When it comes to writing SEO-based marketing content that converts, it’s more than just doing keyword research. It starts WAY before you get to that place!
It starts first by understanding your goals for your marketing plan and Your Why.
When you uncover the why about Your Why, you’ll begin to see this content plan as yours. You’ll take mental possession of your marketing and it becomes a part of who you are and who your business is online.
And when you become more invested in your content ideas and marketing goals, your messages become more connected to your customers and what they need.
Your Brain Wants You To Reach Your Goals
When you know Your Why and you’ve become invested in the content of your marketing, it leads you into something called the Endowment Effect.
The Endowment Effect is directly connected to the dopamine that gets released from your hypothalamus. The dopamine gets stimulated in your brain, which then goes through your body because your brain causes your entire self to get excited by reaching your goals.
Your brain TOTALLY wants you to reach your goals because it loves having the dopamine there. It feels good to have that chemical reward for all of your achievements.
So as you’re working through your marketing plan, when you give yourself the opportunity to cross off something or check it or to write it on a calendar that says, ‘Yeah I did this!’ – it creates a natural boost of dopamine into your system and it makes you feel excited.
Starting with Your Why helps you take ownership of your marketing plans and that internal boost is what will keep you motivated. It feels good to your body, it feels good in your brain, it feels good everywhere.
So I want you to think about how you can describe Your Why and take ownership of your purpose with the work that you do.
If you need help working through Your WHY, fill out the following prompts to get you started:
My goal with my marketing is to ____________________
Because I want my customers to do/think/feel _______________.
Why is this so important to create an SEO-based marketing plan?
Now that you’ve uncovered your WHY, let’s look at the HOW you’re going to develop your SEO-based marketing plan.
The way you’re going to convert more qualified customers is to understand the difference between Customer-focused content and Keyword-based content.
Because here’s the thing about keywords … not all of the keywords you’ll find in a search are going to be relevant to helping you grow your business online.
To get your content to convert more people, you’ll need to dig a little deeper into your customers versus what comes up in a keyword search.
I totally get it – it’s easy to fall down the keyword rabbit hole. But I want you to think about an SEO search like this: you’re going to find a ton of keywords in your search and some of those keywords could increase your organic traffic but is that content connected to your business and convert site visitors into customers?
Even though keyword research is an important piece in your SEO-based marketing plan, this isn’t the first place for you to start when creating your content.
You should be looking to create a customer-focused content strategy by taking a deep dive into who your customers are, who your business is and what makes your product/services unique.
To help you work through a deep dive into your customers, answer the following questions:
- Who is your ideal customer? Get as specific as you can with demographic information, kids vs no kids, where they work, etc.
- What are their pain points and needs? What are they struggling with?
- What type of content do they consume? Do they watch videos or read blog posts? Are they spending time on LinkedIn or TikTok?
- What kind of conversations are they having either online or offline?
- What expertise do you have that makes your business unique? What’s different about your business from the others who are doing the same thing?
- How can you connect your expertise of your business to your customer’s needs?
Take notice that not once have I said anything about searching for keywords. All of your answers to these questions are customer-focused and will help you set the foundation for a strategic content strategy that will convert more customers.
What’s the next step after the deep dive into your customers?
Your next step in this content process is to develop your unique angle within your content that intersects between your business expertise and your customer’s pain points.
How do you connect these two things and turn them into your marketing content?
You’ll create what The Content Marketing Institute calls ‘your content tilt.’ A marketing content tilt is when you take a larger topic that’s relevant to your business and tilt it with your own spin. Your content tilt is that piece of the marketing puzzle that makes your business different from your competitors.
It’s your unique perspective on how your business provides solutions for your customers. Your content tilt brings in the things that make your business different which in turn, will make your content ideas stand out from all the other noise online.
Your content tilt is truly your unique personal or business story.
So yes my friends … your content tilt will directly be connected to Your WHY. And knowing this is going to help you create better content because your content tilt will be more customer-focused rather than trying to add in as many keywords into your posts.
For those of you who might be thinking this – am I saying that you can only develop content that fits into your content tilt? Isn’t that going to limit the amount of content topics that you use?
Yeah … I’m saying exactly that.
Because if you’re not customer-focused with your content, you’ll end up with a whole bunch of people who are on your email list or followers in your community who are not going to connect with your marketing messages.
Your content won’t be an answer to any of their solutions and won’t help your customers with whatever it is that your business does to help them. You may get traffic to your website but there’s a good chance that most won’t convert into customers.
So take a few extra steps to dig into your customers before you get into a SEO keyword search. The more you understand how to use a customer-focused strategy, the greater your opportunity to develop content that truly resonates because you’ll be able to show that your program or product is the solution to what they’re searching for online.
Want dig deeper into this process and how to uncover Your Why?
Subscribe to the Create Your Business program called The Marketing Strategy Collective and you’ll get access to exclusive tips, strategies and insights that will help you get better results with your content creation. Whether you’re a seasoned content creator or just getting started, the marketing content in the group is designed to provide you with actionable steps to develop a marketing plan that you’ll finally stick with and stay consistent with your posting schedule.
Join the Marketing Strategy Collective program and you’ll get access to a strategy group marketing program to help you improve your sales revenue in a collaborative group online experience.
The steps you’ll work through in our supportive group online space will be filled with action-packed content and the space to work through your ideas to help you learn how to show up in your online space. You’ll develop meaningful connections that lead to deeper relationships and create easy sales conversations.
The marketing tips and strategies will help you address common hurdles that small business owners face, such as writer’s block, time management and maintaining a consistent posting schedule. By incorporating these actionable steps into your routine, you’ll not only stay motivated but also enhance the quality and impact of your content.
