You know, this past weekend was the UFC 252 event.
Watching the build up to the event, I had the idea to touch on content creation.
Content creation for the specific purpose of traffic acquisition to one’s website.
We all know content is King. For SEO, for the on-page pillar, it’s a crucial factor for traffic generation.
Now, there is a plethora of content-types one can consider for their website.
Covering content-types will be for another episode.
And in the not too distant future, I’m going to go in on content creation.
Today, I want to touch on a quick-win that SEOs consider when making content recommendations to generate traffic.
This is a relatively quick win. It requires capturing…not necessarily a trend, but a timely topic, using events as the centerpiece.
So, let me start by defining an event.
Think of an event as something that’s happening that has garnered a lot of attention, making it (the event) a thing of high importance.
Now, obvious examples are live events – entertainment, right? Hans Zimmer performing live in the UK is an event.
Sports, music, comedy, heck, poetry readings. Such live entertainments are full of events!
An event, however, doesn’t have to be live.
When Game of Thrones was on, it was considered an ‘Event Viewing’.
Knowing what happened episode to episode was important in the realm of entertainment.
This was something that garnered people’s attention. Worldwide.
Another event that has a worldwide reach, and one I want to talk about on this podcast is the UFC.
In the build-up to their 252 event this past weekend, they published a lot of content on their YouTube channel.
This was, of course, a way of promoting the event.
But also, it was a way of attaining viewership in light of the 252 event.
All the videos they published have at least a couple tens of thousands of views.
The headline for the event was Stipe Miocic vs Daniel Cormier. This was billed as the trilogy – the third time the two are fighting. They’ve won one a piece. Who wins this third fight, and becomes the baddest man on earth…?
Their first two fights are on the UFC’s YouTube channel.
And guess what…?
Out of all the videos published during the lead-up to the third fight (the 252 event), the videos of the first and second fights are the most viewed on the UFC channel (clearing a million views, each).
Why do you suppose this is…? Here’s the train of thought from an SEO guy…
If UFC 252, as an event, has a high importance in its industry (the MMA world), it’s going to garner attention – globally.
The headline, the main thing of the event, Stipe Miocic vs Daniel Cormier 3 is also going to garner attention.
It’s to reason then that Stipe Miocic vs Daniel Cormier 1 & 2 will also garner attention during the lead-up to the 252 event.
The videos of the first and second fight didn’t generate over a million views by luck, did they?
OK, so all of this is cool. But this is Social Media, this is YouTube to be specific.
How is any of this pertinent to SEO?
Here’s how…
When SEOs carry out keyword research, it’s to find relevant terms (with high search volumes and low competition) that can be targeted on a site.
We generate traffic to the site by having keywords within the site’s content.
An extension of keyword research is to use events as a means to generating traffic.
You see, the UFC used their 252 event and created content around it that was pertinent, before, during, and after the event.
An SEO can use this event and focus the keyword research to determine the keywords to target.
Let me ask you this…
What kinds of information do you think people want to know during such an event?
Similarly, when a football match is over, what do you think football fans want to know? What kinds of information do they search for…?
If you’re aware of an event, that is pertinent to your business, you can create timely content to drive traffic to your website.
This is the power of search. This is why search has no limit to it.
SEO is not determined, nor restricted, by the search volume of keywords.
When you have SEO working with Content, the only restriction in driving traffic is one’s creativity.
Creating event-led content is a quick-win that can generate traffic to your site.
Of course, this is an approach that requires a methodology to it. You wouldn’t be very successful just talking about any event.
Even if you were to attain tons of traffic, without a strategy, you may attain traffic, but they’ll likely not convert, and not be very engaged.
However, if you do this right, and treat it as an extension of your keyword research, you can have great success with it.
Event-led content is why pundentary, opinion pieces, commentaries are huge when it comes to content creation.
It’s a quick win that’s widespread across Social platforms, namely YouTube.
There is a limitless amount of people publishing their opinions on events – pre, during, and after.
This is why, on YouTube, there are many videos about the UFC 252 event.
It’s a UFC event, but the UFC organisation aren’t the only ones who publish content on YouTube about the event.
There is content-galore! All around this one event!
If this is happening in Social, what do you think is happening in Search?
When events start to trend, or gain prominence in Social, you can be sure it’ll be reflected in Search as well. It’s at these times you get spikes in search terms.
So, if you’re aware of events that are pertinent to your business and targeted audience, you can have a heads-up on the keywords people will be using in their search.
You can have a sense of when those keywords will be trending.
You can have a streamlined marketing campaign that involves SEO.
You can have an optimised working relationship between SEO and the rest of marketing.