Content Marketing Essentials

Content marketing is a complicated business that is mistakenly separated from the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) component of your online marketing strategy, which is a big mistake.  

Content marketing is a division of your SEO

 

Once you realise that Content Marketing is one of the primary components of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and take this very seriously, then you are onto the right track and will begin to understand the essential components of content marketing.  The biggest issue is to define your intended target market audience, and determine how best to write for this group in a manner that best suits your intended purpose of the content that you wish to put in front of their eyes.

Those who tell you that content marketing is not a sub division of your SEO need to be treated with caution.

Many SEO experts will try to convince you that content marketing does not fall under the management umbrella of your Search Engine Optimisation manager, but these people are very mistaken, and in my personal opinion need to be shown the way to your back door, then asked to leave very quietly, and told to never set foot in your office again.  Take a minute or two and think about content marketing and the purpose that you as an individual  would want to do any content marketing.  Next do the same for SEO and write down (document these issues clearly)  the similarities and differences.  compare this then evaluate your decision to separate SEO and Content marketing or keep them connected.

Usually the purpose of content marketing is to ensure that your content gets better traction with your target audience, but every business will have a slightly different perspective of the purpose of content marketing.  With out a clear well defined purpose for your content marketing you have no way of understanding the potential impacts of content marketing, or even  the intended aims and objectives of your content marketing.

Content marketing is not an add on issue, but is something that needs to be considered early in the content design stages. 

 

When defining the purpose of your content marketing you should be using the following documents as guide lines and references.

1. the purpose of your online marketing
2. the aims and objectives of your  online marketing plan
3. the aims and objectives of you web site if you have one
4. the aims and objectives of your blog if you have one
5. the aims and objectives of your social media policy if you have one
6. the purpose, aims and objectives  of the specific content that you will be marketing

These documents along with the documentation supplied discussing the intended target market groups, as well as related marketing campaigns that have already been run and those that are either currently being run or planned for the near future will dictate the way forward within any specific content marketing campaign.

Your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  has the same identical target audience but is mostly focused on ensuring that

1) your content is located within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)
2) your target audience will select your link in the SERP's
3) those who clicked on your result in the SERP's actually clicks on a CTA (Call To Action) within the page that they chose to open.  (note that links in your navigation structure are also considered as CTA's)

If your content marketing was poorly done, then step (2) and (3) in the above list of essential steps may perhaps  not  be completed, as your viewers may be expecting different information or not be pleased at what they are exposed to within the page, because they have been mislead by your content marketing.  It thus follows that content marketing is a very essential and critical part of the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) process, and that your content marketing needs to be aligned with, and integrated into your SEO process.

Failure here will lead to many interconnected and related issues that impact on your over all success within your online marketing efforts. Things like BOUNCE RATES, conversion rates,  market share retention,  customer satisfaction as well as many others are at stake.  This means that CONTENT MARKETING is a very big issue and that you need to pay careful attention to detail during this process.

The essential elements that need to be considered when doing content marketing are

1. target market research and understanding the various target market groups needs, desires and aspirations as well as cultural and language  issues
2. product / service research
3.  platform research
4. key word and general information management
5. content management issues specific to platform
6. co-operation with other marketing divisions including but not limited to:

• SEO team
• copy writing team
• image development team
• blogging team
• web site design team
• print media team
• digital media team
• social media teams for each platform
• public relations team

Content marketing can not be done in isolation as many content marketing folks are currently trying to do, purely because they do not understand that content marketing is subservient to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).  Once one takes the #FUFISM (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) approach to online marketing then the many different #SEOVI  ( Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that need to be considered will be included within the content marketing stages of preparing your online content.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is a new marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core communication element that binds all your marketing both online and off line into one single well balance marketing effort.

This article was written after reading articles by    +Ryan Hanley     
see   1) http://www.ryanhanley.com/7-ways-to-fail-at-content-marketing/  
2) http://www.ryanhanley.com/does-content-marketing-work/

These articles did not stress that content marketing is subservient to your SEO but I am sure that Ryan understands this, as he is very involved within the SEO industry.  Ryan is one of the few guys that is upfront and blunt when he describes what it is that you need to know, and why he believes that this is important.

