Content marketing is such a crucial component to your SEO success.
It can be very effective in increasing traffic, generating leads, enabling sales and contributing to SEO. Which brings us to the main question ‒ how can I use it to improve my search rankings?
When done well, content marketing can contribute to boosting a site’s position in search rankings. Although this may not seem like the most obvious benefit to a successful content marketing strategy, it’s an effect that no business can ignore. Let’s take a look at how to make full use of your website’s content to rank higher in the SERPs.
1. Creating new content
Having a website is not enough; it constantly needs to be updated for it to rank well. And this is where new content comes in handy. A site can never have enough content. There is always an opportunity to create new pieces of content, and the newness of content is also one of Google’s ranking signals.
Fresh content as a ranking factor is not just judged by the publication date of the page, but also based on new pages, an increasing number of links towards a page and ultimately the increased level of traffic reaching the page.
These criteria show that older posts can still be valuable, especially if they offer an in-depth analysis on a topic or have been regularly updated to keep them relevant, which leads us on to the next tip.
2. Repurposing old content
There’s no reason to ignore the older content you’ve published in the past, especially if it still gains a significant amount of traffic.
Repurposing content can help you analyse a topic in more detail, by allowing you to create multiple types of content without losing their value or becoming repetitive. This saves you time spent coming up with new content ideas, and also gives you a regular supply of fresh, valuable content to boost your ranking.
Going beyond blog posts, you can create videos, infographics, podcasts, lists and more from your older material. Your target audience might be more receptive for example to infographics rather than a blog post, or you may discover that you can achieve higher conversion rates through a list rather than a podcast.
3. Using visual content
Visual content has become very popular on the internet due to our own ability to process an image faster than any written text. This wins the first impression and it can be very powerful within the context of a page.
Previously used mostly to accompany written content, visual content has reached the stage where it’s now considered a form of content in its own right, standing on its own to increase awareness, engagement and leads.
On top of this, it can be optimized for search, offering a new opportunity for a business to stand out from its competitors via images and videos. The optimization of your visual content can lead to surprisingly positive results, provided that you follow a series of small steps that ensure that they are SEO-friendly.
Search crawlers cannot “read” images, only the text that accompanies them. This means that you must focus on:
• Image title (don’t upload an image with a filename 4fogowr.jpg, but rather rename it to something more relevant, e.g. contentforseoguide.jpg)
• Alt tags (the tags that describe the image for screen reader users, or if the image fails to load)
• Image size (large images affect a page’s load time, which can have a negative effect on your search ranking)
4. Choosing the right keywords
Keyword research can turn into a useful ally, especially if you bear in mind that you don’t always need to target the most obvious keywords.
Targeting highly sought-after keywords can make it harder for you to rank higher in search, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t become an authority on a topic by using different phrases for the same concept.
How about picking words and phrases that are less competitive but still high in rankings? Find the keywords that best suit your content marketing SEO, and think outside the box when deciding on the focus keywords you want to target.
5. Create link-worthy content
Link building helps your content reach a broader audience, increasing both your site’s visibility and its authority. It can help grow your search traffic, as the number of unique domains linking to your site helps search engines understand whether your content is informative enough to rank higher in the SERP.
Not all links are equal, as high-authority sites contribute more heavily in this regard. This means you should aim for more reputable mentions – but without snubbing any lesser sites that might link to you, as it all adds up. It’s easier for a source to link to your content if it’s authentic, interesting and well-researched, so always aim for quality over quantity.