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The Power Duo: Unlocking the Potential of SEO and Content Marketing

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Today’s guest blog post was created by Michael Bellush, founder of HighMark SEO Digital…

 

Introduction

In the magical realm of digital marketing, think of SEO and content marketing as the Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore of the online world. One, much like young Harry, brings fresh, innovative tactics and a touch of technical sorcery. The other, akin to the wise and powerful Dumbledore, offers a wealth of knowledge and captivating content that keeps audiences spellbound. Together, they navigate the labyrinth of Google’s Hogwarts, aiming for the top spots in the search engine results pages (SERPs). In this article, we’ll explore how combining the daring of Harry with the wisdom of Dumbledore in your SEO and content marketing strategies can work wonders for your digital presence.

 

Understanding the Basics

 

What is SEO and Why It Matters

Imagine SEO as a masterful potion brewer in the dungeons of Hogwarts, meticulously mixing ingredients to conjure potions that elevate websites in Google’s grand library of search results. Just as a well-crafted potion can grant visibility or invisibility at Hogwarts, effective SEO can determine whether your website, keywords, and content get found online. Why does this matter? Because if you’re not on page one, you might as well be on page none.

Now, before you start envisioning SEO as some kind of mystical dark art performed by cloak-wearing wizards in dimly lit rooms, let’s demystify it. Sure, an SEO wizard might jokingly mutter “Accio” while optimizing your website, hoping for a magical boost in rankings. But in reality, great SEO is less about enchantments and more about smart strategies:

  • Understanding Google’s algorithms
  • Mastering keyword research
  • Creating high-quality content with a keyword focus
  • Performing website SEO optimization
  • Building domain authority through backlinking

The real magic lies in blending these elements to light up your website’s visibility, much like the “Lumos” spell lights up a dark corridor in a wizard’s castle. So, while there’s no actual wand-waving, the transformation your website undergoes with effective SEO techniques is nothing short of spellbinding.

The Synergy of SEO and Content Marketing

Complementary Strategies

SEO and content marketing can form a powerful combination.

  • SEO: Boosts visibility through strategic keyword placement, website optimization, and backlinking.
  • Content Marketing: Enriches visibility by engaging and retaining the audience with high-quality, relevant content.

This synergy not only drives traffic but also enhances user engagement, a key factor in SEO success.

Keyword Synchronization

 

Keywords in content marketing are akin to the carefully selected ingredients in a potion from the Hogwarts Apothecary. It’s not about haphazardly throwing in every magical herb and creature part you can find, but rather about artfully blending them into your content, much like a Hogwarts Potion Master crafting a perfect Polyjuice Potion. The right mix of keywords can charm Google’s algorithms, ensuring that your content casts a spell over the desired audience.

Technical SEO and Content Strategy

Technical SEO Foundations

Technical SEO optimizes your website’s backend elements to improve search engine rankings. This includes:

  • Crafting clear, descriptive URL names
  • Engaging and optimized page titles
  • Optimized meta descriptions that succinctly summarize page content
  • Using image-alt tags for improved SEO
  • Structuring content with logical headings that include keyword variations
  • Strategically incorporating keywords throughout the content

These components work together to enhance both the user experience and a website’s visibility to search engines.

Link Building and Content Authority

Link building is like a high school popularity contest, but in the digital world. The more reputable sites that backlink to your content, the cooler you are in the eyes of search engines. Relevant and authoritative backlinks are what build up authority and they are crucial for SEO success.


Realizing the Full Potential


Measuring Success

To see if your digital potion is working, you need to dive into the cauldron of analytics. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are essential for understanding whether your SEO and content spells are enchanting the audience or if they need a bit more magic.


Real World Example

Consider a local roofing company that wants to create brand awareness, increase sales, and service a larger area. They started creating detailed blog posts about common roofing issues, maintenance tips, and the advantages of timely repairs. By implementing focused SEO strategies, such as keyword mapping, technical website SEO optimization, and authority building through backlinking they significantly increased their online visibility. This strategic approach not only boosted their ranking in search engine results but also attracted a broader range of homeowners in need of roofing services. The increase in inquiries and customer engagement demonstrated the impactful combination of targeted SEO and informative content for a service-based business.