Please leave a comment below...

Is great content enough to get good SERP's?

   This Post has been written in response to a comment on this Google plus post

+Rand Fishkin  of +Moz  posed the question : Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content and there were many comments on the post in question.  How ever many questions were left un-answered because of the individuals involved specific agendas.  see the post and follow the link there for a deeper understanding of the issues discussed here.

First we need to remind those who know, and inform those who have not heard, that #FUFISM is a new marketing term which is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media  which every person who does any form of online marketing needs to understand and put into practice.

 Read more about +fufism  as discussed in this blog  or in our web pages here

Engagement within the social media, in most cases,  involves some form of passive link building, as you offer links to your web pages, blog or other online resource, and hope that your target audience and those who have an interest, share your social media posts further, and most of these have links that are useful or offer your target audience specific information relating to your online discussion, or where to find more information on an item that has been requested in the ongoing social media conversation.

Link building is a very delicate affair, and building your social audience is directly linked to your social media policy, especially where your social media policy discusses link building and related issues that need to be avoided such as  inadvertently spamming your influencers with requests to share your posts further.



 

An earlier post discussing link building can be found here

 Influencer marketing (new terminology for public relations management activity)   is also directly linked to your link building strategies and should be discussed in your social media policy statements which every employee needs to be aware of.   This awareness should be done through   your own in-house workshops where you ensure that your staff are knowledgeable of your company or organisational social media policies, and what impact their social media activities will have on your total online marketing effort.

If you have more than 5 people working on your online marketing then this is a very critical issue.  failure here can and will lead to many issues where your online marketing will have a negative impact on your SERP's through errors that are made by your staff  which could easily have been avoided through proper communication.  This is where #FUFISM based marketing strategies come into their own, and ensure better co-operation between the various different departments who each play a different role and have a different impact on your toatal marketing strategies.

Things like a junior member of the team, or a new employee making use of a link farm, because he / she thinks that this will help, but is not aware of the impact of this type of marketing.

Other issues are when people within your online marketing use different structures for their NAT issues (NAT= Name Address and Phone Number)   A set NAT format that should be used across all platforms, especially within the link building activities on social media, as this  is a very sneaky and devious issue, which  comes to play with Google Humming Bird and Google pigeon as well as a few other un-named algorithms.

SEO is an aful lot more than doing inpage coding, and involves many off page activities, some of which are even off line, such as adverts in the news paper, adverts on the radio or even television advertising, all of which influence how your target market searches for your info online and which words they type into the search engine. 

Are your pages optimized for these specific words used in your offline marketing?

Things like   industry specific words which you push out there into the public space (cyberspace) hoping to influence your target markets choice of words when searching online are also part of the SEO industries problems, and link building around these specific sets of terminology are of extreme importance, especially the passive type of link building where these words are used in the social media posts that are put out there with links to pages in your online resources that expand on the conversation around your hash tags and other industry specific terminology.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a vastly complex issue that has three criteria that need to be met

1) your pages must be found within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

2) Your intended target market must click on your link in the SERP's

3) Those who found your listing in the SERP's and then selected your link there must either click on a CTA (Call Ta Action) within the page  or stay on page long enough to satisfy the search engine that they benefited from the information on that page

If any one of these criteria are not met then your SEO has failed.  poor link building, especially that of the passive kind, leads to poor conversion rates and has a very big impact on increasing the bounce rate for your pages, as those who have been mislead by your social media posts that have been shared by your influencers, will not stay on page long enough to satisfy a search engine that they have gained any benifit from your content within that specific page.   This is where CO or Content Optimisation becomes one of the most critical elements of your SEO efforts.  

YES YOU READ RIGHT CONTENT OPTIMISATION (CO) IS A SUB SET OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION and any body that tells you different should in my opinion never be trusted with your SEO, or any other part of your online marketing in any way.

