Content marketing is key to generating visibility, building credibility and driving sales. An effective digital marketing strategy that connects a brand to its target audience relies on high-quality, engaging and intentional content. Whilst new or small businesses will often handle all of their content marketing internally, growing businesses can benefit significantly from working with a professional independent content consultancy. In this guide, I will provide an overview of content consultancy, how it could help your business, and how you can improve your content marketing strategies and SEO efforts.
My name is Rhiannon, and I am an independent SEO and content consultant. I combine strategic written content marketing (i.e. blogs and website content) with search engine optimisation (SEO) to help my clients gain visibility, build credibility and drive more sales through their websites.
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What is Content Marketing Consultancy?
Content consultancy essentially involves supporting businesses with their content marketing strategy. Content consultants will often specialise in a specific type of content, such as video, print or written content.
As an independent content consultant specialising in SEO and blogging, my content consultancy services involve creating and executing strategies that drive organic traffic, engagement and sales through my clients’ websites. My 1:1 SEO and Content Consultancy clients benefit from start-to-finish blog and website content support, which is complemented by my SEO expertise. So, not only do I help my clients create quality written content for their websites, I also manage the on-page and technical SEO, giving that content the best chance of getting discovered organically in search engines.
My flagship content consultant services are offered on a minimum 3-month basis, as I want to form a long-term partnership between myself and my clients. Whilst I bring content strategy expertise and SEO knowledge to the table, my clients bring their deep understanding of and passion for their products, services and audience. By committing to two-way communication and collaboration on their marketing, clients are able to achieve the highest possible return on their investment when they work with me.
Every great partnership starts with a conversation, which is why I offer free discovery calls to all prospective clients. I take the time to understand you and your business, so that I can establish whether and how SEO and content marketing can support your business goals. If you want to find out more about my independent SEO and content consulting services then please book a free discovery call.
Benefits of Hiring a Content Consultant
There are several benefits to hiring a content consultant. As well as helping you increase sales through organic (free) content and offering a healthy ROI, working with a specialist content consultant also has benefits over working with an agency:
Expertise: Your content consultant is a specialist, and they will have a clear understanding of how best to help your business grow through content marketing. They can support your in-house team with their expertise.
Focus on a Bespoke, Aligned Content Strategy: Your content consultant will help ensure you invest in strategic and intentional content that will give you the best ROI, instead of taking a “scattergun” approach or applying a one-size-fits-all method.
Unlock the Secret Ingredient: My content consultancy clients benefit from my specialist expertise in search engine optimisation (SEO), which ensures that their content actually performs, rather than just making it exist.
Measurable Results & ROI: You content consultant can help you achieve measurable results and maximise your ROI from your content.
Invest in the Long-Term: When you work with a content consultant, you are making an investment in the long-term growth of your business.
You can find out more about why hiring a professional content consultant is the best investment you can make in your business with my article, which you can read here.
Written Content Marketing Strategies
Blog content can be highly effective ways of marketing your business. Blogs can target your audience at all stages of the buyer journey, from initial awareness through to client/customer retention. However, a solid SEO campaign is also required if you want to drive your target audience to your website organically whilst growing your sales. In this section, I offer an overview of how I help my clients develop and execute effective content marketing plans.
Step One: Content and SEO Strategy Development
Effective content marketing starts with a solid strategy. The first three months of working with me are all about setting objectives, researching opportunities and laying the foundations for SEO success.
When I start working with a client, one of the first things I do is understand their expectations for the campaign. SEO and blogging are a long-term strategy, but there are ways in which I can develop a content strategy so that it works to seasonal requirements (e.g. Christmas) or targets a specific group of keywords (i.e. a “topic cluster”) as a priority. Usually, the first month of a campaign will involve carrying out website audits, keyword research, competitor analysis and SERP (search engine results page) analysis so that we have a clear strategy to work to.
Timing is a key consideration when it comes to developing your SEO content planning. Not only does it take time to produce quality content, but it also takes time (often several weeks) for Google to crawl, index and rank content. For example, I usually recommend that an ecommerce client publish their Christmas gift guides by October. This gives me time to assess the performance of the content and make any required changes in time.
You can learn more about how to create an SEO strategy in my guide for small and growing businesses.
Step Two: Written Content Creation
As a written content consultant, I work with two main types of content: blog articles and website pages. Both can help drive organic traffic to your website from search engines and other sources, build trust and credibility with your target audience and generate leads and sales.
