7 Tips for Successful Content Design

In the digital age, a business’s digital presence holds immense significance. It will shape customers’ first perceptions, drive branding efforts, and engage vast new audiences. If left unattended, it can easily denote unprofessionalism, sway customers to competitors, and substantially impact potential final revenue.

Maintaining a pristine digital presence is no easy feat. Modern audiences seek meaningful engagement, personalized customer journeys that inform their guest experiences, and swift access to relevant information.

Search engines require robust Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies as well, informing how they rank businesses. When over half of all clicks go to the top 3 search results, content failing to rank can be catastrophic.

To fulfill maintaining a digital presence and achieving maximum SEO, successful content design is a necessity – especially for the restaurant industry, which thrives on local audiences. In turn, this requires a strategic, calculated approach to content strategies from start to finish.

 

#1 Start with the fundamentals; who, what, why

The very first step, as with all marketing endeavors, should come with a solid foundation for content creation. That is, starting with SMART goals:

• Specific; what do you want to achieve?

• Measurable; how will you measure success?

• Achievable; is your goal within your means?

• Realistic; what are your chances of success?

• Time-bound; when should you achieve your goal?

As these help shape your strategy, a simple set of questions should shape your content design:

• Who; who is your target audience? Where do they reside online, and what are their interests?

• What; what are your audiences looking for? What do you intend to offer them with your content?

• Why; why are your audiences looking for you? Why should they prefer you over the competition?

To answer these questions, consult your Restaurant CRM. Explore your historical business data, ideally alongside audience insights tools on your website and social media profiles. Pin down exactly who you’re targeting, what they seek, and why your content will resonate with them.

 

#2 Conduct thorough keyword research

With your questions answered and your plans in order, the next step to successful content design is keyword research. For your content to succeed, it must target valuable keywords that audiences search for.

There are a few different ways to acquire insights on optimal keywords, such as:

• Industry-relevant “seed” words and search engine research. First, as Ahrefs suggests, “seed” words can serve as an excellent foundation. For the restaurant industry, those will typically include popular offerings and products, like dishes or types of wine. With them in mind, research into Google’s People Also Ask can yield great results.

• Keyword research tools. Next, there’s an array of keyword research tools available, from free to paid ones. Examples include household names like HubSpot, SEMrush, and Ahrefs, alongside competitors like WordStream and WordTracker. Google Analytics can be of immense help as well.

• Social listening. Finally, a firm grasp of what your audiences are discussing on social media can outline optimal keywords. Examples of social media tools include Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social. Built-in social media audience insights tools can also enhance your efforts.

As restaurant tech evolves alongside SEO solutions, possibilities should only increase over time.

 

#3 Match your users’ search intent; informative versus hard sell

Finally, before delving into your content itself, your creative process should account for your users’ search intent. This will answer the aforementioned “why” question best, matching your content with your users’ needs.

Yoast identifies 4 main types of user search intent, which successful content design must account for:

• Informational; seeking information. This is by far the most common type of user intent.

• Navigational; seeking to navigate to a specific page of a known website or brand.

• Transactional; seeking to make a purchase. This typically follows a customer journey through informational content.

• Commercial investigation; exploring one’s options before converting. This type overlaps with transactional intent but requires more nurturing.

In this regard, your content will need to address your audiences’ primary pain points and interests, enticing them to stay. In the restaurant industry, notably, you may see fewer searches with informational intent. New audiences may often just seek local options, and existing customers may just look for you directly.

Still, you can certainly provide informational content and gear it toward conversions; discuss restaurant accessibility, for instance, before highlighting yours. Explore your offerings in an encyclopedic manner before promoting them, or write on local events and matters of interest. In all cases, avoid the hard sell approach except for your existing loyal customers who are ready to convert.

 

#4 Polish your content

On the subject of conversions, your content needs to go beyond meeting your audiences’ needs at a glance. It needs to entice your audiences to stay, presenting information in a visually clear, digestible manner.

Polishing your content spans a few different content elements, from visual appeal to optimal copy and CTA placement. It is the cornerstone of successful content design, however, so it is well worth the effort.

• Avoid all errors. Check your grammar, syntax, and spelling at all times. Such plugins as Grammarly can help you in this regard.

• Maintain heading hierarchy. Dedicate one h2 to each subtopic and subsequent h3s and h4s as needed.

• Keep your CTA near the top. WordPress finds that the closer your CTA is to the fold, the higher the conversion rates become.

