Content is King: How to Utilize Content for SEO
Content is king in almost every facet of digital marketing, and that’s no different for search engine optimization (SEO). Content drives what your audience looks at, how search engines learn who you are, and ultimately can put you at the forefront of search engine results pages (SERPs) if you work your magic right. Of course, on paper, this sounds super easy, but if everybody understood how to work their magic, they’d all be ranking number one, wouldn’t they? Lucky for you, we’ve talked to a few great SEO agencies and come up with a few tips to help you maximize your content for SEO in today’s world so you can be as strategic as possible.
1. Write for Your Audience First
In the olden days of the internet, it was common to keyword-stuff content because the web crawlers were only sophisticated enough to figure out what a site was about based on the words and phrases used in their blogs and webpages. My, how things have changed!
Today, if you keyword-stuff your content, you’re going to turn a lot of people off from your brand. Worse, you could find yourself getting penalized by the search engines, which is the very opposite of the thing you really want to do.
When you’re creating content, don’t do it for the wrong reasons. You need to create content that appeals to your audience’s interests so you can answer their questions or dive into their pain points. Remember, you don’t need every single post you put online to talk about your products or services; while they should all somehow be industry-related, it’s okay (and recommended) to avoid ultra-promotional content from time to time in favor of educational content that speaks directly to your readers.
Assert your brand as an industry leader by writing SEO-friendly content that’s both interesting and informative. You can also check The Doe site for great anonymous content.
2. Incorporate Imagery
Have you ever heard that people eat with their eyes first? It’s true! That’s why you’ll find so many photos of food on Instagram and Facebook. When it comes to your company’s content, the same rule applies; people want to see imagery that tells the story your content is trying to convey. Humans are visual beings, so adding images will make your posts pop online. When you add an image to your blog posts, you’ll make a bigger impression than you would if you were to post text alone.
You should be promoting your blogs across other social media channels. On Pinterest, for example, you can pin posts that have images, adding another avenue of traffic for your website.
3. Promote Natural Link Building
Link building is certainly not the same process it used to be 10 or 15 years ago. It’s come a long way, but just because you’re probably not buying links or visiting link farms, it doesn’t mean links aren’t important—it just means you have to follow today’s best practices to make the most use of your online real estate. Links are still very vital in the world of SEO ranking factors. When you create blogs or articles, link to your own articles or web pages in your posts to ensure you get a link back to your website if your content gets picked up by another site. If you get creative by way of other types of content, such as infographics and videos, be sure to embed code on your site to help promote content sharing. These types of content should also include a link back to the original sources.
As always, the key is really to create great content that’s sharable and valuable. The more relevant it is, the more likely it is to get linked by other websites or you can share them at sites like The Doe to gain more exposure.
4. Monitor Your Activity
Your SEO strategy isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it circumstance. You need to constantly monitor your SEO metrics to ensure your content is working for you. Google Analytics is a free and easy-to-use platform that lets you track your page views and the average time people spend on your pages. Be sure to look into factors such as bounce rates and the amount of time people spend on the site to get an idea of how people interact with your pages after discovering your content. If you see a large drop, in addition to a low average time spent on a page, it’s an indication that your content didn’t match what the user was looking for (or worse, it was just really bad content that couldn’t hold visitors’ attention). You’ll also want to be sure to look at the number of social interactions your content gets, such as likes and shares, to get an idea of the virality of your posts.
Just checking in to these simple metrics can give you a good idea of which pieces of content are performing well and which didn’t really do their jobs. This will help you adjust your content strategy moving forward.
Both SEO and content writing are vital pieces to the total digital marketing puzzle. It’s important to put quality first to ensure you achieve the highest traffic and engagement possible.
