Marketing for a mass audience on the web stands among an even larger competition-base. Because of this, user acquisition tactics are of utmost importance to the success of your business. Every business‘s website produces content, but few take the necessary steps to optimize their site for long-term success. Here are some steps to help you stand out among others in the industry.
1. User-Intent Keyword Relevancy. User intent is what should drive keywords, as it guides us to understand what users want and what they would search for. People usually search sites for three uses: informational, navigational and transactional. Informational uses would involve answering questions and concerns while navigational uses would involve looking for a certain brand, product or something in the similar field. Transactional uses have the specific intent of purchasing something and may transition from the informational or navigational uses. Transactional uses are what marketeers try to steer their audience to. It’s important to involve sites that cover all three of these types of users to gain the highest potential amount of users.
2. Data-driven Selection. The most common types of data are “fat-head” and “long-tail“. “Fat-head” data involves broad subjects without any terms suggesting location, type or any other kind of specificity. This type of data provides major exposure and high search volumes, which lead to higher drives of traffic. “Long-tail” data involves smaller markets that are specific to your business, meaning quality traffic. This data is riskier to use as people may not search for such specific things but is much easier to maintain against competitors. They are also cheaper to achieve and diversify on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s important to involve both types of data as “fat-head” searches can lead to a traffic and search foundation while “long-tail” searches lead to more sales for your site.
3. Compelling Headlines. People don’t like reading a whole bunch of text unless they have to. Headlines and titles give way to what each page or section on a site is about. It’s important to keep these brand-focused, interesting and action-oriented. The brand or business name or product should be included especially if you provide several services. You should also be creative to stand out on search engines. This doesn’t only involve keywords for the search engine, but for terms and phrases or effects that would catch the eye of the users themselves. The best headlines are ones that elicit a response from its audience. Action words or any verbs in general usually fall into this category as it gives users opportunities to satisfy their wants, needs and desires.
4. Internal AND external links. Many businesses only focus on themselves and present links that direct users to a different page on their domain. This is important for providing navigation and information throughout the site but there are advantages to including external links and/or third-party sites as well. Both users and search engines love this as it establishes trust. While you may lose some visitors, other sites with supporting evidence and data benefits your audience and shows search engines that you are taking user-experience seriously. This disregards your advertisements as spam and can guarantee trust from your audience. Third parties may also refer you in return, creating a larger trusting community that users see as a strong backbone.
5. Fostering Distribution & Conversion. Distribution involves opportunities to get information in front of users. It’s important to know what information to publish and where to place it to give it to the market that wants it. Content marketing brings in more potential buyers and converts visitors into customers. Through these customers, your brand can build referrals and create awareness of what you have to offer. Your aim is to make your products and services so irresistible to your audience that they have to give in to what you’re providing.
Once you associate your site to this optimization guide, your site and business would become more successful. The opportunities provided through these steps are endless as your audience, search engines, other similar businesses in your market and your own business give you an advantage in the industry. With such a competitive field, it’s important to have allies in the market and on the web to help you get ahead and maintain a successful business.