So what is an Optimized Content Strategy?

An Optimized Content Strategy is the art of deliberately producing content, based on keyword phrases that are driving organic search traffic and conversions, that demonstrates an understanding of your target customer’s knowledge acquisition at various stages in their buying cycle. Then delivering that "optimized" content to them in a relevant and compelling way to grow your business by socializing the content through your organization’s social networks. In this context, content can consist of: website content, blogs, press releases, case studies, white papers, how-to guides, emails, news and events, videos – whatever it is your prospects and customers want to consume, in the format they will best be able to consume it, and on the various platforms on the web they may be receptive to consuming the content.

Search Rankings: Optimized Content Strategy

Here are a few reasons why producing and distributing fresh, relevant, optimized content must be part of your marketing strategy, if you want to rank in organic search and be relevant in the social networks.

1. Social Signals
December 2010: both Google and Bing announced that they factor social signals into their organic search algorithms. According to Google, social media and social networking are about relationships and relationships prove relevance and relevance is at the core of organic search. Social signals are the new back links. It is becoming apparent that social signals will continue to rise in importance as the lines between social media and search continue to thin.

Optimized Content Strategy Approach: Distribute your optimized content strategy to your social networks and give your website visitors and content consumers every opportunity to socialize your content including: tweets, re-tweets, Google +1’s, Facebook Likes and Shares, YouTube views and LinkedIn Shares. Of course, you need to build out your social networks too – not just more followers, but each platform offers different content formats and offers an opportunity to spin your message.

2. Google's Panda
March 2011: Google starts penalizing sites for manufactured back links.

Optimized Content Strategy Approach: For long-term success with your SEO and social media strategies build out your back links by producing and distributing relevant fresh content such as optimized press releases and blog posts. Optimize your content for the keywords you know your prospects are using to find you and that they are converting on. Point back links in the press release, blog post or case study to your website, or better yet, a conversion page. Then socialize the content through your social networks including: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

3. The Freshness Updates
November 2011: Google launched an algorithm change called the Freshness Update that gives priority to fresh, timely content such as press releases, blogs, news and events.

Optimized Content Strategy Approach: Give Google, and your customers, fresh, relevant, timely optimized content.

Conclusion

So while the fundamentals of organic SEO remain important – such as ensuring you have a strong technical website with keyword optimized pages, good site architecture, and building local search and industry-specific directories for back linking purposes – a real shift is taking place in the on-going approach to traditional SEO. That shift is the creation, publishing and distribution of an optimized content marketing strategy. This is only possible after the base is built - your website - but the conceptual aspects of a content strategy are actually the foundation for your entire Internet Marketing Strategy. And developing the conversations with customers is an ongoing process....

As an internet marketing consultant, I find that many people have the impression that SEO is something you can do once and then forget about.

This is dead wrong. Search engine optimization isn’t static; it’s a moving target. As a business owner, you need to be aware of the changes in the field and continually fine tune your strategy to ensure that you stay top-of-mind – and top-of-page.

Changing Algorithms
Search engines like Google periodically change the way that they provide search results. Their goal is to provide the most relevant results to their users, and the more data they collect over time, the better they are able to do that. Remember, the internet is still pretty new – it’s only been around for 25 years – so they’re still learning what we want by profiling search intent. It’s an ongoing process of studying psychodynamics to better understand how people use the technology and express that in patterns of search.

This is where an internet marketing consultant comes in. Their job is to stay on top of the trends and changes so that your website is always up-to-date. As the criteria that search engines look for changes, your website needs to change as well.

Changing Audience
Before the internet, marketing research was fairly static. A business would run a formal survey, define the customers and the competition in that one moment in time, and then use that data for the next 3 to 5 years.

Today, market research is dynamic. Things change more rapidly, and you can monitor what’s happening in real time, updating the data you use on a monthly basis. If you see a new trend in queries, you can adjust your strategy or content to attract those potential customers. From my experience, the search data is anywhere from 1 to 3 months ahead of what people actually buy. This means that you are able to stay ahead of the change rather than chasing behind it.

Changing Strategy
Even armed with all that data, internet marketing consulting starts by making assumptions about what people want when they are searching for certain terms. It takes time to see the results of those assumptions. Were you rewarded by Google in the way you thought you would be? Sometimes you find that the search engine picked up on a term that you didn’t intend, or you ranked well for your desired keyword but the bounce rate is high, which means visitors didn’t find what they were looking for.

The more experience your internet marketing consultant has, the closer they will get to making it right the first time.  But even then, you can fine tune in order to improve your conversion rates. You don’t want people to just land on your website; you want them to take action, whether that means buying a product, contacting you, or signing up to get more information. By studying the analytics, you can make changes to improve your results.

A good internet marketing consultant can make sure that you stay at the forefront of everything and keep you aware of how search – and your own business – is evolving. The only way to maintain your business’s relevance is to know how that relevance is being determined.