Key Takeaways
Strategy and Impact: Content marketing for architects is a strategic approach that builds trust and authority by offering valuable, informative content without direct sales pitches. This method not only showcases your expertise but also strengthens your brand and fosters client relationships.
Targeting and Visibility: Focus on ideal clients using buyer personas to create relevant, SEO-optimized content. This attracts a targeted audience, enhances your website’s visibility, and increases the likelihood of generating leads and sales.
Effective Content Types: Employ a mix of content types like original images, engaging videos, insightful case studies, podcasts, blogs, and YouTube content. Utilize LinkedIn for its high organic reach and networking opportunities.
Efficient Practices: Apply the 80:20 rule in SEO, repurpose content across platforms, and create content based on searched keywords and user intent to ensure higher rankings and visibility on search engines.
Benefits of Content Marketing for Architects
Content marketing is about providing value without immediate expectations.
It’s a misconception that content isn’t published to earn money.
In fact, you should aim to sell your architectural services through your content.
Remember, you’re running a business.
The key difference between content marketing and ads is that content marketing offers solutions without a direct sales pitch.
This approach results in many positive business outcomes.
Let’s delve into some of the most significant benefits!
Build Trust and Authority
Publishing quality content that informs and educates on topics related to your services showcases your expertise.
This not only demonstrates your authority but also builds trust and relationships with your audience.
Offering valuable content for free is like making a great first impression; it elevates you in the eyes of potential clients, making them more likely to engage with your services.
Build Your Brand and Increase Brand Awareness
A business that establishes trust and authority while offering value evolves into a brand.
Each piece of content you publish serves as a representative of your brand.
Remember, both brand building and content marketing require time and patience.
Thus, it’s essential to have a strategy for content marketing, create impactful content, and remain patient.
For more insights, check out my article on how to use content marketing to build brands and increase brand awareness.
Attract a Targeted Audience to Your Site for Leads and Sales
Creating content centered around keywords and topics that attract an already interested audience to your site significantly boosts the likelihood of generating qualified leads or sales.
For instance, if someone searches “Youngstown Ohio architect” or “house design Youngstown,” it’s clear they’re seeking architectural services.
When such an audience, already interested in your services, visits your site and finds exactly what they’re looking for, their chances of becoming clients greatly increase.
Creating relevant content that’s optimized for search engines will lead those engines, like Google, to direct free traffic to your site.
Who are Your Ideal Clients?
Since content marketing is a long-term strategy, it’s crucial to focus on your ideal clients first.
Why? Because they are the easiest to convert into clients, and presumably, you can offer them the best service possible.
How can you identify your ideal clients?
To identify your ideal clients, undertake research to create a buyer persona (also known as customer persona or user persona).
A buyer persona represents a fictional character that embodies your ideal client base.
Why are buyer personas important?
A buyer persona helps you understand the specific needs and problems of your ideal clients, enabling you to create hyper-relevant content that addresses these issues.
In an internet awash with average content, relevancy is key.
Should you have one or more buyer personas?
Generally, it’s best to focus on one buyer persona at a time, ensuring you’ve thoroughly addressed all their potential queries.
This approach builds relevancy for both your ideal clients and search engines, which favor sites that comprehensively cover topics or clusters of topics.
The Right Content Marketing Types and Channels for You
There are numerous content marketing types and channels available for publishing your content.
Given the limited hours in a day and constraints in content creation and distribution, it’s crucial to focus on types and channels that yield the most significant returns.
Let’s delve into some effective options!
Images
The importance of quality images in your architectural business is well understood.
Yet, there are often missed opportunities in imagery, such as:
- Plans
- Aerial shots
- Software screenshots
- Models
- Mockups
Aim to post as many original images as possible.
Original images perform better in SEO than stock images, particularly the free ones.
Videos
Video has become an exceptional content marketing tool.
Not only does video content engage more than text or image content on social media, but it also delivers great ROI.
Remember, production quality doesn’t need to be top-notch.
Even with a simple phone camera, if your content is valuable, that’s often all you need.
Case Studies
Case studies provide dual value.
Firstly, they are substantial content pieces that showcase expertise and establish authority.
Secondly, they often get quoted by others, generating backlinks to your website and enhancing your site’s authority in the eyes of Google and other search engines.
Podcast
Joe Rogan’s $100 million Spotify deal significantly spotlighted podcasting.
It may seem like everyone is launching a podcast, yet there’s ample opportunity for new voices.
A podcast is not just a content channel to attract potential clients; it’s a valuable platform for networking with industry professionals.
Blogging
Blogging remains a key content marketing channel across various industries.
A blog adds substantial content and pages to your website, boosting your site’s keyword rankings and creating a snowball effect.
The more keywords you rank for, the greater your site’s visibility to potential clients and industry peers.
Increased traffic leads to more sharing and backlinking, signaling Google to promote your site further, thus repeating the cycle.
Youtube
Video content is powerful, and Youtube stands out as the premier video content marketing channel.
Youtube is more than a social media platform; it’s a solution-seeking hub for users with queries relevant to your business.
As the world’s second-largest search engine, Youtube videos maintain long-term engagement, unlike typical social media posts.
LinkedIn’s inclusion here is for several reasons.
It has transformed from a mere recruiting tool to a content-hungry social media network with a current ‘golden age’ of organic reach.
Content consumption exceeds content creation on LinkedIn, resulting in exceptionally high organic reach.
On LinkedIn, even new accounts gain visibility, a rarity on platforms like Facebook.
Besides organic reach, LinkedIn is an excellent place for connecting with peers and engaging in industry-related groups and discussions.
4 Parting Tips
Employ the 80:20 Rule in SEO
Don’t obsess over SEO. Concentrate on the key aspects, then move on.
Avoid over-optimizing your content, which can lead to procrastination and lack of productivity – focus on creating more content.
Repurpose Your Content
Repurposing content is crucial because creating content is challenging. Make the most of every piece you produce.
For instance, with a podcast, you can:
- Upload it to podcast platforms
- Share it on YouTube
- Turn it into a blog article via transcription
- Extract key points for social media posts
However, remember to adapt your content to each platform’s unique characteristics.
For more, see my article on different content types and how to repurpose them.
Create Content Based on Searched Keywords
Creating content like “Reasons why I don’t like AutoCAD 2021” won’t rank well on Google, as it’s unlikely to be a common search query.
Use free or paid keyword research tools to ensure your content targets searchable topics.
Match Content with Search Intent
When researching keywords, note the type of content that ranks on Page #1.
For example, searching “best gifts for dad” mostly returns list-based articles.
Hence, when targeting such keywords, create content in the format users and Google prefer.
Content not aligning with search intent rarely ranks high.