Need a Minneapolis SEO Expert? Look No Further

Do you need a Minneapolis SEO expert for your business?

In this post, we’ll explain why and how working with a Minneapolis digital marketing agency for SEO services can help you grow your business.

You’ll see how we help our clients get found online, share our exact tactics, and help you make an informed decision on whether or not you should work with an agency.

Search Optimization (SEO) Defined

We’re not going to start with the technical definition of SEO. Why? Because the most important definition of SEO is the benefit it provides for your business.

Above all else, SEO is a tool to grow your business. 

When you put your business in front of people who are interested in your product or services, you’ll get more engagement, leads, and sales. It makes sense, right? Think of your behavior on Google. You use it constantly and it often leads to purchasing decisions.

You look something up, find the result that seems to match what you want (usually in the top three results), then you visit the page to see if the information is a right fit.

Sometimes it is. And sometimes it isn’t.

Maybe the site you visit loads too slowly and you don’t want to wait.

Perhaps the site looks unappealing and unprofessional so you don’t trust the business.

Maybe you land on the website and can’t find the information you’re looking for.

Now, think about a search result that does meet your standards. The site probably loads quickly, has a professional design with interesting media, and gets you the exact information you need.

A Minneapolis SEO expert looks at SEO services from every angle — not just the technical stuff — and focuses on the end result first.

It’s easy to throw around jargon like rankings, traffic, and conversions. It’s harder (but more beneficial) to understand the goals and target audience of your Minneapolis business then craft an SEO strategy around their needs.

At MLT Group, this is exactly how we perform SEO.

How Can You Tell You’re Working With a Minneapolis SEO Expert?

Here’s your first clue…

You found us by Googling “Minneapolis SEO expert” or something similar. As the famous saying goes, “the proof is in the pudding.”

Seriously though, we understand your concerns when it comes to SEO services.

You might know a little bit about SEO services, but you’re not an expert. You need to be able to understand the services you’re getting and how they benefit you. There are a lot of Minneapolis SEOs out there, meaning that some will be better than others. How will you know which one to choose?

A good digital marketing agency can easily describe it services and help you understand the process from start to finish.

Continue reading, decide if we’ve done that or not, and you’ll know the answer.

The Exact Breakdown of the SEO Services We Provide

There are many factors that determine where your website appears on Google. Some experts say there are up to 200!

Let’s break down the main factors that affect your site’s ranking on Google and discuss how our services can help.

SEO Research

Research is the first step to a successful SEO campaign.

You need to know what people are searching for online. You need to know which key phrases — terms people type into Google — drive the most traffic.

After compiling data, you have to decide which key phrases work best for your business based on a number of factors:

  • Relevance– A key phrase with high monthly traffic but low relevance — meaning it doesn’t describe your business well —  won’t work for your business
  • Competition – Based on the authority of your site, you must determine which phrases make sense to target at different stages of your campaign
  • Intent – Different key phrases have different intent and represent different stages of awareness, e.g., “shoes for sale” and “price for red Nike Air Jordans size 12”

At MLT Group, we use the following techniques and tools to find the right key phrases for your business.

We Talk to You

It’s a mistake to jump in and start working on your SEO campaign without understanding your business first. Before we begin any research, we’ll sit down with you to discuss the aspects of your business that will dictate the type of campaign we create.

We’ll ask you questions like:

  • What are the goals for your business in the next 6-12 months?
  • What marketing techniques have you tried before and how did they work?
  • Who are your customers? What are their demographics? How do you acquire them? What makes them tick? Where do they hangout online?
  • Who are your main competitors?
  • What’s the geographic service area for your business? (This is key for Local SEO)
  • What are your services and how do you prioritize them?
  • What does a successful campaign look like to you?

And much more.

Knowing these key details helps us achieve the stated goal above – using SEO services as a tool to grow your business. These details are much more important than metrics.

This process begins before you decide to work with us, too.

We provide a free site audit that tells you everything you need to know about your websites SEO performance, we’ll talk to you about your business, then we’ll see if our services are a good fit for both of us. 

We’re in business to make revenue, of course, but it matters much more to us to first find out if and how we can help you. We don’t use pressure tactics because we’re genuinely curious about you and your company first and foremost.

Sound good? If so, go ahead and fill out this form right now and we’ll start the free audit process right away:




 

Competitor Research

Did you know there are tools that tell you exactly what key phrases your competition ranks for, how much traffic they receive, and the links pointing to their website?

