The Ultimate Google Hack to Increasing Organic Traffic and Conversions

— December 23, 2016

The 4-Step Process to Influence Google Through a Relevant Message and Increase Organic Traffic and Conversions.

Are you ready to discover the ultimate Google hack and break the code to understand Google and what they are looking for in order to drive more qualified traffic to your website?

If you’re ready to learn, in Google’s words, how to create content that is relevant and compelling, link and share-worthy, and earns you lots of traffic and conversions, you’ll love this infographic.

I have broken down for you the process of how to create relevant content that will earn traffic from Google, even if they change their algorithm.

Why?

Because these steps are not dependent upon algorithms.

Below the infographic, get my insights on each point in more detail as well as a list of other resources from highly reputable websites.

An Understanding of Google’s Mission Clarifies How to Create Content That Drives Traffic

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” (see source at: https://www.google.com/about/company/)

When creating your content, the emphasis of the content should be on “accessible and useful” information.

Combine that with the following information from consumers and the point becomes clear:

1. Consumers only reveal 20% of what’s on their minds. That means we have to discover the other 80% in order to be relevant to them. (IBM Study & Infographic)
   
2. 47% of businesses say they have a strong capability of providing a relevant message…
   
3. Yet, only 21% of consumers said businesses are relevant to their problems, needs, wants or desires. (IBM Study & Infographic)
   
4. 50% of website visitors leave a website within seconds due to a lack of a message (2015 B2B Web Usability Report)

If you evaluate consumer sentiment with Google’s mission statement, in makes sense that the two are in alignment and that our websites and content should be as well.

Here is the reality for SEO:

Google values websites that are relevant, specific, and audience focused over websites that put the emphasis on themselves or their products or services.

What is the ultimate Google hack?

Create a central message that is focused on the user, the user experience and how it relates to their experience and feelings.

In other words, make the content about them, not about you.

Keep reading if you want to learn how to propel your content, gain authority, and build relevant traffic to your website.

Google values websites that are relevant, specific, and audience focused http://ctt.ec/38S92+ #SEO @donpurdum

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Google Hack #1 – Create Your Unique and Relevant Message That Focuses on Value

Your message is not about you. I know, I said it again.

But the hardest temptation to fight is a mass marketing mindset that focuses on features and benefits.

What is the focus of a feature and benefit?

It’s either the business or the product or service.

Your message is not about features or benefits. It’s about a relevant solution that emphasizes the audience.

Value is something slightly different and I have yet to find anyone out there really defining value.

I define value as

Solve one problem, meet one need, or fulfill one desire, for one person, in one piece of marketing content (or presentation, speech, or sales pitch).

For our purpose, the emphasis of your content should be on the needs of the website visitor, not on the need to sell in order to grow your business.

Putting the emphasis on you over your audience is rarely “useful” information.

The following five points is the process I reverse engineer a business’s thoughts and organize them in order to arrive at a relevant, inspiring and powerful message:

1. What problems are you passionate about solving?
   
2. What tangible values do your customers experience and how do they feel about those experiences?
   
3. What “specific” problems do you solve for each tangible value?
   
4. Who are you “specifically” solving each problem for?
   
5. Discover the business you are “really” in…

Resources:

How To Find Your Target Audience And Create The Best Content That Connects (coschedule.com)

12 tips for content marketing from an SEO perspective (searchenginewatch.com)

20 What’s to Find Your Why (roryvaden.com)

How to Get Clear on Your Marketing Message …to Attract More Clients and Make More Money (clientattraction.com)

Google Hack #2 – Align Your Message with Google’s E.A.T. Principles

Once you have your core message, every piece of content you create moving forward is a function of delivering that message.

Now, it’s time to put that message into your website and create specific content.

However, you want to ensure that you’re meeting Google’s quality control needs.

