Updated: May 8, 2011
Fostering reader engagement through both social media and your site works to transform content from simple search engine fodder into increased time on site, conversions and revenues
From reading our web marketing blog and other resources on building search rankings, unique content is one of the major pillars to successfully harnessing online marketing channels.
And if you’ve seen anything related to the recent Google ‘Farmer’ update, you know that unique content is an absolute must.
With that in mind, it’s easy to think content can just go up on your site and be forgotten about…I’ve certainly thought this way in the past but experience now tells me this simply isn’t true.
Content like articles can be repurposed into blogs or even white papers or e-books and vice versa. Circumstances and information is certain change, requiring you update your content from time to time.
You want to be sure you’re providing your readers with the most up-to-date information – you do this to not only keep the hungry search engine spiders happy but to build credibility among your readers as well.
But getting that far is only half the battle
Just because you’ve got this great content promoting your brand and educating your prospects doesn’t quite mean you’re going to see significantly more clicks on the ‘buy’ or ‘contact’ button.
Unfortunately no…to really increase conversions and the average time someone spends on your site or associated social media channels, you not only need to create relative content that’s informative, you’ve got to make it accessible to where your readers are online.
Social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon and others have revolutionized the way people interact online. Gone are the days where they exclusively had to come to you.
That’s why content for social media is so important.
When you write a new blog or article, post it on your company’s Facebook and Twitter profiles. Developing exclusive content for social media is also a plus. For example, you could offer a quick overview of an important topic on Facebook then link to more extensive resources on your site.
Or you could hold a contest but require participants to ‘Like’ or otherwise interact with your Facebook profile.
One radical approach could be to develop a separate site devoted exclusively to interacting with your company through social media channels. Kate Spade women’s clothing and accessories is an example of someone who’s used this approach successfully.
While they do have their regular website, this site puts the visitor in a position to interact with the New York fashion company on their favorite social media networks.
Of course, this option works for this kind of company and may not for yours.
In addition to social media channels, adding links to other relevant content at the end of a blog post or article is also a valuable way to keep people on your site.
You may think that simply writing great copy will keep visitors on your site…when they’re through reading, they’ll gladly scroll back up the page and use your site’s navigation to keep looking around.
Yet another trap less experienced site owners and online marketers find themselves in
When you read a news story on a major site, you always see related stories linked from the bottom of the article. Many of these really big sites have automated systems that create this.
In addition to links at the end of your piece(s), you can link to other relevant content within your posts like we do in many of our blog articles on SEO-e.
But to really keep someone engaged and on your site, you need to show them what to do next.
That’s why having a list a 3-5 related articles at the end of your posts is a great idea to try. The longer you keep someone engaged on your site, the more likely they will move from being a ‘prospect’ to being a ‘customer.’
Going forward, we’re going to try this with SEO-e and see if it helps our readers learn more while they’re here. And if you’re on Facebook, ‘Like’ us and know precisely when we get new content online.
Related SEO-e posts:
7 Things Google’s Farmer Update Penalized Sites For – and What You Can Do About It
Latent Semantic Indexing and Keywords – A New Way to Look at Copy
Which Social Media Channel is Right for My Business?