With the help of tools like Ahrefs and Moz, we can discover all the above. Once we compile the data, we can create a strategy to emulate what they’re doing well and find the opportunities they missed.

This will help you rank above your competition. b gyg

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Keyword Research

Competitor research is one facet of the key word research we perform.

What is key word research? It’s the brainstorming process of finding which words people use to search for your product or service online.

We use tools and techniques to decide what content to create, in what order we should create it, and the exact steps required to make website pages that Google loves.

When you work with us, you’ll get an easy to understand report that gives you the ‘why’ behind our strategy and allows you to make informed decisions when you weight in on the campaign.

Implementation

After we create your SEO strategy, we’ll use the following techniques to help rank your business on Google.

On Site Search Engine Optimization

Google uses an algorithm — a fancy math equation — that programs ‘crawlers’ (think robots) to index information across the web and decide which pages to rank above others based on a number of factors.

The higher you rank, the more people view and visit your website.

While smart, the bots can’t quite decipher content at a human’s level (although they continue to get closer), so they use certain identifiers to understand the sites they visit.

Let’s walk through each section of a perfectly optimized web page.

Content

It’s been said many times before — content is king. First and foremost, you want your site content to be useful and deliver the type of information the user expects.

Back in the day, you could get away with adding lots of keywords to your content, regardless of how well they fit or how useful the page was. Not anymore. Thanks to the Penguin update, sites that rank on Google must have content that meets the users needs.

We take our research and use it to create content both readers and search engines love.

When creating content for your site, we use these key techniques:

  • Add your key phrase early in the content (first page or paragraph)
  • Use your key phrase a few times in the content (but don’t overdo it)
  • Add related key words to give more context to the crawlers
  • If your business targets a geographic location, we make sure to mention it in your content and tags (good for Local SEO)

We provide as much depth as needed, add useful content like media when it applies, and focus on providing a great user experience.

This is important. Too often, SEOs will create content just for search engines. This makes for robotic writing that doesn’t provide value for the reader. Out of any strategy we use, writing for your readers first is the number one strategy.

Google keeps a tight lock and key on their algorithm and smart marketers have to make educated guesses about what works. When Google does state something officially, though, you must take it into account.

Look at Google’s main recommendation — straight from the horse’s mouth —  here:

Google SEO Recommendations

Next, consider the way we’re talking to you right now.

Does it sound like a sales pitch?

Is it using a bunch of unnecessary jargon and metrics that confuse you?

No to both. As best we can, we’re explaining our services in-depth, helping you make a smart decision, and talking to you like a regular human being. 

That’s all you need to do to create great SEO content and that’s what we’ll help you do if you work with us.

At MLT Group, we have a staff of dozens of writers with experience in many niches. We’ll work with you to create SEO content that reflects your business and makes visitors want to engage and ultimately buy.

Title Tag

Each page on your website has a space in the code to enter a tag that tells the crawlers what your page is about. You’re only allowed a certain number of characters per tag, so it’s important to put the right key phrases in the tag.

Here’s an example of a Title Tag as it appears on a search engine results page (SERP) that appears after you search something on Google:

title tag

Meta Description

Your meta description also shows up on the SERP and it’s a key factor in optimizing your page, but not for the reason you’d think.

Example:

There’s a persistent SEO myth that Google takes the keywords you use in your meta description into account as a ranking factor. It doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean your description isn’t important.

This is where SEO with business strategy in mind comes into play.

Your meta description should be treated like an irresistible advertisement for your business that gets people to click through to your website.

QuickSprout has a great guide on writing metas if you’re interested.

Some highlights are:

  • Add special offers (if you have any) to your description
  • Study the descriptions of paid ads (these appear at the top of SERPS and will have an [ad] tag next to them). Why do this? People who spend money on ads are going to take the time to make sure they’re compelling.
  • Create a strong call to action (CTA) to entice them to click through, e.g., “get your free no-obligation website audit today “

Metas are important for two reasons.

First, of course, you want people who find your site on Google to click through to it.

Second, Google uses click through as a ranking factor to decide the order in which pages appear.

They do this because Google is interested in providing the best results for users.

Here’s a good example to illustrate:

Let’s say the number two result has a more compelling description — meaning more people are clicking through — than the top result.

