When it comes to digital marketing, success is not driven by SEO alone. Whether crafting a website, a landing page, or even a paid Google advertisement, there are a multitude of factors that contribute to the overall effectiveness of a campaign. Today, we’re going to take a look at how SEO and Content Strategy work together to deliver results, and it starts with identifying three key factors:

  • Who is my target audience?
  • What is my unique value proposition (UVP) and how do I communicate it?
  • What goal am I trying to achieve?

Once you understand these three components, you can develop an SEO content strategy that delivers on your goals.

Understand Your Audience

Getting found online is much more difficult now than it was in the late 2000s or even the early 2010s. There is much more competition and SEO is a lot more sophisticated than it was then. You can’t just pair a keyword with a neighborhood term and expect to rank in the top five on a search engine results page (SERP). There needs to be context around your strategy and it has to be targeted. That is why the very first thing you need to do before starting any campaign, is to identify your target audience.

Multifamily Lease-Up Example

Consider this: You are in charge of marketing to millennials for a new multifamily lease-up in the River North (RiNo) neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. It’s important to understand not just the Denver market, but the RiNo submarket as well:

  • Why does RiNo appeal to millennials?
  • What specific amenities or services at this community are important to millennials and how can I leverage those to appeal to my target customer base?
  • What price point are millennials in this neighborhood willing—and able—to pay?

Instead of writing for robots, write for the intended user. Answering these questions will help you develop a targeted, hyperlocal SEO strategy that integrates specific neighborhood terms with content tailored to the millennial demographic.

Know Your Business UVP

To truly stand out from your competitors, you need to have a solid understanding of your UVP and be able to effectively communicate it to your target audience. Think back to our example in the previous section and the River North lease-up property. Now that you’ve defined your audience and understand their needs, you can apply that information to promoting your UVP:

A brand new apartment community in the River North Arts District within walking distance of boutique shops, restaurants, microbreweries, and bars. All apartments are equipped with Google Fiber for ultrafast internet browsing and the community features an on-site dog park for pet owners. 

As you prepare to start creating content for you campaign, consider your UVP and:

  • What keywords are most relevant to this property and the target audience?
  • What separates my business from my competitor? Or, if you offer the same amenities in essentially the same location, how are your amenities better?
  • How can I infuse the branding of my property into every aspect of this campaign?

Come up with a list of 30 keywords you want to target with your content. Once you have that list, you can begin to craft content that leverages your UVP.

Funnel Your Content Towards a Specific Goal

Whether your goal is to increase pageviews, convert more leads, or drive awareness for a brand new property, the content you create must funnel users toward that goal. A strong SEO content strategy marries on-page optimization with external optimization, and that starts with crafting compelling content.

  • Premium display ads that integrate targeted keywords with clear, concise calls to action that generate clicks
  • A website landing page with content that supports the display ad and collects leads information (phone numbers, email addresses, etc.)
  • A full website with real-time leasing integration for quick and easy conversion
  • Blog posts with lifestyle-centric content that speaks to the target audience and improves brand awareness

This is when a more specific SEO strategy comes into play. Not only are you optimizing the content to be found by search engines (keywords, meta descriptions, title tags, URL structure, etc.), you are also working to attract inbound links for higher quality traffic. Social media — both paid advertisements and organic reach — are a great way to amplify your content so that it is seen by the right audience at the right time.

Learn more About SEO Content Strategy

When SEO and content strategy work together, you get results. For more information on SEO content strategy, speak with a member of the G5 Strategy team.