• Use bullet points and white space for readability. Especially for longer content, ensure that the layout lets your pages breathe and remain digestible and scannable.

• Stay on point. SEO mandates longer content, but remember to stay on point at all times. It’s better to craft shorter content than to needlessly fluff content and waste audiences’ time.

• Avoid images unless needed. Unless your insights say otherwise, you can avoid stock images that reduce your credibility. If you do use images, remember to use your keywords in them.

• Focus on your keyword. Your content should remain focused on your keyword of choice, which will also help with conciseness.

This is a vast subject to exhaust in a single article, of course. Still, the pointers above should hopefully help you establish a robust content creation approach.

 

#5 Go local

With your strategies in place, there is another approach to successful content design that the restaurant industry cannot overlook. That is, going local in SEO and content focus alike.

The simple reason for this is that restaurants rely on local audiences and foot traffic much more than many other businesses. Far-reaching brand awareness and lead generation are beneficial, as more user engagement on your website boosts its SEO score. However, remote audiences are far less likely to convert – and “near me” searches best attract transactional intent.

For this reason, it would be best to swiftly focus on local audiences and their interests. As fundamental steps toward this, you can:

• Engage in local SEO. Claim your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), add accurate business information, and engage local audiences through it. If you have a social media strategy in place, you can cross-post content for more time efficiency.

• Leverage social proof from local outlets. As you write locally relevant content for local SEO, divert your attention to local social proof. Working toward local backlinks encourages local reviews and networking with your peers.

• Focus on “near me” searches and optimize for mobile. Add locally relevant and valuable keywords to your long-tail keywords to satisfy “near me” searches. As you do, optimize your website and pages for mobile, keeping them clean, responsive, and user-friendly. Statista finds that mobile traffic now exceeds desktop traffic, which the restaurant industry needs to note.

How strongly you focus on such practices will depend on your own business, but some local focus should prove beneficial.

 

#6 Maintain your schedule

In addition, SEO mandates another element of successful content design in output consistency. The restaurant industry has another inherent reason to follow a content schedule; seasonal content.

In this regard, you can combine SEO mandates with industry demands:

• Maintain consistent content output. Before all else, schedule your content output in line with your content production capabilities. WordPress plugins like Auto Post Scheduler can allow you to schedule website content in advance. Channel-specific tools can help you do so across the board, like MailChimp for email campaigns and Hootsuite for social media activity.

• Schedule content for different seasons and occasions. Beyond regular content, you can adjust your schedule and content to meet seasonal demands. For instance, you can promote your offerings according to their historical appeal across different seasons. You can also schedule occasion-specific content in advance, such as the content on National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day.

• Adjust content strategies to cater to digital trends. Finally, your social listening and keyword research tools can help you keep track of digital trends like keyword interest. If you can predict such trends early, you can schedule them for optimal times to increase their effectiveness.

As you do, remember not to compromise quality for quantity. Consistency is crucial, and quantity always helps – but content quality is king for both audiences and search engines.

 

#7 Monitor your content’s performance

Finally, as with all marketing endeavors, content marketing is never truly over. With a robust core in successful content design, it can, by all means remain effective for longer. However, the market changes, and so do audiences; what worked before may not work going forward.

As such, remember to revisit your SMART goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at regular intervals. Examine such sources of insights and data as:

• Your CRM

• Google Analytics

• Website heat maps and other analytics tools

• Built-in social media insights tools

• Other solutions and WordPress plugins are at your disposal

Use any and all data at your disposal to maintain a firm grasp of your content’s effectiveness. If you identify any shortcomings, intervene as needed and adjust your efforts. Doing so early can significantly reduce your losses, whether in generated traffic or final conversions.

 

In closing, successful content design needs a strategic approach

To summarize, successful content design starts with fine-tuning your content strategies themselves.

From the start, you must deeply understand who you’re targeting, what they need, and how you can best entice them. As you do, your content itself needs to remain digestible, readable, and highly valuable, prioritizing user intent over conversions. For an industry with a local focus, local SEO can elevate such strategies further, while output consistency will cement them. Finally, an attentive eye on your content’s performance will ensure your content remains effective and continues to resonate with your audiences.

 

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About the Author

Dylan Jacobson is a copywriter at MoversTech CRM based in Houston, TX. He is interested in the hospitality and relocation industries, particularly their unique marketing needs. Dylan is a father of two and an avid movie-goer while still appreciating the beauty of the great outdoors.