👋 Hello great people of the D2C Community! This is your host Berkay writing.
Today, we’re going to talk to Soner Alemdar (SA), Content Consultant at ContentGo , about everything ecommerce/DTC brands should know when it comes to content marketing, SEO, and blogging in 2024!
So without further ado, let’s get started with our interview!
👀 A quick look into ContentGo SA: ContentGo is a content marketing platform that provides an end-to-end content solution for companies from various niches. The platform is designed to answer the needs of different industries as it has an experienced team and a strong community of 3000+ content creators from multiple professions.
ContentGo helps brands analyze their competition, interview users/customers, plan a targeted content strategy, and create tailored content that is set to convert!
This 3-step process gives brands a better understanding of their current situation and helps them create a clear content strategy backed with data.
Plus, ContentGo launched ContentGo AI , an AI content creation tool with a built-in SEO assistant to help users plan their content, create content fast, and publish it on their websites. Bulk Content creation is a feature mainly designed for e-commerce websites to speed up content creation.
ContentGo AI provides a free trial so everyone can sign up and try it for free.
ContentGo.ai
🏄 SEO for Ecommerce In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for any business. This is particularly true for ecommerce/DTC websites, as the competition in this industry is fierce. To stand out and attract potential customers, DTC businesses must prioritize search engine optimization.
The benefits of SEO for ecommerce are numerous. Firstly, it can lead to increased traffic to the website, which in turn can result in more sales and revenue. Additionally, a well-optimized ecommerce site can improve the user experience, as users can find the products they are looking for more easily. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
SEO for ecommerce is an ongoing process. It requires continuous analysis, research, and optimization to stay ahead of the competition and maintain a strong online presence. This may involve regularly updating product descriptions and keywords, monitoring and responding to customer reviews, and staying up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and algorithms.
ContentGo and Ecommerce/DTC SEO How could ContentGo help ecommerce/DTC brands improve their SEO?
SA: The e-commerce/DTC domain is a field with intense competition. Most companies need to connect with their audiences consistently and step ahead of their competition.
This can only be achieved with solid SEO and high-quality, targeted content.
ContentGo provides end-to-end content management that starts with a detailed audit. Before beginning the process, ContentGo's team conducts a detailed interview with the brands to better understand their business goals.
This audit has 2 main steps, which serve as an ''MR''. The first one provides all the on-page details and pinpoints the improvement that needs to be done. This consists of all the technical improvements, broken link fixes, suggestions on page formats, and other details. The second part is more related to the content of the pages, which was formed after a detailed competition analysis. This analysis helps the team identify all the competitors' weak spots and helps generate content topics that need to be covered or reframe the ones already ranking.
Once everything is put into play and the process starts running, results are mainly seen after 2 months (average of the past projects).
The e-commerce/DTC domain is a field with intense competition… This can only be achieved with solid SEO and high-quality, targeted content.
Content Types In your experience, what types of content have proven most effective in building brand awareness and driving sales for brands?
SA: Building brand awareness and driving sales are two critical objectives for every brand. These content types differ, and focusing on both simultaneously might be ineffective, especially for companies with limited resources.
As we all know, there are 4 main steps in the decision-making process
Awareness Consideration Decision Retention
We'll look at the first three, as these are the ones related to content marketing. The most crucial point here is to remember to create content specific to each funnel stage.
There are a lot of content formats that perform well, but again, an effective content strategy is closely related to the objectives of the company.
But the first and foremost thing that the companies, especially the new starters, should consider is the intensity of their competition. This means that companies need to target smartly and allocate their resources effectively.
Content Types
Detailed Keyword Research and SERP Analysis Deciding on what content to create and creating a content outline has 2 fundamental steps - detailed keyword research and a SERP analysis . However, during keyword research, companies need to look at the intent of the keywords and their difficulties. These are two critical indicators to better decide on what to target.
For new starting companies in a saturated market, targeting a much wider audience may need to be more converting. Instead, focusing on content towards the bottom of the funnel is more crucial. You must spot the keywords with the "Transactional" or/and "Commercial" intent. Tools like Semrush are helpful in these but are pricey.
The keyword difficulty is another important indicator. On a scale from 1 to 100, it indicates how difficult it is to rank for that particular keyword. Targeting keywords with difficulty between 20-55/60 is ideal. So, going from the bottom to the top is a good choice for companies with limited resources. But if you are more flexible with your marketing investments, you can target the different funnel stages with different content.
Let's suppose that you are selling headphones. Undoubtedly, there are customers in the different stages of the funnel. People might be searching for "How to increase focus at work." If you have an article about this and this article gets some traffic, readers will land on it and read the content. Then, the flow of the article and the correct internal linking will take them to the next one, "What are noise-canceling headphones?". Readers who land on this will see the recommendation of your product, and with the right offering, you might instantly convert them.
