By Sarah Jones|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |Comments Off on How can content marketing help to improve our businesses SEO?
Introduction
If you were to visit a digital marketing agency, and you were to discuss a marketing strategy in order to improve your businesses SEO, then often you will hear “content marketing” being mentioned.
However, as a business owner you may not know what content marketing means, and why so many agencies are recommending that such a large proportion of your marketing budget is sometimes spent on this.
Within this article we are going to discuss what content marketing is, how it could help to improve your businesses SEO, that’s if it is implemented in the right way (white hat).
In the right way we mean that the work must follow “Google’s Webmaster Guidelines”, and it must be written in a “white hat” way.
We are also going to discuss how our agency uses content marketing in order to improve where our client’s website’s rank on Google.
We are therefore going to discuss how content marketing is used, and how on-site SEO can also be used with content marketing in order to improve where company ranks.
What is content marketing?
First things first, what exactly is content marketing?
Well, for most businesses content marketing will simply be evergreen content marketing and articles that are added to the blog section of your website.
Content marketing can be different things, such as setting up a YouTube channel for example, and it also could be for your business to create graphics.
However, because most businesses need to improve their organic SEO every single month, often content marketing will take the form of written text that is added to a blog or to improve the main pages of your website.
If you do not know what evergreen content marketing is, it is simply the written text that is placed on the main pages of your website.
So, for example let’s say that you run a local plumbing business, the evergreen content marketing will be placed on your boiler repair page for example.
Content marketing can also be added to the blog section of your website stop for example if your business has say a WordPress website, then the marketing agency may add high quality blog posts to the blog section of your website every single month.
However, it’s worth bearing this in mind, some content marketing if it is high quality and follows Webmaster guidelines can improve your SEO.
However, so many agencies and business make the mistake that thinking quantity is better than quality, however this is not the case you must concentrate on quality if you are to improve your businesses SEO.
How can content marketing be used in order to improve a business’s organic and local SEO.
Isn’t content marketing just written text?
No, content marketing is far more than written text, often written text is used but also this is used in conjunction with on-site SEO and also monitoring this to analytics to make sure that the content marketing is working for your business.
Also, a lot of businesses will use written text, and also use YouTube channels, within the content marketing, and also to add graphics as well.
If the content marketing is not generating the amount of visitors reading that article, then your digital marketing agency should be constantly tweaking and improving the article to generate more visitors to that website.
Therefore a piece of content marketing is therefore used to drive more organic traffic to a website, technical SEO and analytics needs to be used together in order to understand if this is bringing more customers to your website.
For example, let’s say that your business sells electric bikes online, and you pay a marketing agency to write a detailed article reviewing the 10 best selling electric bikes in the UK for example.
Now you notice that through promoting this article on social media, that is on Facebook and on Twitter for example that this article is generating a lot of interest, and then people are clicking from the article onto your website actually purchasing an electric bikes via the website.
However, you notice that once you start to add you to videos, and you also start at customer reviews about each bike then the amount of organic visitors increases even more.
You can see how a digital marketing agency will constantly be working to further improve a piece of content marketing.
Therefore, it is not just a case of writing a few hundred words placing it on your website and leaving their.
That’s because most agencies now want to constantly improve the content marketing in order to try and drive more customers to the website.
Also it’s worth thinking about this, if the article is really good, that’s the say you have written a really good piece of content marketing about electric bikes for example, then you might start to get high quality and relevant backlinks from other sources.
For example there will be a lot of people who are interested in mountain biking and also electric bikes, they may use their own blogs the start to link to your website, so you might start again high-quality and relevant backlinks.
So as you can see content marketing is often the bedrock of SEO, in that it is an essential part that all the other as SEO elements fixed to.
Without this often backlinks cannot be built in a white hat way, also you may find it hard to promote your business on social media unless you were giving the reader something interesting that they want to read.
For example, somebody who is interested in electric bikes, glossy click on an article on Facebook if they get to read what the 10 best-selling electric bikes are.
Then even if they are not interested in purchasing an electric bike at that particular point in time, they might memorise your brand and therefore return to your website at a later date.
Why must the work be high quality?
Here’s the mistake that so many businesses make, they look at which businesses rank at the top of, and they simply count how many blog post that that company has.
Then they think will that business has 80 blog posts, I must get my business to have the same number of blog post if I am to overtake that business, does this sound like a good marketing strategy?
Well to us it most definitely does not sound like a good marketing strategy at all, that’s because it is not to do with quantity.
In matter-of-fact if you are to concentrate on wanted the rather quality, then you are likely to generate a lot of content marketing which is deemed as low quality could even mean that your business incurs an algorithmic penalty.
