How to be a trusted Help expert

Hook them and ‘pull’ them in

Few brands take the time to anticipate and address the real frustrations their customers experience. In many cases, Google (and increasingly, YouTube) is the first point of call for consumers to find quick answers.

Help content aims to capture viewers searching for key terms and build a reputation of reliability and trust for your brand. In many cases, this could be the first point of engagement between you and your audience, so it pays to invest time and money into content that addresses their concerns.

Help content provides value to your target demographic through evergreen pieces of content that won’t get old fast. It can include product demos and tutorials, how-to guides, featured blogs and FAQs.

The overall goal of Help content is to ‘pull’ consumers in through search in a slower, more steady way then Hero content. Once captured, these searchers are more likely to move on to become consumers of your Hub content and remain within easy reach of your calls to action.

Supermarket giant Tesco answers viewers’ searches for online recipe guides with a series of quick-fire videos. Their 30-second recipe below has 42,000 views and, at the time of writing, comes up as the second hit on a Google video search for ‘how to make a broccoli pasta bake’.

The business networking site LinkedIn recently reworked their blog to distribute better Help content. Through identifying their audience’s needs, they have grown their blog subscribers by 21x in the last year.

‘Developing content at the crossroads of relevant user topics and search engine data is a prime example of our data-driven approach to blogging.’
– LinkedIn Blog Masterplan

Becoming the authority

• Use Google or YouTube trends to discover the keywords and phrases your customers are using
• Create content that empowers as well as informs by helping your audience visualise success and reach that ‘aha’ moment
• Avoid any overt self-promotion or branding
• Optimise your content for search by working the keywords into your:
  • Title – Clear, action-based titles work best. Short titles will also perform better when it comes to SEO
  • Description – Brief text that clearly defines what the article contains and how it can help. Keep short and to the point (approx. 140 characters)
  • Use bullet points or clearly defined sections to help customers seek answers in your content
  • Help content is all about understanding what your customers are interested in and what information and expert insight they need. If you get this right, your audience will do the hard work for you and share, comment and promote your content to their followers, increasing your brand influence and authenticity.

Get in touch to see how we can help you help your core audience.