I was recently speaking at an event, and after my presentation, I was asked by a gentleman, “Do my blog articles have to be consistent?” After asking him to expand a bit on the question, he said he was worried about being penalized by Google if his articles had varied topics. How important is uniformity in your blog articles? Should your website content have consistent themes?
Produce content for your target audience first, Google second
Just to add a little more background, this gentleman “buys-in” to the idea of Teaching-Based Marketing. He agrees that the best way to attract new and better customers is to answer the questions they pose. Because he works in an industry that varies widely in its reach, it’s tough for him to identify a “typical” customer. He does, however, have a great deal of potential customers contacting him to ask for help.
This, at least in my opinion, is one of the easiest possible scenarios to implement Teaching-Based Marketing. He has an almost unlimited repository of questions from which to write articles, and since people are actively asking him these questions, he’s helping both his current and future customers when he produces content answering them. Instead of worrying about themes, he just needs to start.
Put irrelevant content on a different website
If you have a blog on your website with random musings about whatever comes to mind, that content should be on a different website. If it doesn’t have anything to do with your customers or emphasize why someone would want to do business with you – but you still really want people to see it – set up a free WordPress site and just link to it from your current site.
As far as Google or other search engines are concerned, simply concentrate on answering those questions relevant to your audience. Remember, Google only has one job: to provide the best answer to a search query. If you’re answering questions by way of your expertise, Google will reward you. Just be sure to put each answer on a separate page, and not in a FAQ.
Download our free eBook and start using Teaching-Based Marketing right away with your business. My book will share with you exactly how to implement these ideas on your website, and offer additional instruction on website traffic and what to offer when a visitor comes to your website.
Another great post, Spence! As a follow up to the gentleman’s question, does it make sense to remove current blog posts that are not specifically related to our business? (These were the ones we did before we learned about teaching- based marketing) Some of my “random musings” do not answer specific questions, but seemed relevant at the time.
Starting another website for content not related to the business is an excellent idea, but it’s enough for me to manage the website I have. However, removing posts does seems to be one way around this.
Barbara – thank you so much for the kind words (as always), and thanks for your great question too. I can’t think of any reason to remove old posts. I wrote this article thinking of two different people who might ask this question –
1. Those who were looking for reasons to delay before producing content
2. Those who just have an “Chairman’s Blog” or something of the sort, where he talks about his deep-sea fishing adventures. I’ve seen more of those on businesses’ websites than I’d expect. In this case, someone is actually doing some writing, but it’s not the writing we need.
Your old posts get a pass, in my opinion. Heck, some of my old posts are irrelevant for my audience too, but it’s still nice to go back and see what I was thinking at the time 🙂
Whew! Thanks for the supportive response. I will move forward with writing content based on clients’ questions and leave my previous posts alone. Thanks again!