Your bounce rate is a very critical issue and all search engines are now looking at ways to use this as a tool to push pages with poor bounce rates lower down the SERP's over time, and lift those which have better bounce rates higher up the SERP's.  Google's Humming Bird algo is very active here, and those who do not take this seriously will soon discover that their rankings are slipping and they may not be able to fix this untill they fix their Content Optimisation.  Your link building, and especially your link building within the social media plays a very critical role in your Conversion Optimisation (CO) as this leads to an expectation of what the viewer will find when they land on your page, and if their expectations which have been developed within your social media marketing are not met when they land on your page, you will not get any clicks and the end user (your intended target market) will depart in a very short time.

Your bounce rate is a very important #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) that you need to keep under control. This is not an easy task as there are so many factors involved, and your link building through the social media is one of the primary areas that need your attention, as the impact on your CO (Conversion Optimisation) coming from your social media link building activities, both active and passive are extreme in nature.

The CTA's (Call To Action) statements within your online content must match the expectations of your intended target market which you have created within your social media marketing, through your link building and influence marketing tactics, which should all be included within your company social media policies and directives issued to your staff.  

It thus follows that what +Rand Fishkin  discussed in this WHITE BOARD FRIDAY is very important and you need to watch closely, and listen clearly because he talks around this issue with great care not to offend those who have niche markets such as CO (Content Optimisation) , CM (Content Marketing) SEM (Search Engine Marketers) as well as many others, all of which in my humble opinion are sub sections of Search Engine Optimisation.

Many thanx for reading this post. please leave a comment as this is a very controversial matter and the more people that discuss this the better for all.

Google plus engaement issues from a #FUFISM perspective

Google plus is a great platform for a variety of reasons, with the primary one being that you will have a foot in the door as far as Google Search is concerned.  Google has many indexing issues with other social media platforms, and the walled garden effect is often very serious, with all non public posts being excluded from Google's sphere of influence.

Getting traction within any specific market is an ongoing issue that needs due diligence and proper interpretation of your target market audience, and when using the social media you need to ensure that those who follow you, or are within your social network form part of your target market audience. This means that you need to do true, in-depth target market research, and have a very clear understanding of who your target audience is and how you are going to interact with them in a manner that allows you to place your call to action statements. Google plus has specific options for you to do this via specialist business pages that are directly linked to your personal profile and associated page.

You do need to separate your personal life from your business life when doing any social media marketing. Failure to do this will lead to poor branding and mixed signals to your target audience.  You personal profile should be used as a platform to brand yourself as an ambassador for your business and community related pages within all social media platforms, and you should never be salesy or pushy within your personal profile page.  This sounds very easy, but is infact a really difficult thing to do.

You personal profile page describes you as an individual, and is where your personality and industry specific knowledge will shine through and allow others to interact and engage with you on a personal level.  once you have a personal connection then you may, if appropriate, lead this person down the conversion path to become a client, customer or fellow activist in your cause.

You should have a business page in place,  where you do business related stuff and push you business opportunities through links to your web site, your blog and other online resources.  You should also have a community page in place where your business issues are discussed in depth and you mange various sectors of your business opportunities, through different categories within the community,  informing those who have taken the time to join your community of your services, products, events and other areas of interest.

As an individual you should also be a member of  various communities that have links to your business model, your products, your services or the events that you handle. This is industry specific, and you will need to choose these after studying your intended target audience and their social media habits, so that you can lead them to your business page or your community without being pushy or obnoxious in any way.

Your entire marketing team needs to be up to speed with he various platforms and different sections of each platform that you, as an individual are using, so that your personal and business profiles can be used to the best advantage to interact with your
target audience in the most appropriate manner.

A post by +curator Circle  discussing some of these related issues within Google plus itself.

Content from a FUFISM perspective

CONTENT FROM A FUFISM PERSPECTIVE

To be able to discuss content from a FUFISM perspective we first need to clarify what is content and then elaborate on the purpose, aims, objectives and related issues of different types of content.   When discussing content from a FUFISM perspective we do need to remember that the primary focus will be on marketing within the online arena

CONTENT

There is very little difference between content and information, and these two terms can quite often be interchanged, with out distorting the meaning of the sentence.  That being said content and information are not exactly one and the same thing, as content contains information, but information does not contain content.

