Trade associations often play a dual role in both representing and advancing the interests of their members as well as educating the target audiences of those members. This tandem outlook can be both an asset and a burden, but with the right digital keyword strategy in place, they can meet both of these objectives.
So what should trade associations be doing in terms of a keyword strategy to meet their goals?
Core offer
While membership of some trade associations is mandated, most need to attract new audiences – not just for the good of the industry but to be sustainable themselves. Word-of-mouth recommendation is often the lifeblood of many a trade association but what if someone is new to the industry, has relocated to the UK, is looking for an alternative membership organisation, or simply has not previously been a member of any body?
It’s important to know the lexicon that target members might be using. Some options include:
- Trade association
- Trade body
- Professional association
- Professional body
Depending on the industry, these may all have slightly different nuances but a trade association needs to rank for the terms its target audience is using. This is particularly the case where members have multiple associations or bodies available to them in a particular field.
In many cases, the term to target may be influenced by the trade association name but not always. Some use the terms ‘group’, ‘federation’, ‘confederation’, ‘council’, but it’s important not to assume that the target audience knows what a particular trade body acronym stands for. If someone is used to hearing the spelt-out variant and not the full title in words, they may not know!
Membership benefits
Trade bodies offer a plethora of benefits for their members from access to industry data; the ability to stay up to date on legislation or news affecting the sector; opportunities to network and build relationships; access to educational and professional resources; the ability to be part of a group voice advocating a profession; the chance to influence government and stakeholders; information on running a business; and negotiated deals on insurance marketing, legal and HR support, to name but a few.
That sentence is deliberately long to make my point. It’s hard to rank well in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) for a long list of items. Many trade bodies have a page about ‘member benefits’ which is simply a long list of bullet point items. This is satisfactory when someone has already landed on their site but it’s unlikely to attract many new members by search unless they are actually looking for a general overview of member benefits.
It’s more likely the member will be attracted by the specifics of one of the above and so, to rank for that search, the trade association site needs to create individual pages for their offering. It may be that a specific page isn’t required for every single benefit listed above, but there would certainly be merit in creating landing pages for the areas in which a particular trade body excels.
By way of example:
- CPD training for payroll managers