This simply means that is removed from
So, what’s the solution?
What the solution is rather simple, that is you need to concentrate on quality, you need to think about what questions your customers have, and how you can answer these questions stop
So for example let’s say that you sell mobile phones online, a lot of people who are looking to purchase a smartphone will not know what all the technical specifications means.
So if you were to come up with evergreen content marketing for each mobile phone, which should be states the specification of the mobile phone this specification is important, then you are likely the start helping your customer.
For example if you were to write a blog post reviewing one of the most popular mobile phones, explaining in basic terms why features that the phone make the phone so good, someone might need this article, understand why teachers are so good, and then understand why phone is worth that value, and then simply use your website to purchase that item.
You therefore have the opportunity of making that content marketing interesting, by having somebody review the phone through YouTube channel then use written text in order to state what the advantages are of only that mobile phone for example
therefore you must concentrate on quality, if you concentrate just on quantity you are likely to generate low quality content marketing, which has very little used to your customers and therefore will result in your business having a very high bounce rate stop
Instead what you must concentrate is less on the SEO, and more on helping your customers.
When you start to help your customers by offering really useful information you will be inadvertently helping to improve your businesses SEO.
That’s the say let’s imagine that you are about to go out and purchase a brand-new electric car, and you want to read the reviews about various electric cars here in the UK.
Now you land on one article that has been written by company, and all it seems to repeatedly mention is electric cars and various brands which seem to be put into each paragraph so that the text does not read naturally at all.
You simply get better with reading that article, because it does not make any sense and justice mention electric car and electric car brands.
Therefore that website is likely to have a very high bounce rate.
Then you go on to another website, and you can see that this has been written by a car journalist, it is a really interesting read, as it shows YouTube videos of each card being reviewed, also the journalist has written some text about their opinion on the car in terms of the advantages and disadvantages of its design.
You find this article really interesting and helpful, to spend over 20 minutes on that article, obviously this type of article will help the SEO for that business, yes it will mean that a lot more effort needs to be put into creating that piece of content marketing, yet it will be a piece of content marketing if it is done right that can really help that business.
Why must the work be white hat?
The work must always be white hat, there will always be agencies which offer very low SCO prices, and a lot of business owners will think that going for the lower price is simply a good idea.
However, as the business owners you have to think about this, that is it the prices so low, realistically how much work can be put into improving the website?
What may occur is that the prices so low that the agency has cut corners, as they cannot use white hat SEO methods, and the business was to cut corners in your business is likely to incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty which means that it could be fully removed from Google.
So, what are we recommend?
Will simply put we recommend picking a respected agency will offer you high quality white hat SEO
Why must the work comply with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines?
The work must follow Webmaster guidelines, if it does not follow Webmaster guidelines then the business could incur a manual or an algorithmic penalty.
For example, if the business was to, then this is likely to cause duplication issues, which may result in the business incurring a pound a penalty.
This means that the business is unlikely to rank anywhere near the first page of, and it may even be removed from because the website might be deemed low quality.
So, what is the solution, but the solution is simple the business should write unique product descriptions, where you are writing your own product descriptions about each item.
If you were the simply duplicate content marketing, that’s the say you were to duplicate product descriptions directly from the manufacturer then this is likely to cause each page to be deemed as low quality.
Obviously, you do not want each page to be deemed as low-quality, so you need to spend time accurately writing each product description.
You can therefore then generate customer reviews that are unique to your website, and you can also have an expert within your business also reviewed that product.
For example, let’s say that you are an online electrical retailer, why not have a net first on each area of appliances.
For example let’s say that you sell fridge freezers, why not have an expert within your company state the advantages of each fridge freezer, for example the energy efficiency school, or how the fridge freezer might have different components which make it more have more ability.
Keywords
There are still SEO agencies which think that all content marketing is, is writing keywords within the text in order to try and improve the businesses SEO, this strategy does not work.
So which strategy does work?
Well that’s easy to answer, you simply have to offer good quality information to your customers.
It is simply a case of thinking about which questions that your customers frequently asked your business, and then answering them questions.
So, for example, let’s say that your business sells running trainers, and your business sells hundreds of different running trainers.
The price of the running trainers vary massively, for example you sell a pair that starts at £40 yet you also retail a pair of running trainers which are in excess of £500.
now somebody who wants to get into running, will obviously want to know why there is such a disparity see in price, so you should write unique content marketing which explains the advantages of each pair of running trainers.
Now when you start to answer frequently asked questions about running trainers, you can start naturally writing in keywords.
So, what are keywords they are simply terms that your customer will use to find products or services.
