Content is King and SEO is Free

Don't try to rank for the most popular keyword. Rank for the most visits and least competition. 

The Story

As a Freshman in college in 1997, I took a class called "World Wide Web Discovery 101". The internet was in its infancy, and college courses were being designed to teach young students how to navigate a new world of information. 

At the conclusion of the first lesson that included an overview of search engines, the use of email and how to properly type URLs, our instructor turned us free and allowed us to "search the web" for anything we wanted during the last 15 minutes of class. 

I lived in Utah at the time and had always dreamed of visiting Washington DC. I had read several books of early American history, the founders, etc. and I had genuine interest in seeing the White House, the Capital, The Washington Monument and all the various memorials. 

So my first ever search on the internet was "visit Washington DC". At the top of Yahoo was a link that said, "Live White House Cameras". I clicked that link and, to my total astonishment, there was a picture feed updated every 15 seconds or so of the White House front gate. I could see that it was cloudy, snow was on the ground and new people would appear walking in front of the gate with each still frame update. It was like I was there. My computer screen went from being an expensive, digital typewriter, to a portal into any part of our world that I wanted to view or educate myself on. It was a powerful moment. 

I went home and tried to explain to my parents what I had learned my first day in college. My dad didn't understand it and, frankly, neither did I. I knew what the internet showed me that day, but had now idea how it worked. I remember giving my dad the following explanation. 

Websites are a like small store fronts. So pretend each website is a real store - like a book store or gift shop. 

There are thousands, maybe millions (back then) of websites out there just like there are millions of small stores situated all around the world. Some of these websites are in the center of a virtual Times Square in New York City, with millions of people walking by their store fronts every year. Other websites are located on dirt roads in the mountains of Utah with only hundreds of people walking in front of their store fronts every year. 

So how do you get your store into the virtual Times Square of the internet with millions of people virtually walking by every year? The answer: Content. 

The Lesson

We use the internet and AI for virtually everything today. Learning, cooking, fishing, business, shopping, etc. etc. We all begin with our favorite search engine or AI tool, ask a question and review the answers.

Search engines are in a competitive battle with each other. Google wants everyone to use their search tool. So does Yahoo, Bing, Safari, Firefox, DuckDuckGo, and a host of others. To win your loyalty, they want to answer your questions with verified answers that you are looking for. The more they provide you with great results, the more you trust them as your go-to search engine. 

So, when you search, "How do you grow tomatoes" the first results are from websites that have been vetted. By "vetted", I mean websites that have been around for a long time, websites that have been shared by other vetted websites demonstrating trust, websites with blogs full of comments, websites with product sales showing reviews, websites with a lot of referral traffic. Google wants to give you tried and true vetted information on every search you make, no matter how you write it or spell it to ensure that you are getting the best information online. 

Websites that produce that kind of vetted content for various keywords are rewarded by being placed on the first page of Google or another search engine for the phrase you typed. And that is how you end up in the "Virtual Times Square" of the internet with millions of people walking by your store every year. 

It sounds easy and, if you were the first 1000 websites ever created - it was easy. But now there are billions of websites so every keyword that is searched in a search engine like Google has thousands, millions and sometimes billions of competitors. So how do you get to Times Square? 

The answer is that you don't need to be in Times Square to become a wealthy small business owner. You can focus on niche traffic and open your store on a virtual Main St. in Key West, FL, or a virtual Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach, SC, or a virtual Seaport Village in San Diego, CA or even a virtual small town Main St. in Oklahoma. 

You do this by writing content focused on "Long Tail Keywords" vs. "Short Tail". I'll give some examples. 

Short tail keywords are the singular words that you would to love to rank on the first page of Google for. If you are starting a BBQ sauce businesses, wouldn't it be great if you could rank on page 1 of Google when people search for "BBQ Sauce"? That's Times Square! The reality, however, is that as a new start-up, you likely won't rank on the first page of Google for that term unless you buy your position there. The cost per click to show up on the first page of Google for that term would be incredibly expensive for a new website that is unvetted. 

But since you're a start up, you don't need Times Square traffic to be successful. You only need small town Kansas Main St. traffic to make the money you are looking for.

Enter long tail keywords.

With some simple research, you might find that there are 10million people a month search for "BBQ sauce", but there are also 100,000 people a month (1.2million people/yr) that are searching for "BBQ sauce that isn't too sweet" or "How do I clean BBQ sauce from my grill" or "BBQ sauce that is more mild", etc. These are longer term searches. Everyone searching for these phrases obviously has interest in BBQ sauce and these are phrases that the big BBQ sauce businesses might be missing.

This becomes your content strategy.

You now write articles and product page descriptions that utilize these long tail terms for your product to win the content battle and climb to the first page of Google for search terms that deliver significant traffic to your website, but don't compete with the billion dollar companies in your market space.

In other words, your first store should never be in Times Square. It's too expensive and too high of a risk. Your first store should be on a virtual Main Street in a smaller town or city, and then you can focus on growth into Times Square.

It took me four years to arrive in Times Square for a couple of powerful keywords in my own business. Today I am in Times Square for free and enjoy the benefit of millions of people seeing my virtual store front. But that isn't how I began. I began in a small town on Main St.

10 Steps to Defining Your Content Strategy:

1. Have a blog  on your website and commit yourself to writing at least 1 content piece every week.
2. Review your traffic every week to see what blogs are generating views. Some weeks it may be just 1 or two views - but you can learn from those 1 or two views.
3. Visit "Google Trends" and type in various long and short tail key word searches and find search terms in your category that are trending upwards and write content about those search terms.
4. For faster results, you can launch PPC campaigns with specific search terms to see what ads are getting clicks and what ads are not getting clicks. Write more content on the keywords in the ads that are getting the most clicks.
5. Visit online communities and share your content in post comments where appropriate and listed to what others say about your content. Don't take offense if they don't like it. Consider it free consumer feedback and make changes to your blogs/articles based on their feedback.
6.  Include your article in your own emails to see how many of your subscribers click on it, and keep a scorecard of how each of your articles compare with the other. 
7. Include source material and links in your content pieces so people can see where you obtained your information to further establish trust. 
8. Include links in your content to other articles or products on your site. Your blogs often become your biggest referral sources for new sales. 
9. Include pictures in your content and be sure to name the picture files using the keywords that you are trying to rank for. 
10. Try to include the important keywords in the title of your article, as most search engines put a lot of weight in article titles first, then the article itself (including picture file names) is second. 

Isn't AI going to replace content? It's actually just the opposite. AI is built to construct answers based on the "best" content on the internet. AI provides sources for its responses and the sources are those sites with vetted, tried and true content. 

In short, writing great content is one of the easiest ways to climb the ranks of search engines and deliver significant amounts of free traffic to your store. Writing effective content isn't the hard part. Developing a content strategy based on long-tail keywords requires some research to ensure that your content delivers results (sales) down the road. 

Of course, we can help build your content strategy and even write your first few blog articles to give you a temple that you can follow over and over again on your own. We will share our strategies that aren't theoretical, and we will show you how we are on the first page of Google for numerous high-volume short-tail keyword searches that deliver millions of visitors to our store for free. 

Let's have a quick discovery call to find out how. Or, let's jump right into your content strategy with our content and blog development program.