How many blog posts are needed to improve our websites SEO?
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.
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?