Why continue to display the top result at the top if user behavior shows people like the number two result more? It makes sense to switch them.

Thanks to one of Google’s recent updates, Rank Brain, this is exactly what’s happening.

An aside on Google’s continued updates: while industry standard techniques still work great for SEO, Google is trending towards serving up the best content.

This means your business can compete with more — technically — authoritative websites if you create the most compelling content possible.

A smart agency goes above the standard techniques alone and focuses on every aspect of promoting a business.

That provides an added benefit, too. Being persuasive, compelling, and informative isn’t just good for SEO, it’s good for business period.

Alt Tag

Alt tags are pieces of code that describe images.

The site crawlers can’t look at an image, per se, so they need a little help. Your alt tag provides a spot to tell the crawler what the photo is about, which gives you additional SEO credit.

SEO Headings

Using the right keywords in your headings helps the crawlers know more about your page. The more the crawler knows about the page, the more likely it is to rank it.

Headings also help organize information and keeps pages from looking boring and tedious from having large blocks of text.

Good headings provide an SEO benefit in another way, too. Google tracks how long people stay on your website. They figure if people stay on your site for a while, you must have great information.

It also tracks ‘bounces’ which means people visit your site and click back out of it immediately.

Which type of page is likely to keep you reading longer — one with organized headings that help you find the information you need or a giant wall of text that looks like it will take a ton of effort to understand?

Internal Links

On each page of your site, you want to link to other relevant and related pages on your website. This sentence is an example of an internal link.

Linking to other pages on your site is important. When a crawler visits your site, it uses links to find more relevant pages.

Done right, your link structure will allow the crawlers to index important pages on your site.

Done incorrectly, and the crawlers might miss important information on your site, fail to index it, which means those pages won’t rank on Google.

Page URL

Your page url is the link that shows up in your web browser:

seo url

The url for this blog post is – https://www.mltgroup.com/blog/minneapolis-seo-expert

This link has good structure for SEO because:

  • It uses the target keyword we are trying to rank the page for
  • It tells the user what the page is about (this is important because it appears on the SERP as well)
  • It’s concise – long URLs that don’t describe the topic are bad for SEO

When creating URLs for our client’s site, we keep these items in mind, e.g., creating a link like http://multisourcemfg.com/services/cnc-machining/ (this is a term people in the target audience understand.

Additional On-Site Optimization Techniques

These items are also key for creating an optimized page:

  • Optimize for loading speed — Google doesn’t like to rank slow loading pages
  • Save image files under names with key phrases, e.g., Minneapolis SEO Expert.jpg — This aids the alt tag
  • Build responsive web pages — Your website must be optimized for mobile devices, tablets, and various screen sizes
  • Add media – video, photos, infographics, social media sharing buttons, etc create a more engaging user experience and boosts dwell time, which is a ranking factor

Now that we’ve covered the core initial steps of an SEO campaign, let’s talk about the other techniques you need to use to improve your site’s performance.

Off-Site Strategies

Once the on-site techniques are completed, off-site techniques are used to help your site meet the right search engine standards to rank highly.

We provide these strategies as part of our SEO services on a recurring basis to help your campaign evolve over time.

Links and Link Building

Long story short, when the founders first created Google, they realized links were a great way to prioritize and organize information on the web.

Think about what it means to link to another web page.

It means you want other people to visit that page or reference it. If you want other people to visit the page, the page must have important and useful information.

To this day, the number and quality of links pointing to a page on your website is one of the top factors that determine where your site appears on Google.

Each time a website links to yours, it’s like a ‘vote’ telling the search engines your site is worth visiting.

This is where link building comes in.

We help you get more links to your website to give your site more authority.

We achieve this in a few ways.

Create Content Assets

If you create great content, people will naturally want to link to it and use it as a resource. As we’ll explain below, there’s leg-work that goes into finding sites that want to link to you.

Before that, though, you must make sure the pages on your site are worth linking to.

We use the techniques we described above to make pages worth visiting, thus worth linking to.

Directories

Buying links from spammy site directories no longer works.

You can, however, get good links from finding quality directories.

What makes a directory quality:

  • Manual review – A good directory has people who will actually look at your page to determine if it’s worth linking to. Spammy ‘pay to play’ directories don’t have these quality controls.
  • Relevance – A spammy directory will often feature your business next to something completely unrelated like a gambling website. Good directories are either industry based, e.g. a trucking company association, or location-based, e.g. a local chamber of commerce

We find directories that feature businesses from your industry. We submit your site for consideration, they review the quality of your site and post the link if it meets their standards.

