Developing highly compelling content that helps customers and prospects ease their biggest pain points is key to effective business-to-education (B2E) marketing. The right content can establish your company as a thought leader in education, build brand awareness, bring people to your website and generate sales leads. With an effective education SEO strategy in place, it can also improve your rankings in Google and other search engines—making it easier for prospects to find you.
During a CB&A Expert Series webinar, independent digital marketer and SEO consultant Jenny Munn discussed the latest trends in search engine optimization (SEO). She also revealed how education marketers can create engaging content that will attract the attention of sales prospects while also boosting their website’s Google ranking.
Here are four keys to doing this successfully:
EAT WELL.
In the world of SEO, “EAT” stands for “expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.” It’s a critical component of creating strong content that both prospects and Google will like.
Google has increasingly focused on elevating the visibility of authorities who demonstrate significant subject matter expertise in their niche.
“So many organizations in K-12 are good at what they do and have experts on their team,” Munn said, “but I don’t think they’ve always been good at showing it. Organizations will need to stake their flag in the ground around their topics of expertise. You want to show the world (and Google) that you are an expert on a topic.”
Strong content lies at the heart of this effort. “Google thinks that your content has to be good and it has to stand out,” Munn explained. “It has to be thorough and relevant.”
BE UNIQUE.
It’s also important that your content provides a fresh perspective, Munn said, adding: “Don’t just rehash what’s already been said by 20 other sites.”
View the Webinar: Got SEO? 5 Best Practices for B2E Marketers
This applies to the images you use as well as the text you write. “Don’t use the same stock images as your competitors,” Munn advised. “Google wants to reward uniqueness.”
CREATE DIVERSE CONTENT.
Don’t just create a “one-and-done” blog post on a particular topic, Munn said. Instead, education marketers should create clusters of supporting content around each pillar page or topic. Make sure you’re creating a wide variety of content types for each cluster as well, such as videos, video shorts and infographics in addition to blog posts and other written forms of content.
FIND THE RIGHT MIX OF KEYWORDS.
“Keywords still matter,” Munn noted. “You still need to know the language your customers use around their pain points and their lives, and how that intersects with your expertise, information, products and services.”
Do research to learn which keyword phrases your prospects are searching for online, Munn said, and then embed these within your content strategically to optimize your success.
For more SEO insights from Munn, you can view the full webinar here. Need support with your content marketing strategy? Reach out to CB&A today.
About the author
Lauren West is Account Coordinator at C. Blohm & Associates, an education marketing agency that partners with companies worldwide to deliver marketing communications campaigns that achieve results.
