In a world ruled by Airbnbs, hotels - new and old - are trying to engage guests in new ways. That means constantly reinventing themselves and the experience of their stay. With that in mind, I'm dishing on my favorite hotel design trends right now. We're dishing on the hotel trends we're loving. READ FULL BLOG
Read MoreDo I Need A Content Strategy?
A content strategy allows you to goal set. A content strategy allows you to take actionable steps towards those goals. Otherwise, without a content strategy, your content marketing efforts will be like throwing darts at a board. A content strategy is like your CAD drawings, it's the first step, the blueprint to help you realize the finished product. READ FULL BLOG
Read MoreWhat is this SEO thing anyway? (Plus GOLDEN RETRIEVERS)
SEO + Content marketing
Thank goodness we know what Content Marketing is and why it’s so important. We also know we can design a Content Marketing strategy to generate multiple wins for your design, hospitality, or real estate brand business. Now we want to know what is SEO and why do digital marketers and google ads want to charge us for it?
SEO is Search Engine Optimization. Here’s a couple definitions:
“The process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.”
-Google
“It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.”
-Search Engine Land
Let's Break SEO Down
So far, so good. I mean, we want our site to appear high up on google’s and other search engine results. Essentially, there are two ways to increase SEO.
1. Keywords.
Keywords are just what they sound like - key words and phrases that potential visitors to your site are using to find you in search engines. The goal is to match the communication style of those visitors. There are all sorts of ways to utilize key words. Consider the following example:
It’s pretty clear this is an article catering to searches for pictures of Golden Retrievers - so this article has strong SEO. In fact it has laser-like .. single-minded .. Star Trek: The Next Generation borg-like SEO. There also might be room for improvement in narrative structure. The goal is to generate content that contains SEO and is also more than SEO. Your content tells a story. It delivers something of value to your audience. It makes them want to come back to your website or social media page for your next blog or photo or video, or share it with friends or with their own audience.
2. Backlinks.
The second method of generating SEO is backlinks, which are links from other websites to yours. You can do this organically by generating valuable content that other sites want to link to. You can also find partners that are a good fit for your unique brand and provide content for them to feature on their sites.
A great Content Marketing strategy includes these two SEO ingredients and a lot more. It delivers content that is valuable and meaningful to your audience. Your blog posts, photos, and videos should contain this structure:
Beginning + Middle + End + Keywords + Backlinks + Great Visuals + Brand Ethos
Now, let’s look at a picture of Golden Retriever puppies:
- Laine Mervis