Outreach

Often, there are related sites who would link to you if they knew who you were and you had content worth sharing.

We offer outreach services to gain links to the content we create for you.

How does this work? We will reach out to other related businesses on your behalf and send them a pitch on why your content is worthing linking to and how linking to it will benefit their site.

For example, we may share an informative article on fire damage restoration with an insurance company. This gives them a useful and relevant resource their clients might need.

The benefit for them is that they don’t have to spend time creating content themselves.

Our outreach process might include other strategies like reaching out to journalists looking for an expert’s opinion about your industry or offering to create a guest blog post for a related business in exchange for a link.

Linked gained through outreach are the highest quality because they take real effort and relationship building to get.

If you decide to work with us, you’ll receive a report showing you exactly how many backlinks your site is getting with details on how they’ve affected your site’s performance.

Online Identity

If your business has been around for a while, information about it will start to populate the web.

Some directories will create pages for your company without asking you.

Actually, this happens often.

Here’s where this can turn into a problem.

Information about your business will change over time. You might move locations, change your phone number, change your hours, change your website’s URL, create & delete social media profiles, etc.

If these changes aren’t monitored, you can have inconsistent information displaying online, which has a negative impact on your SEO.

This is especially important for Local SEO because the search engines track the consistency and uniformity of your business information online. Mainly, the name, address, and phone number of your business (NAP).

Again take Google’s thought process into account. If your NAP information is inconsistent, why would Google want to rank your website?

This would confuse searchers, which is the opposite of what the search engines want.

Also, consider the impacts an inconsistent profile has on your business.

How does your brand look if someone searches for your business online, calls the provided phone number, and gets a disconnected message?

They’re probably not going to keep digging to find the right information. They will look for another company.

In addition to hurting your brand reputation, an inconsistent profile will literally cause you to miss out on potential sales. No good.

Here’s how our online identity services work and why they’ll benefit your business.

Profile Tracking

We will add your correct NAP into major businesses directory aggregators like Localeze and FourSquare.

These larger directories populate information on smaller directories, helping you create a consistent profile across the web.

We also monitor the overall health score of your online identity profile and make sure to find unclaimed listings, duplicate profiles, and listings with the wrong information.

Citation Building

Remember when we told you links back to your website count as a “vote” for the quality of your business and its content?

There’s another type of “vote” we help you build called a citation.

You earn a citation anytime your business is mentioned online, regardless of whether or not it’s in the form of a link (although certain citations provide links).

Citations can come in the form of social media mentions, reviews, and listings on directories (although the large aggregators find directories and build citations, there are always more to find and claim).

We help you build citations for your business by reaching out to relevant areas online and promoting your business to earn these important relevance signals.

Citation building is also the cornerstone of a solid local SEO strategy.

These citations help you show up in the ‘map pack’ which are those prominent map-based listings you often see on the SERP (example below):

Citation building and link building creates a potent combination to help rank your business online.

Technical SEO

We won’t dive into a ton of details here because technical SEO can be very complicated.

Here’s the short version.

Your site performance affects your SEO. A site with performance issues will hamper an SEO campaign even if you do everything else right.

If you work with us, we’ll monitor your site for factors including but not limited to:

  • Broken links – Broken links — links that point to an expired page — hurt your user experience, which hurts your SEO. We have tools to check and fix those links.
  • Redirects – Anytime you remove a page from your site or change the URL, you must redirect the old URL to a new one because if you don’t, your page will show an error message called a 404
  • Loading speed – The way you add images and media to your pages, structure the code, and develop a site architecture can all impact how fast your site loads. We work to keep your websites loading as quickly as possible.

Simple Reporting to Help You Understand Your SEO Campaign Performance

SEO can get confusing … fast.

This is why we try to share the performance of your campaign in the simplest way possible.

We do this because we know you don’t have time to become an SEO expert. You need to work on your business.

We also know that, although many factors and metrics contribute to SEO, you want to understand a few key things about your campaign and you want to know that it’s working.

Our reports include easy to understand information like:

  • How many people are visiting your site through Google and whether that number is increasing or decreasing over time and by how much?
  • How many leads you receive directly from Google searches, e.g., phone calls and contact form submissions
  • Where your website is ranking for important key terms related to your business

Simple reporting helps you understand if our campaign is helping you reach your business goals, which is the only real metric that matters.

