Think of your content like a fortified tree. Each branch represents a helpful, high-quality piece of content, and each keyword is a leaf.

In this analogy, pillar pages are the foundation: the tree trunk.

In digital marketing, pillar pages give your business the topical authority and industry credibility you need to rank high in the search engine results page (SERP) and convert your audience.

Here, HawkSEM Senior Content Marketing Manager Caroline Cox shares the inside scoop on crafting high-performing pillar pages that help ignite an average 4.5X ROI for our clients.

You can think of a pillar page as a high-level table of contents for a certain topic. (Image: Unsplash)

What are pillar pages?

A pillar page is a comprehensive web page that covers a general topic in great detail and also links to supplemental content for additional information and context — similar to a Wikipedia page.

Also referred to as “hub and spoke” content, pillar pages revolve around a keyword and aim to provide searchers with valuable insights to help them gain insight and make informed decisions.

For example, a photo editing business could have a pillar page about “photo editing software.” This content hub is a complete guide that could include sections like:

• What is photo editing software?
• How to use photo editing software
• Types of photo editing software

The keyword research might illuminate more specific search queries around photo editing software, like:

• Best photo editing software for beginners
• Photo editing software for Windows 10
• In-depth photo editing techniques

These additional subtopics deserve their own web pages, known as “cluster content,” which explore parts of the broad topic more in-depth.

In a way, a pillar page is like a high-level table of contents for a certain topic. While you provide answers to important questions informed by high-volume target keywords, you can also guide readers to other types of content on your website.

How to use pillar pages in your content strategy

You might know your pillar page topics inside-out, but here’s how to make sure your audience and Google do, too:

1. Determine main topics and keywords
2. Conduct keyword research to find subtopics
3. Write your pillar page
4. Focus on information gain
5. Leverage existing content
6. Optimize your pillar pages
7. Monitor performance

1. Determine main topics and keywords

Pillar pages start with your business’s offerings. For example, a furniture ecommerce business might have core topics surrounding products like:

• Wooden furniture
• Modern decor
• Rustic furniture

Once you have a handle on your core topics, you can compare those topics with keywords to ensure they align with your audience’s pain points.

Pillar page keywords are short-tail terms that people type into search engines. They tend to have a high search volume and attract a wider audience.

Remember, your pillar page should feel comprehensive but still have enough potential to create relevant web pages for subtopics.

2. Conduct keyword research to find subtopics

Pillar pages might not convert your target audience right away, but the more specific the query, the closer your audience is to conversion. That’s why your pillar page needs internal hyperlinks to additional content to support your audience in their search for information.

Essentially, you want to guide them to your service offerings.

Google sees more conversational, long-tail keywords these days, as opposed to broad, short phrases.

These are the perfect inspirations for subtopic content since you have a high chance of ranking well. And remember, always link back to the pillar page on these subtopic pages.

For our online furniture store example, subtopic keywords might include:

• Best furniture for small bedrooms
• Decor ideas for large living rooms
• Benefits of wooden furniture

You can choose from a library of keywords with a keyword research tool like Ahrefs or Semrush.

Now that you’re sure your pillar page will have ample subtopics to link to, you’re ready to create it.

3. Write your pillar page

Time to dive into your favorite topics. Here are some common headings your pillar content can cover:

• What is X?
• Types of X
• Benefits of X
• How to X
• X versus Y

Keep your structure intuitive and make sure it matches the searcher’s intent.

For example, if you create a guide called “What is rustic furniture?” you shouldn’t put your “What is” section at the end of the article. You should get straight to the answer.

Additionally, your web copy should feel accessible and flow easily for a reader who’s relatively new to the topic. This isn’t the place for jargon or industry terms — those might leave your audience feeling confused.

You could have subtopic pages about some of the above headings, and that works, too. It’s still smart to include basic information about those subtopics within your pillar page for a well-rounded experience.

But what if your competitors have similar types of pillar pages? Don’t worry; we’ll help you stand out.

Pro tip: Experts suggest pillar pages should be around 3,000 words.

4. Focus on information gain

So you wrote a detailed pillar page about a relevant topic to your business. Great start! The catch? So have your rivals.

How do you distinguish yourself in the SERP and in your audience’s minds amidst a sea of similar content?

Consider your unique value propositions (UVPs): the special quality and offer that sets you apart from competitors. Your pillar pages should highlight these UVPs for a competitive edge, too. This creates information gain.

Information gain is what SEO software Clearscope founder Bernard Huang describes as “fringe information just outside of Google’s knowledge graph given the topic discussed.”

Put simply, it’s the exclusive insider knowledge and industry authority that only you can provide. The most informed, expert figures in a niche introduce relevant concepts that grow and evolve into trends over time.

Not only will information gain help your website content stand out to your audience, but it will also significantly boost organic search rankings, especially with Google’s AI Overviews.

Here are some ideas for pillar page information gain:

• Discussing current industry trends and expert predictions
• Quotes from your staff and industry leaders
• Insights on customer data, stats, and project analysis
• Purchase behavior data and trends

Cox reminds us to avoid fluff content (filler or unnecessary text) and focus more on the “gain” part of information gain:

“It’s not just about giving info to the reader, but about adding value,” says Cox.

“I don’t focus on just adding information for its own sake, but rather on what the reader is looking for and what specific information will help them make a better-informed decision, educate them, or something more.”

5. Leverage existing content

If you already have a solid amount of quality content on your site, then the bulk of your work is already done. For example, Cox shares how to create pillar content with your current material:

“Look at the existing content you have, such as a handful of articles on various social media tactics and platforms, then create an overarching pillar page that internally links to all of those and touches on each subtopic at a high level,” she says.

This is where the real magic of pillar pages comes in, as they can breathe new life into old content. You can rekindle the interest in older posts and articles by adding them to a new content cluster.

Just don’t forget to review and update these posts first to make sure they’re current.

When you identify possibilities to revamp existing content during your next content audit, also consider which pages can form part of a topic cluster.

6. Optimize your pillar pages

You might have a stellar pillar page, but without a detailed search engine optimization (SEO) plan, people won’t find it — unless you count Google’s crawlers, who will likely place your page at the bottom of the SERP. (We don’t want that.)

Get your pillar page on your audience’s radar with these SEO tips:

• Include internal links to cluster content pages
• Add strategic calls to action (CTAs) that link to your service landing pages
• Link back to your pillar page from cluster pages
• Source backlinks for relevant industry authorities and news sources
• Add visuals and examples to improve UX
• Prioritize flawless user experience with organized headings and an easy-to-read page flow
• Promote your pillar page on your social media channels

Say you follow all these steps; how do you know if your optimization efforts are working?

7. Monitor performance with ConversionIQ

Performance monitoring starts with Google Analytics, which shows you key website specs like organic traffic and rankings. These tell you how much your pillar pages resonate with your audience and Google.

Our recommendation? Conduct a quarterly audit to assess pillar page performance, but you should understand performance in the context of the rest of your marketing strategy.

Our proprietary tech, ConversionIQ, offers a filterable dashboard view of your performance metrics with revenue attribution for actionable insights.

Pillar page? Complete. SEO rankings? Coming soon.

4 ways pillar pages support SEO

Gone are the days when search engines looked solely for keywords to determine a webpage’s rankings. Today, they also recognize synonyms, aligned phrases, subtopics, and answers to frequent questions that people have when researching your industry.

Meaning? Strong pillar pages tell search engines that your website has credible and relevant content.

Here are a few more ways pillar pages support SEO:

1. Build topical authority with E-E-A-T guidelines
2. Increase web traffic
3. Improve the user experience (UX)
4. Enhance site architecture with an internal linking strategy

1. Build topical authority with E-E-A-T guidelines

Google’s gotta eat, and when we say eat we mean, E-E-A-T:

• Expertise
• Experience
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

If you produce pillar pages with information gain that provide helpful information for your audience, you demonstrate E-E-A-T principles. This satiates Google’s appetite for excellent content and deems your content worthy of higher rankings.

Plus, the easy-to-browse content structure of pillar pages makes your website more trustworthy, bringing it closer to the top of the SERP.

2. Increase web traffic

Google’s crawlers love a well-structured pillar page, and they’ll rank you accordingly. The biggest benefit? More web traffic.

For example, SEO giant Moz found that their pillar pages generated 4 times the amount of traffic than their regular blog pages.

This is likely because pillar pages target broad, less specific keywords with much higher search volumes, which helps get more eyes on your page.

We see this as a perfect positive feedback loop. Strong pillar pages attract more web traffic, and this higher traffic bumps SEO rankings. Why? Because Google considers traffic a key ranking factor.

3. Improve the user experience (UX)

Google emphasizes a strong UX in its ranking factors, and pillar pages give you ample opportunity to create a seamless browsing experience.

Pillar pages offer high-level info about a subject, with links to other related topics.

This comprehensive structure makes for a complete and engaging UX, as it guides your audience through the information they seek and directs them to more of what they might find helpful.

Cox elaborates:

“Structuring your content in a pillar page makes it easier for search engine crawler bots to recognize you have organized content that covers a variety of subtopics under a main topic umbrella,” she says.

4. Enhance site architecture with an internal linking strategy

Since pillar pages link to relevant subtopics on your website, they help Google better index and understand your website structure.

Search Engine Journal recommends sticking to three key objectives when linking internally:

• Boost authority to the website domain for key search terms that the related pages target
• Provide relevancy for top- and middle-of-funnel search terms
• Serve as supplemental educational resources that inspire browsers to choose your solution.

Pillar pages generally focus on broad, top-of-funnel content that attracts a wide audience. (Image: Unsplash)

Cox says internal linking, strong user experience, topical authority, and solid structure work harmoniously for a winning SEO strategy:

“All of those elements naturally lend themselves to more traffic and, ideally, conversions once you’ve illustrated that you’re clearly a trusted authority on the subject at hand,” explains Cox.

What does it look like when you bring it all together?

Pillar page examples

Curious to see these pillar page tips in action? Keep reading for some of our favorite pillar page examples for inspiration.

HawkSEM’s SEO pillar page

Here’s a pillar page example with high rankings from our own blog. This is HawkSEM’s SEO pillar page:

Image: HawkSEM SEO pillar page

This page contains introductory content on SEO. However, since SEO is a vast umbrella subject, we also included links to more specific topics, such as explainers on SEO audits, competitor analysis, technical SEO, and Google’s algorithms.

Why did Cox launch this high-ranking pillar page?

“We implemented pillar pages after we already had dozens of published industry articles,” Cox says. “Adding the pillar pages allowed us to increase optimization and make it easier for searchers to find the info they were looking for, as well as additional info they might be interested in.”

HubSpot’s social media marketing pillar page

Marketing experts at HubSpot hit a home run with this social media pillar page:

(Image: HubSpot, Social Media Marketing: The Ultimate Guide)

Scroll through and you’ll find an easily digestible, logical flow of everything you need to know about social media marketing.

But what makes this pillar page particularly effective? Cox shares the main highlights:

• Appealing visuals up top
• Strong CTA
• Embedded videos

“Organized chapters help the reader easily scroll through to find the niche articles most relevant to them,” explains Cox.

Above, you’ll see some of Cox’s highlights within just one section of the page: Embedded YouTube video for extra insights, and a CTA that leads readers straight to HubSpot’s services.

Asana’s Project Management pillar page

Asana is a leading project management software with an active content marketing blog. Here’s an example of one of their best pillar pages:

(Image: Asana, What is Project Management?)

This pillar page shows serious expertise in the topic, with internally made infographics to add engagement, numbered steps, and images from the platform.

We also see coverage of niche subtopics and organized internal linking to more details for each type of project management model:

To sum up, Asana’s pillar page fits the bill with easy links to cluster content, engaging visuals, product demonstrations, and an undeniable expertise demonstrated throughout the article.

Pillar pages and PPC

PPC (pay-per-click) is a digital marketing strategy that places your content higher on the search results for a higher price. Along with gaining more visibility on the SERPs, pillar pages can also strengthen paid search marketing. That’s because a well-organized content structure can help raise your Quality Score.

Once you’ve created a thorough pillar page, you can launch a paid search campaign to support it.

Ideally, this will increase the page’s traffic, build brand awareness, and inspire visitors to click around your site to learn more. Just ask one of our PPC experts about how to get started with PPC.

The takeaway

Pillar pages are the cornerstone of your entire content ecosystem. They demonstrate topical authority, provide a logical flow of information, and deliver credible insights into your business and industry.

But we won’t lie — pillar page content creation takes time, research, and continuous oversight to execute properly. And if you don’t cover all your bases or genuinely offer enough additional value? Google could demote your page in the SERP.

You don’t want that and neither do we; which is why our expert SEO strategists are here to help.

Our clients all share three things in common: a dedicated SEO account manager, extra time in their day with offloaded marketing tasks, and a whopping average of 4.5X ROI.

Ready to grow a forest of evergreen pillar pages? Get ready for seeds of record-breaking traffic and sky-high conversions to blossom. Let’s talk.

This article has been updated and was originally published in May 2024.

The post What Is a Pillar Page? How to Create One (+ Proven Examples) appeared first on HawkSEM.

If “content is king,” then content optimization is your path to the throne.

Otherwise, even the most captivating content will get lost in the vast kingdom of the internet, unseen by the very audience (and search engines) it seeks to rule.

Zero views and rankings mean lost visibility and revenue — hardly the happily-ever-after you want for your brand.

Keep reading as Caroline Cox, senior content marketing manager at HawkSEM, helps us break down what content optimization is, how to perfect your approach, why it matters, and more.

What is content optimization?

Content optimization is the process of creating and updating content on your website to attract the maximum amount of visibility from your target audience.

The primary tasks involved include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Quality content creation
• Website audits
• Performance monitoring
• Automation

The goal is to make your website more visible on search engines. Do that, and you’ll see more traffic and higher conversions, especially when your content provides helpful solutions for your ideal customers.

To truly give your content wings, you’ll need a well-crafted content optimization plan.

15 tips for a solid content optimization plan

1. Establish clear, measurable goals
2. Define your target audience
3. Target the right keywords
4. Use links to boost credibility
5. Research the competition
6. Create a content style guide
7. Structure content for better readability
8. Maintain a content calendar
9. Publish quality content that covers topics in-depth
10. Optimize content for conversions
11. Fine-tune your site architecture
12. Aim for featured and rich snippets
13. Leverage content optimization tools
14. Stay agile with content marketing trends
15. Leverage on-page optimizations for outdated content

1. Establish clear, measurable goals

Your goals are the framework on which your content marketing strategy is built. They help you evaluate the impact of your content optimization efforts and guide adjustments for peak performance.

They also help you pinpoint the best key performance indicators (KPIs). These are clearly defined metrics that reveal if you’re on track to achieve your goals.

For example, Cox keeps a close eye on content age, performance on search engine results pages (SERP), traffic changes, updates about that topic (like new features, etc.), and the performance of similar top-ranking pieces of content.

KPIs for content optimization

To gauge the performance of your content marketing plan, keep tabs on metrics like:

• Organic traffic: how many visitors find your content via search engine results
• Traffic sources: where visitors come to your website from (i.e., organic search, paid search, direct visits, etc.)
• Keyword rankings: your content’s position for designated search queries
• Conversion rate: the percentage of visitors who completed a desired action (e.g., made a purchase or subscribed to a newsletter) over a specific time
• Bounce rate: the percentage of people who left your site after viewing only one webpage
• Page views: the total number of visits to your site during a given time
• Average time on page: how long visitors stayed on your website
• Backlinks: links on another website that direct visitors back to yours
• Impressions: how many times a piece of content was displayed to audiences on a given platform
• Engagement: how many people interact with your content and for how long
• Click-through rate (CTR): the percentage of people who click on a link to your content

We know, it’s a lot. Curious how we stay on top of it all and optimize to the fullest?

