Digital Marketers have always used the phrase “Content is King”. In all honesty, that isn’t the right mindset people should have on the subject. I’m not saying this to stir up controversy just because it’s fun to harp on a popular motto.

This old-school phrase was said by Sumner Redstone in 1994 and it has been circulating the web since then. Many marketers and authorities like Forbes have discussed it. I’m sure you have heard it too. In post Mobile-geddon and RankBrain 2017, I propose we amend this phrase, because it should reflect the new era of Search Engine Optimization that we live in now.

UX is King

I get it, content is absolutely the backbone of the world of marketing. But tell me – how is the content shaped, and what is it communicating to the user? What exactly are we achieving in this content?

For example, if your objective is to capture phone leads, there are a few basic things that need to be drilled into the site that gives the user a better experience to quickly meet their needs:

Click to Call Functionality

In the mobile-first indexing world, you’d be surprised how many websites do not have the bases covered. You want your qualified target to talk to you as soon as possible, so why not make it easier for them to reach you?

Making the Phone Number Obvious

Making the number stand-out is surprisingly overlooked. What is the font choice? Is the size emphasized? Is it bolded, underlined, or colored differently? Is it placed in the header, and easy to access? Location, location, location.

Making the call-to-action crystal clear

Free consultation? 30-day Trial? Free strategy session? Not only do you want your user to call you immediately, but you want to ensure you are doing everything you can to give them the motivation to.

User Experience is considering the journey your user embarks on. You want to entice the potential customer by painting the best picture you can about your business and goals. Make the value proposition clear, and provide tools they need, like a DUI Sentence Calculator for a potential client in Chicago trying to vet which attorney they want to represent them in their case.

Reputation is King

Aside from projecting your goals and call-to-actions with clarity using concise verbiage and proper design, are you building trust in your brand? Do you have reviews or testimonials in your content? Whether you are practicing law, selling roses or providing a local roof repair service, studies have shown that most consumers are influenced by online reviews when making a purchasing decision.

Source: Moz

For clients that we manage for SEO, our multi-prong solution involves the reputation and trust in your brand. We implement features such as Schema Markup to showcase stars on your organic search listing, and utilize the Customer Lobby widget within the websites we manage to showcase reviews. This is because we know that your brand’s positive reputation can shine in the eyes of the potential client or customer.

Relevance is King

Shaping the user experience is paramount. Building trust is monumental. With that said, the most important word in the world of search engine optimization is RELEVANCE, 110%.

Remember a little thing called HummingBird? Diving further within that algorithm, RankBrain? Many use this as a point to talk about how content is still king, but the goal of the machine learning applied here is relevance on a semantic level. What is the deeper meaning behind these initiatives Google is deploying here? This content needs to be USEFUL to the user. It is only useful if it is relevant to the searcher’s query.

LSI Keywords

To dip your toes in the technical aspect of this, Latent Semantic Indexing, or “LSI” Keywords, is one of the core identifiers RankBrain and Hummingbird are using to determine the usefulness of the page to the original search query.

In Pre-Panda times, we understood the concept of keyword density, and keyword stuffing was the result of abusing that metric. What takes your content further is finding synonyms and industry terms that should be expected on this page of content. That is LSI.

Be Useful and Concise

With LSI Keywords aside, you should realize that engagement plays a role in how well your site performs too. It isn’t enough to tackle a subject without solving a problem or addressing an issue the user may have. Are you trying to rank for keywords that aren’t perfectly identifying what your business is about?

If your service is providing merchant accounts to smaller businesses, and you have a certain threshold of transactions you can handle per month, you should be careful not to overemphasize the term “merchant accounts”. Not only will it take longer to rank based on the competitiveness of that term, but even if you get there, how many leads will you have to qualify if you don’t provide your services to about 75% of those searchers? That is a waste of resources, time, and energy.

Taking Content to the Next Level

Here at Next Level Marketing, we look at content from all angles. We cultivate a culture built on deeper understanding by asking the right questions to discover as much as humanly possible on all topics. Going the extra mile is about becoming educated on all facets of our clients’ businesses, which gives birth to more impactful SEO campaigns, and ultimately delivering more qualified traffic and leads.

SEO isn’t dead. It has evolved. If you’re committing to the labor-intensive process SEO is, hire a digital marketing team that has the right priorities and perspectives in mind. Call us at (844) SEM-NEXT to speak with a Digital Marketing Strategist now for your free custom rate quote.

This article was written by our Chief Strategy Officer, aka our SEO-to-the-max nerd, Ramón A. Herrera.