Websites Have Just 2 Audiences
Your website has only two audiences: 1) your key target market; and 2) Google.
In theory we can all agree to that, but in practice every department, every area of specialization wants to be on the homepage. The homepage may be the website’s front door, yet every page can be a doorway if SEO is properly optimized. Yes, homepages are still important, but when people search using keywords, they may never cross your organization’s homepage threshold.
The watchword for 2021 is discoverability. Google displays webpages (notice I didn’t say “homepages”) in its search results that meet specific requirements. Those requirements are relevance of your page and authority. Google determines relevance by analyzing your writing and keywords. Google measures authority by the trustworthy links on that page.
According to SEOmoz, successful SEO is made up of 24% trust/authority, 22% link popularity of page, 20% external links to page, 15% keyword usage and 18% click-through, registration and social. As you can see, even if you are on the homepage, if you don’t build quality links, you will not be discoverable. Imagine that in a voice-activated world where only one or two choices will be offered.
This is a very complicated topic for a blog that touts answers in 60 seconds, but let’s simplify it a bit:
When you’re writing for people, 8 in 10 will read your headline only (so spend 80% of your time looking at headlines, only 20% of time on the other stuff). When you’re writing for Google, think of how you validate your authority through building high-quality links to outside sources (for example, if you wrote an article for a magazine or were quoted in a blog, reach out and establish reciprocal links).
People = Headlines/Google = Quality Links
Mark Mathis III is chief creative & strategy officer, partner and cofounder of AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
