10 Content Ideas To Improve Organic Visibility

In the past series of articles, we focused on determining what keywords were already generating business for a web site and then optimizing your existing pages to improve organic results for those keywords.

In this and some future articles, we’ll cover adding new content to a website as well as other web venues to improve organic visibility.

When we work on a comprehensive marketing project for a client, we first learn about their business and then discover what marketing tactics their competitors have employed.

At the same time, we learn what web venues are available to focus our marketing towards.

Next, we develop a strategy that includes many tactical options including content for their site and other web venues, social marketing, referral site development and link building, etc.

Together, we decide which of the tactics to begin deploying.

Keyword Research

Quite a bit of our content ideas for a specific client are developed as we do keyword research. We look for queries that are very related to our clients’ topics, the products and services they offer, the markets they serve, etc. We also look for somewhat related queries and the questions people ask such “How Do You xxx” and “What is XX” that we might focus on with new content.

Here then are the first 10 content ideas.

1.  Content About Related Information

As I mentioned when we do keyword research we look for related queries and the questions people ask.

For example, we worked on a website for a large, high-end camping and RV resort located in one of the entertainment centers of the southeast USA. Our keyword research showed that many people were searching for activities and events in the area.

So we suggested they develop a search engine friendly directory of area events and activities, kept up to date on their website. People who click through to these listings in search results also learn about the camping resort.

Tip: Sell Yourself On These Pages

People who view content that answers questions or provides information related to your products or services etc may not looking for what you offer at that moment. Do the best job you can to unobtrusively let people know what you offer as they look at this type of content on your website.

For example, use a webpage template that makes it easy for people to see what you what offer. You can also make people aware of products or services with messages in your page columns and perhaps a short overview about what you offer at the end of the page with links to products or services, etc.

Here’s another example of providing related information on a website. I was planning a trip to a few countries in Africa. I searched on passport and visa requirements for those countries and found a nice easy to use database with passport and visa requirements for every country in the world. It was hosted by a travel company that offers package trips to many countries around the world.

While people use that database, they are also learning about this wholesale travel company and what they offer. I’ll bet in their keyword research they saw people searching for passport and visa requirements and that prompted them to create this database on their website.

2.  Starting A Blog

Yes, no brainer, but it needs to be mentioned. Blog articles can add content to your website that can help increase organic visibility. In most cases, we recommend deploying a blog so that is a part of your website for this and a number of reasons.

See Where to put your blog for best search engine results for more about where to host a blog.

3.  Answer Questions With Articles

You can answer some of the questions you see being asked in your keyword research with relevant articles.

If you sell luggage, for example, and see people are asking various questions about airline luggage size limits, you might write an article that answers the questions. You can link to the article from appropriate product category pages and announce it via your social venues.

Article marketing can be a keystone to a content strategy for many markets. You can host some of your articles on your website while marketing some articles to other web venues. See A Step By Step Guide To Effective Online Article Marketing and  A Step By Step Guide To Effective Online Article Marketing – Part 11).

I’ll point out some other specific types of articles to get you thinking as we go along.

4.  Content About Markets / Industries Served

Many of our new clients who provide services have websites that provide only general information about the services they offer. As we perform keyword research, we look to see if people in the industries and markets our clients’ serve are searching on phrases related to their specific markets.

For example, a new client we’re working with provides services for facilities management. We found there are many searches being performed for their service within the industries they serve. However, nowhere on their site did they talk about any of these industries.

So we’re rolling out pages of content focused on each of the industries they serve. First, we test hundreds or thousands of keywords in a PPC campaign to learn which keywords to focus on. Then we create a new webpage to focus on that industry.

We plan to continually build these industry pages into sections with more content including useful articles for the industry, maybe helpful guides and resources, case studies, testimonials, videos etc. This content should not only help their organic visibility, but should help increase conversions to leads at the same time.

In addition, much of this content can be used or promoted on other web venues such as the social sites with which they participate.

5.  Case Studies

Case studies that show how a client is using and benefitting from your product or service not only may get found in searches, but you can add summaries about case studies on important product or service pages with links to the full article. This may also help improve conversions.

6.  Glossary/Dictionary

Glossaries on your website that define your industry terminology may be found in search results. One client’s competitor has done a great job with this. Their glossary (they call it an Industry Dictionary) is deployed across multiple pages focusing on just a few terms on each page.

This gives each page a better chance of being returned in search results. And it’s working well for them; pages from the dictionary are reaching high rankings for some important keyword phrases. They surround the dictionary content within their well designed webpage template that does a great job of highlighting what they offer along with subtle sales messages and links in the right column.

7.  White Papers

Useful white papers can increase organic search visibility and improve conversions at the same time. As with useful articles and case studies they can help convey your expertise, help potential customers make decisions etc. Most white papers can also be promoted effectively through your various social venues.

You might try including only a summary and bullets of what’s in some of your most useful white papers (which should get indexed and may be returned in search results) and test collecting contact info from those who download it. This can be very effective when promoting white papers via your social venues and possibly search advertising.

8.  Product Manuals, Instructions, etc.

We helped one client design an office products ecommerce site. Our keyword research showed many people searching for manuals and instructions for some of the office products they sold. So we suggested they look into providing a database of manuals with download links on their product pages.

We also suggested creating more and more of their own instruction sheets and/or videos such as “How to install an xxx into an xxx” (You’ll need to look into the copyrights of hosting manuals for products manufactured by others. If it’s not allowed, you might provide summaries of the manuals with links to download them from elsewhere).

For that same customer, we saw many people searching for Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for some product categories. So we suggested building a database of these with links to related MSD sheets on specific product pages.

9.  Learning Centers, How To Articles, Videos, etc

If in your keyword research you see people searching for help when making buying decisions such as “best camcorder for…” then consider creating helpful articles and/or videos.

These might be found in search results, you can use them on your website to help your site visitors make decisions, and you can announce them in the social media venues you use.

Crutchfield, the electronics reseller, has done a great job of this with their Learning Center which includes both articles and videos. They put “teaser” summaries with links on appropriate product and category pages such as this video on How to Choose a Camcorder.

Notice that in addition to the text overview of the video, they have a search engine friendly tab with the transcript for the video, both of which should help with search results.

10.  Top 10 Lists

People like lists! Top 5. Top 10. Whatever. When it makes sense, publish a list (Such as 10 Content Ideas To Improve Organic Visibility).

I’m a bicyclist. The other night I was browsing a travel “magazine” on Flipboard and saw a beautiful scene with this headline “VBT’s Top Ten Vistas”.

I know who VBT is, they run bike trips all over the world (I’ve been on a couple). So I clicked through. I’ve been planning my next adventure trip and I’ve added VBT’s Ireland Trip which includes the Cliffs or Moher and their trip to Argentina to see the mountains of Patagonia, both of which I learned about while reading the Top Ten Vistas article.

Why do we like lists? See 127 Reasons Why We’re Fascinated By Lists on TheAwl and 10 Reasons Why We Love Making Lists on NPR.