Good news: when you partner with HawkSEM, you get full access to ConversionIQ.

ConversionIQ, our proprietary tech, analyzes data sharply, identifies optimization opportunities, and offers actionable insights to boost return on investment (ROI).

2. Define your target audience

Your audience is the cornerstone of your content marketing strategy. After all, you can’t create effective content without knowing who you’re making it for, right?

For example, HawkSEM’s target audience mainly consists of marketers and business owners looking for informative, educational marketing content or support from an industry-leading marketing agency to amp up their campaigns.

Hello, you.

So, how do you figure out who your brand is talking to?

• Use Google Analytics for demographic details (age, gender, location, etc.)
• Consider your ideal customers’ interests, hobbies, values, attitudes, lifestyles
• Analyze your current customers’ purchase habits and brand interactions
• Peep your social analytics to see who engages with your content the most
• Study your best and worst-performing content to understand what resonates best
• Create buyer personas and ideal customer profiles (ICPs)

Get clear on your target audience, and you can curate content that hits the mark every time.

Pro tip: Streamline the process and cover all bases with our expert ideal client persona templates.

3. Target the right keywords

The right keywords match what your target audience types into search engines. The better these terms align with their queries, the more likely your content will reach them.

Keyword research

To home in on these terms, you’ll have to do some keyword research. To start:

• Pinpoint your position on the SERP with Google Search Console and see which keywords you currently rank for.
• Think of broad topics or search terms that relate most to your brand offerings (e.g., if you’re a CPA, you might think of “bookkeeping services” or “accounting firm”). These have high traffic potential but more competition, too.
• Now, get more specific. Think of what your ideal customer might type into a Google search (for example, “small business tax planning near me” or “virtual CFO services”). Then, consider long-tail phrases, like “Who is the best person to get tax advice from?” While these related keywords have less competition and search volume, they’re more targeted, meaning you have a better chance of reaching more qualified leads.
• Finally, size up your rivals. What keywords do other brands in your niche rank for? Are they worth investing in, or are there other keyword opportunities you should capitalize on?

Pro tip: Leverage keyword research tools like Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner to streamline keyword research.

Keyword use

Once you’ve got your target keywords, it’s time to sprinkle them into your content.

Here’s where you’ll want to plug them in:

• Website (and social media) copywriting
• Headings and subheadings (H1s, H2s, etc.)
• Title tags, alt tags, and meta descriptions
• Alt text for images
• File names (for images and other media)
• Page URL
• Anchor text for internal and external links (more on these later)
• Calls to action (CTAs)

But don’t try to pull a fast one and overload your content with keywords. This is known as keyword stuffing.

While it seems like a sneaky way to manipulate higher rankings, Cox warns the algorithm bots consider it a major faux pas.

In fact, Search Engine Journal says Google could penalize you with lower rankings or remove you from SERPs altogether. Hard pass!

4. Use links to boost credibility

Links in your content show Google that your site is credible. Why? They tell readers, “This backs up my claim” or “Here’s some supporting information.”

When it comes to content links, there are three formats:

1. Internal links distribute authority among your own content. For instance, say our hypothetical CPA from earlier writes an article about filing taxes as newlyweds. They might link to another article on their blog on ways to invest your federal income tax return.
2. External links add value to your content by linking to other websites, like trusted sources, thought leaders, or supplemental content that supports your own. Why would you want to direct readers away from your site? So, Google knows your content is trustworthy and links to valuable information, even if it’s not your own.
3. Backlinks are when other websites link to yours in their content to support or add more value to the subject matter of what they’re covering. The more authoritative the source of your backlinks, the more Google trusts your content.

Take our client DesktopReady, a DaaS management platform. Their new site triggered a slump in organic traffic despite boasting millions of customers.

We swooped in to reoptimize old and new content, target relevant keywords, conduct link building, and revamp their off-site SEO. The move paid off with 409% more users.

Building backlinks

So, how do you find opportunities for backlinking? According to Ahrefs, you can:

• Manually add links to other sites (e.g., social profile creation, business directory submissions, review listings, online forums, etc.)
• Ask for backlinks through outreach (e.g., guest blogs, influencer collabs, PR, local partnerships, etc.)
• Buy backlinks from website owners (but be warned, Google’s not a fan of SERP-manipulating tactics like this)
• Earn backlinks by publishing original research, building genuine connections with other thought leaders, and creating truly helpful content that other brands want to link to (the ideal way to garner backlinks)

5. Research the competition

Content optimization tends to follow a similar playbook across different industries. The key differentiating factor? The competitive climate within each industry sets them apart, says Cox.

“For example, HawkSEM’s industry is digital marketing, and there are a lot of agencies out there,” she explains. “So we have to be diligent about creating a lot of content that’s informative, high quality, follows best practices, and makes us stand out.”

That’s precisely why we kick off every new partnership with an in-depth competitor analysis to tell us where your business ranks against top rivals.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Identify your competitors
• Analyze their content
• Check their SEO strategies
• Note how often they publish/update content
• Study their site structure
• Review their activity and presence on social media
• Look for areas they haven’t covered and weak points in their content
• Track their content performance over time

After you gather these insights, put them into action. Capitalize on your competitors’ weak spots, fill in the gaps, and leave ‘em playing catch-up in the SERP.

6. Create a content style guide

Consistency in style and voice across your content forms a recognizable brand identity. This builds trust and clarity for your audience. Without it, you risk confusing your readers with disjointed messaging. Cue the bounce rates.

One way to dodge this pitfall? Establish a detailed content style guide to steer all your content creation efforts. Share it with your team so all your content is in sync.

Your style guide should include:

• Your brand voice and persona
• Audience insights
• Language and grammar
• Formatting guidelines
• Images and multimedia
• Templates and examples
• Handling of sensitive topics
• SEO content guidelines

7. Structure content for better readability

Ever click a blog post only to be greeted by endless walls of text? They tire your eyes so quickly, you close the tab faster than Apple’s iPhone drops. That’s because how you structure your content also matters.

And it’s not just your audience who you might turn away, but search engines, too.

A while back, Google claimed they don’t use readability scores as a ranking factor.

However, they do rank based on how people interact with your content. Content that’s easily digestible and understandable can encourage positive engagement, which in turn can boost SEO indirectly.

To make sure your content is easy on the eyes, incorporate:

• Simple, digestible language (avoid complex jargon)
• Headings, subheadings, and bulleted lists
• Short sentences and paragraphs
• Supporting visuals (photos, videos, infographics, etc.)
• White space to make content appear less crowded
• Add a clickable Table of Contents for long-form articles
• Accessibility (readable fonts, colors, descriptive alt texts)

8. Maintain a content calendar

Consistently publishing fresh content stimulates audience engagement.

When you serve up interesting material, they’ll spend more time browsing and clicking through your site, as opposed to bouncing over to your competitors.

Consistent content creation also signals to search engines (and social media algorithms) that your brand is active and relevant, which boosts SEO. Plus, the more content you create, the more opportunities for internal linking (and social shares).

Thought-leader status, here you come.

For a steady flow of fresh, optimized content, create (and stick to) a content marketing calendar that encompasses:

• Writers and editors
• Revision and publish dates
• Themes and topics
• Relevant keywords
• Title tag and meta tags
• Audience and search intent
• Supporting internal/external links
• Format and length
• Periodic audits
• Revamps

…and anything else that helps you keep the content train rolling.

9. Publish quality content that covers topics in-depth

Okay, so you’ve got some good copy and just the right mix of SEO. Yet, your rankings are still in the dumps. What gives?

Google favors content that’s “helpful, reliable, and people-first.” In other words, if your content fails to offer REAL value and cater to your audience’s search intent (over just SEO), it could struggle to climb up the SERP.

And Google doesn’t just rely on AI or machine learning algorithms to spot low-quality content; it has a team of search quality raters, aka real people whose sole job is to snuff it out.

If you want to create content that’s truly helpful and audience-centric:

• Understand your target audience’s needs
• Prioritize their search intent and experience
• Incorporate quotes from authority figures and trusted sources
• Follow Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines (like E-E-A-T, which we’ll highlight below, and Your Money Your Life, or YMYL)
• Update your content regularly
• Monitor and adapt to audience feedback

You also want to make sure you’re tackling each subject in-depth. When you discuss a topic, look at the SERP to see which articles are ranking well, then look at the outlines of those articles.

Ensure you cover the key points, but also look for opportunities to add your unique spin or any expertise you don’t find on the SERP that’s still valuable.

If Google likes the way you answer search intent, you might even win the featured snippet on top of other organic results (more on snippets later).

10. Optimize content for conversions

While your content should be valuable and SEO-friendly, it should also keep conversions in mind.

Here are a few tips to keep your content conversion-centric without diminishing quality:

• Target high-potential keywords more likely to lead to revenue
• Show your offerings in action (videos, photos, social proof)
• Link your value propositions to audiences’ pain points
• Share unique insights and quotes from trusted subject matter experts
• Offer something in exchange for a desired action (free ebook, trial, etc.)
• Use a strong, persuasive call to action (CTA)

Further reading: These are just a few of the strategies HawkSEM executed to drive 250% more conversions for our client Wyndham Capital Mortgage. Check out the full case study.

11. Fine-tune your site architecture

We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: amazing, top-tier SEO and content are a bust if your site isn’t technically sound and easy to navigate.

Not only does this diminish your audience’s user experience (UX), but it also hampers your search engine rankings.

This is where technical SEO really gets put to work.

Technical SEO aims to boost search engine rankings through the foundational elements of your website, like loading speed, mobile-friendliness, website security, and so on.

Keep your site structure user- and search engine-friendly with the following practices:

• Implement schema markup
• Use clear, descriptive URLs
• Test your page speed
• Fix or remove broken links
• Use canonical tags (to address duplicate content issues)

12. Aim for featured and rich snippets

When people search for answers, it often leads to more questions. As they scroll through the SERP results, they find related FAQs and will likely click on a few.

Those are featured snippets, and they’re Google’s way of saying it fancies your content (and data structure).

To earn this oh-so-treasured shortcut to your content, you’ll need to check a few boxes:

• Answer search intent better than your competitors
• Use headings and subheadings strategically
• Apply schema markup to your content

Pro tip: check out our guide on how to master SERP features.

Then, there are rich snippets (or rich results), which are organic search results with additional context. These are much less elusive to achieve than featured snippets, as Google pulls these details from your webpage’s HTML.

Since rich snippets serve up more information to searchers, they tend to garner more clicks than typical search listings. The structured data code you use for these also helps Google better understand your content.

To have your content show up as rich snippets:

• Choose a corresponding rich snippet type (such as events, reviews, product markup, etc.)
• Create and add structured data markup code to your web pages (Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to guide you)
• Make sure your structured data is up to par (Use Google’s Rich Results Testing tool to spot potential bugs)

Now, for some tools to keep in your content arsenal.

13. Leverage content optimization tools

There’s an old adage that says a person is only as good as their tools; marketers are no exception.

With the right tools, you streamline the content optimization process, stay organized, and avoid leaving openings for competitors.

Here are a few of our favorites:

• Workflow management: Asana, ClickUp, Trello
• Content ideation: Portent Idea Generator, AnswerThePublic, ChatGPT
• Optimized content writing: SurferSEO or Clearscope
• Proofreading and edits: Grammarly, Hemingway, Copyscape
• Visuals: Canva, Adobe Spark, Pexels
• Audience insights: Google Analytics 4, SurveyMonkey, Hotjar
• Social media: HootSuite or SproutSocial
• Site speed: Pingdom Website Speed Test or Google PageSpeed Insights
• For 360-degree data and actionable insights: ConversionIQ

Tools? Locked and loaded. Your final lesson: always be ready to pivot.

14. Stay agile with content marketing trends

Optimizing content is an ongoing journey, and truth be told, it never ends. Trends, algorithms, machine learning, and audience preferences are constantly evolving.

Meaning? Your strategy must stay nimble and adaptive to keep up with whatever’s on the horizon.

As for what that is, Cox says to trust your instincts.

“It’s tempting to be concerned or unsure of how to proceed from a content standpoint,” she says.

“However, I think content marketers should trust in their abilities, keep an eye on the changing landscape, and see how these platforms can enhance or benefit them without removing the core of what makes good content.”

After all, at its core, the best content is “high-quality information explained in a way that keeps readers top of mind,” says Cox.

But if you lean too heavily on AI-generated content or neglect your audience’s preferences, Cox cautions you to think twice.

“You could find yourself trailing behind those who kept quality and the human touch at the forefront,” she says.

So, how do you keep an ear to the ground on what’s ahead?

• Subscribe to content marketing leaders’ and experts’ newsletters, podcasts, or videos
• Analyze your data (and the market) regularly to see what works and what doesn’t
• Continue to learn about content marketing strategies and tools through online publications, blogs, webinars, or conferences
• Network with other content marketers in forums, events, and social media groups
• Experiment with new content formats and channels to see what resonates with customers best
• Keep an eye on social media for trending topics and discussions
• Prioritize your audience, solicit their feedback, and truly understand their evolving needs

15. Leverage on-page optimizations for outdated content

Any content pro will tell you that you gotta keep it fresh.

On-page optimization strategies are aimed at improving the ranking potential, usability, and relevance of content that may have become less effective over time.

There are lots of techniques you can use to achieve this. Here are a few of our favorites:

Refresh content

This involves reviewing and refreshing any information that may be outdated. Keeping info current, fixing broken links or errors, and expanding on existing content all do wonders for SEO and can help boost your rank.

Enhance user experience

When people are searching for information, they want it to be digestible and easy to read. You can enhance the user experience on your site by:

• Breaking up long paragraphs
• Using bullet points and subheadings
• Update (or add) videos, infographics, and high-quality images
• Ensure content is mobile-friendly and the design is responsive

Repurpose content

Translate content into different formats, such as turning a blog post into a video, infographic, or even a podcast.

SEO improvements

We’ve mentioned that refreshing content does wonders for SEO. Here are a few other tweaks you can make to your on-page SEO to help boost rankings:

• Reassess and include relevant keywords that align with current search trends
• Add links to newer content on your site. (This helps create a network of related landing pages that also improves site structure)
• Update title tags, meta tags, and headers to reflect revised content and keywords
• Be sure to update or add new outbound links that provide additional context and authority

Interactions and engagements

You’re probably already promoting your posts on social media – you also gotta engage.

Try interacting with user comments and feedback and updating content to address any common questions.

Why you need content optimization

At the end of the day, content optimization has one overarching goal: to drive more quality traffic to your brand. And with this level of competition, you need every advantage you can get.

Here’s what you can expect when you take a strategic approach to your content:

Soaring search engine rankings

Relevant keywords, optimized copy, and structured formats encourage search engines to prioritize your content over others. How else do you think we scored Escape the Room an all-time-high account-wide ad position of 1.1?

A surge in organic traffic

When you’re higher on the SERP, you get more eyeballs on your content, which naturally segues into more traffic from searchers on the hunt for offerings like yours.

Better audience engagement

Well-optimized content doesn’t just satisfy search engines; it prioritizes your target audience’s needs. Since it’s relevant and engaging, visitors stick around for longer.

Higher conversion rates

When you align your content to search intent and make it easily accessible and actionable, you pave the way for conversion-ready audiences.

More authority in your niche

High-quality, optimized content positions your brand as a leader, building trust and significantly shaping audiences’ buying behaviors.

That said, there are some pitfalls you’ll want to dodge along the way.

Mistakes to avoid in content optimization

Content optimization can come with a bit of a learning curve. While the benefits of getting it right are huge, one wrong move can land you on the wrong end of the SERP (or push you off them entirely).