Content comes in a variety of different disguises and then in various combinations of these different disguises.  Each different type of content has its own subset of different media where it is found, and these are listed in the second list labeled content medium.

CONTENT TYPE 

1. text
2. images
3. audio
4. video

CONTENT MEDIUM

1. printed material (books, news papers, magazines, files, flyers and posters)
2. Radio (audio)
3. television  (audio visual)
4. digital and online  (computer files  /  web sites  /  blogs  /  social media  /  forums)
5. verbal speech and telephone conversations  including interpersonal communications (lectures / teaching / meetings / customer interactions)

For us to be able to transfer information from one person to another or to groups of people this information must be known and understood by the originator, then  converted to a document / file using one of the four basic content types or a combination of these, then made available to the receiver of the information through a medium and  in a manner that the receiver will be able to interpret  and take some desired action, as in the call to action statement within that specific content.

Most information that a company has, is stored in basic text format and kept in files either printed or stored in digital format within the company intranet, which is accessible by the company staff.   This content is used to formulate policies and work flow issues as well as for general administration and management of the company or organisation.

As far as this discussion is concerned we will deal with a very small subset of content, which is created and managed, specifically for the purposes of marketing, advertising and related management of company marketing and advertising issues from a FUFISM perspective.

The marketing cycle

The management will establish procedures to create more content, which is purpose orientated to achieve specific goals, aims and objectives, and establish rules for the distribution of this content to specific target groups to further the purpose, aims and objectives of the organisation or company.

Now that we have established the basics of content we need to establish the purpose, aims and  objectives of having a FUFISM based content policy, and then establish a means to implement this policy so that we can use the company's existing content to create, curate and manage a FUFISM based social media marketing machine that will allow you to do your marketing and advertising from a well informed and properly managed base of operations.

So just to ensure that you are up to speed with what FUFISM is all about take a short detour and do some revision of what is FUFISM here

All marketing starts with (or rather should start with) a brief from the management to the marketing department discussing the product / service that they want exposed to the public along with the public's expected reaction and how this is expected to be managed further down the line by other departments such as sales, production, Public relations and general administration staff.

The marketing team take this brief and then begins putting in place the necessary content that will be managed, manipulated and configured into a format that is suitable for the chosen medium or media and then distribute this content according to the developed plan.  This is quite a lengthy procedure and needs to be properly planned so that the content can be created then released in a co-ordinated and well managed manner.

Content development Stage one

The first stage of content development starts  with studying the marketing brief and identifying as well as documenting the product / service to be marketed,  then analyzing this to determine a target market or group of different target markets.  Next step is the listing of the different mediums that your selected target market groups  use followed by calculating which media will be used to convey your desired call to action statement to your intended target market, and documenting this.

Target market research and documenting the the target market trends, practices and habits as well as their preferred communication channels and language use is an essential part of stage one in the content development cycle. 

Content development stage two

Now that you have a target market and the desired medium that your content will be channeled through you will need to start developing a content strategy plan that will entice your selected target audience to take the desired action on your call to action statement in a manner as dictated in the original marketing brief. This usually involves

1. a web site 
2. a blog
3. one or more social media platforms
4. Optional extras
• news paper advertising  
• Radio advertising
• magazines advertising
• billboard advertising
• distribution of flyers
• TV advertising
• other branding  / advertising options

Each of the items listed in the list above will have their own content creation issues, and have their own content management plans in place that will all need to be co-ordinated and managed by a single person who will ensure that the FUFISM principals are in place so that these different efforts can work as one collective campaign with a few different micro campaigns doing their bit to entice your desired target audience to follow through the entire conversion process as determined in the original marketing brief.

