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Marketing copywriters have been writing keyword rich content with search engine optimization in mind… for years now. And, for much of this time, especially a decade ago, it’s been rather simple. Target a keyword, write around it and voila! You’re ranked and getting free traffic.
But…
Times have changed. With hundreds of thousands of marketers competing for the same keywords, standing out from the crowd has never been more important. In 2022, you’ll see the biggest content trend for SEO is going to be, undoubtedly, advertorial style content…
Which really sticks out!
What’s advertorial SEO content?
We’ll get to that in just a moment.
First, old-school SEO is no longer working. While many marketers are still having varied success with SERP rankings on their keywords, the conversion end of the equation has plummeted.
In 2016, just 5 years ago, inbound traffic derived from SEO content converted at around 14%.
But…
This year, 2021, that conversion rate has dropped dramatically to around 2.5%.
And next year…
Ugh.
Keep in mind, it takes the same amount of work today to generate a 2.5% conversion rate as it took to generate a 14% conversion rate just five years ago.
This means it costs about 5.6 times the amount of time, energy, and money to create a SEO derived conversion today as it used to.
And the reason is…
Your landing page copy.
Marketing writers, for years, have been directed to write a blog around a keyword with the primary goal being SERP rankings. And for a long time, this worked. But now, copywriters MUST concentrate not only on keywords, but on copy that WILL convert on the first visit.
Rankings matter. Conversions matter more.
That’s where advertorial comes in.
Advertorial content, if you aren’t familiar with it, is content that is keyword rich, offers users an intriguing reason to finish reading it… and clandestinely pushes a sale.
Simply put, advertorial is advertising disguised as editorial.
And it works.
Several of our clients, those who utilize our advertorial SEO content strategy, have seen a dramatic increase in both SERP (pg1, top spot) and most importantly, conversions.
We took their current (at the time) blogs, enriched them with targeted keywords, then had our direct response copywriters re-write every blog as SEO advertorials.
Then, we began writing original advertorial SEO content on a weekly basis, as one would do with a blog.
The results have been phenomenal.
Right now, you can query any number of their keywords, and you’ll see their “content” appear, for free, on pg. 1…
And when you click that authoritative article, you’ll get everything you’re looking for….
Plus, an undercover sales pitch that converts like crazy.
But…
let’s not confuse advertorial with advertorial SEO.
Advertorial content is normally “placed” and “paid” to be shown to a target audience, as with native ads. Some advertorials can cost upwards of $75,000 to get published and distributed.
Advertorial SEO content is keyword rich and designed for free SERP rankings, with the ultimate goal being incoming traffic and conversions…
And that’s without ever having to pay hefty publishing fees.
As we move into 2022, some of the cleverest marketing agencies are now utilizing this SEO technique… but not many.
If you search “advertorial SERP” you get a grand total of 2 results…
Not 2 pages of results, but 2 results.
And a query for “advertorial SEO” doesn’t do much better, with a grand total of 800 results.
To put this in perspective, a search for “SEO” shows nearly 600 million results.
So, what does all this mean?
The market for advertorial SEO, even though it will be a huge trend in 2022, is still nascent.
Almost nobody’s properly using it… at least not yet!
This leaves a wide-open field for your company to take advantage of. In fact, the window of opportunity may last well into 2024…
Before lesser marketing agencies catch on and start pitching it to prospective clients…
While having no idea what they’re actually doing.
To fully exploit the power of advertorial SEO, it’s wise to begin training your content team in it now, before they fall behind the curve. If you don’t have a content team yet, be sure to hire direct response copywriters for the task.
They’re far better trained in the psychology of sales writing than any other type of writer you’ll find, bar none.
But…
If you have no plans on hiring a writing team, the simplest, most cost-effective way to take advantage of advertorial SEO is to hire a marketing agency that specializes in it.
An agency that has a team of direct response copywriters, years of traditional SEO and advertorial SEO experience, and a track record of proven results.
And the leader in advertorial SEO is…
Virtual Brands!
Get ahead and stay ahead of the curve with your advertorial SEO. It’s available right here…