Introduction

So, first things first, what exactly is content marketing? Well, it can be anything from blog posts, like what you are reading here, writing what’s called “evergreen content marketing”, through to writing product descriptions.

Here’s the thing, content marketing is crucial if you want to improve your businesses SEO. If the written work is “content thin”, duplicated from say another website, let’s say a competitors, or just simply low quality then Google’s algorithm has become very good at penalising websites which have low quality content marketing.

The Google Panda updates for example are very good, at spotting poorly written content marketing, for example a business that might use “keyword stuffing”- this is a sure-fire way of incurring a penalty.

Helping your business, to rank higher on Google

So, you might be thinking, should our business be adding a blog to our website? And if you were to ask us, we would say it’s an absolute no-brainer.

It’s a bit like having an engine, and thinking it’s a bit underpowered, and then thinking well should be at a turbo or not?

Of course, and this is the same view website, if you regularly add high quality content marketing, that is evergreen content marketing, unique product descriptions, a YouTube video on your main pages, then this can help you to obtain more organic traffic. Why’d you want more organic traffic?

Well more organic traffic, can mean more shoppers on your website, and more shoppers can mean more sales. However you need to attract the right type of shoppers, shoppers that are going to buy your products or services, so this is why the content marketing needs to be very high quality, and it needs to be white hat. So what is the main benefit of having a blog new website?

Well the main benefit is, that well written blog posts, can help you to rank higher on Google for products and services that you sell.

So for example, let’s say that you run a business, that sells high-quality skiing equipment. If you’re regularly adding blog posts reviewing various ski equipment, and your sales staff are presenting in a video, the benefits of owning ski boots, ski jackets and ski glasses, and to really useful and informative video, then you likely to obtain more organic traffic.

Google Helpful Content Update

So, it’s really important to know, that Google has rolled out some major algorithm changes recently, such as the Google Panda updates, the Google Product Review updates and the Google Helpful Content updates.

Basically, what you need to know is, when you’re writing content marketing it needs to be very high quality. It must not be duplicated, and if its content thin, then is likely to harm your SEO, rather than help it.

Write the content marketing for your customers

Now this might sound really obvious advice, but it’s a very important point to make, too many businesses start up, and are understandably are in a complete rush to get onto the first page of Google.

So what they sometimes do start to write content marketing, which is just written to try and improve the businesses search engine optimisation, and they don’t focus on offering useful advice for their customers. Instead there overly focused on say writing “cordless drills” in the content marketing so many time, -this doesn’t work, it’s a very outdated method of seo, because you can’t write work just to try and improve your search engine optimisation by mentioning products or services you sell, over and over again, this is called “keyword stuffing”- and this method doesn’t work.

Instead what you have to do is concentrate on your customers, concentrate on writing and publishing really useful work, helpful work will help them to answer questions that they have. By doing so you could benefit from the following

·        People spending longer on your website, which is good for your search engine optimisation

·        You could have a low bounce rate

·        You could obtain high quality do follow backlinks

Have an original prospective

So, let’s say that your business, is a company which sells meal kits. What we mean by that is that a customer subscribes to your business, to get fresh ingredients delivered through their door on a regular basis.

So when you’re writing the content marketing, instead of just having blog posts which provide step-by-step instructions on how to make the meal, you could make your content marketing much more engaging.

For example, why not embed, a YouTube video, and have somebody actually cooking the meal, so that when somebody finishes work and they have their meal kits delivered, they can just follow the instructions on the video.

You could also provide step-by-step instructions via text below, what you could even do is also add to the page a recording, simply stating how to make the meal, therefore providing step-by-step instructions via the audio recording.

So how will this help to improve your seo, well quite simply put you’ve created a piece of content marketing which is likely to be very useful to somebody who wants to cook a tasty meal quickly.

Let’s say that the person wants to cook a chicken korma, rather than reading a rather bland blog posts with bullet points, explaining how to cook a chicken korma, instead you have created a piece of content marketing, which is much more interesting, includes YouTube videos, step-by-step instructions via text and also a sound recording.

Therefore, the work is much more engaging, it’s much more useful and this means that your customers more likely to return back to the website for advice on how to cook a tasty meal.

This means that your content marketing could benefit from the following.

A low bounce rate

Because you done such a good job of helping somebody to cook a tasty meal, they are likely to stay on the page for let’s say 30 minutes, while they gain instructions on how to cook chicken korma.

This means that the person looking to cook a tasty meal, is engaged with your company website, because it’s providing quality advice, which means that your business may have a low bounce rate.

Time on-site

the longer that you can keep a shopper on your website the better, it’s indicator that your website is offering quality advice.

So for example if a business was to provide complex instructions on how to cook a chicken korma, which is not easy to follow, then the person might spend less than 60 seconds reading advice.

However, when you compare this to your website, and somebody is following how to cook a chicken korma from start to finish, that might take let’s say 25 minutes plus, this means that they are on your website for a long period, 25 minutes. This is really good for your seo.

Backlinks

Because you have published content marketing, which is very high-quality and also useful, you may obtain high quality backlinks.

Add internal links

Are it’s important, that when you’re writing new blog posts, or simply linking between main pages, that you use internal links.

So, what are internal links?

Well, internal links, are simply backlinks, which take you from one page, or blog posts to another page on your website. So for example let’s say that you are writing a blog post, about ski boots, you might mention another brand of ski boot that you sell, and you might links that main page, therefore you added a internal link, from one of your blog posts, to a main page, that sells that brand of ski boot.

Engagement

engagement, is something that we mentioned earlier, however we think it’s worth mentioning again, that is when your writing your blog posts, you should make the work really interesting to read.

So for example it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about how to reduce tooth pain, or how to paint a garden fence, you should make the blog post as interesting as possible.

For example if you can, also make a YouTube video, with a member of staff, explaining a brand-new product or service that your offering, this may help to keep a shopper, more interested in what your business is selling.

For example, if the shopper, had to read say 1000 words, to find the answer to that question, then they may quickly get bored of reading text, and leave to find the answer elsewhere.

However if you had embedded in a YouTube video onto the page, which offers  advice on how to cook that curry, then the person might sit and watch our video the say over 30 minutes, which will increase time on-site, which many seo agencies believe helps improve your businesses search engine optimisation.

The reason for that is, if obviously a shopper, is spending 30 minutes watching a video on your company’s website, then they are obviously interested in the products or services you are selling.

If they were to spend in comparison let’s say less than 10 seconds on your website, then they are not likely to be interested in the products or services that you are selling.

So, if your digital marketing agency, manages to increase your time on-site, that is the length of time that the average shopper spends on your website, then this can help to improve what seo agencies, often referred to as the engagement signals.

That is the more engaged you can get your shoppers, with your company’s website, by spending longer on your company’s website, then this can help to improve your search engine optimisation.