You’ll receive automated messages each month and a more in-depth report for each quarter.

After you receive your quarterly report, we’ll schedule a phone or in person, meeting to review it, help you understand it, and answer your questions.

Conclusion

While in-depth, this guide shares exactly what we do, how we do it, and why our services will benefit your business.

Why pull back the curtain and show you our techniques? Because we believe transparency is vital.

You need to be able to understand our services.

You need to work with a company you can trust, not because we say we’re trustworthy, but because we plainly and simply show you how trustworthy we are.

We love helping business owners because we’re passionate businesses owners ourselves. 

SEO is one of the best marketing techniques you can use for your business and educating our clients while helping them not only builds stronger businesses, but stronger business owners too.

Your business is successful because you’re in expert in your field. That’s why you went looking for another expert to help you with your online marketing.

Meet with us and you won’t have to wonder if we’re Minneapolis SEO experts, we’ll demonstrate it for you in a way that’s undeniable.

That’s a bold claim, but we’re a bold company who stands behind our work. Connect with us and you’ll see.

You’re at the end of a 4,000 + word guide because you’re interested and curious.

Here’s what you do next. Fill out this form below, receive a free audit in the next 48 hours, and see the expertise for yourself.

See you on the other side. We can’t wait to connect with you.

Creative Small Business Video Production Ideas that Won’t Break the Bank

You know what’s great about running a small business? You’re the boss! What’s not so great? You’re probably working on a smaller budget than your competitors. That doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the same marketing techniques bigger businesses use. Take video production for example. While a TV commercial may be a big financial commitment, there are plenty of other ways you can take advantage of video production that are just as effective.

Why Small Business Video Production is Important

 

Why should make room in the budget for video production? Visual media garners more attention, gets more shares on social media, and is more engaging than text or print media. You also get a lot of bang for your buck; videos can be shared on different outlets like social media and your website and reused over time.

 

Although many businesses do well with online or print marketing, if you can take your marketing to the next level, reach new audiences, and create an engaging message by incorporating small business video production into your strategy, why wouldn’t you?

 

Different Types of Videos that Won’t Break the Bank

 

When you think of video marketing, you probably imagine a costly TV commercial, but there are different types of videos that you can incorporate into your marketing strategy that won’t break the bank.

 

Welcome Videos:

Whether you’re a new business or promoting a new product or service, introduce yourself to potential customers. Make sure to include the name of your business within the video, along with contact information and a brief description of your services. Including a welcome video on your home page is a great way to quickly engage and introduce visitors to your business. They are also great for establishing your brand or story. They don’t have to be complicated or elaborate to be effective.

 

Aerial Videos:

There may have been a time when aerial videography was out of reach for everyone except big budget studios, but those days are long gone; even small businesses can use aerial videos in their marketing. Aerial videography can be used for almost anything! It’s great for showing off large facilities, exhibiting beautiful landscapes, capturing event footage, and so much more! Using drones for aerial videography makes it more affordable than ever. Just make sure you’re working with a licensed drone operator!

 

Tour Videos:

Want to welcome visitors to your business before they even step inside? Consider a tour video! Whether you’ve moved, remodeled, or you’re a brand-new business, creating a tour video of your building is a great way to introduce viewers to your business, show off your space, and get them excited for a visit! Get your team involved too; introduce your staff members in their workspaces in the video. This gives your video a personal touch and helps to begin forming a relationship with viewers.

 

Internet Commercial:

While air time is expensive, you can still create a high-quality commercial without the budget busting price tag. Instead of creating a commercial for television, create one to be shared online! Publishing videos online is free and there are plenty of outlets on which to share them, allowing you to get more mileage out of your video.

 

Event Videos:

Do you own a venue that hosts events? If you’re not advertising that with event videos, you’re missing out. Special events such as weddings, festivals, and concerts offer plenty of visual opportunities that can make for a stunning video. You can even incorporate aerial videography to get shots of large crowds.

The Only Limit to Small Business Video Production is Your Imagination

 

Have a unique idea for your marketing video? We can help! MLT Group has been providing small business video production for over 30 years and we’d love to help you with your project. Whether you need a licensed drone operator or post production help, we’ve got you covered. If you can imagine it, we can make it happen.

