We’ve been talking about content marketing, analytics and SEO from our very first blog, and it’s safe to say that we probably love analyzing customer data more than just about any other facet of digital marketing. To me, it’s just fascinating to see the flow of users from the initial search or ad click through a website to a conversion.
This is especially fun to watch for 1981’s own site, when we’re not necessarily looking to convert a lead, so much as just put relevant information out there for people to find organically. We’re not aiming for specific keywords or even target audience at this point – just putting (hopefully) useful information out into the greater internet to be shared. Obviously, there is a strategy behind this, which is positioning ourselves to be a good, quality source of information for clients, potential clients, or anyone who organically stumbles along.
Two of my favorite reports to look at in Google Analytics is the Content Drilldown to see where users are spending their time on our site and Webmaster Tools, which is a source of fascination and confusion, depending on what’s happening. Simply put, the queries report is a list of what people are searching for to find your site.
Jimmy Johns
Years ago, I was doing content marketing and blog writing for a client and doing an audit of how people were searching for them. While most of the results were fairly predictable (the business name, the city/state and industry, and so on), a lot of the terms that show up for a well-stocked blog can occasionally get pretty interesting. Here are a few of the fun terms people used to find their blogs:
- John’s Delivery
- Pictures of Google
- Jimmy Johns Lincoln Illinois
- Jimmy Johns Lincoln
- Jimmy Johns Marketing
- Gorilla Poster
- Jimmy Johns Special
- Jimmy Johns Bread
- I Love Jimmy Johns
- The Monster Mash bpm
- Surgery SEO
- Cigars Under the Stars
- Delivery Jimmy Johns
…and about 1,000 more.
Now, I am specifically calling out the Jimmy Johns entries and want to point out that the client did not, nor had ever been remotely affiliated with Jimmy Johns in Lincoln, Illinois. However, they had written a quick post four months prior about a company get-together that the local Lincoln Jimmy Johns had simply delivered sandwiches and they were showing up right alongside of and sometimes above Jimmy Johns in their own search terms!
Part of that is a matter of ranking higher in local SEO than their local branch is and part of that is that they were consistently putting out new content on our site almost daily, so Google was checking back more often and boosting their posts higher in the search results rankings. Luckily, this was having the effect that we wanted on the words they want; we were just seeing the fun byproduct of content marketing on their behalf. The more aggressive you are with your content, the better the results are for your search results on the terms you’re actively trying to move.
Overplayed and Nerdy Wedding Songs
Alternatively, another example where it was more deliberate was with a blog that I managed for a Springfield IL wedding band. Two very simple articles that I wrote in 2016 and 2017, “Wedding Music for Geeky Brides and Grooms” and “What’s The Most Overplayed Song In History?” are still overwhelmingly the highest referred to and clicked-on blogs on their site and consistently drive hundreds of clicks a month. Their site is still the second result for the search term “overplayed songs” and they have search queries locked in for terms like:
- most overplayed songs
- most overplayed songs of all time
- overplayed songs
- nerdy wedding songs
- nerdy songs to walk down the aisle to
- overplayed wedding songs
- nerdy wedding processional songs
- what is the most overplayed songs
- nerdy first dance songs
… and so on.
These weren’t just fun, throwaway blogs – there was a method to why they were written, how exactly they were written, and even how they were referenced again in blogs over the next year. Clearly the strategy paid off because whenever a bride or a groom are searching for potential overplayed songs to avoid playing at their wedding or wanting a particularly nerdy slant to the music, they’ll find a link to the band with a prominent call-to-action waiting.
You Get The Idea
We can give dozens more examples of the importance of intentional search engine optimization and content marketing or talk about how all of this can literally drive customers to you for years, but if the idea of taking on an aggressive content marketing strategy seems overwhelming, let’s grab coffee and see how we can help!
