Are You Speaking With Your “Brand Voice?”
SEOs and Copywriters struggle to create content that is both SEO-friendly and in proper brand voice. If you find that perfect balance, you will not only find more organic SEO traffic, but you will also encourage conversion.We all know that SEO copy is designed to be perfect in the eyes of Google RankBrain, not human beings. Effective website copy speaks to your audience in a way that attracts them to your business and converts them into customers. Perfect website content would be attractive to both your website visitors and Google algorithms. In recent years, Google has clearly become less concerned with keyword density and more concerned with a strong User Experience, so the two disciplines are being encouraged to come together. How does that happen?Here are some questions that will help you to define the brand message that will make sense for your audience.
1. What is your USP (unique selling proposition)?
Define what it is that makes you stand out from your competition. Your competition has similar products, but to avoid making your offerings a commodity, which makes sales a profit-killing race to the lowest price, what special skill, value, expertise or premium do you offer?
2. What is your ideal customer?
The “big picture” answer is a start. I was speaking to an auto repair client the other day, and the response was “automobile owners who need maintenance or repair on their vehicles.” This is clearly true, but not nearly in-depth enough. I encouraged the client to answer the following:1. What make of automobile do they drive?2. What are their typical service and repair problems?3. What do they think about their automobiles? Love affair or just transportation?4. What are they like?5. What do you and your team do to solve their problems?These answers will help define your target audience. The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to figure out what they want and how to make them feel that you are talking directly to them. Website content should be written like a 1 on 1 conversation, not a broadcast.
3. What defines conversion when it comes to your website?
Is your goal to sell products, encourage a telephone call or personal visit to your store or office, or would you like each visitor to see specific pages of content on your website? Whatever the goal, it is not enough to simply put a cleverly designed call to action button on the page. Your content must convince a website visitor that the action you wish for them to take is a relatively painless and logical next step if they are interested in the goods and services that you offer.
4. Are your products or services the solution to a problem?
You must emphasize the benefits of your goods and services, not the features. For our auto repair shop, the features are quality repairs made by expert auto technicians. The benefits may be saving money in the long run or getting better resale value by demonstrating that your vehicle has been properly maintained.To help with this, you can make a list of the most common questions asked by your past clients. How can you demonstrate that you will make their lives a little, and their experience of working with you as enjoyable as possible?
5. What voice appeals to your target audience?
If your business is successful, then the voice and your brand culture come through to customers that you meet in person and speak to via telephone. This same voice should apply to your website content. In the long run, if your website content is not consistent with your culture, your customers and potential customers will soon realize this and begin to mistrust you just a bit for misrepresenting yourself in the first conversation that you had with them.Conclusion: While on the face it seems simple to create effective SEO content in brand voice, it requires a great deal of preparation and a solid idea of how your company and its services are perceived in the marketplace. It is important to have all content reviewed carefully by a team member who has a solid grasp on your brand voice to keep content and the call to action consistent with how you run your business.The investment of time and effort will be large, but you will undoubtedly find your results will be much better.