
If you don't have a website, forget it. The decision has been made. Every consumer goes out and does that homework. So I can't agree more with Paul that even if it doesn't drive a ton of traffic you need that like you used to need a nice front office space to walk into. You need to have that nice website.
Right now Paul is in the middle of a program that he’s running called “The Ultimate Blog Challenge”. It's a time when people get together once every quarter and blog the challenges to write content 31 times during the month. It’s basically writing an article or blog post a day. That's a lot of work and that's why it's called the challenge. Learn more about it by reaching out to Paul.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
There's a lot that you can do that can be overwhelming but it doesn't have to be. Take those small little baby steps to get yourself going, and before you know it, your site will be rich with content, you'll be found in the search engines. Establish credibility and you'll get more and more traffic on a regular basis.
ABOUT PAUL TAUBMAN
Paul Taubman II - is the Chief Online Strategist of Digital Maestro. He is skilled in areas such as Website Design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), List Building, Database Optimization, Website Security, and just about any area that impacts your online presence. He has his roots deep in the world of technology. Working as a Solutions Architect at Fortune 500 companies for over 25 years, Paul knows how to get systems to talk to each other and share data.
Get to know Paul Taubman more!
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