Introduction

We hate to get off on the wrong foot, but if your only marketing strategy is to keep adding loads of blog posts to your website, well we hate to break it to you, it’s a flawed strategy.

Yet, it’s an approach that countless businesses take, and even some seo companies take also. But to be frank, choosing quantity over quality, well it’s a doomed approach.

Okay, so were clear on that part, now your thinking okay Mr clever-clogs, how do you use content marketing to improve a websites seo then?

Now your talking. Think quality, and you can’t go far wrong, but what does quality mean?

Quality is a rather vague term these days, your cereal packaging in the morning will no doubt state it has quality and tasty ingredients in the box, and so will those new shoes state that they are “quality” as well! So, what does quality mean when it comes to content marketing?

Well, grab yourself a coffee, this article going to be a long one.

You have to make your content marketing “valuable”

Have a think about this just for a second, most businesses want to get to the top of Google.

That’s a no brainer, when you do most businesses will have increased sales, if there is demand for the service or product of course.

Yet, with that said, a lot of businesses don’t want to go through the long SEO process, they think they can outwit Google’s algorithm.

Well this often results in the website incurring a penalty. And for those that don’t know, this means the website can drop out of the rankings altogether.

So, the days where seo companies would continuously write over, and over again the phrases they wanted the website to rank high for, well they are finished.

Now its all about making your content marketing efforts “valuable”- and no we don’t mean talking about diamond rings, or 24-carrot gold necklaces.

Valuable in the sense it is useful. So for instance, say your kitchen tap started to spring a leak, now water is hitting your face, soaking the bread and the dogs barking his head off.

So what you rather read, an article which has written “emergency plumbers” over and over again, or a website that offers really good advice on how to stop the leak, how to fix the tap?

Well obviously the second one, your kitchens getting flooded as we speak!

But, now as a business owner you start to think, why should we be giving away free advice?

Surely fixing a tap is a plumbers bread and butter? Why would they want to spend the time writing an article that offers free advice?

Well, it’s like this, if you offer free advice, in the form of content marketing then your business could obtain more backlinks and more people that visit your businesses website. This is all good for SEO.

Keep your readers interested

It’s important to keep your visitors interested, the reason is if your website obtains a high bounce rate, then this is not good for seo.

What are bounce rates?

A high bounce rate is caused by people visiting your website, yet then leaving straightaway.

So, for example, they may well be looking to purchase a new pair of brown shoes, and the meta title and meta description seem to describe what they are looking for.

Yet, for some reason people leave the website straightaway, this means the website has a high bounce rate.

What is Google Analytics?

It’s important that you set up a Google Analytics account for your website. The reason being is you will obtain loads of super important information on how well your website is doing.

So for example, you will learn about your websites bounce rates, how many visitors are landing on your website, and whether they are coming via organic listings, or PPC (paid) or social traffic for example.

What is Google’s Knowledge Graph?

If your thinking about writing content marketing for your website, then before you do it would well worth your well to read about Google’s Knowledge Graph.

The reason being is it will allow you more of an understanding of how Google’s algorithm works.

So for instance, if you were to write an article about SEO, then Google would know that related topics are backlinks, content marketing, offsite and onsite seo for instance.

This knowledge is useful when you start writing content marketing articles, as you may wish to also add information about related topics. But always remember all work should be white hat.

Google Panda

Whether your seo company, or yourself is taking care of writing your content marketing, you must ensure its white hat.

The reason for this is simple, if you don’t follow the white hat rules, your website could incur a penalty.

So for instance, if you were to say steal someone else’s content marketing, say from their company blog, well your more than likely to incur a penalty. The penalty for duplication is called the Google Panda penalty.

But you could get the penalty for many other reasons, such as writing the keywords that you wish to rank for, over and over again within the text.

So if your unsure, we would always recommend leaving the content marketing to a digital marketing agency that is white hat.

Keep it to the point

Even if your writing a rather long article, its important to keep things to the point. So, split up the text with titles.

