The last few weeks, I spent some time looking at different trends in web marketing and travel businesses . Now I'm going to look at one particular part of it, content marketing, over the next few weeks.
I've been intrigued with this idea since I first learned about it through the AWAI Fast Track to Copywriting Success last year, aka "Bootcamp." I learned even more about it at their Web Intensive, and next week, I'll be taking an online course through them with Copyblogger's Brian Clark. I can't to share what I'll be learning from it here.
Until then, I'll give you a little intro...
You've heard a lot about this term "content marketing". And its implications are pretty cool. How would you like to have your website copy, social media posts and all other words associated with your online presence do your marketing work for you? How would you like to be perceived as an authority in the travel field? And more important, get more traffic to your site...and get more engagement?
That's what content marketing is all about. It's the basic building block to create quality copy for any web-based materials you create, and you'll certainly want to think about creating content before you even think about your social media imprint.
It all starts with very strategic keyword research, based on those your target audience would use. Then you'll want to see how competitve they are, This means that similar websites may already use these words and phrases to rank high in search engines like Google or Yahoo! You'll also want to pay attention to their search volume figures, usually given in monthly rates.
There's plenty of sites that can given you this valuable information, not just the most obvious one, Google Keyword Planner (which used to be Adwords then Keyword Tool). There are fantastic sites like Wordtracker, KeywordSpy and SEMRush that can give you even more valuable insight. A caveat - to get to the good stuff, you'll have to shell out for a paid subscription on most of these sites, but it's worth it.
Say you're a hiking/kayaking travel company that specializes in vacations in the southwestern U.S. Here are some keywords and phrases you might want consider:
southwest, southwestern US, kayaking, river kayaks, hiking, desert, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, active vacations, adventure travel
And this is by no means a complete list. But here you'll want to think the way your potential customers think, and figure out the words they use in their searching. So it's wise to know your audience well by coming up with your ideal customer profile, as developed by SEO expert Heather Lloyd-Martin.
Once you find words that have fairly low or medium competition and high search volume, note those. You can then use those in your web copy and social media content (taking care not to "stuff" or repeat those words). You're now well on your way to creating rock-solid content!