Lastly, share and keep the user-generated content, or UGC, in front of the customers'
eyes. Companies like GoPro, Lululemon, TopVintage, and Barts utilize this successfully.
Check out our Growth Marketing Guide for 2024 to learn more about this!
🤔 How to Write a Blog? Blogging has become a popular way for DTC operators to improve their online presence and website traffic. However, for those who are new to the game, the process can seem daunting.
SEO is an essential component of any successful blog, as it helps to ensure that your content is easily discoverable by search engines like Google. This means that when someone types in a relevant search query, your blog post is more likely to appear at the top of the search results.
But where do you start with SEO? Well, let’s see what Soner says about that!
Blog Writing Best Practices What are some good practices for blog writing?
SA: Any blog must have high-quality content that is interesting and helpful to its readers. Using a clear and consistent writing style, headings, subheadings, bullet points, and whitespace to organize your content are critical best practices to remember. Other best practices include breaking up text with images and videos to make your blog more visually appealing, optimizing for search engines like Google, using categories and tags, providing value to your readers, and promoting your content through email marketing and social media.
What to Consider When Writing Blogs SA: You may produce excellent content that will benefit your readers and your blog's success by adhering to these best practices:
Choose a specified niche or approach topics from a unique perspective. Deciding on a niche is a crucial first step in starting a profitable blog. A niche is a particular interest or subject your blog will concentrate on. By focusing on a particular niche, you can develop a targeted audience in the specific subjects you cover. This can help you become recognized as an authority in your field and make it simpler to create content that your readers will find engaging and relevant.
When creating content, the length of your blog article is crucial to take into account. Generally speaking, long-form content—usually more than 1000 words—is seen as more thorough and in-depth. This kind of information increases the likelihood of sharing and search engine ranking. However, short-form content—typically less than a thousand words—is easier to read and more suited for readers with shorter attention spans. When choosing the length of your blog post, it's critical to consider the audience you want to target and the kind of information you are sharing.
When it comes to blogging, consistency is essential. Regularly posting new posts will keep people interested. Daily and weekly publishing is often advised, although this will vary based on your niche, audience, and schedule.
It's crucial to pick relevant blog subjects to maintain your readers' interest.
CTA’s encourage readers to do a particular activity, like downloading a free resource, purchasing a product, or subscribing to a newsletter. They are essential to a blog's layout since they encourage users to take action. To improve conversion rates, carefully and visibly place CTAs across your blog.
A well-written blog post requires careful attention to grammar. In addition to making your writing easier to read and comprehend, perfect grammar helps you come off as an authority in your field. Making use of grammar-checking tools can help you write better.
Your blog post's visual attractiveness and engagement mainly depend on the quality of the pictures you use. Using low-resolution or too-small photos should be avoided since they may appear pixelated or distorted when magnified. But high-quality and related images promote a professional and well-maintained website, aiding SEO.
Make sure the file names you choose for your photographs adequately describe what's inside them. As a result, users and search engines will find it more straightforward to understand what the picture stands for. Plus, alt texts in images are places where the main keyword can be included too.
Good Blog Examples SA: There are great examples that are worth sharing and might inspire every other brand:
Au Lit Fine Linens’s Blog
Press’s Squeeze Magazine
BarkBox’s BarkPost
AI and Content How could brands use AI more effectively in content creation?
SA: There is no doubt that AI has revolutionized our workflows. Since the launch of ChatGPT back in November 2022, thousands of tools have emerged, and many more are yet to come.
I call this the "tool inflation" period, as a new tool emerges almost daily. A simple search on Product Hunt can give you a lot of information. However, choosing the right tools for your business is crucial and challenging, as users can get lost in this wide variety of options.
When it comes to content creation, you are more likely to come across many tools that claim to provide high-quality content fast. However, the quality of the content and the speed are two things that are aligned with your expectations, so trying tools will give you a better idea about these two factors.
But, if we have an overall look and focus on how AI can help brands with content creation, it is crucial to have the funnel in mind again. As mentioned, customers go through different stages before purchasing a product, and a tool that can generate content for most of these steps is essential.
Brands can use AI tools to run keyword research, SERP analysis, and get suggestions on their content flow. Plus, some AI tools, such as ContentGo AI, offer bulk content creation that is nice for businesses with limited resources and those wanting to deliver content fast.
Plus, AI helps with repurposing content as it creates different formats for the posts.
I call this the "tool inflation" period, as a new tool emerges almost daily.