So, for example somebody might be searching for a Pacific brand of running trainer.
What a low-quality SEO company will often do, is to start to try and optimise the content marketing just for a brand of running trainer and the words running trainers.
However, this is a really low quality way of implementing SEO.
Instead what you should do is add a good quality product description, and you should also review each product and the text should be unique.
Now as you write the product description and your review of each pair of running trainers, you will obviously naturally writing to the text the brand of the running trainer and use the words running trainers.
Now as long as this is done in a white hat way, and that the work follows Webmaster guidelines, you will be helping to optimise that page.
What’s so many digital marketing agencies make the mistake of, and also businesses is thinking that they can just optimise that page for the brand of running trainer and the words running trainers by mentioning them quite a few times.
This is not going to work, this is a very old SEO tactic, this you can imagine somebody that is looking to purchase a pair of running trainers once a bit of information about those pair of running trainers, especially if they are going to spend quite a bit on purchasing them.
Example they will want to know how the running trainers have been constructed, in terms of what materials they use and what makes a pair of running trainers so good, this is where your expertise as the business owner can start to be used to review each pair of running trainers.
Why we recommend longer articles are written
so many marketing agencies offer really low prices, however, to make these low prices work the often have to write really short content marketing.
However just writing a few hundred words is rarely enough to properly answer any question.
What is often needed is thousands of words, but not a lot of text, you should think about using and embedded YouTube video, all graphics for example.
Why research must be undertaken
when you consider an SEO company, the SEO consultants that work within that business will often have many customers, that’s the say they might have over a hundred different clients that they work for in order to improve the businesses organic SEO and the local SEO
now, they may be working for a really broad section of different companies, for example one moment the SCO consultant might be working for a construction business and then in the afternoon for a solicitor’s practice.
So obviously you have to think about while how much knowledge that the SEO consultant have on each business that they work for, and this is why they should research before writing a piece of content marketing.
And why did we say this?
Because far too often an agency will write a piece of content marketing that maybe is say 1000 words, but it does not really offer any useful information, it does not offer a facts, it did not offer any links and it does not offer anything that will really tell the user that you are an expert on that subject.
So, for example, let’s say that the marketing agency is working for a car dealership, and the car retailer has just started to stop a new brand of car which it wants to start increasing sales of.
The marketing agency might just write a very brief article explaining that the start to sell this brand of car, the offer finance payments per month of a certain amount, and they may starts dating a little bit about the brands because they briefly read the manufacturers website.
Will this cut the mustard?
Well it’s very unlikely, instead a piece of content marketing should be written where a it shows that the author fully understands what that car can offer in terms of its technical specification.
You should then put this across in a way where the reader will be interesting in reading about that car.
So for example the author should research what the car does mpg, it should research its safety factors, it should research which features the car has and it should also include links to car journalists who have positively reviewed that car.
Also if the SEO agency wanted to go the extra mile, they could even do their own review of the car in person and embed a YouTube channel.
Now when somebody comes across this article say on social media, say on Facebook, they may land on page be interested in what you got to say about that car and even come down to your car dealership to organise a test drive of that vehicle.
Now if you oppose this to just a piece of content marketing which is been quickly written, which simply states what the company can offer in terms of a low monthly repayment of that car, then this is unlikely to be enough to persuade the reader to come down to the car so.
However if in a persons lunchbreak the start to watch the embedded YouTube video, see that one of your car salesman is clearly stating the benefits of owning that particular vehicle, then that piece of content marketing is likely to work a lot better than the business and may even to help to drive up sales
Why outbound links should be used
if a piece of content marketing has been properly researched in that the author has spent a lot of time researching what they are writing about, and the are likely to have found other websites where they have found useful information, you should then link to these websites.
For example let’s return back to our example of reviewing a new type of car, you may have come across a website which is positively reviewed that car, and you may therefore wish to link to that article using a back link and also anchor text example stop
Anchor text
you should only use anchor text in a white hat way, that’s the say so many agencies think that they can highlight the anchor text
optimise your website for your customers not for which they want their business to rank for.
This again is a very old SEO tactic, and could even result in your business incurring a penalty.
So for example if you were to keep highlighting the words car dealership plus a name of the city then this is likely to be viewed as low quality SEO and your business is likely to incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
What is far better is to naturally use the anchor text, so for example when you are linking out to a website which has reviewed that particular model of car, simply put the brand of the car, model of the car and review as the anchor text.
hat’s the say the anchor text should simply state where that link is pointing to, it should not be used as a way to keep marking up the same keywords try and improve the businesses SEO and this approach does not work
To improve your businesses SEO
Must be high quality
As you have probably gathered already from reading this article, it’s really important that you should focus on quality.