Content development stage three

The four  pillars of your content strategy listed in content development stage two need to be evaluated carefully and then you need to adjust the content of each specific sector to match up and back-up all the other sectors, and repeat as is needed. This is essential and needs to be done as a collective effort by all who are working on your content from various different angles before it is published for the first time.  Plan your content publishing schedule carefully and ensure that these take place in the planned order, and that all cross linking is active and functional.  ensure that each piece of published content is functional and displayed online as it was designed to be, fixing all errors as soon as discovered or reported.

make any adjustments as needed, and follow up with aggressive social media support marketing. Be sure that you have briefed all staff who are in the call to action value added chain, and that everybody in the conversion chain has the necessary content to answer customer queries and solve related customer issues in the shortest possible time frame.

List of pages used during research for this post.  this list is not complete, but each link here is a worth a read.as it will expand on some issue around content, content creation, content curators and  content curation

http://fufism.info4u.co.za

http://4ubrand.blogspot.com

http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2014/02/01/curation/

http://www.softalkapple.com/blogs/factminers-more-or-less-folksonomy

http://d20innovation.d20blogs.org/2012/07/07/understanding-content-curation/

 

Where does CONTENT MARKETING fit into the FUFISM picture?

I am often asked where content marketing fits into the FUFISM picture and how is content marketing related to FUFISM. This question is asked so often that I felt the need to write a post covering this, but when I started  to put pen to paper I realized that there were some basic explanations that needed to be defined in the correct context, because the SEOI (Search Engine Optimisation Industry) has been attacked in many strange ways and the statement that SEO is DEAD has been bandied around so often  that many people believe this to be true.

Firstly we need to start with the newest term and explain what is FUFISM, then we need to ensure that you understand the meaning of a few other terms, and that there is no confusion around the meaning of terms that the online marketing world has redfined for their personal consumption to enhance the so called death of SEO,  which is a blatant lie and used to market their own personal interests.

FUFISM is an acronym brought to life by Info4u to help us in our efforts to explain the use of the social media in todays business environment.

FUFISM = Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media. 

The advent of the social media with sites like FACEBOOK, TWITTER, LINKEDIN, PINTEREST and GOOGLE PLUS have changed the way that people communicate in their social environment, and this change has flowed out of the social realm into the workplace, affecting business communications in many strange and mysterious ways.

It has thus become imperative that business understand this very serious change and take the necessary steps to ensure that their business communications methods are adapted, allowing business to find ways to make use of these changes in their  communications policies, and that the use of social media as a communication medium, with its wide variety of different tools is integrated into business communication structures in a more professional, user friendly manner so that both internal communications and communications with the public at large are easily established and well managed from a company public relations perspective.

Business must thus integrate the social media  into all their communication strategies, especially their marketing strategies with the primary focus on connecting with their target market groups for the purposes of marketing, advertising and public relations management issues.

FUFISM is also a philosophy where many things are shared, focusing on the  marketing arena and the Search Engine Optimisation strategies that are used to ensure that a company's online content is located by the intended target market, then tracking the impacts of the various social media marketing strategies, and ensuring that every person within the company's marketing structures understands their role that they fulfill, as well as the results that  their individual efforts have achieved.

One of the primary pillars of the FUFISM philosophy is that each person within the company marketing team understands the complexity of the SEOI (Search Engine Optimisation Industry) and has the tools to visualize each separate component's influence on their own field of expertise, and have some influence on the reporting structure to show others in the marketing team what their own efforts are, with a focus on how their personal efforts may influence the many other sectors in either a positive or negative manner, so that the necessary actions may be implemented to counter any negative impact or capitalize on any positive influence.

FUFISM dictates that each person who is in control of, or manages any online content should attend regular public relations meetings, as well as marketing meetings where the effectiveness of each online environment is discussed, along with the methods and tools used to ensure that the online information made available in that environment is compatible with all other online information and integrated into the company communications plan, as provided for in the directives which have been issued according to minutes of meetings. This is essential for accountability, which is one of the corner stones of  the FUFISM philosophy.