This wont just help the reader to get to the part they want to read, but it will also help your seo.

Remember, that if you just write a massive block of text, well your likely to bore your readers.

500 words now rarely cuts the mustard

It used to be the case that so many seo agencies only wrote articles to a 500 word count. But now, many digital marketing agencies simply think this is not enough, and some state that the articles that work the best, in terms of seo, are the articles that are around 2000 words.

And this kind of makes sense, as often if you want to find an answer to a rather complex question, like how did Google’s Hummingbird update change seo, well you got it, often the articles that are ranked at the top, will be those articles that are bit more detailed.

Why not give us a call?

Whether your business wishes to invest in local seo, or you want to sell your products or services to the entire world, why not give us a ring?

Introduction

Most businesses recognise these days, that if they are not investing in seo, that they are missing out.

That’s to say if your not investing, well you can bet your competitors are. So as their online orders stack up, you could be missing out.

But that’s pretty obvious right?

What’s not so obvious is knowing which agency to choose. After all, most have rather funky and catchy names.

So this is where most businesses use an approach they are used to, and that’s let the price of the services guide their decision- but is this a good idea?

Well, we think no, and the reason being is seo quotes can vary massively. That’s to say some agencies charge such low prices its obvious that there is no real work going on, that’s because no employees would be working for such a low fee.

Yet, on the other hand you may have your more established agencies, and the rates that some quote well they may just be too high for a lot of businesses to afford.

So this brings us back full circle, how much should a business be paying, and what is considered fair?

It all depends on the competition

Now, before you go handing any money over to an agency, you must consider this, and that is what you should be paying for seo should be dictated by the level of competition you face as a business.

But don’t think for a second that all agencies that chance their arm and charge high fees are the best in the business. The reason is it is well known that some agencies do not do a good job.

However back to the main point, and that is which every agency you choose, they should weigh up the competition prior to offering you a quote.

So your fixed fee, we can offer the world type agencies, well you guessed it, these can sometimes be a waster of time.

After all, what’s a £1000.00 a month seo investment going to do if the business operates in a really competitive business sector, like car insurance, well in reality its not likely to do much at all.

The reason being is the competition, i.e the other car insurance companies are likely to be spending many hundreds of thousands, if not millions to ensure that they grab all the visitors they can get.

So the name of the game is this, the client has to be realistic about what can be achieved, and also the client needs to watch out for agencies that over promise, yet are likely to underdeliver.

Cheap seo normally = rubbish results

Now we may well be going over old ground here, as we have just said something rather similar above.

Yet, it’s worth throwing this item into the mix for consideration also, that is not all methods of seo will help your website.

That’s to say it doesn’t come down to all seo agencies offer the same types of work, as they do not.

SEO work can vary massively, from high quality work that will help to increase sales, to the low quality, rather rubbish seo.

Now rubbish seo can actually mean that a website incurs a penalty. For those of you that do not know a penalty can have severe implications, which means your businesses website drops in terms of where it ranks.

Also, keep this in mind also, really rubbish seo, well that can mean a website is removed altogether.

The reason being is the search engines, i.e Google may well think the website is spam. And this means that the search engine will think you are trying to fool the algorithm, and this can mean the business loses where it ranks completely.

In a nutshell

So basically picking an agency comes down to more than just money. The reason being is pick the cheapest quote you can find, and then the agency implements rubbish seo, well then it could cost you a lot more to rectify the problems that the agency caused.

What we mean by this is rubbish quality backlinks, well it could mean another agency has to spend days disavowing rubbish links, and this could result in a hefty bill.

So a word to the wise, invest in a respected and knowledgeable seo agency.

Quality matters

If you take away nothing else from reading this article, it should just be this one single piece of advice, and that is when it comes to seo quality matters.

So whether your agency is building business citations, ensuring that the businesses nap signals are consistent, or writing a new piece of content marketing, just make sure that the work is quality.

If you would like to receive a no obligation quote from our business, then why not give us a ring?