Do not focus on quantity, is because some agencies may try to impress you by stating for a set fee they can offer such a large amount of work for that price.
However, you should not think in terms of quantity you should think in terms of quality. It’s important that every aspect of the SEO is high quality and white hat
Must offer useful information
The work must be useful, that’s the say you should not concentrate on improving your businesses SEO, instead you should concentrate on offering really useful information this will then start to improve your SEO because you can start reducing your businesses bounce rate and improving the amount of organic visitors that come to your website.
That’s the say the marketing agencies which just concentrate on trying to improve the businesses SEO without offering useful information to your customers often fail.
So, for example, let’s say that you sell TVs online, you should state what are the advantages of say owning a 4K television is rather than just trying to optimise the website for 4K televisions.
You can use social media to promote your businesses content marketing
You may wish to use social media, such as Facebook and also Twitter in order to improve the number of people that are reading your piece of content marketing.
For example let’s return back to our example about retailing a new car brand, you may wish to write a piece of content marketing reviewing that new model of car, and then to promote that piece of content marketing on Facebook and also on your twitter account for example.
Should answer questions that your customers frequently have
So many business owners simply state that they do not know what they should be writing about on their company blog, our best advice is to concentrate on the questions that your customers frequently have, and then to centre the content marketing around this.
So for example, your business might retail Power Tools, such as electric drills, electric saws and also nail guns for example.
You should therefore write content marketing which helps your customers to understand more about each product, the features that it has, and also the different types of manufacturers warranty that are offered by each item for example.
For example you might retail an electric drill at £50, yet you may also sell an electric drill at £600, she therefore need to explain the product specification so that the customer can fully understand the Advantages of owning the more expensive products, and explain some of the product features and why the customer might wish to invest in a more expensive electric drill for example.
Must aim to be better than the competition
So many marketing companies simply think that the competition has written say 100 pieces of content marketing, so that they need to also write 100 pieces of content marketing.
We would not recommend taking this marketing strategy, instead you have to think about writing content marketing in terms of offering more useful information than your rival businesses.
Algorithm
the work must also be high quality so that the algorithm reads the work as being white hat, for example if you were to sell a certain model of smart phone, and you were to write the model of smart phone and make too much then this is likely to be deemed as low quality content marketing.
However on the other hand if you were to write the content marketing whereby you offer useful information about the mobile phone, in terms of specifications that the phone has and what makes this phone such good value, if this work is well written then this is likely to improve your businesses SEO.
Must not be just a few hundred words
So many marketing agencies try to save time writing content marketing which is just a view hundred words.
However, with that said, often a view hundred words is not in that in order to improve a businesses SEO.
Instead what is needed is content marketing which is often over a few thousand words, and the work has been researched and is high quality and is also written in a white hat way stop
Also think about improving your businesses evergreen content marketing
Some digital marketing agencies just concentrate on improving the businesses content marketing in terms of adding blog posts, yet also what’s important to remember is that the evergreen content marketing that is on each page is also improved.
So for example let’s say that you run a construction business, and you have main pages which describe the attic conversions, newbuild properties and also describes the property extensions that your business can offer, all of these pages will be your main service pages, the text on these pages will be the evergreen content marketing, and the evergreen content marketing on these pages should be improved by your marketing agency.
Why you should think about using an agency that understands your business sector
As mentioned earlier, you may pick a SEO company that works for hundreds of different businesses, they may not therefore have a large amount of knowledge about your business sector, this is why so many companies now opt for marketing agencies specialising one business sector
For example you might have a marketing agency that concentrate on working with solicitors, and another marketing agency was concentrate on working dentists for example.
Therefore the advantages of working with such a marketing agency is that they are likely to have more knowledge about your business sector, therefore the content marketing might be more detailed as that agency will have more knowledge about your business sector.
does your business require national or local SEO?
You also have to consider whether your business requires national SEO, all it requires local SCO, as this will mean that the content marketing is written in a slightly different way.
For example, if your business just operates in the city of Cardiff, then this will mean that your business requires local SCO and the content marketing is written in a different way.
Where is if your business requires a national SCO when you are looking to sell your products on a national basis, then the content marketing will not focus on just one city or town and instead often the marketing agency will concentrate on writing high quality content marketing and also building high-quality backlinks.
What were the Panda updates?
If the content marketing is low quality, that’s to say for example you have duplicated product descriptions, then the business may obtain a Panda penalty.
