SEO Strategy: Leverage the Power of Content Marketing to Boost Your SEO Efforts

Search Engine Optimisation is undoubtedly one of the best ways to improve your website’s organic rankings, driving higher traffic and increased profits for your business. 

Every day there is a new development in the field of SEO, weaving together best practices and strategies with evolving search engine algorithm changes. In this scenario, marketers get perplexed figuring out the right way to improve SEO for their business.

What may come, powerful ‘content’ continues to steal the show! Despite major algorithm changes, top search engines such as Google still give importance to content to determine quality score and page ranking.

It seems like the lines between Search Engine Optimisation and Content Marketing gets thinner with each day. It does not matter whether you are creating a YouTube video or a blog unless it is well-optimised for first page rankings on search engines. Today, content marketing and SEO are used in conjunction to boost campaign effectiveness and drive organic traffic.

Content Marketing in 2018: A Quick Glimpse

Content marketing is a proven SEO strategy with lower up-front costs and impactful long-term benefits than paid search. 90% of global marketers are already leveraging content marketing to generate quality inbound links. With marketers pushing out content so much, you may wonder if content marketing is still important in 2018.

The answer is: Yes!

More and more marketers are identifying innovative & unique ways to get their brand message out in an informative and valuable manner. In addition to website content, blog posting and articles, companies are now turning to podcasting, live videos, vlogging and even Snapchat to deliver content in an impressive way.

Recent studies clearly indicate that content has a long way to go. According to an infographic published on Demand Metric, 70% of audiences would rather learn about a brand through articles than an advertisement. Additionally, 60% of people are inspired to search for a product after reading informative content about it. The figures highlight why marketers should adopt content marketing for effective brand promotion.

Another study by HubSpot indicates that companies that dedicatedly blog have higher page rankings and improved marketing results than those who do not. With valuable blogging, they have 97% more inbound links, 55% more traffic and 434% more indexed pages.

The numbers speak for themselves and it is clear & loud that content marketing is still one of the best ways to improve your Search Engine Optimisation results.

How to Kick-Start SEO with Dedicated Content Marketing

 Find out the best strategies to use content marketing to boost your SEO efforts.

1. Focus on Keyword Research & Optimisation

It does not matter whether it is an article, blog, video or infographic, keywords matter. Keywords are one of the ways web crawlers and algorithms can determine what the content is about. Google still prioritises smart usage of the right keywords in content, especially in the title, description and alt tags. Marketers should take keyword research more seriously than ever, identifying and targeting all keywords that potential customers search for.

Several keyword research tools are available online that can provide valuable insights on different types of keywords related to the product or service, keyword frequency, search rate, etc. A balanced mix of short-tail, medium and long-tail keywords is the best way to improve conversion rate.

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The following image indicates that short-tail keywords have a high search volume as against long-tail keywords, but have lower conversion rate than the latter. Thus, your content must target highly specific keywords as well as the generic ones to get higher traffic volume.

(Source: HostPapa)

One thing that marketers should remember here is that stuffing the content with keywords is not the way to drive higher page rankings. This makes the content sound unnatural and it also has the risk of getting penalised by search engines. Rather create the content first and then sprinkle the keywords naturally and in the right frequency.

Here is an easy trick to get the most-searched, relevant keywords related to your content topic, product or service.

Suppose you are into ‘health drink’ business and wish to target this as your primary keyword. To create your content based on relevant keywords, go to Google search engine and type ‘health drink’ in the search bar. You will instantly get search recommendations from Google which can be used as other related keywords.

Google Ads Keyword Planner is an effective keyword research tool that helps you target the right customers with the right keywords. With this tool, you can identify new keywords, compare trends, get keyword frequency & search volume and other metrics.

Effective keyword targeting and optimisation is the key to build informative content with high conversion rates.

2. Visual Content Marketing

To attract and keep the readers engaged to your content, it is vital to add variations. People may get bored reading through typical black & white content and eventually exit the page, no matter how interesting the topic is. To avoid this, make the content a treat for the eyes while keeping its information value intact. Studies reveal that even search engines prefer content that has variations and are unique in a visually stunning manner.

For instance, you can make your blog more interesting by adding a video clip that talks about the topic. Slide presentations, images, graphs and infographics are also a great way to make the content more engaging. One can also play with colour combinations to present the content in an eye-candy manner. See some examples below:

This is an example of how graphical presentations can add volume, colours and insights to your content.

(Source: Whole Foods Market)

This is a perfect example of how to use your content to narrate a story in a visually impressive way.

Infographics are a fantastic way to boost any content, presenting information in a way that is educational, attractive and interesting. Studies indicate that web visitors prefer going through an infographic more than reading through a two thousand words beast. Below is a nice example of infographic that summarises everything the content includes:

3. Build Website Authority with Content Hubs

For your website to get first page rankings on search engines, it is not only vital to have relevant content, but it should be high-quality as well. Search engine algorithms give importance to content that is relevant to what people are searching for and deliver quality in diverse ways. Additionally, search engines also take into consideration the amount of quality content a website has to give quality score. So, having more numbers of relevant content gives your site higher authority and page ranking.

Creating content hubs is a good way to add several pieces of content that are relevant, high-quality and linked to each other. For instance, you are a green tea manufacturer and want to promote your product through a website. So, you could write an article that revolves around “green tea.” But to create authority, you could add more content to your site on various topics related to green tea. Examples are:

• Health benefits of green tea
• Green tea recipes
• Green tea for weight loss
• Benefits of green tea for skin
• Side effects of green tea

Once you have created the pages, you can link them together based on which one is more relevant to the other. The internal linking creates content hub that help promote website ranking without spamming.

4. Use Content Marketing for Quality Link Building

Do you know that content-rich websites can generate 97% more backlinks as compared to others having only a few pages? This is obvious because when you have more content on your website, others will have more choices to link to. Otherwise, why would someone link to your Home Page or About Us page! Actively creating content gives others an arsenal of information that may be interesting and useful to them. When that happens, they will like to link to you.

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So, without having to prod on your part, you can effectively build quality links to your site. And organic backlinks are a dream come true for Search Engine Optimisation. Links from authoritative websites adds to your credibility, boosting your site’s quality score and page ranking. Here are some ways to use content marketing for link building:

• Guest posting on top industry blogs: Create high-quality, strategic guest posts for leading industry blogs and get quality backlinks.
• Build content hubs: As mentioned above, content hubs having a series of relatable content, gives others plethora of choices to link to.
• Create and promote industry-rich resource: To build authority, create a content that is rich in valuable information than anyone else on a particular topic. It should be a go-to resource for everyone in the industry. And when they look at your content for information, they will link to it too.

The success lies in creating informative content first and reap the benefits of link building second.

Conclusion

Now that you know how effective content marketing can boost SEO, what will be your strategy to implement it? Use strategies that not only help create impactful content but would also kick-start your SEO results.