According to Cox, the most common mistakes she comes across are:

• Technical SEO that falls short
• Dense competition for a specific keyword (aka terms with a high keyword difficulty)
• Broken links
• Bad, low-quality images
• Keyword stuffing

But if you’re struggling to nail optimization, Cox has some advice.

“Research and understand SEO best practices, create a well-rounded plan, and use a checklist to create and publish content, making sure you’ve done all you can to rank,” she says.

The takeaway

Every business wants to land as high as possible on the first page of the SERPs. With these content optimization tips and tunnel vision for your target audience’s needs, you’re well on your way.

Got enough marketing tasks on your plate?

Crafting a flawless content optimization plan can be daunting.

When you partner with HawkSEM, you gain the support of a team that ranks among the top 3% in the country.

Our award-winning content marketers intuitively understand the intricacies of your business to create content that resonates with your audience and search engines.

It’s time to reclaim the crown — transform your content strategy with HawkSEM.

Free checklist:

This post has been updated and was originally published in April 2024.

The post How to Conduct Content Optimization (15 Proven Tips + Checklist) appeared first on HawkSEM.

A full-funnel content strategy gives your target audience the information, topics, formats, and value they need at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

We chatted with Samantha Ridgway, senior SEO manager at HawkSEM, about how to build a supercharged full-funnel content strategy.

We’ll break down the elements we used to boost our clients’ content, like when we revamped our medical client Happy Ears Hearing Center’s landing page for a better user experience.

The results: a 44% increase in local conversions and a 396% boost in organic traffic.

What is a full-funnel content strategy?

A full-funnel content strategy is a marketing method that involves creating content for every stage of the customer funnel (also known as the buyer’s journey):

• Top of the funnel (ToFu): Early stages of awareness
• Middle of the funnel (MoFu): Consideration
• Bottom of the funnel (BoFu): Evaluation

Within your target audience are smaller audiences of potential customers, and creating content that addresses the needs of each stage helps them advance through the sales funnel.

The 5 stages of customer awareness

A more comprehensive way to view the marketing funnel is through the five stages of customer awareness:

• Unaware – The person who doesn’t realize they have a problem
• Problem aware – The person who knows they have a problem, but has a lot of questions
• Solution aware – The person who knows they have a problem and has an idea of potential solutions, but is still in the research stage
• Product aware – The person who knows they have a problem and understands the solutions available — including yours
• Most aware – The person who knows your brand and thinks your product is the right match, but needs a final push to convert

Using the five stages of customer awareness to inform your content strategy is essential to addressing your audience’s specific needs at each point of their journey.

How to build a full-funnel content strategy: 5 steps

Let’s break down the 5-step full-funnel approach we use to supercharge conversions for our clients:

1. Understand your audience
2. Consider your unique business landscape in the funnel
3. Choose the right marketing channels
4. Create content for every stage of the funnel
5. Measure performance with the right metrics

1. Understand your audience

Ready to create content? Not so fast. Before you think about posting that Instagram Reel, first understand your audience and where they are in the buyer’s journey.

Keyword research is your first step to gauging that intel.

This helps you see the search terms typed into Google, and which ones demonstrate different audience intent (the motivation behind every search query, such as knowledge-seeking, brand-specific information, or the urge to buy a product).

The right tools and tactics will take you even further. Ridgway shares her go-to tools and tactics below.

Google Analytics

Wondering who’s visiting your website? Ridgway says Google Analytics (GA) tells you that and then some.

“[You can] gather insights into user behavior on your website such as traffic sources, user demographics, and popular pages,” she shares.

HawkSEM has another tech tool up its sleeve that acts as the perfect complement to GA’s insights.

ConversionIQ

ConversionIQ is HawkSEM’s unique performance analysis system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to collect, interpret, and display data into actionable insights.

The key benefit?

“Using data visualization tools such as HawkSEM’s ConversionIQ dashboard aids in streamlining data analysis,” explains Ridgway.

“Its analytics tracking can analyze conversion goals and the flow of users through different stages of the conversion funnel, and will help map users back to bottom-funnel intent.”

Curious to see that flow for yourself in real-time? There’s a tool for that, too.

Heat maps and visitor session recordings

Heat maps show you play-by-plays of your audience interacting with your website. They share cursor movements, clicks, and how long it takes for a web visitor to navigate to a new page or bounce off your website.

You can learn a lot about your audience and their marketing funnel stage with session recordings to watch your audience’s journey.

“Heat maps and user session recording tools such as Microsoft Clarity or Hotjar allow SEOs to analyze how users interact with a website and provide insights into user engagement and where users are in the content marketing funnel, depending on what parts of a page they are most often interacting with,” says Ridgway.

Here’s an example: Say you notice your audience signs up for your newsletter more often on a blog page than through your contact form. This indicates that they’re curious about you, but not quite ready to buy.

Sounds like a top-funnel audience, in which case you could target them with blog posts, social media content, and engaging video content (more on that later).

2. Consider your unique business landscape in the funnel

At HawkSEM, we deliver an average of 4.5X ROI for our clients. This includes brands big and small, across various industries and business models like B2B/B2C, ecommerce, SaaS, finance, education, and much more.

One ingredient in that recipe for success is our keen attention to brand factors that affect the customer journey, such as a brand’s business size, industry, and niche.

“Another piece to consider is the size of investment users are making in a product,” Ridgway explains.

For example, the mom shopping for a new pair of jeans usually has a more straightforward customer journey than the fintech exec looking for a project management SaaS solution.

Ridgway shares considerations for your brand’s customer journey:

Business size: small business vs. enterprise

Where does business size come into play? Can small and large businesses market in the same fashion? Not exactly, says Ridgway.

Small business marketing (SBM) should focus on building awareness through local SEO, like Google Business Profile map listings, word-of-mouth, and social media.

Larger corporations have heftier budgets to invest in industry events and third-party ad placements that build tons of awareness.

However, Ridgway says there’s more involved at this scale:

“Decision-making processes are also more intricate, involving multiple stakeholders, and thorough evaluation of features of services,” explains Ridgway.

Local businesses will likely have more success with grassroots efforts that make an impact using accessible resources, while large businesses can build major brand awareness from web content and branded events.

Business industry example: SaaS vs. ecommerce

Ridgway says SaaS audiences take a lot more time in the consideration stage before making a purchase.

To put things into perspective, an ecommerce business could convert an audience within weeks or even days, while SaaS brands might need a few more months.

Why? SaaS investments are longer-term commitments. Ridgway explains:

“The consideration stage for SaaS is often long due to the complexity of the product and the fact that users need more nurturing to understand features, compare options, and evaluate if the product is compatible [with] their business,” she says.

Here are a few content ideas for SaaS brands to build trust with their audience so they can feel comfortable subscribing :

• Webinars
• IT team meetings
• In-depth evaluations
• Free trials
• Case studies
• Competitor reviews and comparisons

On the other hand, Ridgway says ecommerce audiences don’t need as much time to make a purchase decision about a product:

“Prospective customers can quickly assess product features, prices, and reviews, making the consideration phase much shorter,” says Ridgway.

“Converting is much simpler for ecommerce, as customers make individual purchases based on immediate needs.”

Ecommerce brands can focus on product visibility via:

• High-quality product pages
• User-generated content
• Social media content and engagement

Your niche and business model also influence where to find your audience.

3. Choose the right marketing channels for your business

You can have the best brand messaging strategy on the planet, but it won’t manifest into conversions if your audience doesn’t see it.

That’s why your full-funnel strategy needs to clearly outline the marketing channels you’ll use for every stage of the customer journey.

For example, LinkedIn is an ideal top-funnel channel for SaaS brands. Why? B2B tech audiences love reading LinkedIn listicles and success stories.

Similarly, Google Shopping Ads are a great bottom-funnel channel for ecommerce brands to push that sale.

Not sure which channels your audience loves most? Do a little digging:

• Monitor the competition: Where do the most successful competitors post their content?
• Send out a survey: You might add a quick 1-2 minute survey to the purchase page or follow-up email to your customers to learn about their social media preferences.

Once you figure out where your audience is?

4. Create content for every stage of the funnel

We explored an initial example of mortgage content for all stages of the marketing funnel. How can you adapt this blueprint to your business?

Now that you know how your audience’s needs evolve through the funnel, you can simply fill your content calendar with ideas for each phase.

Of course, the actual content will look unique to each brand to account for their market and audience. However, the types of content can easily be adapted to every industry.

Types of content for each stage of the marketing funnel

Here’s a full-funnel content strategy checklist to get your creative juices flowing:

ToFu content types

• Blog posts
• Social media posts and updates
• Infographics
• Photographs
• Audio and video podcasts
• Email marketing newsletter
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Webpages

MoFu content types

• Educational resources
• Quizzes
• Pillar pages
• Surveys
• Discounts and special offers
• Downloads
• Webinars
• Events

BoFu content types

• Customer testimonials
• Case studies
• Product specs
• Comparisons with competitors
• Demos and consultations

5. Measure performance with the right metrics

You just invested sizable funds into a social media ads campaign to market your new product.

How do you know if your money’s well spent? And how do you determine when to shift your strategy?

Ridgway shares important key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to assess performance at each funnel stage:

Top-funnel performance metrics

Top-funnel content aims to build awareness. So, how can you tell whether your audience knows you exist? These metrics will fill you in:

• Organic traffic (people navigating to your website from Google)
• Impressions (people who view, like, comment, and share your content)
• Business interactions (the number of interactions with your Google Business Profile listing if you’re a local business or have brick-and-mortar locations)

Mid-funnel performance metrics

The key to successful MoFu content is engagement. In other words, you want to feel and hear the buzz.

Does your audience like your content? Do they spend time digesting it, and if they do, how long do they stay?

Here’s Ridgway’s list of MoFu metrics to keep tabs on:

• Time spent on page
• Page views
• CTR
• Social media impressions

Bottom-funnel performance metrics

Bottom line (pun intended): if your BoFu content isn’t converting, it isn’t working.

You could see skyrocketed clicks and traffic from your ToFu and MoFu content, but they need to lead to conversions to be worthwhile investments.

Here are the most important metrics to track:

• Conversion rate
• Lead or conversion generation
• Product page views

Pro tip: Get an award-winning agency like HawkSEM to be your final layer of security on BoFu content. Think of it as insurance for all your marketing initiatives; plus, wouldn’t it feel great to achieve a 4.5X ROI (our client average)?

The stages of a full-funnel content strategy

Here’s what the content at each funnel stage entails:

• Top-of-the-funnel content entertains, educates, and builds awareness
• Middle-of-the-funnel content builds trust and encourages consideration
• Bottom-of-the-funnel content converts and seals the deal

Ridgway says no matter your industry, all customers follow the buyer’s journey:

“Users follow the same general path from awareness of a brand to considering the brand among others, to ultimately converting or even repurchasing products or services as they evangelize a company, making it their go-to-brand and the one that they’d recommend to peers, friends, or family,” she says.

Let’s look a little closer into each stop along that path to conversion.

Top-of-the-funnel content

Top-of-funnel audiences are curious about your industry but not quite as familiar (sometimes not familiar at all) with your brand.

This means you don’t want to market your products too aggressively because you still need to build credibility with these prospective new customers.

Ridgway puts us into the top-funnel mindset:

“When someone is first aware that they may be interested in a product or service, they’re generally looking for education about what a product or company is,” explains Ridgway.

Content for this stage of the funnel is informative yet entertaining, encompassing blog posts, video content on social media platforms, and podcasts. It builds brand awareness and plants the seed for audiences to see you as the solution to their problems.

Suppose someone is looking to buy their first home. They might type keyword phrases into Google like “What is an FHA loan?” Ridgway says this audience seeks top-funnel education, and a long-form blog post is the perfect way to greet them.

Personal finance brand NerdWallet says hello in the #1 spot on the search engine results page (SERP):

In this example, NerdWallet piques its audience’s interest by providing a list of the best lenders for FHA loans and breaking down all the pertinent details involved with the loan that the searcher should know about.

But how do they keep them hooked?

Middle-of-the-funnel content

Middle-of-the-funnel audiences are familiar with your brand, but you’re still building trust with them in order for them to make a purchase.

Ridgway says middle-funnel content addresses customers moving from the awareness stage to the consideration stage:

“The user may make searches such as ‘What is the best home lender for FHA loans?,’ ‘FHA loan vs USDA loan,’ or ‘how much home can I afford?’” says Ridgway. “This clearly indicates that the user has intent to make a home purchase, but [is] evaluating all their options.”

So, how do you get them to decide your brand is the answer? Ridgway says to use engaging content ideas:

• Interactive assets (like surveys and quizzes)
• Comparison content (like charts and infographics)
• Useful resources (like loan calculators)

NerdWallet delivers another informative blog post coupled with a useful loan calculator:

Handy, right?

Remember, middle-funnel content can leverage both paid and SEO strategies. Ridgway shares how:

“Target keywords that have modifiers such as ‘best’ with paid media,” recommends Ridgway.

“It can be hard to rank for these terms through SEO content alone, as high-authority aggregator (data-collecting) websites often dominate the space.”

In this case, NerdWallet maintains prime SERP space in the mortgage content niche with its bulletproof SEO strategy. Still, brands like Best Fund and NerdWallet come out on top with Ridgway’s strategy:

So what should you do if SEO rankings feel too out of reach in a competitive niche?

“Bid on these terms with the goal of showing up in Google via paid ads,” says Ridgway.

Meaning? If you can’t win out of the gates organically, paying to play can get you prime real estate with optimal visibility as you build up credibility with awareness content.

Bottom-of-the-funnel content

Bottom-of-the-funnel audiences are ready to purchase a solution for their challenges (AKA their pain points). Ridgway says these are the audiences actively looking to take action with your product or service.

What are the signs they’re ready to convert?

“They are searching with transactional intent,” explains Ridgway. “In the example of a home lender, searching for ‘Application for Insert Brand Name Home Loan’ is a clear indication that the user is looking to get a mortgage quote.”

But you want to make it easy for them to convert, which is where Ridgway says conversion rate optimization (CRO) steps up to bat:

“Elements like a clear call-to-action (CTA), simplified forms, exit-intent popups, trust badges, social proof, and more come into play,” she says.

Rocket Mortgage does so with a clear pathway right in the SERP via a link to “Apply Online Today”:

And once you click the link? They continue the process, guiding the conversion-ripe lead to their final destination of the funnel:

Why you need a full-funnel marketing strategy

Google shared that brands with upper- and lower-funnel content through Google Ads garnered 52% more incremental sales than those who solely rely on middle-funnel content.

But perhaps the most compelling argument for a full-funnel marketing strategy comes from our very own client success stories:

HawkSEM finance client New City Financial (NCF) wasn’t sure where their audience was in the funnel. So we kept tabs on all their customer interactions across all channels and collected valuable data to understand the buyer’s journey better.

With this knowledge, we went to work on new marketing tactics for each stage that led to a 6X conversion rate.

Let’s look at one last example to make the case for full-funnel marketing.

How does a tripled lead volume sound? That’s what we achieved for Nava Health when we dove deeper into lead form submissions and offline conversions (appointment visits) to understand their customer funnel.

Want to level up your brand in the same way? A full-funnel strategy is your ticket.

The takeaway

Just like you can’t drive a car without fuel or power, you can’t drive conversions without a full-funnel content marketing strategy.

Simply put, it’s the best way to give your audience multiple touchpoints to interact with your brand wherever they are in their customer journey.

But audience research and analysis, endless pieces of content creation, and constant performance tracking can eat up weeks of your time.

Plus, if your content doesn’t bring you the conversions you’re after, you could waste precious marketing funds. Cue the groans of frustration.

A better solution? Leave your full-funnel content strategy to the pros. Our dedicated SEO and PPC strategists work tirelessly to ensure your content meets new customers and existing customers at every funnel stage.

