If you want to build a foundation with your content marketing program and experience initial success, start by narrowly focusing your content on a small group of long-tail keyword phrases. Unless you have millions of dollars to allocate to your program annually, don’t create a one that is too broad and diffuse in nature.
Many companies have great ambitions for the potential performance of their content marketing programs. They target content against the most broadly searched keyword phrases. Their idea is that if they simply write content for it, magic will happen. Fast forward six months later, they failed to rank on those keyword phrases. Additionally, their entire content marketing program is also still showing deep, negative ROI.
What happens when a content marketing program has too broad of a focus?
Let’s use an example of how a company may end up going too broad and losing their focus. Let’s say I’m a credit card provider. I only offer a low APR credit card, exclusively for use by businesses and high–net worth individuals. It’s a very narrow market niche.
However, if I build my program for high-volume keyword phrases such as credit cards, I end up competing against companies with larger budgets. They can afford to compete at that level and have multiple types of credit cards that appeal to a mass audience.
The better way was to create a campaign focused on keywords such as high net worth individual credit cards or small business credit cards. There are fewer people searching for those keyword phrases than the term credit cards. Therefore, they may be less competitive.
How do you avoid the problem with a too broad focus of content?
Every company has limitations, including financial, time and resource. If you structure your content marketing program to be too broad, especially if it’s a new content marketing program, there won’t be enough resources available to effectively compete at that level.
What to do with a content marketing budget <$1,000 per month
You should match your budget and resources to your focus keyword list. If your program is new and your B2B company has a monthly budget that is less than $1,000, then you should pick long-tail focus keyword phrases. These keywords have little competition. However, keep in mind that they should exactly match exactly your products/services.
Like the example above, you’re likely going to pick focus keyword phrases that are four or five words in length or keyword phrases. This also includes your company’s name. Only after you’ve gotten traction with these can you start to open your focus keyword list.
What to do with a content marketing program budget between $1,000 and $10,000 per month
For similar companies with slightly larger budgets, you will have more possibilities. You should still start with the same approach as described above until you have achieved initial traction. However, with the added budget, you can get to these results faster by focusing each piece of content against a primary focus keyword.
Then, once published, use a material portion of your budget to amplify that content through social networks, paid advertising and outreach to your prospect database (e.g. a nurturing program).
What to do with a content marketing program budget over $10,000 per month
At this level, you can start to get aggressive with your content marketing program. You should still incorporate everything listed above. However, now you can start focusing on many mid-tail keyword phrases. You’re still not ready for the big show – broad, generic keyword phrases.
Remember: content marketing is like building a house. You must start with foundational pieces first before you can build up.
As a result, your company is not going to generate anywhere near the planned ROI (return on investment) expectations before initiating your content marketing program. If it’s done in this fashion, the content marketing programs can end up having a low or even negative ROI. Even worse, it’s going to require a huge amount of resources and time to execute.
The bottom line is that it will lead a lot of frustration for you and may lead your manager to end the program.
How does your content need to support your SEO program?
Keyword phrases have a big role in your content marketing program, but content is the horse that is going to take you across the finish line.
Content and readability
You need to have engaging content that is highly targeted toward the reader who just got to your website from the search engines. This is what’s called readability. If you stuff your content with bunch of keyword phrases but don’t write something of value for your audience, you’re not going to have success.
Meta titles and descriptions
You need to craft your meta titles and descriptions to both capture the focus keyword phrase associated with the content and write it in such an attractive way that it will compel the reader to click through and come to your website.
Keyword phrases
As mentioned earlier, keyword phrases are the cornerstones behind your content marketing program. To determine if you are getting traction, look up each keyword phrase and find out where your company stands. If you are ranking in the top 10 of the search results, then it’s okay to start moving up the search scale. You can now focus on broader long-tail search queries.
If you’re not there (like most companies), you will need to continue to focus on your existing keyword phrases. You’ll need to develop deeper content. You’ll also need more inbound links specifically focused around those longtail keyword phrases.
In summary
Make sure that you first build a foundation for your content marketing program and achieve initial success on narrowly focused long-tail keyword phrases. Once you’ve done that, you can then move forward, targeting broader keyword phrases and expand your content marketing programs.
Need help?
If you have a content marketing program or are planning one, download our ebook 100 Mistakes Businesses Make When Starting, Optimizing and Scaling Content Marketing Programs.
This ebook will walk you through the mistakes of hundreds of other companies and the challenges they faced in implementing their content marketing programs. To learn more about how Tempesta Media can help you streamline your content creation process and deliver quality content at scale, contact us today.
