Introduction

Most business owners will know a thing or two about white hat SEO before contacting our SEO agency for help with their business SEO.

This means the business owner will often know that backlinks and content marketing are essential to SEO.

And that business owner would be right.

So, within this article, we will explain how content marketing could be used to improve your business’s SEO.

What is content marketing?

In its most common form, content marketing is just written text, that’s to say, written text that’s a blog post or written text placed on the main page of your company’s website.

However, content marketing could be a YouTube video, an infographic or a company newsletter.

Why is content marketing important?

The algorithms that Google uses have to work out what your business is about, and they also have to work out whether your company offers good quality information or not.

So, it may seem a bad idea for a pizza restaurant to give away advice on making a tasty pizza on its website, right?

The business owner may well think so, as fewer people may go to the restaurant once they know how to make a pizza themselves.

But often, when the SEO agency explains this, and this is where most business owners will change their mind, that is if their website gives away free advice on how to make a tasty Hawaiian pizza on the website, for example, but in return, this helps the business to be ranked at the number one position for “pizza restaurants” in that area on Google, well obviously the business benefits from this SEO work as well.

So that’s the thing: Yes, a business will be giving away free advice, yet if the business’s SEO improves, the company will also benefit from just blog posts.

When most business owners or even some internal marketing teams talk to an SEO agency about obtaining content marketing for their business, they sometimes automatically think that content marketing must come as a blog post.

But this isn’t exactly correct, and the reason for that is content marketing could be the following:

·        Main page on the website (Evergreen content marketing)

·        Newsletter

·        YouTube video

·        An e-mail marketing campaign

 

Google’s Knowledge Graph

So here’s the thing: some businesses believe that all SEO agencies offer the same thing; that’s to say, they may ask for a list of work that the SEO company is offering and then presume that one piece of content marketing will be the same as what another SEO company is offering.

However, this is not the case, and the reason is that one business may offer 400 words of complete waffle.

On the other hand, different marketing businesses may spend many hours researching how to write an article and then writing a lengthy article that will help improve the company’s SEO.

So, we are trying to point out that some businesses offer quality SEO, and some do not.

 

The algorithm only wants to serve the best answer to the question

Here’s the thing that you have to remember: Google only wants to serve the best answer to that question.

So, whether you are a construction business or you run a car dealership, Google is looking at which company is best placed to answer that question.

So, as you can imagine, one car dealership that doesn’t add any blog posts and the website is essential, well, that’s not likely to have great SEO.

However, the other car dealership is talking about new model cars that the manufacturer has just released.

They have someone who knows about cars offering a detailed review of each car model. That business also regularly adds blog posts about why the brand of car they sell offers such good value for money.

Well, have a guess which business SEO is likely to be better?

Strictly, business number two.

 

Quality is much better than quantity.

Okay, so this is a critical point. It’s one that businesses that are doing SEO themselves should most definitely take on board.

Some businesses will have a competitor ranked right at the top of Google. Let’s say the business sector is for family lawyers who are also divorce solicitors.

So, business number one is a brand-new law practice. They want to specialise in offering divorce advice, and they want to rank number one for “divorce solicitors”.

So, they look at the business, currently ranked number one, and they spot that the company has hundreds of blog posts added to that business’s website.

So, in a complete rush to catch up, the business, which is just starting, also decides to add hundreds of blog posts to its website. Does this sound like a good idea?

Well, we don’t think it is such a good idea. Here’s the thing: it’s far better to have excellent quality content marketing than to add hundreds of rubbish content marketing to your business’s website.

So many businesses have incurred a Google Panda penalty because they have added content marketing which is not of good quality.

That’s to say, the business may have written the words they want it to rank for repeatedly.

So, for example, the business may have written “divorce solicitors that are within Cardiff” repeatedly.

This doesn’t just spoil how a reader can read the blog post; it can also trigger a penalty. That’s because Google’s algorithm will spot that the work is low-quality, and the website could incur a penalty such as the Google Panda penalty.

So, our best advice would be to invest only in white-hat SEO.