Blog articles are mainly used to generate organic traffic from long-tail keywords. These include questions, “how to” queries and other informational keywords. Blog articles make people aware of your business, educate your audience and establish your brand as a credible source of information.
On the other hand, your key website pages are there to help sell your offers, drive bookings and encourage enquiries. These pages should be optimised for higher-intent keywords that your target audience would use to search for products, services and solutions.
When I create content for my clients’ websites, my aim first and foremost is creating high-quality content that will rank well in the SERPs, drive relevant traffic to their website and encourage the reader to take further action. Quality content is at the heart of getting your website visible in search engines and driving the all-important sales, which is why I follow content creation best practices.
If you are interested in using blogging to help you grow your business, take a look at my guide on blogging for small businesses for more information.
Step Three: Content Optimisation
This is where SEO comes in. For a piece of content to rank well in organic search, it needs to be optimised for search engines. Optimising content for SEO is not simply a case of adding keywords and links to your content; it involves showing search engines that your website is helpful and of high quality by adjusting various technical elements, including SEO Titles and SEO Descriptions. Implementing essential content optimisation techniques can make all the difference between content that drives traffic, and content that doesn’t!
On top of optimising each page on your website for specific keywords, I run regular whole-website audits to detect technical issues that may affect your website’s SEO and performance. These include issues with page loading, website speed and broken links.
Step Four: Content Distribution
SEO isn’t the only way to drive organic traffic to your website. Distributing your content via social media, email and Pinterest is an efficient way to start generating traffic and engaging your target audience.
I am particularly excited about how Pinterest can be used to distribute blog articles, ebooks and digital downloads and drive traffic to your website content. Often classed as another social media platform, Pinterest is actually a visual search engine. Its simple but engaging format makes it easy to create multiple pins to capture users’ attention and send them to your website. You can learn more about how to use Pinterest and blogging together in this guide written in collaboration with Emily from Grand Prix Socials.
Step 5: Content Performance Analysis
Measuring content success is key to understanding what is working, what isn’t working, and what opportunities there are. There are a number of ways in which you can measure the performance of your website content, and I tend to use a combination of SE Ranking (which integrates with Google Analytics) and Google Search Console to monitor my clients’ campaigns.
You will need to understand which content performance metrics you need to track and why. Rankings, traffic, conversions and visitors are key metrics that you may want to track. Furthermore, it can be useful to understand where your website traffic is coming from and which pages are driving the most traffic.
The Role of SEO Expertise in Content Consultancy
As an independent SEO consultant, I combine written content marketing (blog articles and website pages) with search engine optimisation. This means I focus on helping my clients gain visibility and sales via Google Search. Content marketing and SEO work together brilliantly because SEO helps to generate consistent, organic traffic that continues to work for the business over the long term. Therefore, it maximises the potential for the content to convert long after it is published.
SEO Fundamentals
When carrying out SEO on your website, there are a few fundamentals that should be applied to virtually every page. The three key elements of SEO are content, technical and backlinks. Your content needs to be consistent, engaging and relevant to your target audience, and requires strategic use of keywords and demonstration of your experience, expertise and authority. Backlinks are links from other websites (e.g. guest blog articles, advertorial, etc) that link back to your website and indicate that it is trustworthy and authoritative. Finally, technical SEO covers everything in the background that supports user experience and website crawling. This can include your internal linking, page speed and SEO titles and descriptions.
By incorporating these three elements into your website, you are helping to show Google that it should be ranking for your chosen keywords. For businesses in niche, less competitive markets, applying these SEO fundamentals can go a long way to driving organic traffic to your website.
I teach small business owners how to carry out essential SEO on their websites through my range of online self-study courses, group SEO programmes and power hours. So, if you want to learn more about how to do SEO, these offers are for you.
Advanced SEO
Many businesses require advanced SEO to drive significant organic traffic to their websites. This is often the case for e-commerce websites and professional services, for example, as they tend to target relatively high search volume, high competition keywords. I carry out advanced SEO for my 1:1 SEO and Content Consultancy clients, which can include semantic SEO, structured data and advanced technical SEO.
You can learn more about how I help my SEO consultancy clients make the most of Google Search and book a free discovery call to explore how advanced SEO combined with blogging could generate more organic traffic and sales.
How to Choose a Content Consultant
Once you decide to work with a content consultant, it is important to choose one that is right for your business. Different content consultants will have different areas of expertise in terms of the type of content they work with, the strategies they use and the sector they specialise in. I specialise in working with growing, independent, purpose-driven businesses that want to transform their websites into a consistent marketing channel through blogging and SEO.
