What should the main goal of a business be? To increase sales? Expand the customer base? While these are both important goals, it’s more important for a business to become the expert or authority within its industry. Any business that wants to be the main authority in its niche will leave competitors focusing on sales in the proverbial dust, because competing through price or keywords are tactics not designed for the long haul.
Maintaining current client bases is far less difficult than trying to attract new ones, and lowering prices seriously injures profits if “new” customers don’t stick around. Showing new and old customers alike that you’re the expert in your industry, however? That’s the gold at the end of the marketing rainbow.
It Begins With Content
Today’s consumer tends to look for two things when shopping online: customer reviews and quality business content. Reviews indicate what kind of service you provide, while quality content demonstrates that you actually know what you’re talking about. Today’s search engine algorithms focus heavily on content, which is slowly making keyword optimization less important.
Rich, engaging, quality content is the way to the hearts of consumers, as keyword-heavy webpages that feature little in the way of “meat” are no longer what search engines are seeking.
Keyword Research Remains Significant
This isn’t to say that keyword research is dead. If writing topically optimized content is now the goal, it’s important to organize keywords within said content so they pair with consumer intent. Such content subsequently provides authoritative information that truly means something to the reader. Keyword stuffing isn’t going to help you create a great piece of content that provides actual value, rather it will “dilute” your content and turn both consumers and search engines off.
Topic Domination
Rather than creating a post or page that’s filled with keywords and an abundance of information on a single topic, write multiple pages and blog posts on the topic. This allows for topic domination, as pages revolve around a broader topic while still featuring specific keyword groups. Consumers therefore find the page that best matches their intent rather than having to sift through too much information on one page or post. Becoming an industry authority is easy-peasy when you go this route!
Focus your efforts on being the big, bad content wolf. It will pay off much more than lowering your prices or creating page upon page of ho-hum content that’s so stuffed with keywords, consumers never make return visits.