Google’s E.A.T. is important for two reasons:

1. It determines your site’s value.
   
2. Quality raters reference it.

Google says their search quality guidelines are based on:

• Expertise
  
• Authoritativeness
  
• Trustworthiness

The more your content reflects these guidelines, the greater the opportunity Google gives your content to rank well.

Expertise

“Expertise” can be better defined as asking; “What is your message?”

Your message is, or should, always be in alignment with your expertise or niche. As a result, your content should always be specific and relevant, and valuable to your professional expertise.

In order to achieve this guideline, we recommend that you create content that:

Solves one problem, meets one need or fulfills one desire, for one person, in one piece of content

This requires extreme clarity about your business, your audience(s), and the results that they get from your product or service.

The number one reason content marketing isn’t working for many businesses is because most businesses don’t have enough clarity and therefore it leads to a lack of message.

For example, one real estate company we recently consulted with created content about their community and some happenings. However, they didn’t tie the content back into a real estate topic that informed their expertise. Simply mentioning how something positively affects property values, higher closing percentages, or interest in living in the neighborhood in the article would pull their expertise back into the overall content and made it relevant to their expertise.

Authoritativeness

Authoritativeness builds on “expertise”.

When content is highly relevant, it attracts engages influencers who are able, willing, and ready to share it via high-quality links and/or social shares.

But in order to get those relevant, valuable links you have to know:

• Who the relevant influencers are on your topic
  
• What topics they like to create content around that is relevant to your topic
  
• And, how to create relevant content for them that incentives their link sharing willingness.

When you create your content be sure to appropriately quote and link to their relevant content, and be sure to let them know.

Here is the point and relevance about Google in the area of “authoritativeness”:

1. Google believes in your authority because you quote and link to influencers content that is relevant and authoritative to your content. You are demonstrating that you value research, accuracy (trustworthiness), and others contribution to your own. However, while important it’s just a minor point in the overall equation of your SEO.
   
2. Google really believes in your authority when an influencer loves your relevant message and content, and includes a link back to your site from theirs. That’s where the real magic happens.

Holistically, you want an authoritative impression upon Google that your content is valued by those are willing to endorse your content and have are already authoritative in their own right.

Trustworthiness

The final issue of Google E.A.T. is to discern the trustworthiness of your content and website. How well do you protect your visitor information if they provide it? Does your site use SSL in that case?

Is your content accurate and does it reflect a high-quality standard that is unique and relevant or is it bland and repeated content from around the web that doesn’t demonstrate any expertise?

Or, is it obvious you are taking someone else’s content, plagiarizing it and using it as your own without referencing where you got it?

Ethical behavior is a big part of the trustworthiness equation.

Resources:

Google’s General Guidelines Doc (See Section 3.2)

EAT and YMYL: New Google Search Guidelines Acronyms of Quality Content (SEMrush.com)

Meeting Google’s Quality Guidelines: Will Google EAT Your Content? (ProBlogger.net)

You Are What You E-A-T: Trustworthiness According to Google (spinweb.com)

Google Hack #3 – Create Accurate, Emotional, and Action Oriented Headlines

Without relevant headlines that have an emotional appeal, your audience won’t feel a reason to click through.

I relate to the economics of a purchase… every time you open your wallet to spend money, it’s an emotional decision.

It’s the same with a click… all clicks are emotionally based.

In 2012, Forbes published an article by Susannah Breslin titled “3 Emotions That Make People Click”.

Susannah said there are three primary emotions that make people click:

1. Arousal
   
2. Fear
   
3. Curiosity

These three powerful emotions can significantly boost your click throughs. However, your content better deliver if you use any of these emotional triggers.

If the headline does not appeal to your audience both logically and emotionally, there is no incentive for them to click through and read the article.

Spend at least half of your time thinking through the headline of your article.

Use some tools like Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer. It’s not perfect nor always right. However, it is a great reference tool and it’s free to use.