📈 Content Marketing KPIs What KPIs should brands keep track of?
SA: Content marketing mainly has better results in the long term. This is why tracking the performance of the content is vital. Depending on your goal, different KPIs are more relevant when measuring success.
If your goal is to increase your brand's awareness, drive traffic to your website, or increase the number of your followers on social media, the engagement of the posts is a metric that you need to prioritize.
But conversion rate might be a more precise metric if your primary target is increasing your sales.
We have to ensure that these metrics are not linked to your revenue.
To measure these KPIs, you have to use two central dashboards. You can use Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Google Analytics You can track your audience's engagement by checking the comments on the posts they share; this will give you an overall idea of how your audience feels about your content.
Using Google Search Console, you can quickly check the impressions of your articles and decide which ones to promote, update, or remove altogether. Plus, the tool gives you the total number of clicks, another KPI you should track.
Google Search Console Adding "events" from your Google Analytics account can help you track the path of your visitors and see how they navigate through your website, which is crucial when measuring your conversion rate - one of the most important metrics that indicate if your content converts or not!
🧑💻 Content Repurposing Multichannel marketing is important. How could a brand repurpose and redistribute content across various channels?
SA: All the created content takes time, effort, and, of course, money. With all these in the set, we always expect to get the maximum results from each piece of content we generate.
Every medium has its own style. For example, you cannot share articles on Instagram, but you can take the most important points and put them in a beautiful slider or create a series of Instagram posts or stories. On the other hand, you cannot share blog posts on TikTok but create a short video and share the most actionable tips with your audience, or summarize the whole article and upload a video of it on YouTube.
I'm trying to say here that brands always have the misconception that every new content or post needs to be creative and unique, but this will only drain your resources and kill consistency as it is not sustainable at all. We all have to use our creativity to repurpose existing content and serve it in different ways to reach the full potential of our reach.
Repurposing content:
Saves time and money Boosts SEO Helps with reaching full potential Deliver message better It might bring new backlinks
But not all content deserves repurposing. If you are just starting with repurposing and content marketing in general, you can pick the most vital content pieces or the ones you like but don't perform well. Plus, make sure that you choose evergreen content, which can also serve in the longer term.
And when it comes to repurposing, as mentioned above, you can:
Provide audio versions for some of your top-performing blog posts. Put themed blog posts into an eBook Turn list-based content into Reels or Tiktok videos Turn customer reviews into videos and optimize them to a different platform Turn podcasts or webinars to YouTube short videos, Instagram Reels, or Tiktok videos Plus, you can use your creativity to come up with other types :)
Hey, you could also find our DTC Guide to Content Marketing Ebook useful!
💡 Content Marketing for Small Businesses How could a small DTC brand with little resources streamline its content process?
SA: Companies with limited resources must set their targets strategically to allocate their resources most effectively.
When it comes to content, careful planning and consistency can help brands convert fast and build trust. D2C brands need to target the customers who have already gone down in the decision-making funnel. Creating content that directly targets potential customers in the decision phase of the funnel can help with quick conversions. But the offer needs to be transparent and competitive as well.
Also, user-generated content is significant as it helps build trust. This needs to be supported with customer testimonials as they can be repurposed and shared in many other formats.
Implementing storytelling in content marketing is very crucial, too. A great example of this case is Dollar Shave Club . The company incorporated storytelling in its content and connected with the consumer through compelling storytelling. Michael Dubin , the CEO, eliminated all the middlemen and saved tons of money. A billion-dollar business is the end consequence.
Content Creation Tools SA: There are many tools that businesses can use that are helpful and affordable at the same time.
ContentGo AI has tailored plans that help with most of the steps of content creation, offer bulk content creation, and integrate with platforms like Shopify. Also, ChatGPT can help with idea generation in smaller teams. Plus, Canva is a must-have for the design of all the visual content.
📈 Content Creation Trends in 2024 SA: Content is always gonna be necessary for all companies in most industries. The most crucial point will be how brands deliver the content and connect with their audiences.
Recent research conducted by Semrush indicated that researching the audience is the most crucial factor leading to content marketing success. Also, Google's helpful content update underpins all the content needed to provide a satisfactory customer experience and live up to its promise.
So, all D2C brands must understand their audiences well and provide tailored content in the most compatible format.
Generative AI is still in the early stages and there is a long way to go, but there are tools that deliver excellent results in content creation. Many more tools will emerge with different offerings, but the combination of AI and the human touch will probably be one of the most critical trends in the next few years.
This is why ContentGo AI combines Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence to provide the best possible and targeted content to brands.
If you want to try out ContentGo.ai, you can do start your free-trial for 7-days today! Just sign up using this link !
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