Content marketing is an essential part of SEO. It includes creating and sharing content such as social media posts, blogs, and videos to keep your customers engaged and drive website traffic. When done right, content marketing helps build a relationship with your audience and have them return to your website.
Statistics show that content marketing for SEO receives three times more leads than paid searches. Another study conducted by Ascend2 found that 57% of marketers felt that creating relevant content was the most effective SEO tactic. According to the Content Marketing Institute, a website with blogs gets 434% more search engine indexed pages than websites without blogs.
In this article, we’re going to talk about various content marketing tactics you can implement for SEO success.
Content Marketing Tactics for SEO
1. Understand user intent and search
You should know what your customers like about your website and what kind of content they want to read more. Understanding the intent and search of the users can help you understand how people interact with your landing pages.
Consider identifying the following metrics to understand user intent and search:
– Average time on page
– bounce rate
– page views
– conversions
Also, look at the content that your competitors are rating for the same keywords. This insight will help you understand what information you need to provide to your audience in order to rank high on search engines.
2. Find the right target group-oriented long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords with three or more words are best for SEO because:
– They are more relevant and comprehensive
– They encourage the searcher to take action – either buy a product, sign up for a service, etc.
Use a keyword tool like BuzzSumo to get a solid list of related keywords. Export this list to an Excel sheet and incorporate it into your content strategy.
3. Create valuable content
Using keywords in your content can help attract viewers to your website. However, it can be difficult to retain viewers if the content isn’t valuable.
3 out of 4 SEO experts believe that quality content is the most important element of an SEO-friendly website. (Source: QuoraCreative)
So create engaging content for your target audience so that they keep looking for more. Returning visitors significantly improve your website’s search engine performance.
A 5% increase in customer loyalty increases profits from 25% to 95%. (Source: Tech Affinity)
Some tips for creating engaging content:
– Create useful, informative and entertaining content.
– Use a content optimization tool to improve the quality of your content.
– Analyze your existing content that represents the selected keyword and use content optimization tools to compete with top performing websites for the same keyword.
4. Update old blog posts
Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko, generated 260.7% more organic traffic in 14 days by updating old posts. Additionally, Hubspot admitted that organic traffic increased 106% when the old posts were updated with relevant information and restarted.
It’s a tried and tested tactic. Implement them when you want the same results.
ProTip: Add internal links to improve site structure and flow of link value.
5. Build high quality backlinks
Backlinking gives authority, quality, and trustworthiness to a website. By creating high quality backlinks to your website, you will increase your likelihood of ranking higher in the search engine. And this can do wonders for your website traffic.
According to E2M, 90% of the study participants said they used content as a link-earning tactic.
Tips for creating backlinks:
– Write website blogs
– Offer guest blogging for another website and get redirects to your website.
6th Include meta
Your metadata gives potential visitors and the Google bots an insight into your content.
Once Google bots have scoured your metadata, they decide how your page will be ranked. So make sure you tweak the following:
– Slug (the url)
– meta title
– WordPress tags
– Meta description
– Image ALT text
7th Work on the distribution of content
Many marketers neglect to effectively promote and distribute content. This is important as SEO can help you find it. However, if you want maximum traffic for your valuable content, you need to have a content distribution strategy in place.
Some tips on effective content distribution strategies:
– Create a flexible and cohesive content plan. Write content that can be used in various ways to maximize your resources and get your visitors to act.
– Tailor your content to your customer segments to increase relevance and achieve better conversions.
– Pay to distribute your content by running ads on different platforms.
– Build relationships with influencers and ask them to share your content.
Summary
SEO and content marketing are two sides of the same coin. In order to rank higher on search engines and improve your website traffic, it is important that you put your readers first. Find what they are looking for and create content that will give them that information.
Updating old content with relevant information and creating backlinks can help improve your website’s ranking. Don’t forget about content distribution either. Without it, you might find it difficult to get your audience to read your valuable content.