For brands looking to expand their reach beyond core offerings, finding new opportunities is a challenge. Building a content strategy to increase your brand’s market share is a daunting process, but when broken down and executed well it has proven to deliver astronomical results. Learn how you can become an authority in your industry by leveraging the most cost-effective digital channel — organic search — as the backbone of your content marketing strategy through tangential topics. Attendees will work together in real-time to outline their own content strategy.

1. Amplify Your Brand
Growing Your Reach Organically

6. Today’s Agenda
• Attendee Worksheet
• Why is Relevant Content Important?
• Understanding Your Audience
• Defining Your Search Funnel
• Filling Your Search Funnel
• Developing Great Content

7. Attendee Worksheet

8. Why is Relevant Content Important?
• Generates valuable backlinks (organic ranking factor)
• Answers real customer questions, earning trust with your brand
• Improves site usage metrics (pages/session, bounce rate, session
duration) which are organic ranking factors
• Allows transition into product offerings, which generates direct revenue
• Supports high conversion pages, generating assisted revenue
• Internal linking to money-making pages can boost organic visibility for
conversion pages
• Builds brand awareness

9. Understanding Your Audience
In order to grow your brand’s reach via organic search, you must
know who your audience is. Answering important questions around
demographics, geography, and user behavior are all key to defining
your brand’s audience and potential reach.

10. Demographics (Gender/Age)
Understanding Your Audience
Geo (Language, Location)

11. Understanding Your Audience
Interests (Web niches your audience
likes i.e. Home & Garden, Food & Dining)
Behavior (Seasonality, time on
site, pages per session )

12. Understanding Your Audience
Devices (Mobile vs Tablet vs Desktop)

13. Understanding Your Audience
Key Takeaways
1. Who is my audience? (Age, Location, Gender)
Maggie, 42 Bachelor’s
Degree
Husband
& 2 Kids
Nature
Lover
Full-time
Nurse
Shops
Online

14. Understanding Your Audience
Key Takeaways
2. Where does my audience hang out online? (Search,
Facebook, LinkedIn, CNN, HGTV, ESPN, Buzzfeed)

15. Understanding Your Audience
3. What content formats does my audience like to consume?
(Long-form Content, Data Visualizations, Videos, Images)

16. Understanding Your Audience
4. What information is my audience interested in finding online?

17. Defining Your Search Funnel
Your potential customers aren’t all in the same place, and they aren’t
all looking for the same thing. Defining your search funnel is the
structural base to all future content research and production.

18. Defining Your Search Funnel
Awareness
Wide topical coverage
Example keywords: hydrangea care, what planting zone am I in?
Consideration
Intent accelerates, Trust is built
Example Keywords: best soaker hoses, garden hose
reviews
Transactional
User intent is to convert
Example Keywords: soaker hoses, oscillating
sprinkler
Low
Medium
High
Likelihood to
Convert

19. Defining Your Search Funnel
Low
Medium
High
Likelihood to
Convert
Awareness
Wide topical coverage
Example keywords: hydrangea care, what planting zone am I in?
Consideration
Intent accelerates, Trust is built
Example Keywords: best soaker hoses, garden hose
reviews
Transactional
User intent is to convert
Example Keywords: soaker hoses, oscillating
sprinkler

20. Filling Your Search Funnel
Identify opportunities to expand your brand’s reach by digging into a
subset of your keyword universe and discovering competitive insights.

21. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Trends
Cost: FREE

22. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Trends
Cost: FREE

23. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Trends
Cost: FREE

24. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Autosuggest
Cost: FREE

25. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Autosuggest
Cost: FREE

26. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: People Also Ask
Cost: FREE

27. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Keyword Planner
Cost: FREE

28. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Keyword Planner
Cost: FREE

29. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Keyword Planner
Cost: FREE

30. Filling Your Search Funnel
Google: Keyword Planner
Cost: FREE

31. Filling Your Search Funnel
Answer the Public
Cost: FREE

32. Filling Your Search Funnel
Answer the Public
Cost: FREE

33. Filling Your Search Funnel
Answer the Public
Cost: FREE

34. Filling Your Search Funnel
Ahrefs: Competitive Content Gap
Cost: $99+/mo.
Find keywords
key competitors
get traffic from
that you don’t

35. Filling Your Search Funnel
Ahrefs: Competitive Content Gap
Cost: $99+/mo.
Find keywords
key competitors
get traffic from
that you don’t

36. Filling Your Search Funnel
Ahrefs: Content Explorer
Cost: $99+/mo.

37. Filling Your Search Funnel
Ahrefs: Keyword Explorer
Cost: $99+/mo.

38. Filling Your Search Funnel
Organizing Your Research
Hoses Keyword Universe

39. Developing Great Content
Research is just the beginning. Optimizing your content for success
in organic search is necessary if you want to see results.

40. Developing Great Content
https://gilmour.com/planting-zones-hardiness-map

41. Developing Great Content
Keyword: hydrangea
MSV: 209,000
Rank: #1

42. Developing Great Content

43. Developing Great Content
Q1 2019 (Organic Traffic)
Goal: Increase brand awareness
Organic Sessions: 237,326
YoY Delta: +613%

44. Who Wants a Hat???
Let’s put some of the learnings into
practice together