How a Content Marketing Lesson I Learned the Hard Way Inspired My Signature Cornerstone Content Packages

“Is this going to help me get found on Google?” 

This is the first question prospective clients often ask me, and many of my fellow copywriter friends and colleagues report hearing the same. 

If you’ve ever hired or considered hiring a writer, you may have asked this question. 

It’s an understandable question. I also think it’s the wrong one, at least at first. 

If you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, service provider, or creative professional, you almost certainly understand the importance–and the challenge–of standing out amidst the advertising noise we’re all exposed to on a daily basis. 

“If only I could get into the top spot on Google…” you think. “Then surely I’d be raking in the clients and cash!” 

Or maybe you’ve already thrown a tonne of time and/or money at getting your search rankings up, only to find you’re still not bringing in the revenue you were hoping for. 

This can be incredibly frustrating and stressful. You’ve done everything you were told to do! So why isn’t it working!? 

I learned this one critical content marketing lesson the hard way: traffic is only half the battle. And I want to stop you from making the same mistakes that I did. That’s why I launched my cornerstone content packages, which are built around connecting with human readers first and nurturing quality leads rather than pulling in low-converting traffic for the sake of it.  

Read on to learn more about what inspired this offer and how it can save you from months or years of spinning your wheels while you chase search rankings. 

When Traffic Doesn’t Translate to Revenue

At the time of writing, Google is still by far the most common way people search for information, products, and services online. This means that getting found on Google, ideally by appearing on the first page of results for relevant search terms, is a high priority for most business owners. 

My views on AI are hardly a secret, but it is a reality that many people are now using platforms like ChatGPT the way they once used Google. This means that, more and more, my colleagues and I are also hearing clients ask “will this help us get found in AI search?” Answer engine optimisation (AEO), also called generative engine optimisation (GEO) is booming as its own field. 

With a basic understanding of search engine optimisation (SEO) principles, almost anyone can drive traffic to a website. And, as the brilliant SEO expert Nikki Pilkington says: “GEO is just SEO with a shiny new acronym.” 

And, yes, landing those coveted top search spots can help your business! 

But I realised, through my own experience and that of other business owners, one vital truth: traffic does not always equal revenue. 

In fact, from a business perspective, traffic alone is pretty much completely useless! It’s a vanity metric. It might feel good to see that thousands of people have visited your website. But if none of them are buying, what’s the point? 

Think of it this way: if you sell a product or service, your business website is your digital storefront. Now pretend that this digital space is an actual, physical store. Would you rather have 100 customers come in, wander around, and leave without buying… or 10 customers who want exactly what you’re selling and are ready to buy? 

The second one, right? 

I Was Writing for the Wrong Goals and the Wrong People 

On a previous business website from way back before I rebranded as CopyFlair, I tried blogging every week because I thought that’s what I was “supposed” to do. Sometimes I’d even batch my content and put out three or four posts in a single week. 

I’d research keywords and write content around them, waiting for the traffic light to turn green on my trusty SEO plugin. Sometimes I’d force myself to come up with something to write about, no matter how forced, because someone told me “consistency” in my posting schedule was everything. 

I was also posting pretty graphics with writing tips, motivational quotes from famous authors, and pictures of me working away on my laptop in coffee shops on my social media channels. 

Know how many clients I got from those efforts? A big fat zero. 

Not because the content was bad in and of itself. But because I was targeting all the wrong things. I thought website traffic and social media followers meant success. But that “success” was eating my time, burning me out, and not making me any money. 

I was also getting a lot of follows, likes, and engagement from other writers. And I adore other writers–they’re my colleagues, my friends, and my community. But do you know what they’re not? My customers. 

I was writing and creating for people exactly like me… and people exactly like me aren’t my clients. 

The result of all this was traffic but no sales. 

It took me longer than I would like to admit to catch this fundamental flaw in my marketing strategy. And I often see prospective clients making the same mistakes. 

“But Jess, this page gets so many clicks!” is the pushback I often get when I advise someone to delete or completely rewrite a piece of content. To which I say: “okay, but are any of those people converting?” 

(“Converting,” by the way, just means taking whatever action you want them to take. Usually, this means making a purchase or enquiring about becoming a client. But it can also mean, for example, downloading a freebie to get on your mailing list.) 

I watch business owners and service providers burning themselves out to churn out content constantly. I see them publishing boring, generic, or soulless content because they’re writing for keywords rather than for their actual audience. I see them considering “traffic” (or likes, follows, etc.) as their metric for success, then wondering why none of this traffic is resulting in sales. 

I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to you. 

SEO Still Matters (But It’s Not Everything) 

The last thing I’m going to tell you is that SEO is unimportant. 

