SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, has become quite the desirable skill in recent years for many brand storytellers.
SEO refers to the processes which you can undertake to help get a better ranking for a webpage in search engine results.
Some of these processes require some technical know-how, while others simply require you to shape the content visible on your website to match key search terms. Although this may seem like a job for your marketing job, SEO is something which your content writers and PR executives should always be conscious of in their work.
But how exactly does engaging in SEO help get your brand’s story out there and into the eyes of your target audience?
Reaching Your ‘Organic’ Audience
SEO helps attract ‘organic’ traffic. This refers to visitors who have clicked through to your website through your original URL, not a sponsored link.
Although sponsored links do garner a bigger reach, it does not guarantee that you will be reaching your appropriate audience. You might invest heavily in these advertisements, but if you’re not reaching the right people this money is only going to waste.
You want to capture those who are looking for you. This all starts with SEO. Sit down with your team, write down a few keywords which sums up your business and what words people would search if they were looking for your business. You want to be the first website to appear when people are searching for your type of business.
For example, our All Good Tales homepage is optimised for those searching for things like “brand storytelling”, “storytelling”, “PR” and “Storytelling for Business”. That way, when somebody searches with those keywords, All Good Tales becomes recommended to them straight away, earning us more visitors.
Staying true to your brand story
Not only does engaging in SEO practices help get you more relevant views, it also helps to maintain standards for the content you produce. Often times employees are told to just “write stuff which will get us views”. Once again, you can blog about whatever you want to get visitors, but if these visitors aren’t interested in your business then what is the point?
If you have a house style for your content, it’s worth adding in your relevant keywords. This reminds your content writers of the kind of audience they’re writing for and will keep the tone of your business consistent in all of your blog content. This helps establish authenticity for your brand, something which we believe will become the next big trend in digital marketing
Knowing what your audience wants
Part of SEO involved monitoring visitor behaviour when they’re on your website. There are plenty of websites and tools which can help you with this. From this information, you can compile comprehensive reports on who exactly is reading your content, if you are reaching your desired target audience and whether or not the type of content you’re publishing is appropriate for your website.
SEO is a learning curve, but the end result is always worth it. Especially if your aim is to spread your story far and wide.
