Warren Buffett once said that a company’s returns are: “far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row.”
The same principle applies to making noise online. Working on the right content strategy (getting the topic right with rich messaging) is more important than the myriad details of execution (how deep you go, and how wide it’s disseminated).
A better approach to investor awareness is to create and maintain a generous list of relevant content topics organized by a broad list of SEO-based keywords. First gather buy-side intelligence and insights. Spend some time in the free online forums (StockGuru, Morningstar, SeekingAlpha, Reddit, etc.), on Twitter and GoogleTrends and Console monitoring interests, investment goals and strategy, as well as policy- and social-related issues that might sway decision making.
This type of research can form a solid foundation for an SEO-based keyword strategy (read Part I of this topic in our earlier feed or on our website under Insights). It takes some time, but this deep dive can provide ongoing future returns. It also allows you to later prioritize the list based on key metrics (more on that later).
Second, brainstorm seed keywords and expand into seedlings. Put them into a spreadsheet and analyze, compare, and prioritize based on goals: search traffic, eyeballs, and opportunities. Keywords that are low demand search terms are not completely irrelevant. They can be very valuable for SEO in creating link baits: content designed to attract backlinks that pass their equity to other pages.
Backlinks are an essential component of any search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. They’re the links that you earn from other websites that Google views as votes of confidence that your site is high-quality and user-friendly. Backlinks are hyperlinks to your website from other websites.
There are dozens of potential scenarios for disseminating quality content—all of which have the potential to increase awareness, traffic and improve Google search rankings. The fastest but most expensive way is to establish your company as a subject matter expert by creating outstanding SEO-based content. Typically, this type of content is “How to” posts; Infographics, Guides and Whitepapers; Opinion posts; interview-based posts, press releases and original research. A cheaper method (and as a result, less powerful) is to forge valuable networking relationships with other websites such as industry journals, news sites, organizations, etc. by commenting and reposting content.
The type of content is particularly important when it comes to the ‘create’ vs. ‘find’ decision. Admittedly, we get excited by storytelling, but it’s important not to overlook cost vs. time vs opportunity. One way to establish a baseline is to estimate the number of hours multiplied by an hourly or project rate and use that as a guideline.
Creating keyword-based content with high search volume isn’t enough to create investor awareness, because one piece of content can rank for thousands of different keywords. You can use that to advantage by focusing on quantitative and qualitative keywords. Don’t overlook algorithmic trading which monitors content for sentiment, context and of course, positive keywords.
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