We’ll speed up the audience research process, and leverage decades of expertise and advanced marketing tech, all while delivering engaging, unique content your audiences will devour.

Ready to convert potential customers into paying customers? Let’s talk.

This post has been updated and was originally published in February 2024.

The post 5 Easy Steps to Build a Full-Funnel Content Strategy appeared first on HawkSEM.

We’ve spent years fine-tuning content marketing strategies for clients — and, of course, those efforts extend to marketing our own business effectively as well. One of the key ways we do that is through strategic SEO and content marketing.

It’s how we’ve been able to reach 40,000 monthly visitors to our blog articles on all things digital marketing, from 101 posts to nitty-gritty technical guides.

First things first, the analytics:

We love a performance graph that goes up and to the right, don’t we, folks?

Clients often ask us how long SEO takes to work. And while we always respond that it’s a long game, every now and then you’ll get a quick win.

(One of our wildest victories was getting the #1 spot for the query “ppc case studies” within mere hours of publishing a brand new article on the topic.)

While two hours isn’t the norm, we can’t say it’s impossible. But we’re not about gatekeeping here, so we’re sharing our secrets to success below.

Quick summary of results:

• Doubled organic conversions year over year (YoY)
• Nearly doubled traffic value YoY
• Leveraged more than 40 internal team members as content SMEs (subject matter experts)
• Published more than 450 new or refreshed articles in one year

Content marketing — good content marketing, that is — involves near-constant iteration, adaptation, and flexibility to stay on top of the industry’s latest updates while answering important questions and educating your audience.

It’s a tall order, especially if you want to break through the noise to provide high-quality, educational content that really resonates.

So, how did we make it happen and get to 40,000 website visits in the process?

Read on for the inside scoop on the journey, strategy, and execution advice behind how we got it done.

How it started

At the beginning of our content expansion project, we started with a solid foundation of articles on a range of marketing topics we knew the industry was buzzing about.

We pride ourselves on providing content that’s valuable, educational, and relevant. So, our next step was to discover which topics our fellow marketers really wanted to read about.

“Over the years, our team members gathered an insane amount of knowledge from direct experience and ongoing continuing education,” says HawkSEM CEO and co-founder Sam Yadegar. “We felt there was an endless amount of knowledge to share.”

And there’s no better way to do that than by writing thorough, detailed guide articles on the challenges marketers see every day. It was time to scale and share our knowledge with the world.

We adjusted our content strategy by interviewing subject matter experts with a focus on the questions our clients were asking every day.

After polling our team of digital marketing experts and gathering hundreds of topics, we found that giving our articles an educational bent paved the way for more clicks.

Challenges

The goal of “good content” seems simple: you want to rank #1 for as many search terms as you can on as many search engine results pages (SERPs) as possible.

However, as any Google searcher knows, there is a lot of information out there, and Google’s search algorithm is constantly updating to determine which content to highlight.

Because of this, we found that terms we were ranking well for in the past would get pushed down the SERP if they sat for too long without an update.

Our challenge was to balance keeping our high-ranking pieces relevant and useful and adding new, timely content to the digital marketing conversation.

The solution

We pored over our existing library and asked questions like: “What gaps do we have in our content offering?” and “How do we address those gaps in a way that’s relevant and authentic?”

We took a note from our namesake and looked at our blog content from a bird’s eye view, shifting our approach from “Get the #1 spot” to “How do we best educate our readers?”

Great content isn’t created in a vacuum, so we brought in some tools to assist in the content creation process:

• Asana – for project management
• Yoast – a WordPress plugin that helps with search engine optimization
• Clearscope – for competitor analysis and content optimization
• Semrush – for keyword research and gathering SEO data
• Grammarly – Grammar suggestion tool

With the help of these tools (and our own expertise), we solidified our content philosophy, refined our style guide, and developed a publishing game plan to make it all happen.

(Image: HawkSEM)

Our fine-tuned process

Through our content journey, we’ve developed a surefire way to produce first-class content that resonates with readers. Want to know the secret sauce? Here’s a sneak peek into our process.

Strategic topic research

You can’t write a top-notch blog article without knowing what you’re trying to say. With everything digital marketing has going on, choosing timely topics is no easy feat.

We decide what to write about in a couple of different ways:

Data-based content ideas

When in doubt, we look at the numbers.

This method of topic research involves looking at key content metrics such as keyword search volume (KSV), performing competitor analyses, and content audits to determine what users are searching for and what type of content is already out there.

Once we have that data, we have a good idea of which topics to tackle in our own way.

Employee-suggested content ideas

HawkSEM hires only senior-level marketers, and with all that experience comes a wealth of knowledge.

We lean on our teammates’ expertise to highlight topics or questions our account managers hear from clients, and what they experience working on digital marketing platforms day-to-day.

If our managers, prospects, and clients are pondering these topics, then the rest of our audience probably is, too.

A roster of qualified writers

Now we have a wealth of topics to research — but how do you find the writers to cover them?

Our blog is an educational resource, so we wanted to find writers with a demonstrated track record of developing content that explains complex topics in an engaging way.

Of our vetting process, Yadegar says simply, “We looked for experienced writers and gave them the liberty to add in their perspective while taking a journalistic approach to covering a topic.”

Codified content guidelines

This step is crucial (and ever-evolving). Once we homed in on our unique blog format, we had a template and guidelines writers could work off of, along with our own codified content guide.

“We developed a very detailed style guide,” Yadegar says, “going into [all] the nuances of the Hawk voice and how our content should reflect that.”

To build our style guide, we used real conversations we’d had with clients over the years to get a good sense of the tone that resonates most with our audience.

Namely, we aim to educate in a concise, easy-to-digest manner without being boring or taking ourselves too seriously.

The Yoast plugin for WordPress estimates an article’s SEO using red, yellow, and green gradings. (Image: Screenshot)

A plan for regular optimizations

Tons of topics, first-class writers, and a beefed-up style guide. With these tools in our belt, we set out to create a top-notch marketing blog.

But of course, top-ranking digital marketing content is not the type you publish and forget.

After gathering data over the course of a few months, we began to see which pieces were getting clicks and which pieces needed a little more love.

We created a plan that involved regularly updating content that was several months old. We also focused on expanding more general content to add additional updates and nuances as needed.

This dual-pronged approach of revamping old articles and publishing new pieces has allowed our library to catapult us into a position of being industry thought leaders. We’ve also become a go-to source for accurate, up-to-date information on a wide range of marketing topics.

Our results

Through our proven process, we discovered that a holistic approach to creating content was the “magic potion” that made it all work.

“Like most, our initial thoughts were based on getting things ranked,” Yadegar says. “But once we got into a flow, we almost forgot about ranking. [Rather, we] focused more on creating content that readers would walk away feeling educated and inspired by.”

Yadegar adds that there is a layer of authenticity required to really make blog content shine. “We didn’t ‘fake it’ by covering things we didn’t have experience with just to rank. We wanted to make sure that our experiences and our voice were top-notch and valuable.”

The takeaway

The goal was to rank #1 for a search term. However, content has helped create an overall uplift in conversions from all sources — not just organic.

Through our content, we’ve been able to better connect with the right audience. This has allowed us to recruit amazing talent to fill out our team.

What’s more, we’ve now experienced what it’s like to build a robust, educational content library of blog posts that gets thousands of visitors a month. It’s all thanks to our proven processes and commitment to quality content.

Want us to help you see similar results? Let’s connect.

The post We Boosted HawkSEM Blog Visits to 40K a Month – Here’s How appeared first on HawkSEM.

A great content writing agency is made up of expert writers and high-quality content creators who use strategic data and insights to tailor content that speaks directly to target audiences.

They understand a brand’s voice and mission, using that as the guiding force behind every piece of content.

So, which ones are worth your investment?

Read on for our top 10 picks, with expert insights from our CEO at HawkSEM, Sam Yadegar.

Top 10 content writing agencies

We rolled up our sleeves and dug deep into each agency’s services, track records, case studies, and more to bring you a selection of the best content writing agencies.

 1. HawkSEM

Homepage. (Image via Screengrab)

HawkSEM is a full-service digital marketing agency helping businesses boost their visibility, drive more targeted traffic, and generate more leads and revenue.

We do it all, from SEO marketing and ad strategies to creating content that positions your brand as a thought leader.

With our next-level proprietary tech, ConversionIQ, we track and optimize all your marketing data in one place. We set you up with the ultimate digital marketing toolbox to supercharge your campaigns and give you epically high ROI.

Our process:

• Investigate your business and target audience. What makes them tick? What’s your brand voice and identity? What are your mission and values?
• Aim for your financial goals. We analyze your current acquisition costs, laser in on your revenue goals, and assess your existing market shares. Then, we devise a plan for dominating the competition.
• Dive deep into the data and metrics. What’s building you up? What’s dragging you down?
• Outline the customer journey. From pre-click to post-conversion, we connect the dots between keywords, ad copy, landing pages, web content, and channels to create a cohesive strategy.
• Craft customized, engaging content that fortifies your authority in the industry and inspires action.
• Execute. We don’t just unleash your plan into the wild. We closely monitor your marketing campaign performance in action and continuously fine-tune it to make it even better.

This proven framework is how we helped Nava Health, CDL Consultants, and Peer Software double their conversions and hack their business growth.

We love partnering with innovators and market leaders on a mission to blaze new trails in their industry. Sound like your brand? Let’s chat.

Services:

• Campaign strategy and execution
• SEO content writing and marketing
• Web content design
• Paid social media marketing (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
• CRO
• PPC management
• Performance display campaigns
• Shopping feed management
• Google Ads
• A/B testing
• ROI and conversion tracking

 2. SmartBug

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SmartBug Media is a full-service inbound marketing agency. Like us, they take a holistic approach to content marketing, working closely with their clients to understand their businesses and target audiences on a deeper level.

They tailor their offerings to each client’s needs and goals, achieving results through data-driven strategies.

With a 360-degree focus on inbound marketing, SmartBug helps businesses achieve their goals and grow their bottom line.

For example, they gave Southern Nazarene University (SNU) a digital makeover by creating a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

At the core of this strategy? High-quality SEO-driven content.

Thanks to this overhaul, SNU saw dramatic improvements. Notable results include a 29% increase in new enrollment, a whopping 368% increase in organic traffic, and an overall conversion rate of 3.4%.

Now that’s a beautiful partnership.

Services:

• Inbound and account-based marketing
• Ecommerce marketing
• Paid search and social
• Web design and consulting
• Sales enablement
• Creative and branding
• SEO
• Public relations
• HubSpot management
• Integrations
• Video marketing
• One-off projects

 3. Verblio

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Verblio is a budget-friendly content writing agency that connects businesses with freelance writers. They offer custom, high-quality content for blogs, websites, and other digital marketing needs.

The self-proclaimed “content cornucopia” offers content writing services to fit every project and budget.

Verblio’s platform streamlines content creation, giving businesses access to a pool of more than 3,000 top-notch writers.

And it’s not just fast, easy, and affordable; their team of writers drives results. Their strategic blog content helped Dove Way, a mom-and-pop vacation rental in Maine, go head-to-head with Airbnb and Vrbo listings.

New, localized content showcased Dove Way’s distinct appeal and brand. Verblio’s blog writing sprouted growth in their web traffic, helping them achieve their most successful month yet.

Don’t take our word for it, though — their testimonials speak for themselves.

Services:

• Blog writing
• Newsletters
• Press releases
• Website content
• Social media content
• Product descriptions
• White papers
• Product category pages
• Videos
• Ebooks
• Pillar content
• Content revamps
• One-time projects

 4. BKA Content

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BKA Content’s motto embodies what every brand desires: to produce nothing but “awesome content.” They specialize in high-quality SEO content for brands and marketing agencies.

With a large team of writers experienced in various industries and niches, BKA consistently delivers reliable, scalable, and affordable content solutions for all kinds of businesses.

You can choose between setting your content orders on autopilot or taking the wheel yourself.

With flexible management options, expert writers, and commitment to client satisfaction, make them a top choice for businesses of all sizes.

Whole Home Scenting saw immediate SEO gains and consistent revenue growth.

Services:

• Blog writing
• Web content
• Ecommerce content
• SEO content writing services
• Custom projects (social media, scripts, descriptions, revisions, etc.)

 5. ClearVoice

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ClearVoice is a content creation platform where you can work with professional writers, editors, and strategists all well-versed in your brand voice.

And their strict vetting process guarantees that your content is always in good hands.

ClearVoice offers a comprehensive solution to content creation management.

Think of it as a digital home for all your content creation needs, housing your content calendar, deliverables, and writing team.

They’ve even turned skeptics into believers.

Waikiki Resort Hotel’s Revenue Manager, Adam Miyasato, didn’t think blog writing could drive conversions.

After collaborating with ClearVoice on blogs showcasing local hiking spots and post-COVID updates, Waikiki Resort Hotel experienced significant growth in online traffic and a 350% conversion boost.

Without ClearVoice, they would’ve been down 65%, now they’re riding the waves of triumph.

Services:

• The ClearVoice platform
• Content production
• SEO content strategy
• Content amplification for increased ROI

 6. ContentWriters

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ContentWriters is a platform offering content writing services for businesses and individuals. Here, you’ll gain access to a vast network of freelance writers. Easily find writers serving up high-quality content for websites, blogs, and marketing campaigns.

They offer a self-service option where you set up your own account and order content on demand.

Prefer to offload your entire strategy? Choose their managed services option, which comes with a dedicated specialist to handle it all for you.

ContentWriters has a rigorous vetting process for their talent network. In addition to handpicking expert writers, a team of editors reviews every piece, ensuring top-notch quality.

That, coupled with their impressive range of services, user-friendly platform, and track record of success, earns them a solid rep as a leading content writing service provider.

So how effective is their content?

The tax industry commands trust, and E-file.com has succeeded where many others have failed. They earned recognition as one of the fastest-growing private companies with a staggering three-fold increase in growth over just two years.

How? With smart, strategic content masterfully crafted by ContentWriters.

Services:

• Blog writing
• Ecommerce content
• White papers
• Press releases
• Newsletters
• Article writing
• Social media content
• Unlimited revisions and proofing
• Content strategy consulting
• SEO optimization
• Content distribution
• Custom content projects

 7. WriterArmy

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Content marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, especially with the right content writing company in your pocket.

WriterArmy describes itself as a “different kind of content writing service provider.” They’re a no-frills company that offers scalable content to leading marketing agencies and businesses.

There’s a reason WriterArmy is rated as one of the top global content agencies. They make content orders as easy as 1-2-3. Simply order your content, add workflow updates, and give final approval. Voila!

WriterArmy is unique in a few other ways. They guarantee quick turnaround times, work with American and Canadian writers (so nothing gets lost in translation), let you select and manage your writers, and offer a 100% money-back guarantee.

The outcome? A performance-driven content marketing partner that spurs your company’s growth and delivers tangible results.

Services:

• SEO content (blogs, white label, local)
• Sales copywriting
• Linkedin content marketing
• Content marketing development
• AI content writing with human oversight

 8. Blue Corona

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Blue Corona is an inbound web marketing, analytics, and optimization company that measures ad performance to help businesses boost sales and leads.

They believe that accurate marketing analytics is the cornerstone of every marketing strategy.

They offer digital marketing to home service brands like contractors and local trade businesses.

Their solutions have dramatically transformed local B2C businesses. A great example? Their review generation and management integration helped one HVAC company gain over 100 verified online reviews in just 10 days.

Check out their case studies for more results.

Services:

• SEO content and marketing
• PPC
• GoogleAds
• Email marketing
• Yelp ads
• Website design and chat services
• Social media
• OTT advertising
• Ad tracking and reporting
• Digital competitive analysis
• Lead capture and recovery

 9. Rise Interactive

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Rise Interactive is a unique digital marketing agency that uses a blend of data analytics, content strategy, and tech to create effective marketing solutions.