Customers first

Sometimes, some businesses, and even some SEO companies, get so caught up with improving their SEO that they forget why they are writing that blog post.

So, for example, let’s say you run a business and sell beeswax candles.

Let’s say you employ a really rubbish SEO company, and all they do is keep publishing numerous blog posts. Which are roughly 400 words, and they keep mentioning “beeswax candles” repeatedly.

That’s to say; the SEO agency may think they are helping to improve the business SEO when they are doing the complete opposite; that’s because they are creating blog posts that won’t interest people looking to purchase beeswax candles. Instead, they are just trying to trick the algorithm into thinking the business’s SEO is better than it is.

By the way, if this SEO method is used, it will likely cause a penalty, such as a Google Panda penalty.

So, what’s the solution? How should content marketing be written?

Well, we think you have to think of the sort of questions that your customers may ask. For example, for your beeswax candle business, you could write:

·        Why are beeswax candles better than conventional candles?

·        How we ensure our candles only contain 100% natural ingredients

·        Why some beeswax candles are not all made from natural ingredients

·        Want to find out how we make our beeswax candles?

 

These are likely to be exciting blog posts if written in white.

So, in a nutshell, you should write blog posts so that they will be of interest to your customers. Don’t write blog posts to try and improve your business SEO. 

 

Googlebot

Googlebot is what Google uses to crawl and index a website. This means it is Googlebot’s job to report back to Google’s algorithm when a company’s website changes, for example, if a new blog post is added.

Don’t get us wrong; Googlebot won’t automatically know you have added a new blog post to your company’s website.

Yet, with that said, there is a way that you can inform Google that you have added a new blog post; you can use Google Search Console, which was formally called “Google Webmaster Tools” before having its name changed.

But, if you don’t use Google Search Console, well, Google will still be able to notice the new blog post you have added to your company’s website; it will just take a bit longer.

That’s to say, Google may crawl and index your company’s website that same day, or it may crawl and index it later, say in a week or months.

Yet, soon enough, the blog post will be crawled and indexed; at this point, Google’s algorithm will work out whether this will affect where your website ranks.

For example, let’s say it crawls and indexes the blog post, and it notices that it already has over 100 good-quality backlinks; well, this is likely to affect the rankings of that page.

But for this to happen, the backlinks must be of good quality.

 

Why quality is so important

The quality of content marketing is essential, and that’s because Google’s algorithm only wants to serve the best possible answer to a question.

So, as you can imagine, if two businesses were SEO agencies, and one was writing blog posts that were not going to help a company interested in white hat SEO, that business wouldn’t have great SEO.

Yet if there’s another marketing agency, and that marketing company wants to answer SEO questions that the company frequently gets asked and to answer them as best they can, well, the business SEO is likely to improve.  

Must understand your business and your business sector

Some digital marketing agencies do not do enough research about the business. So, for example, let’s say the business is a construction business; well, the SEO company may start writing content marketing about the construction industry- yet will this help the business?

If the SEO company had spent time understanding what the business specialises in, they might find they are loft conversion specialists.

And that they don’t want to rank for “construction companies + name of the city” or “builders + name of the city”.

Instead, they want to rank for “loft conversions + name of the city” and “attic conversion companies + name of the city”.

Therefore, the marketing strategy may be completely different because the marketing agency spends a little more time finding out exactly what business that company wants to attract.

You might say, surely the business owner would tell you what construction contracts they want to obtain?

The answer is sometimes no; sometimes, a business may believe that SEO will mean the company will obtain more enquiries from customers needing a builder.

Some businesses do not know, therefore, that often you can target some phrases, such as “loft conversion companies”, and this won’t bring in the customers the business wants but also will often cut down the amount of time that the SEO company can bring in results because all the SEO activity can be focused on one area.

Well written

Okay, some businesses know that content marketing is integral to SEO. Still, the SEO agency may sometimes not offer content marketing to improve the company’s SEO.

Often, some businesses will not understand white hat SEO or the work lacks effort, which won’t help their SEO.

It must be a white hat.

Content marketing should always be created to follow white-hat SEO methods. This means that some businesses may write many blog posts for the company’s blog, yet they may not see the SEO results they hoped for.

