SEO best practices for marketing professionals
Devise a value-added keyword strategy
While keywords are not as important to rankings as they used to be, they can still add value to any piece of content. The focus has to be on placement, however, as there is nothing wrong with having descriptive words of your company in the right high-priority areas – for example, metadata and headers. Using a range of long-tail keyword phrases is best too, preferably as sub-headings, as this keeps the content organic and allows the narrative to develop naturally.
Align goals
There is no point in producing great content if it is not going to be promoted in the right way and then measured to see if it lives up to expectations. This is why marketing departments have to align their goals and make sure every piece of content has a certain target persona in mind and is looking to achieve a particular objective. So follow that mantra of Create, Distribute and Maximise in order to underpin success.
Get creative
The easiest way to stand out is to come up with the most creative and engaging idea. As demonstrated by Visa’s #GoForSix campaign – this saw communications based around the value of six-second videos, six-photo albums and six-word posts – creative content will always be able to engage your target audience. And when it comes to developing a linking profile, make sure every link has the capacity to build brand awareness and boost social mentions.
Have a mobile marketing strategy
A study by comScore shows that mobile has finally surpassed desktop in terms of the device time being spent on digital media. This means companies need a mobile marketing strategy, as brands will struggle to attract consumers if they do not have responsive and mobile-optimised sites. Smartphone users will simply not tolerate sites that do not fit the screen or take too long to load.
The focus of SEO has changed markedly in recent years, but the good news for marketers is that producing accurate, engaging and relevant content is still a surefire way of climbing the rankings and interacting with your target audience. So while you should not discount SEO completely, make sure you think about it in terms of the overall creativity of any content being produced.