The level of support you require is another consideration when looking for a content consultant. Some consultants only offer high-level consultancy, whilst others also offer a suite of self-study courses, group programmes and other resources. It is important to understand what you want from your content consultant, as well as what they will expect from you as the client. I offer a range of products and services to suit various businesses, but my flagship offer is my 1:1 SEO and Content Consultancy service. This is not a fully-managed SEO service, as I require my clients to contribute to and sign off on strategy and content, and working with me is very much a two-way partnership rather than an outsourcing arrangement.
When choosing a content consultant, it is advisable to have a discovery call with them to help you both understand how the other person works and whether you are likely to have a productive working relationship. I ask anyone who is considering working with me on a 1:1 basis to book a free discovery call in the first instance.
SEO & Content Consultancy Case Study
Many of my clients get the best results after they have worked with me for at least a year. One service-based business that I have worked with for over two years has benefited significantly by targeting long-tail, informational keywords as well as a core set of high-intent commercial keywords. Well-researched, high-quality and educational blog content combined with technical and on-page optimisation of the website has increased this client’s visibility and credibility and significantly increased their website traffic.
How it Started
When my client first came to me in 2022, their website was ranking reasonably well for a small group of branded and location-specific keywords. They were well-regarded among their existing client base, but there was scope to build on this well-earned positive reputation.
Client Objectives:
Improve their ability to compete with their larger, better-known local competitors
Engage and re-engage existing or lapsed clients
Grow their regional client base
What I Did
The first step was to carry out a full website audit to establish where technical fixes were needed and understand how the website was performing. Then, I carried out the initial keyword research to determine target keywords and opportunities for the initial six month campaign. The technical audit and keyword research formed the basis for the initial SEO and content strategy.
Next, I carried out the initial SEO work on the main website pages. This involved optimising the SEO Titles and Descriptions, compressing images and optimising the website page copy for the chosen target keywords. This work is periodically reviewed and updated based on regular website audits.
Blog content is a major element of this campaign. Regular blog posts, targeting select keywords and topics, are developed and published in partnership with the client. The client’s industry-specific expertise is valued and necessary, and their input is central to the success of the campaign. Each blog post is carefully crafted to speak to the client’s target audience, offer unique and informative content and perform well in the search engines. According to Google Search Console, blog articles are driving the vast majority of organic traffic to the website.
Alongside the SEO benefits of blogging, the client is able to share and repurpose the blog content for social media and email marketing. This has helped them to engage and re-engage their existing clients, who needed reminding and encouragement to book their routine services after a break.
Key Results
By creating and publishing consistent, high quality content optimised for search, and carrying out thorough technical SEO on the website, my client’s website is driving significant brand awareness, engagement and conversions via Google Search.
Key Results:
Organic website sessions increased from 199 in April 2022 to 4,900 in April 2024
Engaged sessions* from organic search increased from 139 in April 2022 to 3,400 in April 2024
Organic search (SEO) accounts for 75% of website traffic
Search visibility increased from 6% in April 2022 to 18.% in April 2024
The client is ranking in the top 3 organic search results for 51 keywords, and in the top 10 (i.e. on the first page) for 82 keywords as of April 2024
Vastly outperforming all their direct competitors in terms of search visibility, average position and estimated traffic
In May 2024, the client's website received 5,300 sessions from SEO
*Engaged sessions refers to sessions that lasted at least 10 seconds or had a conversion or resulted in at least 2 page views
This long standing client is still working with me now as we embark on the next phase of work, where I will be incorporating advanced and up-to-date SEO strategies, such as semantic SEO. You can read a similar SEO case study in more depth or check out my article on how a web content consultant can transform your website and brand.
Kickstart Your Content Marketing with Purple Horse Marketing
Content marketing - specifically using blog articles and SEO to drive organic traffic to your website - is key to growing your visibility, credibility and sales consistently online. Consistent publication of search engine optimised blog articles is an important part of getting your website visible as a new or small business. However, advanced semantic SEO combined with high-quality, engaging, strategic content can be a game changer for growing independent businesses in competitive sectors.
Now that you understand what content consultancy is, how it can help your business and why SEO is an important part of written content consultancy, you can take the next steps towards using written content to drive visibility, traffic and sales through your website. Depending on the stage your business is at, you may want to consider learning the essentials with my online courses or group programmes, or you may look into my SEO and content consultancy service. If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about the service(s) that could work best for your business, feel free to book a discovery call with me.
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