Most of us know that consistently creating and publishing new online content improves search engine ranking. Google and other search engines view websites that are updated regularly as more relevant to users than static sites. But did you know that content marketing improves SEO in several other ways as well?
Here are three of those ways:
1. Content encourages inbound links. While traditional link building activities can help your search engine ranking, Google is getting smarter about catching those who engage in link building simply for the sake of link building. Creating high quality content is a much better way to build up a wealth of inbound links to your site. When you create a quality piece of content that resonates with your target market, you can bet they’ll share it and link back to you. Google recognizes these natural inbound links and will rank you higher in search results because of them.
2. Content encourages social sharing. Google’s algorithm, which is constantly being revised, values social signals now more than ever before. What are social signals? Basically, they are any activity taken by a user while online (posting content, applying a label, saving a social bookmark etc.) When you create a great piece of content, people will be motivated to share it with their friends and connections. These sharing activities help you rank higher in search, so the more shareable your content, the better you’ll fare.
3. Content naturally uses your keywords. As most of you probably know, it’s important to have a keyword strategy and to use commonly searched, targeted keywords on your website. Doing so helps your site to show up higher in search rankings when customers search for those specific terms. Content and keywords work together in the same way. Luckily, it’s typically not very difficult to incorporate keywords into content pieces so long as the content you’re creating is aligned with your target market’s needs. By nature, content pieces like white papers and case studies tend to be keyword rich documents that do well in search.
Have you seen content marketing improve your search ranking and search traffic in other ways? Let us know in the comments.
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