Conclusion

So, there you have it – SEO and content marketing, the Harry Potter and Dumbledore of the digital world, ready to take your online presence from muggle to magician. Remember, in the world of digital marketing it’s better to take off the invisibility cloak. It’s time to step into the spotlight!

 

                             

 

 For further information, Michael Bellush may be reached at Michael@highmarkseo.com.

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Can They “Hear” the Titles of Your Blog Posts?

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When readers scan the title of your blog post, their decision to click may well depend on what they “hear” as much as what they see.  That’s because similar consonants or similar vowel sounds presented in sequence tend to encourage our brains to engage with printed content.

When, back in 1813, London author John Harris published his book, Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, he was aiming to teach young pupils proper speech habits. Modern-day marketers have a different motive in mind, having caught on to the fact that “Alliteration and assonance support the soundtrack for our words,” as Margie Lawson so well describes the effect in the Writers in the Storm blog.

When you blog, I like to say, you’re verbalizing the positive aspects of your business or practice in a way that people can understand and hopefully, remember. Educational research verified that “phenomic awareness” represents a sophisticated stage in the development of reading skills. In the same manner, as content writers, at Say It For You, we are always on the prowl for novel ways to present information to online readers, often relying on “memory hooks”, which I like to call “sticky words”.

Apparently, the authors and advertisers trying to appeal to “high-end”, sophisticated audiences understand the power of “sticky words” as well. Just this week, skimming through recent issues of three finance-related magazines, I discovered dozens of examples of both alliteration and assonance:

Forbes:

Alliteration:

  • Soy Sauce Scientist (Peggy Chang, co-founder of Panda Express)
  • Bond Ballers (Marc Lasry and sister Sonia Gadnder, co-founders of Avenue Capital Group’s heavy investment in bonds)
  • From Shoveling to Swinging (story about the Dominican Republic)
  • Prosperity in Peril (editorial) 

Assonance:

  • Zuck Grows Up (cover story about Mark Zuckerberg)
  • Collaboration for Transformation (story about the Democratic Republic of Congo)
  • Dr. Irving’s Climate Ambition (story about co-founder and director of Carbon Projects)

Kiplinger:

Alliteration:

  • Tipping Tactics
  • Make These Money Moves Now
  • Rough Seas for Small Stocks

Assonance:

  • Thumbs Up (on annuities)
  • Miles of Smiles (saving money on gas)

Investopedia Retirement Guide:

 Alliteration:

  • How to Hire an Advisor
  • For Their Future
  • Retirement Risks You Should Know

 

Now you…

Content writers, as you encounter different forms of written content – ads, magazine articles, flyers, newspapers . whatever….take notice of the way similar consonants or similar vowel sounds presented in a sequence, catch your attention, so that you’re both seeing and, in a real sense, “hearing” that content.

Can readers “hear” the titles of your blog posts?

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Make Them See What You Mean – Put the Right Pictures With the Right Words

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(Guest co-author: David Kale with imagery from Kale Design, Inc.)

David’s passion for creating fine art is grounded in his belief that every single mark on the canvas matters. Abstract or realistic, for a piece of artwork to communicate successfully, it must embody three key principles:

  1. Graphic impact:  (focusing attention and hitting the viewer “between the eyes”)
  2. Design sensibility: (making sure the design utilizes all the medium has to offer)
  3. Totality: (delivering the message  so that it holds together in and of itself, as well as with the other assets)

When artwork (photos, graphics, and illustrations) is used in advertising and marketing communications, these parameters become even more critical, since today’s viewers are bombarded with so many different stimuli.

While the content we create for our Say It For You clients is presented in the form of words, we know that the more closely the images accompanying  the text combine to affect the audience’s hearts and minds, the better chance our clients will have of making their enterprise stand out relative to its competitors.

Kale elaborates on this effect: “When the intended message of an image harmonizes with the keywords in the headline and text of a a blog/article, website, video, advertisement, brochure, postcard, video, or trade show display), there is a better chance of engaging the audience’s attention not merely for moments, but of connecting with them on a much deeper level.”

Just as is true for artwork, to communicate successfully, content must aim to embody those same key principles:

IMPACT

 

 

At Say It For You, we prefer “I-you” (first person to second person  pronouns) writing because of its power to create impact, revealing the personality  of the “I’ behind the posts, ready to serve “you” (the reader).