 

For all of your small business video production needs, contact us at 507.281.3490 or sales@mltgroup.com and get your free quote today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-Commerce Marketing Strategies: The Ultimate Guide

E-commerce marketing can do wonders for your business. With the right strategies, you can engage people who are interested in your products, build a base of loyal customers, and grow your influence to reach every corner of your market.

In today’s post, we’re going to teach you different e-commerce marketing strategies ranging from SEO tips, content marketing, social media marketing and more.

If you use just one of these strategies, you’ll see results that can help you grow your brand and your bottom line. Before we dive into the tips, let’s talk about the unique power of e-commerce businesses.

Why E-Commerce Businesses Are The Future

The internet has changed the way people buy and the benefits of e-commerce businesses are impossible to deny.

Here is a short list of benefits e-commerce businesses provide their users:

  • Convenience – You don’t have to leave the comfort of your home to purchase from an e-commerce store
  • Speed – Most e-commerce businesses offer fast shipping. Just look at Amazon, who’s gone so far as to test ’30 minute drone deliveries’
  • Options – When shopping online, you can hand pick the products you want without ever having to visit a store and you can compare prices between different businesses without having to visit them

There are numbers to shed light on the shift in markets too:

e-commerce marketing statistics

 

It’s unlikely that retail will disappear, but it’s obvious the internet is here to stay.

If you’re an e-commerce business owner, providing a great user experience and solid marketing strategies allows you to reach a larger audience than you ever could with a physical location.

As an e-commerce business owner, you’re already sold on the power of the internet. For those who have the potential to move into e-commerce, but haven’t yet, consider how you can market and sell your products online to keep pace with the changing trends for the future.

Now, it’s time for the strategies.

SEO E-Commerce Marketing Strategies

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps put your business in front of people with search intent — meaning those who are actively searching for your product.

SEO works well for e-commerce businesses who do it right. Just take a look at this search engine results page for the phrase “green tea for sale.”

Each page that appears in this picture represents an organic search result. Organic means the businesses achieved these results without using paid advertisements. That’s the beauty of SEO — you can achieve results through effort and sound strategies alone.

These e-commerce SEO strategies will help you rank your business on Google and put it in front of buyers looking for your product.

Here are the e-commerce SEO strategies you must use to succeed.

Optimize All Site Pages

The most important pages on an e-commerce website are it’s category pages, product pages, and blog poss.

You want to optimize your pages using the following techniques:

  • Use key phrases in your page titles
  • Use key phrases  in your meta description
  • Place key phrases in your content
  • Optimize images by placing key phrases in their ‘alt tags’
  • Make sure your content length meets SEO standards
  • Add media to your pages like pictures, infographics, and videos

Here’s a great example of an optimized e-commerce website.

Cup & Leafs E-Commerce Product Page SEO Analyzed

The Cup & Leaf blog sells tea products. When you visit one of their product pages you’ll see organized information that also serves an SEO purpose.

Most product pages use the product name in the title. In this example, you’ll see an optimized key phrase as the product title:

When you scroll down, you’ll see a product description that’s optimized but also very informative and persuasive to customers (key phrase highlighted in red):

e commerce product description

 

 

The content is in-depth, but not overwhelming. It uses key phrases but doesn’t stuff them in the content. It’s informative, describes benefits, and cites reputable sources.

It takes time, but providing on page SEO to each of your products will help them rank on search engines.

Cup & Leafs SEO Content Analyzed

The Cup & leaf blog uses content marketing and SEO through their blog. When you look at their blog page, you’ll see posts with titles that match topics tea lovers might type into Google:

e-commerce blog example

Each blog post has optimized content, but also provides useful and relevant information for readers. This is key because content marketing and SEO are more about making users happy than search engines. Typical optimization doesn’t work anymore. The search engines are ranking content that’s useful for readers. It’s now their number one priority:

e commerce content marketing

Notice the techniques used here:

  • Optimized page title
  • Key phrase in the first sentence of the content
  • Internal & outbound links
  • In-depth content

Imagine you’re a tea lover who searches for tips on making great tea. You land on this page and read articles giving you the exact information you’re looking for. Then, when you read the post, it ends with a call to action to check out the company’s products.

This is exactly what Cup & Leaf does.