This is when some businesses then cut corners, and they may not use white hat methods, and this is never advised. The business could incur a penalty if white hat methods are not used; the truth is that organic SEO takes a long time to see results, and companies should be prepared to wait a long time to see the benefits of their SEO work.

This means that a business may write, say, ten excellent blog posts, and the website’s rankings may not improve, and that’s because, as most SEO companies will know, it can take a long time to see any benefits.

 

It will help to make your website more relevant.

Here’s an essential thing businesses should never forget: content marketing can help make a website more relevant to the type of customers it wishes to attract.

So, for example, let’s say your business sells bathroom products, and you are wondering why your SEO company is stating it’s a good idea to write guides on installing a bathroom suite.

As the business owner, you may well be thinking I want to sell baths, sinks and toilets- I don’t want to give away advice on installing these items.

But the online marketing agency will know that if the DIY guides on how to install a bath, sink or toilet are excellent, they are likely to have the following benefits for the business:

·        Make the website more relevant for selling bathroom items

·        Bring in more visitors

·        People who are installing a bathroom themselves may spend a long time reading the DIY guides, so this may dramatically increase how long visitors spend on the website

·        The bounce rate may decrease

·        DIY websites may link to the work, so offer backlinks

·        The algorithm may notice that the page has many good-quality backlinks, which may improve where that page is ranked, helping the business attract more customers.

 

Other on-page SEO elements can be added.

Here’s another critical point: some businesses may think that to improve their business SEO, they have to add 400 words to their website, say once every week.

However, if you add blog posts, which are just written to a word count, and therefore, the work does not offer any helpful information, this will likely damage your SEO.

For example, let’s say your business sells smartphones; well, if you write 400 words that keep mentioning “smartphones” repeatedly to improve the business’s SEO, this won’t work.

However, if you write an article about the phone’s features and how this product offers good value, that’s much more likely to be a better blog post.

Then you can add other SEO elements such as:

·        Internal backlinks

·        Anchor text

·        You could build good-quality backlinks to that page

·        Titles

·        H1 -H6

·        Meta titles

·        Meta descriptions

·        Alt text

 

Bounce rate

A business can measure its content marketing by helping improve its SEO to monitor the bounce rate.

For those who do not know, a high bounce rate means many people leave a website quickly.

So, if a website has a low bounce rate, the business keeps its visitors interested.

You may ask, well, why is this important? Indeed, we should just be interested in increasing the number of sales that a website makes.

Well, sure, yes, that is important. However, if a business wants to improve its SEO, it needs to lower its bounce rate, and here’s why.

Someone is looking to purchase a new kettle online, and business number one sells the same kettle as business number two. However, business number one has a high bounce rate.

However, business number two has invested in online marketing, so the kettle has a detailed product description. Plus, the digital marketing agency has made a short video explaining the features of the kettle so that a customer can better understand the product.

So Business Two’s website will most likely have a lower bounce rate; the search engines will know this and, therefore, may deem Business Number Two as the website with better SEO; business number two is more likely to rank higher and, therefore, more likely to attract more customers.

So, this is why a business should aim to reduce its bounce rate.

 

It can be used to help improve your local SEO

Do you run a business here in Cardiff? If so, your company may wish to think about creating content marketing that will also help improve your business’s local SEO.

And how can this be done?

Well, that’s relatively simple. Let’s, for example, say you run a solicitor’s practice here in Cardiff.

The WThedigital marketing agency may write blog posts about an award ceremony you attended here in Cardiff. The SEO company may also write about a new office location you have just opened in Cardiff’s city centre. Therefore, content marketing will inform visitors about your business on the website. Still, Cardiff will also be mentioned within the work, which can help improve your business’s local SEO.

However, here’s the thing: whether your business is implementing local SEO or organic SEO, your business and your SEO company must always use white hat methods.

How we can help:

If you run a business here in Cardiff and require help with its SEO, why not call us?

We can help your business with the following:

·        Content marketing

·        Link building

·        Organic SEO

·        Local SEO