SENSIBILITY

 

 

 

At its best, a blog post will   demonstrate a uniquely  sensitive approach to  the needs and  concerns of searchers, showing that those very needs and concerns are what has motivated  the owner or practitioners to make their product or service more user-friendly..

TOTALITY

 

 

 

When it comes to blogging, we at Say It For You firmly believe in “the Power of One”, with one core message delivered in each post. The content must be focused on one audience, with one desired (and well-defined) outcome.

At Say It For You, we agree with David Kale’s maxim:  Great words and wonderful pictures love to “dance together” — from conception to completion!

 

 

David Kale, founder and owner of Kale Design, Inc. helps businesses and entrepreneurs with creative thinking for their branding marketing, advertising, website graphic, printing, and trade show design.

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Proving Your Concept – to Blog Readers or Banks

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At a recent Westfield Chamber of Commerce meeting, I heard Spencer Russell of the American Bank of Freedom talk about his work with applicants for SBA loans. All too often, Russell lamented, individuals asking the bank for Small Business Administration-backed loans fail to qualify for help simply because they fail to prove their concept and communicate their “Why”.  Since “proof of concept” is precisely what we help our Say It For You clients achieve through content marketing, it seems natural to review the salient points of Russell’s presentation….

 

 

“Many buyers of a business applying for SBA financing simply don’t know how to tell their story, addressing things bankers need to know,” Spencer Russell laments. Too often, he points out, a handsomely bound, pages-long printed submission leaves bankers wondering why the most key questions have gone unanswered:

  1. Exactly why is your new franchise or business formation going to work?
  2. What in your past work history demonstrates experience relatable to – and transferable to – this new industry or enterprise?
  3. Just why might you be a good risk for the lender?
  4. What training have you had or plan to have by way of preparing yourself to handle this new venture?
  5. Are your projections based on historicals?

As content writers, we are telling the story of a business or a practice to consumers, framing that story in a way that addresses precisely those things online readers need to know.

In order to “prove the case”, a business owner can use:

  • factual proof – statistics about the problem this product or service helps solve
  • reverse proof – comparing one’s product or service with others on the market
  • credentializing proof – years of experience, honors or awards, degrees earned
  • evidential proof – clinical trial or field test results, testimonials from users

Just as it’s important for loan applicants to prove their concept and explain their “why?” to the bank, business and practice owners can use content marketing to prove to online searchers that they’ve come to the right place to find the precisely the products and services they need.

*For more information about American Bank of Freedom and SBA loans, contact srussell@myamericanbank.com or call 636 384 0182.

 

 

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Describing Simply in Content Marketing

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“If you understand something but can describe it only in complex or jargony language, you’ll reach just the subset of people with expertise in the topic,” Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss write in Harvard Business Review. Instead, they advise corporate leaders, “When your organization needs to make a big change, stories will help you convey why it needs to transform but also what the future will look like in specific, vivid terms.”

The authors go on to detail four steps involved in moving the constituents to take positive action. Each of these, I find, is applicable to content marketing through blogs.

1. Acknowledge the good parts of your history.
As I teach at Say It For You, history has an important place in blogs. “History-of-our-company” background stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings admiration for business owners or practitioners.

2. Reckon with the not-so-good parts of your history.
Publishing content about past failures can actually prove to be a success, with the stories eliciting feelings of empathy and admiration by readers for entrepreneurs who recognize their own missteps.

3. Provide a clear and compelling mandate going forward.
At Say It For You, we know that, when searchers arrive at your blog, they already have an interest in (and probably some core knowledge about) your subject. Blog marketing reality is that, in order to move searchers to the next step, you need to “prove your case” with statistics showing you know a lot about the problem you’re proposing to solve, and that your and your staff have the experience, training, and degrees needed to solve that problem.

4. Get into the “weeds” of your plan with specific recommendations.
Smart buyers want clear, specific recommendations that tie back to solving those problems.. Since, other than the clues offered through the words searchers have chosen to type into the search bar, their individual needs are as yet unknown to you, include anecdotes as examples of common issues that have been solved using your products and expertise.

Blog marketing is all about describing – the past, the problem, the solutions – simply!

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