For most digital marketing agencies, the big bucks come from their ability to perform SEO gymnastics that charm search engines into funneling internet traffic to a client’s website. Said agency will hijack your website with lots and lots of keyword-laden content that speaks to Google’s algorithms, and they’ll use snazzy software that churns out sexy reports showing how much more traffic they’ve driven to your site, proclaiming their search engine marketing efforts a huge success.
But new clients – not website traffic – are what you ultimately want, so after a while of driving lots of traffic to your site, if the agency hasn’t driven conversions (i.e. converted all that website traffic into actual customers and sales), the agency will lose you as a client, and you will deem search engine marketing a failure.
The way to be successful with search engine marketing is to put content on your site that will capture the right website traffic, as well as inspire real pet owners to become your clients. It’s a tricky proposition to do both, but I'm here to assure you that it CAN be done.
Here’s how to know whether your website content has been written for search engines or for real human pet owners:
Content that speaks only to search engines….
- …is generic. It tends to be boring, unoriginal, and uninspiring to the human reader. It’s the kind of content you could very well see on your competitors’ websites and it won’t do anything to differentiate your business.
- …is cheap. This type of content is a commodity. Articles can be bought in bulk from a variety of places on the web, and they’ll be written by people who know nothing about what’s important to you, your business, or your customers.
- …is inconsistent. Because it’s onerous to write large quantities of content that a decent search engine marketing campaign requires, website and blog content will be written by a variety of different people with a variety of quality control standards.
- …is uncomfortable to read. This type of content will repeat the same words or phrases over and over again, which will seem awkward and even off-putting to the human reader. Such keywords will interrupt the flow of the story, making it feel unorganized or even nonsensical.
Content that inspires new customers…
- …is harder to come by. It’s very difficult to create content that has just the right infusion of keywords for Google without it being distracting to clients (and potential clients). Inspiring website and blog content will contain keywords such that the right searchers will find you, yet in a way that won’t detract from the readability by the searcher.
- …is more expensive. Writing this type of content requires advanced skills in the art of messaging. And while it may ultimately cost more to get this type of content onto your website, remember that it’s worth paying more for inspiring content because the ROI on quality content can be measured in terms of sales (real dollars and cents) whereas the ROI on site visitors alone is essentially $0.
- …is differentiating. Inspiring content will clearly set you apart from your competitors. It’ll quickly give a prospective customer insight into who you are (and aren’t) and why they should do business with you. It’ll be targeted to the kinds of potential clients you want, and will compel those pet owners you don’t want to self-edit.
- …is authentic. Pet owners want to do business with real humans, not jargon-spouting automatons. When you open your kimono a bit, you’re giving the reader a peak into your proverbial soul. It will endear you to them.
So, what kind of content do you have? Ultimately, you’ll know if the content on your website – whether on landing pages or in blog articles – is inspiring content if you’re getting the right new customers.