At the end of one of their posts, you see a call to action to buy their products at a discount:

e commerce call to action

The owner of the company — content marketing expert Nat Elision — shares the entire SEO & content strategy he used to start the company in this guide.

Highlights from the post:

Research topics – using tools like ahrefs, the Google keyword planner, and more, you can perform keyword research to find topics with traffic volume.

Design the blog to drive sales – each post has a call to action to enjoy a discount or try related products

Gain product reviews – this increases social proof and is a positive ranking factor for SEO

Write long-form content – long-form content is a positive ranking factor.

With a sound SEO strategy employed, you can use more e-commerce marketing techniques to build awareness for your company and ultimately drive leads and sales.

Use the Following E-Commerce Content Marketing Strategies

Content marketing works especially well for e-commerce businesses. To have an effective content marketing campaign, you need to understand the full breadth of the phrase.

Check out this definition of content marketing from the content marketing institute:

Content comes in many forms, including but not limited to:

  • Written content – pages and blog posts
  • Video
  • Photos & infographics
  • Social media

Let’s walk through examples of different types of content marketing and discuss what they do well.

Written Content

We discussed SEO and content marketing for e-commerce businesses already, but it’s important to know the details of running a successful content marketing campaign. Here are some need to know items.

Research

When you do the right research, you can create a strategy that targets the right customers and creates the types of content they want to read.

You can use keyword research — a staple of SEO — to discover topics people are actively searching for.

Check out our guide to keyword research for more detail.

You can also research what your competitors are doing well to create better content and use strategies like link-building to leapfrog them in search.

Here’s an example. Using the Ahrefs tool, you can discover a lot of useful information about a competitor. Sticking with our tea example, I found a tea company and looked for search data:

In the organic keywords section of the tool, you can see the keywords that get the most traffic and links to the pages receiving the traffic:

competitor seo research

Then going into the individual pages, you can see where they’re gaining links from, as well as important metrics to know like site authority, the number of backlinks, and the phrases the single page ranks for:

seo data

Using the ahrefs keyword analyzer tool, I can estimate the number of links I need to build to the page:

key word analysis

Next, I’d create a piece of content about chai tea lattes and make it more detailed entertaining and informative than the competitor’s post.

Then, I’d build links to the page by sharing the content with people who are likely to link back to the page. This is known as the skyscraper technique.

You can also leverage reviews to discover what your customers like and dislike about your type of product. Check out this review on Amazon for a green tea product:

e commerce product review

Using these insights, I make create content discussing both the quality and cost-effectiveness of my product.

Question and answer sites like Quora provide useful information as well. I typed in “chai tea” on Quora and got the result:

quora research

Knowing people want to know the difference between masala and chai tea, I could create content on this topic. My result may even show up in a cool Google snippet like this one:

google snippet

Implementation

Once you have solid e-commerce marketing research you can implement your campaign.

It’s important to know your target audience, goals, and key performance metrics before you begin creating content.

You also want to create a content calendar with topics you want to write about and block out time to create content.

If you’re an e-commerce business owner, you might not have time to create the content yourself. This is where a digital marketing agency can come in handy.

At MLT Group we have the staff, resources, and creativity to create a content marketing campaign for your business.

If you’re interested in a done for you e-commerce marketing strategy, fill out the form below for a free audit:




 

Video content marketing has grown in popularity in recent years.

Here’s some data on video per Hubspot:

  • 97% of marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service
  • 76% say it helped them increase sales
  • 76% say it helped them increase traffic.

If you leverage video the right way, it can do wonders for your business.

In a perfect example, Dollar shave club used viral video to grow their business:

In our breakdown of their marketing strategy, we highlighted the following reasons why their campaign worked so well:

  • Hook your audience
  • Keep your brand consistent
  • Know your audience
  • Have a clear message
  • Don’t get lost in your own video

Pay attention to how they used humor, shock value, and intrigue to make a boring product suddenly interesting.

In addition to branding power, video content marketing can help your business rank on search engines. 

Photos & Infographics

Visual content has multiple benefits.

First, it’s a different form of branding and marketing people love.

Second, you can use them to increase important SEO metrics like time spent on page and reducing your bounce rate.

An example from Gadget Snob shows great use of photos on an e-commerce landing page:

 

When you click into one of their products, you see excellent use of captivating photos in their “related products” section:

 

This clean and crisp site design and photo usage compel visitors to check out the site’s products.