Their team works closely with clients to understand their business goals and develop tailored solutions. Their unique tools, like their media optimization platform, help them fine-tune marketing campaigns in real time. The result? Increased ROI.

With serious content writing and development chops, Rise Interactive helps companies expand their reach and see impact quickly.

Just 30 days into a content overhaul, they helped NorthShore’s organic traffic increase by 575% and land a coveted spot on Google’s 1st-page rankings.

Buckle in and watch the needle rise.

Services:

• Content marketing
• Paid search
• Amazon ads
• SEO
• Affiliate marketing
• Email marketing
• Social media
• Marketplace listing
• Web and mobile development
• Data analytics

 10. Seer Interactive

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Seer Interactive helps brands scale by uncovering hidden opportunities in their marketing strategy. They do this through data-driven assessments and gaining a deep understanding of their clients’ businesses.

In addition to their technical expertise, Seer is committed to corporate social responsibility and ethical business practices.

Supernova™ is Seer’s exclusive cloud-based platform that propels strategic decision-making. It transforms real-time search data into user-friendly insights in your custom dashboard.

This methodical approach has proven incredibly successful.

Using behavioral analysis of web data, Seer identified pain points customers experienced while interacting with The Casey Foundation’s yearly publication.

Seer’s optimization strategy helped reduce distractions and feature prominent calls to action.

The results? A remarkable increase in landing page traffic and conversions, a 600% increase in state report downloads, and a 97% increase in annual report downloads.

Now those are some stellar results.

Services:

• Market intelligence
• Testing and analytics
• SEO
• Content creation
• Paid media campaigns
• CRO

What is a content writing agency?

Content writing agencies write digital marketing content. They usually have a team of writers, editors, and content strategists. Together, they provide brands with engaging, results-driven, high-quality content that resonates with target audiences.

With a diverse skill set and ability to tackle projects of all sizes, partnering with a writing agency helps you nail your business goals.

When it comes to content creation, the sky’s the limit. But popular types of content include:

• Website content: Landing pages, sales pages, product descriptions, web pages, blog content
• Technical writing: White papers, user guides and manuals, ebooks, case studies
• News and press releases
• Social media: Posts, captions, and ads for social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter)
• Video, photo, and audio content: Scripts, infographics, podcasts, webinars
• Search engine optimization (SEO): Keyword research, SEO formatting, metadata, alt text, etc.
• Proofreading, editing, and revision services
• Content management
• Content marketing strategy

In a nutshell, content writing agencies are your one-stop shop for all things written content.

Why outsource content writing services?

For starters, outsourcing content to pros gives you a leg up on the competition.

Yadegar emphasizes the importance of demonstrated experience. He suggests interviewing different content writing agencies to ensure you vibe with their voice and tone — something he says can’t be taught.

So, what are some other features of successful content writing agencies?

“There are both tangibles and intangibles,” says Yadegar.

Tangibles can encompass bringing in more organic traffic, keeping visitors engaged for longer, and boosting your conversions.

But he stresses it’s about more than just numbers. Great content taps into your audience’s psyche, speaking in their language about their common problems. When you do that, you spark action and engagement because they feel heard.

Professionals with proven expertise provide this, and more, saving you from common faux pas.

A big one? Plagiarism, which Yadegar warns, adds no value or authenticity.

Another mistake he cautions against is poorly written pieces that don’t take a firm stance on a specific topic.

If you’re set on creating your own content, he suggests avoiding these pitfalls by being yourself. After all, you succeeded because you’re different from your competitors, and your content should mirror that.

That said, Yadegar doesn’t sugarcoat that creating content takes a village.

“The best quality content happens when writing is your sole focus, and most people that want to do it themselves are usually juggling a bunch of other responsibilities.”

Although outsourcing content creation garners the best results, it doesn’t mean you have to relinquish control entirely.

Yadegar suggests staying involved as a subject matter expert, ensuring your content accurately represents your brand while benefiting from the expertise of professional writers.

“Add value to your message, but leave the art of bringing it to life to the pros.”

How much does a content writing agency cost?

Content writing agencies’ pricing vary depending on experience and scope of work. Less experienced agencies you may charge around $.05 per word, and closer to $1 per word (or more) for experienced professionals.

Additionally, some agencies will change by the hour — some as low as $16 per hour to upwards of $100 per hour.

The post Top 10 Content Writing Agencies to Fuel Success in 2025 appeared first on HawkSEM.

Readable, informative, engaging, consistent, and findable.

These are all key qualities of effective writing, and they’re all essential for content marketing success.

However, these won’t matter in the end if the reader doesn’t stay long enough to read your content.

While it’s not really true that our attention spans are now just 8 seconds long, there is some truth to reports that technology has contributed to the decline in our ability to concentrate.

As content marketers, this makes it even harder to get our point across, which impacts the success of our marketing efforts.

The solution? Placing the key information in front to get your point across much faster.

Don’t bury the lede: The BLUF technique puts the most important information at the beginning of your content. (Image: Unsplash)

What is BLUF?

BLUF is an acronym that means “bottom line up front.”

This technique was originally developed and practiced by U.S. military professionals in all branches, including the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force.

It was used to ensure the messaging in memos and other forms of communication was clear and concise.

Outside of military communication, BLUF is also applied to writing in various fields.

In journalism, the Inverted Pyramid borrows from the BLUF method, as it also involves presenting the most important piece of information, the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, and why), at the start of the story.

The supporting details, known as “the how,” will then follow to provide contextual and supplemental information.

In academic writing, the BLUF structure can be applied in the form of the thesis statement, which highlights the stance or the main point of the piece, and the topic sentence, which is the single main idea of a paragraph as the first sentence.

Where content marketing is concerned, this technique basically places the conclusion at the start of the content piece, allowing readers to grasp your main point quickly.

How to use BLUF

In a Harvard Business Review post titled “How to Write Email With Military Precision,” Kabir Sehgal wrote:

“In the military, a poorly formatted email may be the difference between mission accomplished and mission failure.”

Similarly, proper writing and formatting are crucial in ensuring the success of your content. That includes using the BLUF framework properly to fulfill its purpose.

To paraphrase Sehgal:

“[BLUF] declares the purpose of the [content] and action required. The BLUF should quickly answer the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. An effective BLUF distills the most important information for the reader.”

Follow these best practices to learn how to use BLUF properly and effectively in your writing:

1. Get to know your audience

The golden rule of effective content writing is to know your audience.

As you learn about your audience, you gain more information about their needs, interests, and preferences.

All of these pieces of information can help you craft content that speaks to their pain points and addresses their concerns.

The same goes for writing effective BLUF. By getting to know your audience, you can:

• Tailor your main message to the audience you’re speaking to
• Address their concerns immediately
• Write in a language (technical/academic, not English/Spanish, etc.) and tone they prefer
• Provide an appropriate amount of additional inputs based on their level of knowledge or skill

Before you start writing, take a step back and try to understand your audience.

Find out what topics they’re interested in and understand their pain points. Tailor your BLUF statement and additional inputs to your specific audience because you are writing for them, not for yourself.

2. Perform in-depth research to find your main idea

Before you can start writing effective BLUF, you need to make sure you have a thorough understanding of the topic you’re writing about to find your main idea.

For instance, if you’re writing about thought leadership on LinkedIn, then it takes more than an idea and a quick Wikipedia search to get everything you need to write your content.

Just like what you would normally do when writing content, you need to put in the time to:

• Perform keyword research
• Analyze search intent
• Talk to other subject matter experts
• Gather all the data

Ask the right questions, find the answers, and organize your thoughts to form a general idea of what you want your content to look like.

Then, summarize your thoughts and synthesize your main idea to form your main point. This will help you in constructing your BLUF.

3. Write and format your content accordingly

Now that you’ve formed a deep understanding of your topic and audience, it’s time to start writing your content.

BLUF structure

Structuring your content with the BLUF framework is a fairly straightforward process, so you won’t really need to work with templates.

Based on the BLUF acronym, its structure can be broken down into three main elements:

1. Bottom line – the main message or idea you want to convey, which is typically found near or at the end of the content.
2. Up front – refers to the position at the very start of your content.
3. Context – supporting information that elaborates on or adds to the main message or idea.

Let’s take a look at the following example to see BLUF in action:

BLUF: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) boosts your brand’s online presence and drives organic website traffic. By ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), you can increase your chances of reaching your intended audience.

You can improve your SEO performance through the following tactics:

• Keyword research
• On-page optimization
• Quality content creation
• Link building

These techniques are crucial in improving your website’s performance on SERPs. The better it performs, the higher your likelihood of attracting your target audience to your brand.

In this example, we can highlight a few things:

• The first sentence (written in bold) was the key message of the content. Its primary purpose was to highlight the impact of SEO on a brand’s marketing efforts early on.
• The second sentence provided additional context by stating that the main source of organic traffic in SEO is through SERPs.
• The third sentence expanded upon the main message and supported the preceding sentence by listing the techniques used in SEO.
• Lastly, the final paragraph reinforces the crucial nature of these SEO practices and emphasizes their value in helping the brand improve its online presence.

This basic structure can also be applied to any content you want to produce, whether it’s a social media post, landing page, or client presentation.

Placing the most important information at the start of the message helps you get to the point much faster. (Image: Adobe Stock)

How does BLUF help in content marketing writing?

The most important part of marketing content, apart from the headline, is the intro (or the hook, in traditional sales writing).

Its main function is to draw in readers and pique their interest enough that they will want to keep reading your content.

You want your message to be received and understood — and what better way to do that than front-loading your content with your conclusion?

This accomplishes two things:

• First, it helps readers grasp your main idea immediately without having to comb through blocks of text.
• Second, by sharing the most important piece of information first, you are essentially guiding readers through the details, helping them get through the text more efficiently.

Other benefits of using BLUF in your marketing writing include:

1. Enhances reader comprehension

Research conducted by Hidi and Anderson in 1986 showed that teaching students to identify the main point early on led to significant gains in comprehension.

Although this study took place decades ago, its findings are still relevant to this day and are supported by a 2011 psychological study on story spoilers.

In this study, two separate groups were given stories to read. One had spoilers for the ending of the book as the intro. It found that the readers who were given spoilers were able to concentrate on the details even more.

Consequently, this group was able to remember even more information from the story they read.

The reason?

By being given the most important information first, they were unencumbered by what was about to unfold next and were instead able to use the additional information to support the main point.

2. Makes your content more concise

According to a Nielsen study, users only have time to read at most 28% of the words on a page during an average visit.

The more lengthy and complex your content is, the less accessible it becomes. This means the more words you put on a page, the higher the likelihood of you losing your audience.

Placing the most important information at the start of the message helps you get to the point much faster.

With this information already provided, you can prioritize the supporting information you want to convey, which helps you eliminate any tangents or unnecessary details.

Eliminating fluff, lengthy introductions, and excessive background information can help you write in a clear, direct manner, making your content easier to read and comprehend.

3. Improves your content’s credibility

In content marketing and SEO, the best ways to establish credibility in your content are:

• Citing credible sources
• Keeping information current
• Quoting subject matter experts

But writing skills also matter in establishing credibility. Aside from the information you present, it also matters how you present this information to your readers.

For instance, presenting key information upfront demonstrates transparency and directness, which contributes to your credibility.

By being clear and concise in your messaging as you present supporting information, your readers are able to recognize the intent and purpose behind your writing.

These qualities showcase your ability to effectively communicate important information, which are also qualities of effective BLUF.

4. Keeps your audience’s attention

Capturing your audience’s attention is only a portion of the conversion rate equation. You also need to keep their attention until they understand your main point and decide to take action because of it.

A good headline and image are crucial in luring your audience’s attention and directing them to read your content — and a good intro is what makes them want to keep reading.

Starting with the main focus upfront is one of the best ways to do that.

With this approach, you’re immediately addressing your reader’s intent and quickly following that up with additional information, which sustains their attention on your content.

Remember that 2011 study we referred to earlier?

Well, in that study, the group that was given spoilers in the intro found the story to be more enjoyable because of the information they were given and were more likely to read through to the end.

When is BLUF most effective in marketing?

One common disadvantage of writing in BLUF is that it eliminates all the suspense of the ending.

But unless you’re writing an expository essay or employing an emotional marketing approach, there really isn’t any reason to build up suspense.

However, if you’re looking for a better way to write marketing content, then the BLUF technique is one of the best methods you can implement.

You can apply this method of writing in the following aspects:

• Problem/solution marketing – use the BLUF statement to highlight a key pain point and present the solution upfront.
• Email marketing campaigns – start with a compelling subject line, then convey the key benefit in your opening line. Follow up this statement with supporting information separated by bullet points or subheadings to make it scannable.
• Blog posts – draw in your readers with your concluding statement as your intro, then provide more information in succeeding sub-sections to support your main point.
• Landing pages – write a compelling headline and start your copy with your unique value proposition.
• Advertising copy – grab user attention by highlighting the main benefit at the start of the message.
• Social media marketing campaigns – use eye-catching visuals captioned with the main message, immediately followed by supporting information.
• Client presentations – articulating your main points early on immediately conveys you know what you’re talking about, allowing you to draw potential clients in.

When is BLUF not appropriate to use?

BLUF is a versatile technique and can benefit your content in a lot of ways. But it’s not always the right approach.

Because it’s swift and direct, it can make your content seem unemotional and unengaging.

Here are other instances you might not want to apply the BLUF approach:

When you’re marketing complex products or services

Customers will always want to know more information about the products they’re considering purchasing. They will want to know about how it works, its unique features, and how it solves their pain points.

This usually requires a more detailed and layered approach to ensure these nuances are communicated effectively — something that the BLUF approach may not be able to convey properly.

Additionally, if you’re dealing with a more skeptical audience, placing the most important information first may cause them to ignore everything that comes after it, rendering your content ineffective.

When you want to evoke emotions from your writing

Emotional marketing is a good strategy to employ when you want to appeal to a person’s emotions rather than through factual information.

However, creating content that appeals to a person’s emotions will often require gradually building a narrative or a story to connect with the reader on an emotional level.

This may involve setting a scene, providing background information, describing emotions, or building suspense.

With its conciseness and upfront delivery, the BLUF approach may not allow for the gradual development of emotions within the reader.

During lead nurturing campaigns

Lead nurturing is all about relationship building. It’s about establishing rapport, gradually building trust, and building a sense of connection with potential customers to guide them further along the customer journey.

This strategy typically requires a more conversational and engaging style of writing, which is the direct opposite of BLUF.

The takeaway

The BLUF approach is a good writing style to apply if you want to get information across much faster. By applying this approach to your content, you can help readers focus on important information and help them comprehend the additional details you provide.

Using BLUF in your writing may not be as easy to pull off, especially if you’re used to communicating in a more conversational style.

But over time, this type of writing will become a valuable tool in your marketing quiver the more content you push out.

As always, if you need expert help in implementing effective marketing campaigns, we’re here to help.

This article has been updated and was originally published in June 2023.

The post What is BLUF? How to Use It to Improve Content Writing appeared first on HawkSEM.

If you’re struggling to figure out what constitutes success in your content marketing initiatives, you’re not alone.

Returns on content aren’t as cut and dry as results from tactics like paid search. As a result, calculating the return on investment (ROI) for content marketing campaigns can be a struggle.

Luckily, we’ve got solutions. Keep reading for more on what content marketing ROI is, how you can calculate it, and six tips to keep in mind when doing your calculations.

(Image: Adobe Stock)

What is content marketing ROI?

Content marketing ROI is a metric used to determine how much revenue you gained from content efforts compared to what you spent.

For content marketers, this means examining how much budget your efforts require and how much revenue they generate. Then, you present that number as a percentage or ratio.

