Designing Findable Content

POSTED : May 17, 2022

BY : Chelsie Martin

At Concentrix Catalyst, we help our clients define and deliver world-class experiences in a crowded digital ecosystem. Orchestrating a symphony of outcomes built around people first, our team lives in a world where strategy, design, engineering, analytics, and operations are all equally influential when establishing our end-to-end content approach.

Stemming from the demands of today’s technology-driven needs, executing digital marketing strategies has also evolved into a complex and integrated system of its own. Solely eye-catching websites are no longer sufficient when measuring impact. Rather, connecting today in a meaningful way requires modern optimization as well—with designing findable content existing at the core.

The most successful search engine-visible user experiences are created when all teams collaborate throughout the entire implementation process. Before beginning any evaluation or content creation, the imperative focus should be placed on breaking down any silos, enabling team integration, and creating an iterative collaboration model to drive content initiatives on sound footing.

At the foundation of this iterative collaboration are six search-engine optimization guiding principles. These principles play a strategic role when designing findable content and present a united ecosystem of digital content production and governance.

If it’s good for the users, it’s good for search engines: Search engines only want to surface high quality content and experiences for users. This is managed through complex algorithms to align the best indexed content with user search intent. Therefore, website optimization efforts should actively prioritize content and experiences that meet or exceed the needs of users.

SEO is more than just adding keywords: One of the many valuable insights SEO research can provide is the window into user behavior. When thinking about an SEO strategy, it’s easy to get wrapped up in adding keywords after content is created. However, if we take a step back, it’s best to create content that directly answers “how” and “why” users are searching. This requires bringing SEO research in first, and tailoring content second to ensure intentionality and alignment.

When choosing target keywords, user intent is key: It is critical to understand what problem users are trying to solve or what question they are trying to answer when they search online. To help determine this, it’s helpful to extract information from what appears on the SERP (search engine results page) for any given query. For the target keyword or phrase in question, consider the type of results that appear—are these informational or transactional? Perhaps they are a mixture of both. Analyzing the SERP provides valuable clues to understanding user intent, and many keyword research tools offer these insights as a feature.

Put yourself in your users’ shoes: Ask yourself, how can I respond to their needs better than anyone else? At Catalyst, this is where we bring all our insights together based on a comprehensive approach using a blend of SERP insights, competitor analysis and keyword research. In many instances, this is tackled with a test-and-learn strategy that ultimately enables the user to flow through the website seamlessly.

During the design phase, remember mobile first, fast: SEO elements are a central part of the web design process and creating findable content meets the user where they are—on mobile. Despite the visual appeal of desktop websites, it is critical to remember that 50% of web-traffic comes from mobile. As an extension, including an accessibility expert is a necessary best practice that will create a beautiful brand experience for all users while optimizing for the speed, responsiveness, and stability search engines recommend.

Use search data as the basis for content strategy decisions: SEO is the least effective when we try to optimize content after it has been ideated and created. Instead, flip the priority to lead with search data as a foundation to developing an integrated content messaging structure. Creating a framework using SERP insights, keyword analysis and competitor research creates a user-focused content marketing strategy.

In the end, search data and insights are foundational to designing findable content. SEO is a discipline that not only supports optimization for search engines, but rather introduces a holistic approach to a digital marketing strategy that can unite internal teams and prioritize the best possible website experiences for our users.

Contact us to learn more about how Concentrix Catalyst can help you to optimize your content.