This means that the business could be removed from
Why you should never duplicate content marketing
you shouldn’t use duplicated content marketing, for some businesses that do not understand how SEO works, they may sometimes simply copy and paste product descriptions and also sometimes content marketing, however this is likely to result in your business incurring a penalty.
Why you should never copy product descriptions
When a website is designed, some website designers simply copy and paste product descriptions however this is likely to result in the business incurring a penalty.
One should never rush writing important details such as your businesses meta titles and meta descriptions
Bounce rates
your marketing agency should aim to reduce your businesses bounce rate, if your website has a very high bounce rate, this means that a lot of people are visiting your website but I leaving straightaway.
Obviously you do not want your shoppers to be leaving your website quickly, so your digital marketing agency should work out how they can reduce your businesses bounce rate.
This sometimes means improving the SEO and can also mean improving the website design
Time spent on-site
You obviously want your shoppers to spend a long time on your website, browsing your products and then making a purchase, so therefore a lot of SEO companies will look at how long the average shopper is spending on your website and look to improve this.
Obviously if somebody is spending longer on your company website, they are interested in the products or the services that your company offers.
If a company only manages to retain a shopper’s interest free few seconds, then this obviously needs to be improved, as you want the shoppers to spend longer on your website and to make a purchase.
So if your website has a very high bounce rate, and your shoppers are only spending a you seconds on your website then this needs to be improved by your SEO agency.
Analytics
Many SEO companies here in Cardiff use analytics to see how they can improve a businesses SCO, whether that improving the amount of organic visitors, reducing the bounce rate or simply monitoring how many visitors come to your company website every single month to see if this number is improving.
Backlinks
Our company can build high-quality backlinks
If your company writes a really good piece of content marketing, then other websites may link to your website, so your website may start to obtain high quality backlinks.
High-quality backlinks
Your business should look to obtain high quality backlinks which had been built in a white hat way in order to improve your businesses SEO.
Do follow
often an SEO company will recommend that you obtain a number of good-quality do follow backlinks
No follow
Your business should also obtain good quality no follow backlinks as well
Yes this does mean giving away free information
A lot of business owners here in Cardiff, often state why should they spend such a large percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing, when it is just giving away free advice?
That’s the say, let’s say that you run a solicitor’s practice, why should you be giving away free advice via your company blog?
However we often explain to businesses here in Cardiff that this is the wrong way of thinking about content marketing, as by giving away free advice you can actually improve your businesses SEO, and therefore if the SCO is implemented in a white hat way then your business can actually obtain more customers giving away free advice via your company blog.
For example, if you were to write really high quality blog posts, then these are likely to attract high quality backlinks, and these high-quality backlinks can improve where your business ranks so that you can potentially obtain more customers.
Why the best digital marketing agencies don’t just think about SEO
our SEO company does not just think about improving a business’s SEO, we think about offering high quality information to your customers, and then this will improve the businesses SEO.
If a business overly concentrate on improving the businesses SEO, without offering high quality content marketing then the business could incur a algorithmic or manual penalty.
So, for example let’s consider a skip hire firm, if the website was just to concentrate on writing skip hire plus the name of the city over and over again then this is likely to cause an algorithmic or manual penalty.
However instead if the marketing agency was to concentrate on writing content marketing, such as explaining the different size skips that the company offers, what can be placed in the skip and what cannot as well as how the customer should get ready for the skip hire company to deliver the skip, such as making sure that lane ways are kept open for example, then this content marketing is likely to work a lot better.
That’s because it offers a useful advice to the customer, as they may not know the different size skips there are on offer, neither will they know what they can place in the skip what they cannot and also they should think about how they served in sure that lane ways are open to that the lorry driver can get through for example.
Therefore, this information is helpful to anybody that wishes to hire a skip, and is likely to improve the company’s SEO
Why your business needs to set an appropriate marketing budget
when you think about it, for a lot of businesses in Cardiff the only way they really advertise their business is sometimes through their website.
Sure that the business might have a lot of cars company vans, but often the main way the customer will find the business is via the company website, this is why it’s so important that the business invests in white hat SEO, yet with that said, they should invest a reasonable amount.
If you are to opt for overly cheap SCO services, then it is likely that the work might not be high quality and therefore may result in the business incurring a penalty.
Why we believe cheap SEO is often a false economy
We believe cheap SCO is often a total false economy, quite simply because the business could incur a penalty
Title
Your SEO consultant should add a title to each piece of content marketing
Anchor text
Your SEO consultant should add anchor text to a piece of content marketing in a white hat way
Internal links
The SEO company might wish to use internal links in a white hat way
How our agency can help
If your business wishes to improve its SEO, then why not give our business a call today
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