Your headline goal is two-fold:

1. Help Google understand what your article is about and its relevance to your expertise.
   
2. Give your audience a solid reason to click and engage your content.

Resources:

Discover Your Emotional Triggers (outsmartyourbrain.com)

You’ll Be Outraged at How Easy It Was to Get You to Click on This Headline (wired.com)

How to Create a Great Title That Both Google and Your Audience Loves

Many businesses and marketers struggle to create great titles that appeal both logically and emotionally, and have the right keywords and combinations for Google.

Here is a quick process that may help you:

Step 1 – From your message, decide on your broad topic

Once decided, head to a resource like SEMrush.com and see if the topic is trending well.

For example, let’s say you decided upon the general topic “Let’s say your topic is “Starting a Business”.

Notice how many searches there are for this topic. It’s 736 million searches.

So what does SEMrush have to say?

It’s definitely a viable topic. It has high volume and results.

However, we definitely want to get more specific and drill down in order to find that sweet spot for the right target audience.

Step 2 – Look at the various other phrases being used. There are some tips here to clue us in.

Step 3 – What are some of our influencers writing about around this topic?

In some cases, a simple Google search will do. If you have a favorite influencer, head over to the site. Many have a search feature that will allow you to discover if they are writing on they topic.

Here is what some were writing:

• The All-in-One Content Marketing Playbook for Startups (copyhackers.com)
  
• How 4 Startups Successfully Launched Their Business Through Content Marketing (NeilPatel.com)
  
• How 4 Startups Successfully Launched Their Business Through Content Marketing (Startupgrind.com)

In this case, many writing about “content marketing for startups”.

That’s getting more specific and SEMrush validates it as a great medium target keyword with a high pay-per-click performance. That means the topic is in demand.

Step 4 – Narrow your topic even more

Now that we know we have a great topic that both Google and influencers love, how do we drill down some more to a great title?

That’s where some creativity comes in and an understanding of how to create a logic and emotional headline that earns validation from Google and clicks by the audience.

Here is another useful tool to help you from CoSchedule.

In this case, we chose the following headline:

Content Marketing Success for Startups in 90 Days or Less

It’s logical, actionable and emotional… the emotion is a time aspect.

Who wants to wait six months for results?

Google Hack #4 – Create Your Content from the Title That Attracts, Converts, and is Relevant and Emotional

Now that your title is done it’s time to create your content.

Content should be valuable by solving one problem, meeting one need, or fulfilling one desire in one piece of content.

The key is to create content that applies to Google E.A.T. principle by keeping it in line with your expertise.

If you create content outside of your profession, industry or genre, you risk losing your expertise perspective and being de-emphasized with Google as a result.

This is why all content must be directly tied to the “Business You are ‘Really’ In”. By doing so, you ensure that you don’t stray from your core message.

Finally, promote, promote, and promote some more.

Include influencers by quoting and linking. Be sure to email or tag them on social media so that they know your content exists.

Most importantly, invite them to share it if they find it valuable to their audience on their blog and social media.

Don’t stop researching, as you come across other valuable and relevant articles on other websites you can revise your content and add them to it.

Resources:

6 Ways To Create Relevant Content For Your Ideal Audience (twelveskip.com)

Awesome! 16 Powerful SEO Copywriting Secrets (That Work Fast) (Backlinko.com)

4 Things World Class Content Marketers Do Every Time They Create Content (JeffBullas.com)

Content Creation (Moz’s Beginners Guide to Content Marketing)

Content Promotion (Moz’s Beginners Guide to Content Marketing)

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s vital that you align your business holistically with a relevant and clear message that is audience focused.

By doing so, you make it easier to create relevant content and stay within Google’s E.A.T. best practices guidelines.

If you want to learn more, you can get immediate access to the “5 Step Formula to Attract Your Audience, Increase Sales and Position Your Business for Success” on-demand, FREE webinar.

Learn my unique, systematized process that will help you discover what your customers are thinking and how to speak their language. Get immediate access to it today by clicking the image below.

 

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