Each person appointed to perform any duties which entail publication of online materials of any nature should be held responsible to ensure that feed back on when (Date and Time) the online publication became effective, so that this can be used to determine the impacts of this information on the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) of any related work which may be referenced or linked to from within the work published. This is an essential part of FUFISM and should not be taken lightly, as there could be unforeseen negative impacts on the SERP's if a search engine decides that this is SPAM and takes action in the form of a censure of some type.

This logging of publication or feed back on publication should help identify the specific post or publication that causes the SERP's to either improve or drop. Without FUFISM management strategies in place these issues would be very difficult to isolate and then  rectify.

WHAT IS ONLINE CONTENT ?

Online content is all the stuff that your entire company puts online for what ever reason. This includes but is not limited to

• your web publications
• your blog publications
• your social media publications
• you online marketing
• your online advertising
• your online news publications and press releases
• your online public relations efforts

The above content and any other online content you may have made available to either the public or your own staff does not happen without a plan of some sort, unless you are playing games and have no clue as to the power of the internet.

Each publication that your company places online should be part of a plan and have 

•  a purpose
• a set of aims
• some objectives 
• a time frame

Deciding on what content to place online is a complex task that should involve your public relations and marketing teams working together as a unit to make a company policy frame work, which would dictate who is responsible to   research the purpose, aims and objectives of having any online content in place from the beginning, then allocate specific persons to formulate content to satisfy the identified purposes, aims and objectives in a co-operative manner, so as to solicit the best input from your public relations team along with the persons that have been appointed to control and manage the environment in which that online content will be made available to the specific target market group that it was intended to reach.

WHAT IS SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a complex affair and covers every strategy that you have in place to ensure that your intended target markets find and follow your proposed online call to action statements for the sub set of information which you would like  that specific target market to experience.

The primary support structure which ensures that Search Engine Optimisation succeeds is target market selection and the subsequent key word research around the information that you would like that specific target market to evaluate and take action on, then ensuring that the specific online page where this information is housed has the necessary IPSEO (In-Page search Engine Optimisation) done by your staff and / or consultants, and that this is then followed up with the necessary OPSEO (Off-Page Search Engine Optimsation) in the social media and through other company approved channels by your staff and / or consultants.

for more on what SEO is see previous posts in our blog at http://4ubrand.blogspot.com

is SEO DEAD 
general description of SEO
Google author and SEO
Off page SEO issues
The value of Social signals and SEO
SEO for start ups in under ten minutes
Understanding search experience from an SEO viewpoint
how much do you spend on SEO and Social media
who is in charge of your SEO and why?
The SEO value of out bound links

WHAT IS MARKETING?

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling the product or service. Marketing is a critical business function for attracting customers.

Online marketing is thus the online process of communicating with your customers for the purpose of selling your service or product online or through another online avenue.

Now that we have an understanding of the core components listed above we can continue on to discuss CONTENT MARKETING and its place in the FUFISM philosophy.  Using the above information content marketing may be loosely described as follows:

Content marketing is the process of communicating the value of your online information (content) to search engines, content aggregators and other online repositories for the purpose of ensuring that your online information is listed or indexed and placed in their databases then found by your intended target market when they search online for your information and displayed in SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

Online content marketing is using relevant and valuable information to attract potential customers to your online content.Good online content will not only attract, but if done correctly, will engage your target audience and drive profitable action to your business. Learn how to implement a content strategy in your business. see this article for more

Read here to get a few different views on what content marketing is but keep in mind that online content marketing is a subset of Search Engine Optimisation strategies and needs to be treated accordingly. Many other explanations for content marketing ignore the SEO component and treat content marketing as a stand alone issue, which is very bad for your online business efforts.

NOW HOW DOES THIS FIT IN WITH FUFISM?

Once you have an understanding that online content marketing is a subset of Search Engine Optimisation then you can get to grips with the idea that online content marketing must be integrated into your marketing philosophy at an early stage. Content marketing should be integrated into your marketing strategy at the point where you create the content plan and list the purpose, aims and objectives of a specific subject, product or service that you need to bring to the attention of a selected target market through your online content.

Target market selection is a critical component of your content marketing, as the content should be constructed and formulated with a call to action statement in a manner that is recognizable and appreciated as important to your selected target market.

