Back in the day, Hamilton’s economy was all about creating steel.
Today, Hamilton businesses can succeed by creating something a bit less hard but just as durable, unique content.
In the service economy, your marketing makes you stand out. Content marketing is a way to increase your customer base, improve your brand, and help with search engine optimization (SEO).
As search engine optimization experts, we’re going to teach you how content creation can help your Hamilton business succeed. We’ll give you some great tips on how to create content along the way.
Why content generation matters
Content is king.
It’s an adage so old it can feel like it’s lost all meaning.
But it’s still true—and content matters to the people who visit your website.
Content is everywhere. Websites, social media, and even newsletters—they’re all driven by content. Sometimes it’s written content. Other times, it’s videos or infographics.
The internet runs on content. When you make high-quality content, it does more than just boost your ability to perform well in search engines. It gives you the power to bolster your digital marketing across all platforms— including pay-per-click (PPC) ads and social media.
Great content is powerful—if you know how to create it.
Here’s a short list of the things content can do for your business in Hamilton:
- It will teach search engines what your website is about.
- It will keep potential customers on your website for longer.
- It provides potential customers with useful information about your business.
- Content establishes you as an authority on your line of business—and on Hamilton.
- Great content will help you rank for relevant keywords.
- You’ll answer questions, pique curiosity, and guide people through your sales funnel.
- You can use high-quality content across all digital platforms (and even in traditional marketing).
Content rules with a gentle hand, guiding people with questions from Google’s search results to your website. From there, it builds on your potential customer’s curiosity, feeding them all the information they need to know that your Hamilton business is the right choice for their needs.
In this article, we’re going to teach you how to build content that converts. Content that teaches search engines like Google that your Hamilton business is the authority on the topics that are relevant to your customers.
In short, we’ll teach you how to make content that promotes your business and drives sales.
Content generation and SEO in Hamilton
In some sense, all marketing is content marketing—you can’t exactly market without content. Billboards, newspaper ads, television ads—it’s all content!
When we talk about content marketing and content generation in Hamilton, though, we’re usually talking about content created by your business for the general good. Instead of saying “buy our services today”, the content we create will inform people about your line of business, give them useful resources, and answer their questions.
The goal of content marketing is still to generate leads and net you new customers. It’s just the approach that’s more subtle—we’re gently guiding customers to learn more about your business, and we’re doing so in a way that teaches search engines that you’re the authority on the topic in Hamilton.
You’ll need to know your niche like the back of your hand to succeed in content marketing—it’s one of the most challenging forms of digital marketing.
It’s also one of the most rewarding.
By creating killer content, you’ll keep users on your site and rank higher in the search engine results pages.
This happens because search engines recognize that the content you’ve written is relevant to Hamiltonians, and to your niche.
There are several different tricks to help your content perform better—the way you structure your website, use links, and promote content will all affect how your content performs.
The most important factor, though, is that you create content people actually care about. You can do this by conducting keyword research, honing in on search intent, and coupling video and visuals with your written content.
Keyword research
To generate incredible content, you need to know which keywords you want to target. This process is known as keyword research.
You’ll want to target keywords that are relevant to both Hamilton and your industry.
That might mean targeting keywords that students at McMaster University look up. It might mean targeting neighbourhoods like Mount Hope or Hamilton Beach.
Keyword research is more science than art. We use tools to find the keywords that are most frequently searched for in your industry—and in Hamilton. We find out how difficult it is to rank for those keywords, then strategically start building content.
The tools we use include Semrush, Google Trends, AnswerThePublic, and more. We’ll also focus on what are known as service-in-location keywords—things like “breweries in Hamilton” or “restaurants in Waterdown”.
We’ll also target what are known as longtail keywords—keywords that are longer queries and that tend to be easier to rank for (though they have a lower search volume).
Creating content for longtail keywords has two advantages. First, it helps us start establishing your authority on topics that are relevant to your business—and when one page starts ranking better, it affects your whole site.
Second, longtail keywords answer questions that Hamiltonians are actually searching for—questions that they’ll appreciate your business for answering. We’ll talk more about this in the next section—it’s all about search intent.
Search intent
Search engine optimization isn’t just about increasing the quantity of searches your Hamilton business will rank for—it’s about improving quality. One way we do that is by making content that’s targeted toward search intent.
Some Google users are looking for information. Others are looking to buy now.
During the content creation process, it’s essential that you understand the search intent of the keywords you’re trying to rank for.
There are four kinds of keyword search intents widely recognized in the industry:
- Informational: Users are looking to become informed
- Transactional: Users are looking to buy
- Commercial: Users are looking to compare products
- Navigational: Users are looking to navigate to a particular website (keywords like “Facebook”)
When a keyword is transactional, build content filled with call-to-actions, enticing visuals, and product or service benefits.
When a keyword is informational, build content that will help your prospective customer learn more about the question they want answered.
You get the idea.
By tailoring your content to what Hamiltonians want to see when they search for certain terms, you’re helping move prospective customers through your sales funnel at the pace that’s right for them.
The power of video and visuals
One of the best ways to make your content pop is by using videos and visuals.
There’s a reason Instagram is one of the most popular content marketing platforms. Visuals pop. They’re easy to digest.
By including useful infographics in your content, you can help your Hamilton business stand out. They’re one of the most effective ways of providing your customers with valuable information without boring them.
Hit them with statistics—percentages are really easy to digest and can showcase how your business solves real-world problems.
Videos are another powerful way to bring people to your website and generate leads.
We recommend pairing video content with written content. Video content tends to be a little more user-friendly; people like to sit back, relax, and enjoy what your Hamilton business has to say about the topic you’re an expert on.
Search engines, on the other hand, prefer written content—it makes it easy for them to understand what your business is all about.
By pairing video and visual content with written content, you’ll satisfy all kinds of potential customers—and you’ll meet the needs of search engines.
Getting your content written with First Rank in Hamilton
Our company is here to help you achieve your company’s marketing goals. With our content writing service, your business will always be ahead of the curve when it comes to providing highly shareable, highly readable content that’s relevant to your business—and relevant to Hamilton.
That’s because we employ an all-Canadian team of writers. Everything is done in-house, and we’re always up-to-date on the stories that affect Hamiltonians.
Take the guesswork out of making content that attracts users—the fact that you’re here is a testament to our skill.
We know how to make content that ranks in Hamilton, and we know Hamilton SEO. We’re First Rank. Contact us today.
firstrank.ca