How to measure content marketing ROI

You’re likely familiar with the ROI formula, and calculating the ROI of content marketing isn’t much different:

Content marketing ROI formula:

Content Marketing ROI = ((Revenue from Content – Content Marketing Cost) / Content Marketing Cost) x 100%

However, in content marketing, not all campaign results can be neatly assigned a dollar amount.

So why does calculating content ROI matter? Here are just a few reasons:

• Helps add tangible metrics to a more nebulous marketing tactic
• Can help identify strengths and weaknesses in efforts
• Can add transparency to other teams/higher-ups
• Helps direct campaign strategies
• Allows comparison of performance between content marketing and other channels

What is a good content marketing ROI?

This metric helps you make marketing decisions and better allocate your budget, resources, and time.

However, many marketers need clarification about how high they should aim with their ROI.

As with many marketing metrics, what makes a ‘good’ ROI can vary widely from industry to industry.

Any content marketing campaign operating at a loss is bad. However, calculating content marketing ROI is nuanced since it can be difficult to measure things like brand awareness or engagement.

With more than a decade of experience managing content marketing campaigns, we aim for a content marketing ROI of 500%, or 5 to 1.

Why so high?

At the very least, your business needs to cover the cost of making the product and what it costs to market.

Believe it or not, you’re not making a profit if you have a 200% ROI. 

This is because, for most businesses, the cost to manufacture or acquire their products (cost of goods sold, or COGS) is often around half of the sale price.

Let’s say your marketing team spends $500 on a campaign and generates $1,000 in sales. But then you have to subtract the $500 to manufacture the product, so you’re only breaking even.

To be fair, this estimate of a 500% ROI is just a ballpark figure, but it’s a good goal to start with.

If your business has a lower cost of goods sold (COGS) or is a service-based business, you will need fewer sales, but if your company has smaller profit margins, you’ll need more.

What are content marketing metrics?

Content marketing metrics are the key performance indicators (KPIs) marketers choose to monitor the effectiveness of content marketing campaigns.

Key metrics help you understand how your campaign is performing based on things like conversions, engagement, and achieving overall business goals.

The problem with content marketing metrics

That simple ROI formula probably makes the process seem easy since only a few metrics are involved.

In reality, arriving at those metrics is more complex than it first appears. (Cue sad trombone.)

The fact is that many marketers struggle with tracking their content marketing ROI. Much of this comes from a lack of confidence in knowing the right way to do it.

Another snag? Content-generated revenue is rarely a linear process.

As a result, some marketers focus on too many metrics and find it hard to paint a clear picture of a campaign’s impact.

Or, they focus on the wrong metrics, and it can feel like the content is having less (or more) of an impact than it actually is.

With those challenges in mind, what is the best way to measure your content marketing ROI successfully?

Measuring content marketing metrics: 6 expert tips

Let’s take a look at some expert tips to remember when measuring your content metrics.

1. Build your business case for content marketing

Justifying your marketing budget shouldn’t be your primary focus. Instead, you should focus on making the business case for content marketing.

Use ROI as a way to show the value that your content provides to your organization. Focus on how results impact business goals, and remember to keep an eye on the metrics that the overall business cares about.

Some examples might include high-quality content that boosts organic traffic, content pieces that rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs), effective email marketing campaigns, or awesome landing pages that attract new customers.

2. Think long-term

Revenue generated from your content will seldom be a linear process. You may continue to see the impact of a digital marketing campaign long after it has been completed.

For example, you may continue to see potential customers visiting that high-quality evergreen blog post you created. Or you might gain backlinks for a tool or calculator that you made.

Have a strategy in place to continue to monitor the long-term impact of your content. Knowing which types of content continue to generate revenue after a campaign is put to bed can help inform your strategy.

3. Understand that analytics tools are your friend

Analytics tools make measuring your content performance a breeze – and there are plenty of paid and free tools at your disposal.

Google Analytics is a favorite among marketers, as it offers a wide variety of tracking options and automation features that can be invaluable in attributing revenue to a piece of content.

Other popular marketing tools include Ahrefs, Semrush, HubSpot, and Moz. These are also incredibly useful for search engine optimization (SEO) and can help you track where you rank in the SERPs.

Once your tools are in order, you can develop an attribution model to track customer touchpoints and better understand the customer journey.

You can use the Model Comparison Tool to attribute sales to specific content better and set up multiple goals for each campaign.

It’s also wise to work cross-functionally with sales teams, paid media specialists, and the like, to share data and insights to help improve your bottom line.

4. Determine the number of leads or sales you need

The cost of content distribution and content creation is often overlooked in the ROI calculation.

In reality, you want to track costs as you go and have a clearly defined budget so you can quickly compare them to the revenue generated.

When calculating content cost, you need to think about more than simply the dollars spent. Consider costs related to tasks like:

• Tools and software use
• Employee time (in creation and ideation)
• Freelance rates
• Time spent meeting and brainstorming
• Photography, videography, and graphic design
• Distribution and promotion

This can help you determine the ideal number of leads or sales you need each month or quarter.

5. Track your progress

Regularly tracking progress helps you understand campaign content marketing successes and allows you to adjust your strategy when needed.

If you wait until the end of your content marketing campaign to look at your metrics, you could miss something that might influence you to put more budget into that campaign or change your strategy.

To track your progress, create an ROI spreadsheet for what metrics you’re focusing on and record them monthly or weekly.

Then make a simple line chart, being sure to add a fixed line for where you break even and your goals so that you can quickly visualize the progression of your campaigns.

6. Keep the unmeasurable in mind

There are a lot of things in content marketing that are hard to assign a monetary value to, for example:

• Brand awareness
• Trust and authority
• Organic social media engagement
• Earned press
• Guest publication that reaches your target audience
• Webinar attendees
• Podcast subscribers

Every one of these things has a high potential ROI, and some of them have a low cost of acquisition. But they are brutal to measure or report on.

But does that mean you should leave them out of your calculations? Definitely not.

Find the metrics that best correlate to each of these. This won’t be a perfect science but will be very useful in measuring content impact and ROI.

For example, for brand awareness, you can look at website visits, social media impressions, and monthly search volume for branded keywords.

Measuring content marketing ROI: 4 proven steps

Each business will need to tailor their process to its specific needs. Here are some general steps you can take to calculate content ROI (and avoid any missteps).

1. Define your purpose

Why are you measuring your content marketing ROI?

The answer to this question will guide your strategy and is often why marketers struggle with ROI in the first place.

Marketers can become misguided and focus ROI metrics solely on justifying their budgets.

If you focus your ROI on garnering a bigger budget for the next quarter, you will lose the big-picture view of how impactful your content is.

Experience tells us the best way to leverage ROI is to discover what works well, what doesn’t, and how you can optimize your content marketing strategy. Focus on strategy, and you’ll quickly start to see your campaigns improve.

2. Choose your metrics

There are a lot of key performance indicators (KPIs) to track. If you try to monitor them all, you’re likely to get lost in the data and less able to gain actionable insights.

The solution: Be strategic about the metrics you monitor.

Whether you’re an ecommerce business or a SaaS superstar, we recommend choosing around five KPIs that you can monitor over a campaign to understand its ROI. Popular content KPIs include:

• Website traffic
• Website visitors
• Total visits
• Unique visits
• Time on page
• Bounce rate
• Page views
• Downloads

3. Set your benchmarks

The next step in successfully measuring ROI is to set benchmarks.

Measure where your content marketing metrics stand now before you launch your campaign.

Then, when the campaign is over, you can quickly establish where there has been improvement or where things have declined.

You can also establish if goals were met and how much they were exceeded.

4. Define your content marketing goals

Content marketing goals are not the same as business goals. These smaller goals and content marketing metrics help you measure your content marketing efforts and weigh the role they play in the big picture.

Whether your goal is ecommerce sales or lead generation, taking stock of metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and keyword rankings will help you assess the effectiveness of your efforts.

It will let you know if things are headed in the right direction and alert you to any pivots that might be needed.

Your after-campaign analysis might analyze email newsletter opens, or qualified leads for case study downloads or white papers. You should be measuring, evaluating, and considering the next steps at each point in the funnel to maintain the highest level of content ROI.

The takeaway

When you first approach content marketing ROI, it can feel like trying to navigate your way out of a labyrinth. That’s where content marketing agencies like HawkSEM can swoop in to lend a hand.

Whether you have an in-house team or choose to work with an agency, the key thing to remember is not to get lost in the numbers.

Be intentional with which metrics you track. Focus on metrics that will influence your strategy and that correspond to business goals.

Remember that content impact can last for months after it is originally published, so have a long-term tracking strategy in place.

This post has been updated and was originally published in November 2023.

The post Content Marketing Metrics: How to Measure ROI + 6 Pro Tips appeared first on HawkSEM.

A bulletproof content strategy puts audience appeal, conversion goals, and brand differentiators behind your content.

But if you want to keep your strategy fresh, relevant, and on-budget? You might consider hiring a content strategy agency.

Of course, you don’t just want any agency — you want the right agency for you. We’ll cover the leading content strategy agencies in this guide, including case studies, recognizable clients, and insights into which ones are best for certain industries.

Ready to get going with a content strategy that drives ROI? Then keep reading.

Top 10 content strategy agencies

1. HawkSEM

At HawkSEM, results are our MO. And that’s why we approach every project with content strategy first.

Our decades of expertise and combined experience as a full-service marketing agency across various niches have shown us that great content isn’t enough to generate massive ROI.

It must first be anchored by a strategy that puts your ideal audience front row center.

As a top 3% SEM agency specializing in organic and paid marketing, we’ve partnered with businesses in a broad swath of niches, including B2B, B2C, tech, SaaS, healthcare, finance, education, ecommerce, and more.

If you want to create an online presence that generates an average of 4.5X ROI, you can depend on us to build the best strategy to help you get there.

Content strategy in action

When emission-free gas handling product and service provider DILO came to us, they had just seen significant dips in organic traffic and keyword rankings after a site redesign.

After doing extensive content audits, we quickly observed some major areas of improvement with their search engine optimization (SEO), specifically both technical SEO and on-page SEO.

Together with their team, we re-optimized existing content and rolled out new optimized content targeting specific keywords and meta tags leveraging our in-house tech, ConversionIQ.

Equipped with a data-driven content and SEO strategy complete with topic ideas revolving around these new targeted keywords, we helped Dilo reinstate its presence in the industry and establish itself once again as a thought leader.

The results? A 36% increase in organic clicks in just six months and a 46% increase in Google impressions in just three months. Not to mention a 24% increase in Google clicks for these new high-value keywords.

And that’s just from one project. We’ve helped countless brands achieve similar results by building laser-sharp content marketing strategies from the ground up. It’s kind of our jam. Just check out more of our results.

Best for: B2B/B2C, ecommerce, SaaS, finance, healthcare, education, professional services

Services:

• Search engine marketing (SEM)
• SEO
• Content strategy and content production
• Ecommerce Marketing
• Remarketing
• Landing page optimization
• Content creation
• Copywriting

Clients:

• Honda Motor Co.
• DIRECTV
• Microsoft
• Thriftbooks

2. Siege Media

Content is crucial to SEO, Because of this, you simply can’t create a content strategy without keyword research and competitor analysis. That’s precisely why Siege Media lands a spot on our list of the best content strategy agencies.

They offer your standard SEO and content strategy services. But extending the digital reach of both of those marketing arms are their link-building, graphic design services, and reporting and analytics.

Meaning? From start to finish, ideation to details to monitoring, they’re with you every step of the way.

By harnessing the talent of their gifted strategists combined with innovative tech, Siege Media offers a dynamic solution for your content strategy needs.

This is why some of the world’s more recognizable brands trust them, including Zillow, Airbnb, Adidas, HubSpot, and Asana, to name a few.

We’re firm believers that a content strategy agency should exhibit a commendable strategy for their own business.

Visiting Siege Media’s website does just that: from the juicy insights on their content marketing blog to their lead generation ebooks, and impressive case studies, Siege Media shows us that the proof is in the pudding.

Best for: Mid-level to enterprise SaaS, Fintech, ecommerce brands

Services:

• Content marketing
• SEO
• Content strategy
• Link building
• Copywriting
• SEO consulting
• Digital PR
• Content creation
• Blog design
• Graphic design

Clients:

• HubSpot
• Asana
• Zapier
• Shutterfly

3. Growth Machine

Organic inbound marketing targets customers at the education stage of the funnel. We’re talking authoritative and educational blog content, podcasts, infographics, landing pages, video content, and press releases.

These mediums educate your target audience on common questions they have so they feel confident about choosing you as their solution.

That’s why we recommend Growth Machine, an SEO content creation agency that steps up to the plate to catch your potential customers when they’re first researching topics related to your brand.

Managed content is their specialty, and they help their clients strategize, craft, and share optimized blog content that raises you through the search engine ranks.

That’s how they helped their client, Ridester, achieve 282,000 weekly organic visitors, and Tovala boost organic blog traffic by 552%.

Growth Machine’s track record proves that this agency does exactly what it promises: get the engine running on your content strategy.

Best for: Fortune 500s, startups, tech clients

Services:

• Managed content (planning, writing, and publishing)
• Content strategy
• Link building
• SEO audits
• Writer sourcing
• SEO courses
• Placement services

Clients:

• Adobe
• Yummly
• Four Sigmatic
• Tovala

4. Wpromote

Wpromote doesn’t shy away from complex marketing challenges, it runs toward them armed with strategy, marketing, and creative-owned media.

They help you build a content strategy funded by an evergreen, authoritative, and rich content bank.

And this is why they consistently rack up accolades and awards from the likes of Google, Adweek, Search Engine Land, Inc., and more.

Not surprisingly, Wpromote takes a data-driven approach to creating comprehensive content strategies for their clients.

Instead of using the same old KPIs, they zero in on impact, asking the important question of how results actually affect your business.

And they’re not afraid to challenge their clients to think bigger, smarter, and dive deeper. Because they’re not in the game of the mundane, which is why they work with big-vision enterprises like Samsung, Equinox, and Peacock.

Are you an innovative brand on the bleeding edge of your industry, pushing the envelope and reimagining your niche? Then you should talk to Wpromote. They’ll get in the creative ring with you.

Best for: Retail, business services, hospitality, medical, informational tech disruptors (or as Wpromote calls them, “Challengers.”)

Services:

• SEO
• Content strategy
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Voice search
• Video marketing
• Digital experience
• Reporting and data visualization
• Data science and insights
• Affiliate marketing

Clients:

• Adobe
• Intuit Quickbooks
• Instacart
• Strava

5. Grow & Convert

Grow & Convert offers specialized content services and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) — a nice plus if you’re looking to hone in on your content creation and strategy.

While traffic is a natural result of their in-depth keyword research, it’s not their main motivation: leads and sales are.

That’s why they dove deep into their client Geekbot’s top-funnel and bottom-funnel content to understand the benefits of each.

While bottom-funnel content converted more often, both types of content led to a whopping 1,300 new leads for the client.

Yes: Grow & Convert delivers on its moniker.

And to create lead-generating content, they conduct comprehensive interviews with your staff to know your offerings inside out. Then, they focus content on your brand’s differentiators, features, and unique benefits.

Their content strategy and service pricing averages around $10k per month.

But they still serve smaller businesses with a comprehensive course that covers their process if they can’t afford the entire service — huge points for accessibility.

Best for: SaaS brands

Services:

• Content strategy
• Keyword research
• Content creation
• Link building
• Conversion data reports

Clients:

• Geekbot
• Rainforest
• Circuit

6. Tinuiti

They offer a wide range of content and digital marketing services, from paid media marketing campaigns to meticulous SEO content strategies.

