Another Tuesday calls for another excellent content tip in this week’s episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week’s tip is all about NOT keeping it simple. In previous weeks, Greg shared that you need to answer questions your customers are searching for; however, it needs to be the correct type of question that can provide in-depth answers. Check out the crucial Dos and Don’ts when creating content for your site.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week, I’m sharing another important tip about website content.
I’ve been talking about website content for the past month, mostly thanks to Google’s March core update and its focus on quality site content. I’ve mentioned the importance of writing content that answers the questions that potential and current customers are asking, but I saved the most important tip for last.
Don’t write content that answers a simple question.
Sure. We are all marketers and business owners and we want to try to drive as much traffic as possible to our sites. I’m not saying that site traffic isn’t important.
You have to really think about the question you are answering and consider whether or not a user needs to go to a site to get that answer.
In many cases, the answer is no. I’m actually in Slovenia this week speaking at a conference. If I wanted to see what the time difference is between Slovenia and Dallas, I don’t need to go to a site that breaks down all the time zone differences between every time zone. If I am searching for that answer, I just need the answer and Google will give it to me.
Car dealers or more accurately their SEO partners have really gotten this wrong. There is zero value in writing a blog post about the towing capacity of a twenty twenty four f one fifty or how much trunk space is in the Toyota Corolla.
Someone searching for questions like these just needs a simple answer. You can’t write a page of content about the towing capacity of an F-one hundred and fifty. It’s literally a few word answer. More importantly, there’s no way your page of content will be more authoritative than the manufacturer’s website or even a site like AutoTrader or Car and Driver.
Sometimes, you can type in a long tail phrase that’s a bit more specific and instead see a featured snippet like this, but there’s still no point in trying to create this content. Someone searching for this still wants a simple quick answer, so even if you were able to steal the snippet away from whoever had it first, that searcher wouldn’t go to your website since their question is already answered.
Instead, concentrate on questions that need more than a few words to answer. Think about all of the questions a potential customer would have as they move through the buying funnel.
Don’t make the mistake of creating content that only targets the bottom of the funnel.
Sure, those pages will convert, but people do a lot of research before buying or even submitting a lead. If you’re waiting until they’re ready to buy to get them to your site, you’ve already lost. To truly win, you need content that guides potential customers through the buying process.
That means you need content for the early stages of the funnel even though that content will result in immediate leads. The goal is to get customers to your site as early as possible so they’re impressed and will return in a later session to convert into a lead. So take a step back and look at the content on your site and at your content plan for upcoming content. Make sure everything has a reason to be there and that you’re answering in-depth questions that real customers would ask. Avoid those simple answers and instead create content around the more complicated or in-depth answers to common questions.
That’s all the time we have got left for this week’s episode. So you know what that means. Put your hand on the screen right here.
We totally just high fived because you learned something awesome. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.
