Date
Jun 03
One of the trickier, and more time consuming, aspects of search engine optimization is creating good content that resonates with the user. Whether you’re selling products or services the first thing we need to consider is the user’s intent.
With VisionPoint Marketing being experts in higher education marketing, we’ve created content strategies based upon interviews with key stake holders, students and alumni. This primary research that we’ve performed confirms the idea that behind the keyboard, inside the user, there is a contextual desire around the words they enter into the search engine.
This idea is the central strategy we use to create unique and interesting content that’s tailored not only to search engine optimization but to a long lasting brand awareness and consideration of the service our client is providing.
Let’s take a small sample of keyword that exemplifies the user’s intent towards an institution of higher education.
Awareness Keywords
This is the beginning of research. The user has identified a need; in this case it’s a need to pursue a secondary degree at a university. The user, for example, may work at an online marketing agency here in Raleigh. They take the time to look for information that will answer some specific questions
- What are the top marketing programs?
- Are there any degree programs that focus on online marketing?
- What are the marketing degree programs that fit within my current life?
The user would start using keywords like:
- “top marketing degree programs”
- “mba in online marketing”
- “online marketing degree night classes”
These are good, long tail keywords that include the contextual desire of the user in the keywords. These particular keywords show that they’re not directly considering locality in their search, but along the chain of their research, locality becomes more evident as they become more aware of the options.
With the context identified, with the keyword research completed, it’s now time to create content that’s linkable, relevant to share around social media and focused on answering questions
That’s the key. If you’re writing content to expand your SEO efforts to increase the awareness of users, you have to know what your audience is looking for and you need to be able to provide good answers to that question.
Next: Using an SEO Content Strategy to Capture User Consideration.