This content marketing agency shines in the SEO world as a contributor to Search Engine Land and Semrush, and recipient of accolades and status like Google Premier Partner and Microsoft Advertising Partner of the Year.

Along with designers, writers, and content strategists, Tinuiti is backed by three novel performance marketing software products to give clients an edge in figuring out a data-driven next move in your content plan.

But don’t take their word for it. Tunuiti has ample case studies to back up their excellence, like this insane 1,143% increase in keyword rankings for their client DFIN.

The kicker? An SEO content strategy that covers optimized web pages, keyword research, and a poppin’ blog.

Best for: Ecommerce brands, streaming services

Services:

• SEO
• Content strategy
• Video production
• Ecommerce pages
• App store optimization
• Streaming TV content
• Blog article writing
• Social media marketing
• Paid media
• Influencer marketing

Clients:

• Etsy
• E.l.f. Cosmetics
• Ethan Allen
• Nestle

7. Power Digital Marketing

Inform, connect, and entertain: these are Power’s goals for all the strategic content they create, and we’re here for it. And while we know the power of a kickass blog, Power doesn’t stop there in their content marketing services.

They read the memo on interactive content’s ability to engage audiences and differentiate from competitors. We’re talking “snackable” calculators, quizzes, and assessments to help customers connect with your brand — such a fantastic way to learn more about your audience, too.

Demand Metric’s Buyer Journey Report shares that revenue-generating companies are more likely to produce interactive content than revenue-stagnant ones.

And to pull everything together, Power uses their roster of design experts to create visually striking and insightful infographics to bring your message home.

With support from stellar copywriters and Power’s proprietary tech Nova for data insights for strategy, this agency committed two years to creating unique SEO blog content for beauty powerhouse Kate Sommerville.

From interview Q&As and roundups to resonating beauty tips, their blog ranks for 9,000 non-branded keywords and brings in about 15,000 new organic visitors every month.

Best for: Beauty, B2B & B2C, ecommerce, fashion, private equity

Services:

• SEO
• Content marketing
• Paid media
• Amazon marketing
• Web design
• Influencer marketing
• Branding
• Blog post creation
• Interactive content
• Design elements and infographics

Clients:

• Lord & Taylor
• Aviator Nation
• Casper
• San Diego Housing Commission

8. Merkle

Merkle has 30 years of expertise in digital marketing, and they pride themselves on producing an elevated customer experience informed by insights from their suite of proprietary tech.

From web visitor identification to ecommerce customer activity repositories, Merkle makes data the forefront of any content strategy they implement.

And once they have the data? It’s time for the “Activation” stage, which means taking content creation to the next degree.

For example, Merkle enhanced Crocs’ user experience with an interactive tool to help customers select emojis, letters, characters, and symbols to visualize charms for their Crocs shoes.

They also supported Swiss supermarket Migros with advanced filtration capabilities, easy search functionality, and attractive data visualizations on their website to engage customers.

If you’re an established brand looking to seriously scale, Merkle has the juice to do it with cutting-edge tech and multi-channel strategies for groundbreaking content experiences.

Best for: B2B, tech, SaaS, retail, telecom

Services:

• Consulting and transformation
• Customer experience
• Activation (content and campaign launch and management)
• Analytics and data platforms
• Data and identity
• B2B

Clients:

• Siemens
• Kuka
• SDC
• Migros
• Subway

9. SmartBug Media

How do you brainstorm ideas for your content calendar? Every marketer can get their creative juices flowing, but SmartBug Media reminds us of the most important thing that informs every piece of content: audience interest and intent.

They conduct extensive research on your audience before they get to work on your content strategy, which includes social media posts, email newsletters, blog articles, and product pages for the ecommerce businesses in the house.

Just check out their knowledge center for content examples, chock-full of inspiring, unique content on relevant topics and goals, from ecommerce sales development blog articles to marketing platform ebooks and webinars.

And if you’re in a tech space, no problem. This agency helped technical SaaS brand TestMonitor see 302% more blog traffic with 100 brand new articles developed with targeted client personas and keywords in mind.

SmartBug also has HubSpot’s stamp of approval for inbound marketing prowess, including accolades like Partner of the Year and Elite Partner status.

Best for: SaaS, healthcare, ecommerce, manufacturing, nonprofits, education, senior living niches

Services:

• SEO
• Web design
• Link building
• Local promotion and SEO
• Content writing and strategy
• Content calendar creation and management
• Hubspot training and migration
• Creative services and branding

Clients:

• First State Community Bank
• Valutrades
• APP Manufacturing
• STUDIOPMG
• Habitat for Humanity

10. Writing Studio

There’s simply no substitute for expertise when it comes to creating the best content, and Writing Studio knows their stuff.

Their strategy? Leverage subject-matter experts including doctors, lawyers, and finance savants to take your content to the next level. With writers working in various fields, Writing Studio can handle everything from appliance repair to healthcare.

With an experienced content management and strategy team on your side, you can’t go wrong.

Note that Writing Studio doesn’t specialize in content distribution or promotion, so it might behoove you to partner with another agency or handle those pieces in-house.

Best for: B2B, finance, legal, and healthcare niches

Services:

• SEO
• Content writing
• Technical writing
• White papers

Clients:

• Healthline
• PsychCentral
• Banks.com
• HealthMatch

We’ve covered the best of the best, but are you still unclear on what an agency is, or the benefits of working with one? It’s a lot to digest, so let’s expand on that a bit more.

Why do you need a content strategy agency?

Can’t you just wing your content strategy solo? You could, but the last thing you want is siloed marketing efforts that lack cohesion and send mixed signals.

This throw-things-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks method will create a mixed bag of results (or worse, no results at all).

And even if you have a content strategy in the books, that doesn’t mean it’s a great one. (Image: Adobe)

You might have an entire marketing team on your payroll — writers, designers, PR professionals, SEO strategists — yet your content isn’t slaying the search engine results pages (SERPs) or converting your audience.

Or maybe your writers just don’t have the bandwidth to produce enough content for Google to take notice.

And even if you have a content strategy in the books, that doesn’t mean it’s a great one.

Which web pages aren’t converting and why? Does your blog rank for high-intent keywords? Your team may be too busy in the day-to-day to do a deep dive into analytics.

Often, brands can’t dedicate the necessary time and energy required to create, launch, and manage a content strategy with the right insights and techniques.

That’s where a content strategy agency comes in.

They’re staffed with content experts that can dedicate time to:

• Analyze and audit your existing content strategy and assets
• Brainstorm content topics that differentiate you from competitors
• Write and create all that content fast enough to meet your content calendar schedule
• Monitor performance metrics to see what content converts and why (and vice versa)
• Update your content strategy with changing audience specs and competitor landscapes

And they can often do it cheaper than the cost of hiring more in-house staff.

How to know when to hire a content strategy agency

Do any of the following ring true for you?

• Your existing marketing staff is overwhelmed with work and can’t dedicate enough time to create high-quality content
• Your content assets feel disjointed
• Web traffic, SERP and keyword rankings, and conversion rates are decreasing
• Your audience isn’t engaging with your content

All of the above are signs indicating your content strategy isn’t quite hitting the mark. Hey, it happens.

And if you don’t have the time to fix it?

Well, your ROI might suffer. But there is a solution and that’s to hire a qualified content strategy agency with proven expertise in generating serious results.

The post Top 10 Content Strategy Agencies: We Did the Research appeared first on HawkSEM.

You probably already know that SEO, or search engine optimization, is a vital part of a successful digital strategy.

After all, the top result in Google gets 28% of all clicks.

To find SEO success, it’s critical to have a solid understanding of SEO content writing. 

How can you create blog posts, landing pages, website copy, and product descriptions that are more likely to rank high in the search engine results pages (SERPs)?

In this article, we’ll explain what an SEO content writer does and how to find the right SEO specialist for your business.

We’ll also talk with Patience Hurlburt-Lawton, content marketing manager at HawkSEM, about how to create SEO-optimized content that brings in clicks.

What is an SEO content writer?

An SEO content writer strategizes, writes, edits, publishes, and optimizes online content designed to appeal to both search engines and human readers.

What do we mean by content that appeals to search engines?

Search engines like Google identify new and updated pages by sending out “crawlers.” These crawlers analyze the information on a page to determine what it’s about and which search engine queries to show it for.

An SEO content writer’s goal is to ensure a page or a piece of content ranks as highly for the relevant words and phrases as possible.

They also know how to use a writing style that relates to their target audience and track the performance of their pieces to improve future marketing efforts.

(Image: HawkSEM blog screenshot)

What do SEO content writers do?

SEO content writers do far more in a workday than writing.

There’s a lot of research and reading to do to ensure every piece of content they create targets the right people and is SEO-friendly.

Here’s what a typical day might look like for an SEO content writer.

1. Conduct SEO keyword research
2. Read up on industry changes and trends
3. Learn about their audiences
4. Study and analyze campaign performances
5. Write!

1. Conduct SEO keyword research

Keywords are at the heart of any SEO article.

To know what keywords will perform best, writers conduct a hefty amount of research to determine how their target audience searches for topics related to the brand’s service or product.

With the help of keyword tools, SEO professionals can see the volume of searches each keyword receives and how difficult it is to rank against competitors.

Which keyword tools are the best? “You can do so much keyword research with Google alone,” says Hurlburt-Lawton, “and best of all: it’s free!”

She adds that when it comes to real deep keyword mapping, tools like Semrush, Moz, Google’s Keyword Planner, and Google Search Console are great options.

“SpyFu is excellent for competitor research and Answer the Public is fantastic if you want to target prospective customers with long-tail keywords,” she says.

With this list of ideal keywords, SEO writers can build out a content plan. Creating new pieces of content for keywords that haven’t been targeted and optimizing older pieces of content that aren’t performing well.

2. Read up on industry changes and trends

SEO best practices change all the time and it’s vital that SEO writers keep up with the latest trends.

Google is constantly updating its algorithms in regard to SEO, and writers have to abide by these changes to keep producing content that ranks well.

It’s also essential that writers stay educated on the topics they write about. Staying on top of the latest news and developments allows writers to create relevant, accurate pieces that capture the attention of audiences.

“While the algorithms and rules might change, it’s important to remember that the core of SEO writing will always remain the same,” says Hurlburt-Lawton.

“The content you create needs to be original and helpful.”

3. Learn about their audiences

Even though SEO copy needs to appeal to search engines, it’s just as important that it appeals to the reader.  That’s why writers spend a lot of time learning about their target audiences.

“One of the best ways to create truly effective SEO content is to step into the perspective of the people your business helps,” says Hurlburt-Lawton.

“Consider what information would most genuinely support these folks along the way. What are their biggest questions? Concerns? What options do they have? What information do they need to know?”

Writers will gather as much information as possible about their readers to create effective and valuable content.

They might research their audiences’ favorite social media platforms, hobbies, and psychological traits to fully understand them.

Once a writer knows what matters to the reader, they’re better equipped to write an appealing piece that will capture their audience’s attention and drive more organic traffic to your website.

In this way, a writer is a strategist, carefully crafting content to appeal to just the right readers.

4. Study and analyze campaign performances

SEO writers might not be responsible for keeping up with the outcome of every content marketing campaign they work on. But they still spend time looking at those results.

An SEO specialist should be able to analyze the success of a piece of content or a marketing campaign as a whole.

They can look for changes in your business’s rankings in the SERPs to see how effective an article or landing page is.

Writers will use their findings to guide their future pieces, improving on each campaign over time and contributing to the success of your overall content marketing strategy.

5. Write!

Once all the research is done, it’s time to write.

Writers create all kinds of content, including:

• Blog posts
• Social media posts
• Landing pages
• Web pages
• Infographics
• Title tags and meta descriptions
• White papers
• Case studies
• Product descriptions

Writers might specialize in specific fields like SEO copywriting, which focuses more on gaining web traffic and increasing sales for a company. However, standard SEO content writing seeks to educate, inform, and entertain readers in addition to increasing SERP rankings.

On top of creating new content, SEO specialists often return to older work to give it new life and target the latest keywords.

Only about 40% of web content is updated regularly, so if your business isn’t already revamping old pieces, a content writer can be a worthwhile investment.

(We do it regularly on the HawkSEM blog.)

The additional skills an SEO writer needs

We’ve looked at some skills an SEO content writer needs to create amazing content. Let’s look at a few more.

• Good communication skills. SEO writers need to be able to communicate effectively (spoken and written) with a wide range of people, including other digital marketers, editors, and interviewees
• Organizational skills. SEO writers might work on multiple pieces of content at a time, so they need to be able to effectively manage their time and workload
• HTML knowledge. A thorough knowledge of technical SEO isn’t essential. However, SEO content writers need a basic understanding of HTML so they understand the relationship between different elements on a page
• Knowledge of content management systems. Understanding platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and Magento can help SEO writers create content optimized for the search engines

How to write your own SEO content that ranks

Writing SEO content is a powerful, cost-effective way to climb search engine rankings and build trust with the right customers.

However, it’s important to write high-quality content. Low-quality, spammy SEO content can have the opposite effect – potentially causing your pages to drop in the rankings or get removed entirely.

If you want to add content writing to your SEO strategy, here are our expert tips for doing it right.

• Write for humans and search engines
• Consider search intent
• Optimize all of your content
• Practice, practice, and practice some more

Write for humans and search engines

SEO content writing is a balancing act. You want to create content that’s easy for the search engines to understand but that humans can’t get enough of.

Simplicity is the key. You need to structure your content so that search engines can scan it and web visitors can read it. Subheadings, bullet points, internal links, and error-free code can all help.

Another important reminder: Avoid keyword stuffing. Using too many keywords in your content can frustrate customers and lead to search engine penalties.

Consider search intent

It’s important to use keywords in your SEO writing, but it’s also important to consider search intent.

Search intent is the reason behind a user’s query, and can help you create content that fulfills their needs. There are four types of search intent to consider:

Understanding the search intent behind your keywords means you can create SEO-optimized content that answers your target audience’s questions, no matter where they are in the marketing funnel.

Optimize all of your content

Good SEO writing isn’t just about adding the right keywords to a blog post or landing page. You need to optimize your whole piece of content to make it easy to read and engaging.

A good user experience (UX) keeps users on your website, which tells the search engines that your content provides value.

Here’s how to optimize your content to get the right results:

• Break up your content using bullet points, paragraphs, and subheadings
• Spread your keywords through your content, including in headings and subheadings, image alt text, and page URL
• Use images and videos to make your content exciting
• Make sure your content loads quickly and is mobile-friendly

Practice, practice, and practice some more

SEO content writing isn’t easy. The best writers have years of experience across a variety of different industries and content types.

Hurlburt-Lawton has always been interested in content writing.

“I went to college for professional writing,” she says.  “After I graduated (and after a few years of waitressing), I got my first copywriting job at a digital marketing agency in 2014. This is where I learned all about SEO writing – how to target specific keywords and audiences.”

If you want to improve your skills, we recommend diving straight in. Some great ways to learn include starting your own blog or volunteering with a nonprofit.

Alternatively, there are lots of free online courses to help you get to grips with SEO writing.

One of our favorites is Ahrefs’ “Blogging for Business” course which covers keyword research and how to optimize your blogs to get the best results.

Do you need an SEO content writer?

You might find yourself in need of a content writer if your brand is:

• Creating a new content strategy from scratch
• Experiencing a dip in SEO performance
• Launching a new department or product line
• Spread too thin to create consistent, high-quality content
• Looking to connect with new audiences and spread brand awareness

Anyone can sit down at a keyboard and crank out an article (or use AI to write one).

However, only experienced and talented SEO writers can craft relevant, exciting content that your unique audience will love.

