Earlier this week at SES Chicago we stopped by best-selling author and entrepreneur Evan Bailyn‘s session, Building a Massive Customer Base through Content-Driven SEO. He shared his four-step process for building a valuable content base that attracts customers and ranks in Google.
1. Create valuable content within your niche
The most important thing you can do is create well-written, high quality content that users actually want to read. Is it all about your products? No. Does it answer users’ burning questions about your industry? Absolutely. The key, Bailyn says, is that “it’s not content for content’s sake; it’s genuinely good stuff that human beings connect to.”
2. Tell bloggers, webmasters and press about it
Getting links from respected websites drives traffic and improves your site’s trust rank. To get these sought-after links, Bailyn recommends implementing a systematic but authentic outreach process. First, find category experts and tastemakers using tools like Topsy. Once you find these thought leaders, send an email with a powerful subject line and a personalized message that provides a compelling reason write about or link to you.
3. Share!
Since social media is only going become more influential in search, it’s important to tap into your social outlets. Share your content on your social platforms of choice, but be sure to pair links with comments or questions rather than simply posting.
4. Embrace the longtail keywords
It’s easy to get caught up in a set of targeted keywords. But when you have a significant amount of content out there, longtail searches really start to count – and that’s a good thing.
