There is No Good SEO Without Good Content
One of the key measurements of digital marketing success is website traffic. Obviously, if you’re attracting more visitors to your website, you’re increasing your chances of gaining new customers. So driving website traffic should be a key performance indicator of any good digital marketing plan.
There are a few ways to drive traffic to your website, including digital ads, inbound links and social media promotions. However, in this article, we’re going to focus on one of the cornerstones of effective digital marketing: organic search engine optimization (SEO) content.
Content drives SEO. When search engines scour the web for answers to search queries, they are looking for relevant, timely and authoritative content that answers those queries. Search engines determine how visible your website is in search results based, in part, on the quality and relevancy of the content you provide. For this reason, 90% of marketers include content in their marketing strategies.
How Search Engines Rank Web Pages
When you type a question or phrase into a search engine, you want it to respond with the most relevant and high-quality content found on the internet that answers your question. Search engines use algorithms to:
- Crawl the web: When a search engine crawls the internet, it’s looking for new and updated web pages and content.
- Index: After reviewing the content, the search engine indexes (organizes) data about each page, noting attributes and metadata that explain what the content is about.
- Search and rank: In response to each query, the search engine reviews the index to match content relevant to that search query and delivers the search engine results page (SERP) with the highest-ranking items listed first. While Google doesn’t unveil its exact formula for ranking results, it generally assesses the content’s meaning, relevance, quality, usability and context to rank web pages.
SEO Content Is Written to Get Results
The goal of SEO content is to increase the probability of being ranked at the top of the SERPs for what people in your target market would search for. When your website content ranks well, organic traffic is more likely to increase. In fact, the number one organic result on Google SERPs has an average 39.8% click-through rate (CTR).
Essential elements of SEO content include:
- Well-written text: Above all, all SEO content must be well-written; what Google says is “helpful, reliable, people-first content.” It must be written for human consumption and not to appease search algorithms. Search engines prioritize content created with the user in mind — content that’s helpful, answers readers’ questions and is the type of content users want.
- Keyword strategy: Tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs can help you complete keyword research to identify which keywords have higher search potential related to your business or niche but also ones that aren’t too hard to rank for. For example, if you choose a keyword where you would be competing with a site that has a high page authority, it would be more challenging for your site to rank for that keyword. By conducting keyword research, you gain valuable insight into marketing trends and what content your competitors have rank for on their websites.
- Structured with SEO in mind: Once you identify the keywords, it’s important to optimize the content on the page using that keyword or keyword phrase. Additionally, use your keyword in title tags, meta descriptions and heading tags where you can do so naturally. Keyword stuffing — forcing keywords on the page to have more uses of that word in pursuit of ranking higher — can harm your search results.
SEO Informs Content Strategy
More than half of content interactions result from organic search. So, if you want to be found by your target market, SEO must be part of your content marketing strategy.
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:
- Understand your target audience: To get clear on what your target audience might search for on Google, you need to discover their pain points, wants, interests and needs. You can complete customer interviews, research your competitors and ask your sales team what questions they get.
- Determine keywords: You’ll want to develop a content strategy based on your keyword research, keeping your target audience’s needs in mind. These keywords should be relevant to your business and industry, have enough people searching for the term and should be possible to rank for.
- Refresh and update content: Ensure your content strategy considers updating or rewriting older content. When you refine content, you signal to Google that there’s fresh content to crawl. You can update it based on new statistics, better SEO and new information that informs the original topic. An update may include adding internal links, backlinks, and refreshing meta descriptions and headers.
Good SEO Starts with an Effective Content Strategy
Content marketing increases lead generation for 74% of companies. You will only get these results if you create the content your target audience searches for, and if you’re successful in getting ranked near the top of SERPs. SEO content marketing is a long-term play; it often takes weeks or months to rank a particular page. However, once you earn a good ranking, you can often generate valuable organic traffic (for no additional cost) for months or even years with that single piece of content.
We’ve helped businesses like yours develop a content strategy with SEO in mind. Schedule a consultation with an expert from Campfire Digital today.