How to find a good SEO content writer

If you’re looking for an SEO writer, you have three options:

1. Hire in-house
2. Hire a freelancer
3. Hire a digital marketing agency

1. Hire in-house

The main benefit of hiring in-house is that you get an SEO content writer who lives and breathes your brand. This means they’re in a position to write detailed, expert content.

The first step is to understand what you want from an in-house SEO content writer and write your job description.

What qualities do you want in your SEO writer, what responsibilities will they have, and what benefits can you offer?

Also, consider whether they’ll work full-time or part-time.

When you’ve narrowed your search down to a few candidates, here are a few questions you may want to ask:

• How do you typically conduct keyword research?
• Are you familiar with and/or experienced in incorporating backlinks?
• How do you measure and define success in SEO?
• Are you comfortable repurposing content for multiple audiences?
• How do you keep up with search engine algorithm changes?
• Are you comfortable working with WordPress and similar hosting platforms?
• How do you ensure your content is relevant and engaging for the reader?

Of course, you can’t know how talented a writer is without reading their work. Request a copy of candidates’ portfolios or ask for links to past projects so you can assess their writing skills.

(This advice also applies to freelancers and agencies too!)

2. Hire a freelancer

“The main benefit of outsourcing your SEO writing is that you get an experienced content writer without having to recruit,” says Hurlburt-Lawton. “They will be able to catch your tone, values, and target audience without you having to pay benefits, holidays, or pensions.”

Plus, there’s lots of flexibility when you hire a freelancer. You can bring them on board for ad-hoc projects, and they can hit the ground running, meaning you can focus on other aspects of your business.

You can find freelancers on networking sites like LinkedIn, as well as marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork. These platforms let you quickly browse freelancers, learn about their experience and pricing, and interview them before beginning a project.

3. Hire a digital marketing agency

If you have a wide range of content needs and need a long-term partnership with a full marketing team, you might consider working with a content agency like HawkSEM.

The great thing about working with a digital marketing agency is that they have access to a range of enterprise tools so you can track the success of your content marketing.

At HawkSEM, we have ConversionIQ, which allows you to monitor the customer journey from start to finish.

Plus, digital marketing agencies offer additional services like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and social media marketing, meaning a holistic approach to how you target customers.

Why is SEO content writing so important?

Why is SEO writing essential if you want to grow your business?

• It increases your visibility in the search engines, meaning more organic traffic for your site
• It ensures your target audiences find you, reducing the risk of low-quality leads and inquiries and increasing conversion rates
• High-quality website content encourages visitors to stay on your website longer and find out more about you
• Well-written content makes you more credible and authoritative, which doesn’t just boost your search engine rankings, but helps prospective customers trust you

As you can expect, SEO content writers are in high demand. According to salary.com, the average SEO writer’s salary in the U.S. is $69,447, and the best writers can earn up to $85,663.

The takeaway

If you want to sell the benefits of your business to your target audience, it pays to invest in a skilled SEO content writer or agency.

Need a little extra help writing the perfect content?

HawkSEM is here for all your content marketing needs. We can help you capture the right audience, capitalize on industry trends, and gather concrete data to guide you forward in the next steps of your strategy.

Contact the HawkSEM team today and let’s work together to get your business ranking in the search engines!

This article has been updated and was originally published in July 2023.

The post What Does an SEO Content Writer Do? (+ How to Write Content that Ranks) appeared first on HawkSEM.

Having quality content on your website is one of the most effective ways to take your SEO from “eh” to “awesome.”

A site without strong content simply can’t compete with one sporting an extensive blog, an array of case studies, and other helpful written resources.

Whether you write it yourself, leverage a team member, or outsource to an agency, these are the elements you need for content that’ll make your brand an industry thought leader.

After you have your plan written down, you can update and optimize as needed. (Image: Unsplash)

What is quality content?

Content quality is how well your content achieves its purpose. What makes content “quality,” then, is subjective – it depends on your goal.

What kind of content is your target audience searching for? Some people may want a high-level overview of a topic for beginners, while others may be looking for an in-depth analysis of something more specific.

Of course, when it comes to SEO, quality content is still measurable. We look at things like organic rankings, traffic, links, and shares to assess whether or not our content is hitting the mark.

Furthermore, you’ll want to pay attention to your content successes as they relate to business goals such as conversions or qualified leads.

At its core, great content is written for users (not search engines). Google aims to reward high-quality content that demonstrates the qualities of E-E-A-T: expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

This means helpful content that gives something of value to the user experience and nails search intent is more likely to get you a better search ranking than something more low-quality.

Where does that leave AI content?

It’s worth noting that search engine algorithms focus on the quality of content, not how the content is produced. So, where does that leave AI content integration?

While Google doesn’t explicitly penalize AI-generated content, there are certain limitations to these tools that you should keep in mind.

AI tools have gotten quite sophisticated in the past few years, with tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini making headlines across industries.

Although it can have its place in assisting human writing, AI still has significant limitations when it comes to generating quality content.

These tools work by “learning” information based on what users ask – meaning it’s only really as smart as the data we give it. With this in mind, the biggest limitation of AI is those pieces that make for authentic and original content: Context, tone, voice, readability, and nuance.

Since AI writing tools have evolved so quickly, there are also ethical considerations to take into account, such as plagiarism and even data bias and stereotypes. It’s okay to use AI to assist in the creation process, but Google ranks expert human content ahead of AI-only.

In short, AI writing tools are just that – tools for idea generation or to get a quick definition. But when it comes to critical thinking, decision-making, and writing the best content, AI content simply can’t compete, especially when it comes to writing quality content for complex topics.

Quality content marketing dos and don’ts from the pros

1. Do: Start with a quality content marketing strategy

Before you put pen to paper (or marker to whiteboard, or fingers to keys), take time to lay out your content strategy. Ask yourself things like:

• What are your content marketing goals?
• Which KPIs will you measure?
• How often will you publish?
• What tools will you use to stay organized?
• What type of content will you publish?

Once you’ve worked out the nitty-gritty details, lay them out in a content strategy doc. After you have your plan written down, you can update and optimize it on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis as needed.

2. Do: Flesh out your personas

When you’re building your plan for creating quality content, it helps to go back to basics. After all, the ultimate aim of quality content marketing is to:

• Raise awareness about your company
• Educate and provide value to your audience
• Build loyalty and credibility
• Improve your search engine results page (SERP) rankings
• Differentiate your company as a thought leader
• Drive sales

The most effective digital marketing speaks directly to a company’s ideal client persona (ICP), in a language they understand. So, if you haven’t already, make sure you’ve fleshed out your personas.

Once you can visualize who your content is speaking to, you can then begin to target their needs and wants, buyer’s journey stage, and interests in a more concrete, specific way.

While you can get as detailed as you want, thorough personas often include:

• Name
• Photo or graphic representing the person
• Company type or industry
• Job title
• Key responsibilities
• Pain points
• Helpful demographic info (like age, salary, city or region, etc.)

Here’s an example of a buyer persona profile for a B2B customer:

(Image: HubSpot persona tool)

3. Don’t: Neglect your voice and tone

Your brand’s voice and tone are illustrated through your:

• Website
• Content marketing
• Ad copy
• Social media
• And more

These things are reflected in how you speak to your audience. Your voice and tone should make sense for your audience as well as the overall ethos of your business.

A good place to start with identifying your voice and tone is by looking at your target personas:

• How do they talk?
• Are they more formal or casual?
• How much time do they have to consume your content?

All of these elements can factor into your voice and tone.

Next, revisit your company’s mission and values. Some businesses use bright colors, youthful acronyms (like LOL), and other nontraditional marketing elements in their branding.

Others have an audience that prefers a minimalist design, a serious demeanor, and no-nonsense verbiage. By blending together the right combination of elements, you can define your voice and tone.

Pro tip: You can codify your voice and tone by creating a content and style guide exclusive to your company’s content marketing. This can include goals, guidelines, and any mechanics you want to make clear, along with info on voice and tone.

4. Don’t: Forget keyword research

Grab your shovels — it’s time to do some digging. Identifying your best SEO keywords can help inform your content goals and the topics you cover.

If you want to improve your SERP rankings, high-quality content informed by proper keyword targeting is one of the most effective SEO tools at your disposal.

Keyword research can tell you what keywords you’re currently ranking for, what keywords bring users to your site, the most popular keywords for your industry, and more.

You want to pinpoint what the user would be searching for (what terms and phrases they’d often use) to find your product or service.

Conduct your research by listing out topics relevant to your business. Next, determine the keywords that would fall under those categories.

You can then use an SEO tool (like Google Keyword Planner) to find out the monthly search volume. You can also go directly to the SERP to see how you stack up against your competition.

Ideally, you have a mix of long-tail keywords, which are phrases that usually have three or more words, as well as one-word keywords. Just keep in mind that one-word keywords usually aren’t high converters.

It’s not so much about search volume or length of the keyword — the goal is to rank as high as possible on the highest user intent keywords. Targeting is how you find the keywords that have the highest buying intent behind them.

Pro tip: While it’s good to check out which keywords your competition is ranking highly on, don’t spend all of your time and effort trying to outrank them. There’s plenty of value in carving out your own niche as well.

Once you’ve determined your goals, done your research, and consulted your team, you should be able to prioritize your content ideas. (Image: Unsplash)

5. Do: Gather and organize your ideas

Keyword research is a solid jumping-off point when you’re creating your quality content plan. But it shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all of your ideation process.

This is a great opportunity to leverage people on your team and in other departments to help decide which subjects your content should cover.

Consider hosting a brainstorming session or creating a Slack channel where content ideas can be shared and discussed.

This is a great way to leverage colleagues (like the sales team) who are regularly interacting with prospects and clients and hearing about their pain points, needs, and interests. Put all of these ideas onto a cloud-based doc that can be regularly modified, added to, and updated.

Once you’ve determined your goals, done your research, and consulted your team, you should be in a place where you can properly prioritize your content ideas.

Figure out which topics you want to tackle sooner and later, then create a quality content marketing calendar to keep it all organized.

While there’s no one way to create your content calendar, it’s a good idea to include elements such as:

• Content title
• Content type
• Writer
• Due date
• Publish date
• Keywords
• Funnel stage or persona

As far as formatting, you can create your own spreadsheet or opt for a pre-made template.

6. Do: Solidify your creation process

The creation process for your content will depend on things like your bandwidth, the size of your content team, and the amount of content you want to produce in a certain time, among other things.

However, laying out a process will make the whole endeavor seem less overwhelming and more manageable.

A common content marketing creation process looks something like this:

1. Determine topic
2. Conduct research
3. Gather information
4. Brainstorm headlines
5. Create outline
6. Write draft
7. Edit draft
8. Finalize draft
9. Format and upload
10. Publish

Again, your process doesn’t need to follow this format exactly. However, by creating a step-by-step checklist for content creation, you can break up tasks into smaller bits to easily stay on track — and on deadline.

7. Don’t: Publish without letting drafts breathe

This step may not seem crucial, but trust us, it is. While it can be tempting to type up a draft, give it a quick once-over, and immediately publish, it’s often not the wisest move.

Not letting your drafts “breathe” — aka taking a break between writing and publishing — is how errors and incomplete content get published.

Even if you just get out of your desk chair and do a lap around the office, or wait until the next morning to reread your draft, reviewing your content with fresh eyes can make a world of difference. The last thing you want is to publish or send the content to your boss and get a “???” message in response.

Pro tip: No matter how technical your industry or topic is, it’s a good rule of thumb to always write how you speak. By writing in a way that’s conversational, your content comes off more human, authentic, and trustworthy.

8. Do: Have someone else edit (if possible)

Speaking of having a fresh set of eyes (which sounds kind of gross, now that I think about it), those eyes are ideal for another key part of creating quality content: proofreading and editing. Editing is an important step to take to turn a piece of content from good into great.

This editor could be your boss or a colleague, and it doesn’t have to be the same person each time. If you’re on a small team or are a team of one, you can be your own editor. Just make sure you don’t edit your piece directly after finishing the draft.

It’s also a good idea to print out the piece and read it that way — the change of format often helps you spot errors you may not have seen on the screen.

No matter who edits, make sure they know what to look for. A good editor can see both the forest and the trees. This means that they’re looking for an overall solid piece of content that’s thorough, educational, and covers the topic properly.

They also should be on the lookout for grammar and spelling errors, missing words, and an inconsistent tone.

9. Don’t: Rely on blog posts alone

Blog articles can be a huge asset to your website for all the reasons above. But don’t think that blog content is all you need to create. Good content also comes in the form of social media, guides, case studies, checklists, e-books, white papers, webinars, podcasts — the list goes on.

Once you’ve built a quality content marketing foundation, you can experiment with new formats to see how your audience responds and how it affects your content performance.

You can also create complementary content that covers one topic in a variety of ways, with each piece linking to one another.

Pro tip: Don’t rush the headline-writing process. A good headline can be the difference between someone clicking on your link or continuing to scroll. After you’ve written a piece, try to spend at least 10 minutes brainstorming as many headline options as you can before making a final decision.

10. Don’t: Forget to promote

Like a tree falling in the forest, if a blog article is published and no one knows about it, does it make a sound?

To ensure your content gets the widest reach possible, you’ve got to do what you can to promote it.

While you don’t want your social media to be a one-way conversation where you’re constantly shouting about your own company, you should be sharing your content regularly with your audience and followers.

If you send out a client or prospect newsletter, this is also a great opportunity to include your own content. If you’ve published a new e-book or research findings, you can go so far as to add a banner to your website homepage as a call to action directing people to the post.

Content marketing is an SEO tool that takes time to cultivate. (Image: Unsplash)

11. Do: Monitor performance

A content strategy is never set in stone. After a few months of publishing, it’s a good time to do a performance check-in. Look into your content traffic and performance metrics, see which pieces are doing well, and see if your rankings have improved.

If you’re not seeing much change, don’t panic. Quality content marketing is an SEO tool that takes time to cultivate. As long as you’re producing informative, interesting, digestible, accurate, and valuable content, you’re on the right track.

Your content plan should include reminders for optimizing older content as well — ensuring all links are still active, the information is up-to-date, and any new developments are included.

When you start to see patterns emerge that show what’s working and what’s not, you can optimize existing content accordingly.

Quality content checklist

• Lay out a quality content marketing strategy
• Flesh out your marketing personas
• Define your voice and tone
• Conduct keyword research
• Gather and organize your ideas
• Determine your creation process
• Let drafts breathe
• Have someone else edit
• Think beyond blog posts
• Don’t forget to promote
• Monitor performance

The takeaway

Quality content marketing is a great avenue for showing your audience that your business knows how to leverage experts and wants to help them learn more.

By following these 11 tips, you can build up a top-notch resource library that positions your company as a leader among your competition.

We’ve helped tons of companies big and small take their content marketing to the next level. Want to know more? Let’s chat.

FAQs

Why is quality content important?

Quality content has a ton of benefits for your brand. It helps both attract and retain customers as well as build brand awareness, establish authority and credibility, improve search engine rankings, and drive sales and conversions.

How do you create quality content?

Creating quality content involves a deep understanding of your audience, providing valuable and original information, conducting thorough research, maintaining a consistent brand voice, and ensuring content is well-written, error-free, and visually appealing.

How do you measure content quality?

We like to use metrics such as engagement (comments, likes, shares, etc.), traffic, time spent on page, bounce rate, conversion rates, and SEO performance.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when creating quality content?

Common mistakes include:

• Neglecting audience research
• Producing generic or irrelevant content
• Prioritizing quantity over quality
• Failing to optimize for SEO
• Ignoring user engagement and feedback

By keeping these things in mind, you can avoid getting penalized on Google search (or any search engine) for low-quality content.

This article has been updated and was originally published in July, 2023.

The post Quality Content: 11 Dos and Don’ts From the Pros (+ Free Checklist) appeared first on HawkSEM.