FarCry CMS

You may have heard the phrase ‘Google loves content’, and to a degree it is true. When Google sends its spiders out into the online web, one of the most important elements on a website that they crawl is its content. For SEO purposes we obviously want to have content on our websites but there is more to it than just posting up random articles and blog posts.

To ensure that what you create serves a greater purpose than just being a ‘good read’, you need first to decide on a content strategy. Such a strategy will allow you to create a vision for your content which will cover its journey from creation, purpose, format, and management. In this article, we will take you through some of the key considerations when deciding on your content strategy.

Determine Your Vision

Business Advice suggests before you so much as type out the first article title, you need to decide on what the overriding vision is for your business and website, so that your content can contribute to it.  This part of the strategy should consider some of the longer-term goals you have, such as building an instantly recognisable brand or primarily selling products on an e-commerce site. These are just two of many possible goals.

Once you have determined the vision or goals, you are more able to plan your content’s direction of travel as it were. In other words, you’ll know why it’s being created, and what its purpose should be.

Who Are Your Audience?

If you were to start playing country and western music to a crowd of heavy metal fans, you are not likely to achieve much, other than emptying the arena you were playing in. The same applies to content online. it needs to match what your audience is looking for, and the only way to do that is to define what your audience is beforehand.

Whether you sell products and services, or if you are simply starting a blog, you need to know who you are going to be talking to via your content. There are countless questions you could ask, and here are some examples;

• Where do they ‘hang out’ online?

Instagram? LinkedIn? Pinterest?

• What are their demographics?

Gender? Location? Age group?

• Who do they follow?

Big influencers within the niche? Celebrities?

• What types of content do they like most?

Written? Video? Infographics?

• What are their likes/dislikes?

Focus on what they like

Now that you know what the vision is for your content and the audience that it is going to be created for, it is time to think about how the content should be created to make Google want to push it higher in the SERPs. There are some basics like not stuffing it with keywords, but there are also content writing strategies that often get overlooked.

This might seem counter-intuitive when we are discussing SEO, but you should write for your audience, Not for Google. The more you write for your target audience, the more that Google recognises that, and rewards you. Writing for your audience also means they stay on the page longer and are less likely to click away. This is another signal to which tells Google the content is relevant.

Matching the intent of any individual search within a piece of content is another box ticked with Google. If someone types in Google’s search bar, “How do I dog jumping on the sofa”, they have a very specific need. A piece of content about how to stop a dog chewing furniture, or a general dog training article is not what they are looking for.

Google knows this, so if your content strategy includes an article on a specific subject make sure it keeps to what any potential searcher landing on it is expecting to read or learn about.

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