Inbound marketing is the simple act of providing digital
content via web-based sources to attract and retain customers and potential
customers. The content you post on your website needs to be good enough to make
you easy to find on the Internet and worth the attention from your visitors.
Making it easy for your potential buyers to find your
content can be accomplished in a couple of ways: implementing keywords and
pushing your content to social media channels.
Using keywords
Keywords are words or phrases that describe the message in
your content. For instance, if you operate a research firm in Pasadena,
California, your keywords would probably be “research firm Pasadena CA.”
Keywords help you get noticed. They do this in two ways:
1. They provide searchable themes for your content
2. Consistent and proper use of keywords improves Search
Engine Optimization
Theming your content
Your content needs to address a certain topic (or topics)
related to your business. While you may attract a lot of traffic with a variety
of different themes, you will miss the opportunity to build a following around
your area of interest.
For instance, a law firm would be best served by producing
content about litigation, citizen rights or procedures for completing legal
documents.
Straying too far from your theme may inhibit your desired
results.
With themed content, keywords provide the content creators
with a guideline for presenting the message to meet the needs of potential buyers
and visitors.
Using search engine
optimized content
By optimizing your content for search engines, you increase
the likelihood that you will be noticed on the most visited pages in the world:
search engine home pages.
According to statista.com, more than 60,000 internet
searches are conducted every second using words that are relevant to the
searching party. Search engines rank each website by determining relevance
through keywords contained in website text, meta data, images, videos and
back-links.
There are two kinds of search engine optimization methods
for websites: off-site and on-site. Inbound marketing uses on-site
optimization. This means you will be working on your content to improve your
ranking globally – making you ‘findable’ in a web-search of your keyword.
Search engines use algorithms which scan your website to
determine what kind of content it contains. The results are then presented to
the person doing the search in order of how your website ranks compared to your
competitors.
Of course, there is more to it than what is discussed here
and if you’d like to learn more, check out our e-Book, Introduction to Inbound
Marketing.