The Importance of Well-Researched Content in SEO

In terms of SEO marketing, creating valuable content is an obvious choice for garnering engagement and interest in a product or service. The basics of good content include fantastic visuals, informative substance and probably most importantly of all: solid research to back it all up. Fortunately, these days with all the online tools available it’s easy enough to have quality data at your fingertips. The next step then becomes sifting through the data in order to best approach content creation from a well-researched perspective. This article serves as an outline for some of the more important steps to consider when creating online marketing content. 

Create a plan:

• Don’t just create content for content’s sake but look at where gaps in the market are and try to fill them. Monitor competitors to see what is currently trending and where you may be able to put your own spin on things. This all ties in with relevancy which is the keyword in regards to SEO and marketing on a broader scale too.
• Carefully consider who might be interested in sharing your posts and contact them regarding the opportunity. A well-placed backlink with visibility really helps to provide authority and more importantly, traffic to a website. So then if multiple websites point to your content, Google and other search engines will notice this and pass more credibility to the source.
• Organise topics according to a content calendar and try to ensure that posts are topical or of interest to your audience. Along with keeping up to date, consistency is another key aspect to consider when creating content. Keeping a calendar will help to ascertain when are the best times to post in order to garner the most attention.
• Think about the visual appeal: images, colour and video all go a long way to retain attention but keep in mind the tone of your specific item of content; does the image or video fit? Is there a better way to portray the message? Infographics and even GIFs are already seeing a lot more use in 2020.
• Keep tags on content engagement and performance: see what works and what doesn’t (this includes social media as well). This is a fundamental course of action that will greatly benefit continuing and future projects by highlighting what things are receiving attention and which aren’t. 

Identify your audience:

• Think about who you’re creating content for. Look up analytics regarding your users’ age, sex and location. All these criteria can help to steer projects in the right direction in terms of meaningful engagement.
• Identify device: what devices are the majority of your audience using to interact with your website or content? If it’s mobile for example then focus on achieving a well-presented and correctly-formatted page for mobile devices. Mobile users tend to want immediate and highly-accurate search results that resolve enquiries immediately so ensuring that your mobile site can cater to this, it will encourage repeat custom. 
• By using Google Analytics you can also track where users are bouncing off your site and assess whether certain pages may need optimisation as a result of this. Refining website performance through close inspection allows you to tailor the content to reach its intended audience with every chance of success.
• Keyword research: see what your audience is searching for and how you can use that to your benefit. Resources like Google’s keyword planner can help to optimise a website and therefore is able to more accurately point potential clients in your direction.

Foster brand loyalty:

• Great marketing must always aim to build lasting relationships with customers. Maintaining a solid rapport and creating custom content that is carefully researched goes a long way in terms of meaningful engagement with an audience. Keeping track of what resonates and what doesn’t will also help to foster better relations in terms of future campaigns or marketing efforts.
• If you use email marketing for example, you can target the individual specifically and offer bespoke content relevant to their search enquiries or previous website activity. Tailored content of this type better engages with its intended audience as it relates directly to their online habits. 
• Consider newsletters as well to stay up-to-date with clients. By showing that you’re keeping up with current trends or informing customers of successes, changes etc., this helps to maintain and deepen existing relationships. Sharing these types of stories can build a sense of loyalty as your business ethos and aims align with those of your customers. 

Monitor progress:

• Research is not limited to gathering information about your competitors but also about keeping track of your own site and marketing efforts. What works, what doesn’t and how long it takes for certain targets to be met.
• Bear in mind that SEO and marketing in general are both continual efforts where results are generally seen in the long term rather than short. This provides a good opportunity to monitor gradual changes in customer behaviour and see the real-life impact your marketing efforts have on sales or engagement.

Building trust is a hard matter to tackle but once you’ve earned it, keeping it becomes the next challenge. However this can be made a lot more manageable by carefully researching what content should be posted or uploaded. Using the correct analytics tools and keeping an eye on trends and competition will all help to improve your SEO marketing efforts.

Guest article written by: Jamie FitzHenry is the director of a Bristol SEO agency, Grizzly, that specialise in SEO, Web Design & PPC.