You can also use infographics within the body of your blog posts to keep readers engaged (pro tip: use a plugin to make your images pinnable on Pinterest).

Social Media

You can write an entire guide on social media usage for e-commerce marketing.

 

Shopify has an excellent breakdown of social media tips on their infographic:

e commerce social media

 

You can use social media to market your e-commerce business in a variety of ways.

You can create streaming videos and commercials educating users about your product, sharing benefits, and entertaining them.

When you create a new blog post, you can cross-promote your content through all social media channel.

You can become a member of social media groups related to your niche and become an active participant.

Paid social media ads are always a cost-effective way to build your e-commerce brand and drive traffic to your website.

Here’s an example of a product display ad on Facebook:

product display ad

When running Facebook ads as part of the e-commerce marketing strategy for your business, you can use a ton of different techniques to drive traffic to your website:

  • Run promotions and discounts
  • Create a giveaway of your product where users enter their email address as a ‘raffle ticket’
  • Put commercials and videos in your ads
  • Create remarketing ads that display to visitors who visited your site but didn’t buy
  • Create a lookalike audience based on metrics and demographics of your target audience
  • Use ‘boosts’ to drive traffic to your blog posts to aid your content marketing efforts
  • Cross promote your Facebook ads to Instagram

Social media has many applications. Whatever channel or method you use, make sure to make social media a core part of your e-commerce marketing strategy.

Conclusion

These e-commerce marketing strategies are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to growing your business.

Choose one, or a few, and utilize them to gain traffic, leads, and sales.

Use them to build your brand and stand out in your industry.

If you’re looking for expert content marketing and SEO help, learn more about becoming a strategic business partner with MLT Group.

Need Video Marketing? Learn the 4 Ws of Video Production

Including video elements in your marketing campaign is a great way to get attention, engage your audience, and showcase what your business offers! However, tackling something like video production can be intimidating to the uninitiated. So much goes into video production, including budget, camera-work, script writing, music, and post-production work, and it can be difficult to know where to start? We’re here to help. Before you get started with your video marketing campaign, first ask yourself four important questions: who, what, when, and where?

video production

Who:

There are two important “who” questions to ask throughout the video production process:

Who is your target audience? Your audience affects every element of your video marketing from the message to where you share it. What is age, culture, socioeconomic status, or location of your audience? Some video types, outlets, and messages are more effective than others, depending on your audience. For example, if you’re trying to reach a younger, national audience, publishing your video online will be more effective than spending money on a local television commercial.

 

Who is your production team? Video production has many layers and should be handled by a dedicated team. Clearly outlining who your production team is, each person’s role, and their expectations will help the production process go smoothly. Video production is best handled by experienced professionals who can tackle every element of your video marketing.

 

What:

When it comes to video marketing, there are a few ‘whats’ to answer.

All of this will influence the content of your video, and help you develop a specific, relatable message. Whatever you’re promoting, it should support the overall marketing goals of your business. If you’re advertising a sale, promoting a specific service, or trying to expand your customer base, make sure to develop a script and message that remains focused on your specific goal instead of trying to do it all. This will ensure your message remains clear and has the most impact.

 

Where:

Where will you share your video? Are you crafting a video for online advertisements, a presentation for shareholders, or do you want to create a commercial for local television? Not all outlets are appropriate depending on the type of video you’re creating and the audience you want to reach. For example, if you want to demonstrate your product, a television commercial may not be the best outlet. Instead, post demo videos online! Understanding where your video will reach consumers impacts the style and length of the advertisement, and also influences your company’s budget.

 

When:

Create an achievable video production timeline and stick to it. With so many elements, it’s easy for a video production to get off track, especially for the inexperienced. The last thing you want is for your video to cost more time and money than it needs to. With a set schedule, your business will have an appropriate amount of time to dedicate to each point on the timeline, from script creation to filming, and concluding with the launch of your video.

 

MLT Group not only has over 30 years of video production experience, but we’re also marketing experts. This means we can craft an effective video that helps your business achieve its goals. Whether you’re looking for a simple demo video or a full-scale television commercial, we can handle every aspect of the production process.

 

Our video production services include:

  • Script writing
  • Animation
  • Music
  • Voiceovers/Voice acting
  • Editing
  • Special graphics
  • Aerial videography

 

Ready to take your marketing campaign to the next level? Contact us today at 507.281.3490 or sales@mltgroup.com.