It’s not. It does matter. I literally offer SEO writing services to my clients, which I obviously wouldn’t do if I believed it was useless! 

SEO is important, but only when it forms part of a marketing strategy that is built around conversions rather than traffic alone. 

Many businesses approach content marketing through the lens of making “get found on Google” (or ChatGPT) their first and most important goal. But I believe this is a backwards way of looking at it. Instead, when your content is well-written and genuinely helpful to your ideal audience, search performance naturally follows. 

Search Intent + Quality Content + Consistent, Targeted Messaging = Results

But what do I mean by “genuinely helpful to your ideal audience”?

It’s time to talk about a little thing called search intent. 

Keywords alone only tell you what people are searching for. Search intent, though, is all about understanding the reasons behind those searches. When a person types a word, phrase, or question into their search engine of choice, they’re looking for something specific. 

By understanding what they’re looking for, you can give it to them. 

Simple, yet utterly transformative.

To be clear, content can be objectively good and still speak to the wrong search intent. Back in that earlier iteration of my business, I wrote plenty of blogs that were insightful and funny and probably even useful to some people. What they weren’t, thought, was useful to the people I actually wanted to buy from me. 

Their quality and their search performance was irrelevant, because they didn’t effectively address the search intent of my ideal customers.

It’s when high-quality content meets an understanding of search intent that you can start to create a consistent and highly targeted messaging framework that speaks to the things that your ideal customer needs from you.

When you stop posting for the algorithm and instead start posting for your ideal client, you might see your initial traffic drop off, especially if you’ve been focused exclusively on SEO for some time. But if you give it time and share your new, targeted messaging consistently across your channels, you’ll likely find that the quality of your traffic soars. 

How I Help My Clients Transform Their Content Strategy 

After realising where my previous marketing efforts had gone wrong, and noticing how often I saw business owners chasing traffic at the expense of conversions, I spent a long time thinking about how I could help people not to make the same mistakes that I did. 

The result was my cornerstone content packages. 

When we work together, you’ll receive a collection of 10-20 pieces of longform, evergreen blog content written with customer acquisition and conversion front and centre. This forms the basis of an ongoing content marketing strategy that can draw in high quality leads and make you money for years. 

Keyword research is one step of the process, but SEO plays a supporting role rather than becoming the main character. 

Because I only take on a small number of clients at a time, I have the space to delve deeply into the nuances of your business, your products or services, and your audience. 

Instead of focusing on simply driving traffic to your site, we’ll do a deep dive into search intent to ensure you’re addressing the real needs, questions, and objections of the people you actually want to sell to. 

I write for humans, not algorithms. I care more about the quality of your traffic than the quantity. 

Case Study: Search Intent In Action  

When I was in the process of refining and launching this offer, I wrote this piece for Melanie, a therapist specialising in serving neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities. It’s highly targeted and focuses on one of her core client demographics: women who received an autism diagnosis in adulthood. 

As we worked on this piece together, we thought about this hypothetical woman, Melanie’s ideal client. She’s just learned she is or might be autistic, and she’s thinking “now what?” What does she need to know to feel confident contacting Melanie about her therapy services? We decided she might be wondering things like: 

• Is my experience normal? 
• Why am I feeling all these emotions about learning I’m autistic?
• Is there support out there for people like me? 
• How can therapy help me? 
• Is this person the right therapist for me? 

The piece answers all these questions, with a reassuring and supportive tone, and ends with a call to action in the form of an invitation to get in touch. 

Realistically, a full-time therapist is never likely to have more than 20-25 active clients at any one time. Someone like Melanie doesn’t need enormous amounts of irrelevant traffic or a pipeline of thousands. She needs to be found by the people she can best help: neurodivergent adults seeking a provider who understands their experience. 

That’s why this post is not written to bring in thousands and thousands of website visitors who will never become clients. Instead, it’s written to speak to the needs and concerns of the specific people Melanie serves. 

Stop Chasing Low-Quality Traffic and Let Me Get You the Leads You Deserve

Have you been writing to hit keywords and putting yourself at the mercy of search engine algorithms, burning yourself out without the results to show for it? 

Let me take this off your plate and lay the foundations of a content marketing strategy that reflects your expertise and makes your ideal customers say “Yes! I want that!” 

When you invest in a cornerstone content package, I will:

✔️ Identify the biggest areas of opportunity
✔️ Figure out where your existing content, if you have it, isn’t hitting the mark
✔️ Build or rebuild the most important content on your site with conversions in mind
✔️ Show you how to use your new content to connect with the people who need what you’re selling

→ Book a free consultation call to kick things off!