The Formations Company help limited companies get started. They turned to Curated Digital to create a curated content strategy that would build their brand authority
The Challenge
Curated Digital aimed to increase organic traffic and transactions on TFC’s website, and posit it as a key reference for people looking for advice in starting up or running a business. As well as this, they wanted to build brand awareness. This was broken down into three goals: to provide genuinely helpful content to the audience; increase the credibility of TFC as a brand; and increase their search visibility.
The Strategy
These days, increasing a site’s search ranking is more about how valuable that result is to the user than how it has been optimised for keywords, or commandeered link building techniques. In this traditional sense, SEO is dead—you can no longer trick the user into thinking your site is valuable and relevant if, above all else, you’re providing them with weak content. They’ll just bounce right off your site and keep searching for the information they need.
In approaching this brief, we wanted to figure out how to tailor the site to meet its audience’s exact needs and concerns. We did this by creating content to perfectly service user queries about starting a new business, and positioning it in a way that encourages navigation across the site. We call this curated content, as it’s been painstakingly and precisely curated to guide the user along a particular journey.
This then increases time spent on site and engagement levels with content, and develops rapport with the brand. It also generates shares and earns links organically. In servicing user needs, content is optimised by theme rather than keywords. Whilst keyword research is taken into account when discerning what people were searching for, we don’t optimise any of our content titles.
First, research. Via competitor and gap analysis, we found that most of the sites in the area were purely transactional, and lacked informative, authoritative content that would actually be of use to someone looking to start a business. We wanted TFC to fill this clear informational gap, where they could build a unique voice and firmly establish their brand.
We took a long, hard look at the site’s audience, and did some keyword research to get an idea of what they’d already been searching for. We decided to build a section on the site called the Help Centre, and group content into key themes that people were asking the most questions about. Within each section, we created articles to answer more specific questions and concerns about a given topic. To nut out these themes, we had a content planning session the included the client and took all our research insights into account.
With TFC’s help, we were able to identify six key themes (which has now grown to eight, and is likely to keep growing) of most value to the user and, from here, we were able to identify any specifics they would like to know. We then came up with titles, a content plan, before going away and writing it up. When writing and planning, we kept in mind how we’d be able to link the content together, keeping user experience in mind and without being spammy.
We wrote all the sticky content, including clear calls-to-action and leads into other articles, based on what else the user might be interested in. We produced blog posts that tied this sticky information into other timely trends and topics, to draw users in from broader locations.
As well as being a great way to add new content to the site and keep the brand voice fresh, promoting blogs in front of audiences we knew would love them created shares, generated organic links, and boosted engagement with the TFC site.
The Results
The strategy was a success. TFC has seen continual improvement week-on-week in terms of organic transactions and generated revenue. We have also seen record levels of organic visibility around both informational, content-led topics, and their industry specific phrases.