Having great content with an effective call to action statement is the first part of content marketing, the second part, which is putting the In Page SEO component of your content in place, requires careful target market definition with an understanding of the characteristics of this target market , as the third part, off page SEO is defendant of the second part for its strategy.

It is good Good content marketing practice to follow  up with some cross media marketing in the traditional media such as RADIO, NEWS PAPER and / or MAGAZINES to put the key words into your target markets minds so they will search online for more info on the the product or service in question.

This is where FUFISM comes into the picture as these things all need to be coordinated and managed to co-inside with the social media marketing of your online content to ensure  maximum impact and enforcement of the selected key words across many different platforms that each has a small accumulative impact on your SEO and the accompanying SERP's

content is KING, but the king is not lonely

Content is king  ..  A great saying that needs some back up and a little explanation.

Unique content within your pages is helpful from an SEO point of view, but it is not the only way to get visitors to your site take a look at this video and evaluate what works best for you.

Google basics explained - on video

This short video gives a very brief explanation of the basics of Google's methods to index sites and what variables are most important for ranking high in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages' / positions).

three things that are most important for search engine are
1) how to craw the web most efficiently
2) index the pages, and sort according to some criteria
3) Rank all pages then serve the pages to searchers according to their needs

To ensure that your pages are indexed in search engines you need to ensure that  search engines find your pages through links from other sites, and that your pages have internal links so that all your pages can be found by any search engine that locates any one of your pages.

Once your pages are indexed by search engines they perform quite a few mathematical tricks useing a host of variables such as but not limited to the list below to give some kind of score to your page. Then the search engine will store this value along with a number of pre calculated variables that will be used to evaluate an end users search query and return a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) in their indexing system.
1) the specific words within your pages, and how they are used, where they are in relation to each other and other data on your page.
2) all inbound links form other websites including the anchor, text where the link is on the page, words near to the link, and words on the landing page which the link refers to.
3) all out bound links, including anchor text, words near the link, words on the landing page of the link, and the context of the link related to other onpage data.
4) all internal links linking to the specific page as well as all internal links linking to other pages within your site taking the page content and many related issues into account.

When an end user submits a search query this is search query is compared with the indexed words and some very  advanced mathematical algorithm is used to determine the end users intent and match this intent with the aboutness of your pages. Once the search engine has determined the best possible matches from its index with a searchers intent the search engine delivers a SERP (Search Engine Results page)

What words to use and why from an SEO perspective

First things first, content is king, and the most vital part of any SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy.

Linking your content to your target markets vocabulary is step 2. Defining your target market is the real trick that needs to be mastered, as you don't want people coming to your site then leaving in a hurry because they are not interested in your subject matter, and feel that they have been deceived by your marketing tricks.

Understanding your target market and their vocabulary is vital as you need to understand what words they would use to search for your information and optimize your page with these words in mind. Mis-spellings, foreign language words, and local slang are important, and all major search engines are beginning to use these concepts to establish the intent of a searcher from the words he / she has used in the search box.

all past searches are stored and evaluated by search engines on an ongoing basis to determine trends and search patterns within their user base. These results are factored into the SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) to determine a users intent, and search engines are beginning to get quite good at this.

This implies that your content must be well written and match up to your META TAG info, especially the keywords meta tags and any categories you may have listed in the head section of your page. Connecting the intent of an end user to your page is not a simple task, and a host of  variables will be factored into this section of the Search Engine Algorithm, with MANY OF THESE FACTORS BEING WAY OUT OF YOUR CONTROL.

Things like past searches done by others and current trending topics will be at the top of this list used to determine the end users intent at the search engine. Read this post for a deeper understanding of how search engines are using user intent factors.
http://searchengineland.com/is-googles-synonym-matching-increasing-how-searchers-and-brands-can-be-both-helped-and-hurt-131504

Bottom line is GOOD CONTENT using your intended target markets vocabulary and words that you believe your intended target market will use in search boxes when looking for your information, in well worded copy.........