Sure, SEO is still an important part of your overall digital marketing strategy as it helps to drive traffic to your website. But getting traffic to your site is only half the battle. You’ve got to have quality targeted content that speaks directly to the needs or wants of your ideal customer.

It comes down to what do you want your visitors to feel, to do, or to think. To get your customer to take action, you have to know them. What motivates them? What are their online activities as well as their offline activities? In other words, you’ve got to build an ideal customer avatar and write to that audience.

If you aren’t speaking to your target audience, no amount of SEO is going to get them to stay on your site. Your bounce rate is an indicator that your content is or isn’t hitting its target. If they only stay on your site for a few seconds and leave, your content simply doesn’t speak to your ideal customer avatar.

For instance, right now, I am writing copy for a carpet cleaner who wants to increase its visibility online to customers who need rug cleaning. They haven’t established themselves yet as rug cleaners. They barely mention rug cleaning on their site.

So, after having done extensive research on rugs, the history of rugs, the types of rugs, piles, weaves and rug materials, I also researched who primarily purchases rugs that require professional cleaning. Keeping in mind that my ideal customer avatar is well-to-do, educated and knows something about interior design or art, I am targeting my copy to help them select a rug that fits their lifestyle as well as how to maintain and clean each rug type.

Your copy has to establish your business as an expert not just in your services but the services that led up to your service or product. And in this example in order to increase rug cleaning services, the business must show they know something about the different materials, weaves and uses for those rugs as well as how to clean them.

If a customer has an antique rug worth thousands of dollars and they need it cleaned, you want them to know that their investment will be safe in your hands. You want them to feel “safe and confident” that you know rugs and how to clean them.

So we created an entire new webpage for the client reaching its target audience of affluent rug owners who want to know more about rugs and rug cleaning. We are also writing a weekly blog on rug purchasing and cleaning to help to establish their business as the rug cleaning experts in their local area.

I didn’t start out as a web content writer. I began my writing career as a journalist and magazine editor, where my writing purposely had to inform, entertain or impart some benefit to my readers. Content writing does the same but goes one step further it has to have a call to action, whether that action is a feeling, a phone call or a purchase.