With about 67.60 percent of all clicks going to the top five organic results on search engines, marketers need to be creative and savvy, according to statistics on Impact. As a business owner or marketer, maintaining online visibility is critical if you want to drive traffic to your website. And the perfect way to do so is by implementing the best SEO hacks into your content marketing strategies. While most entrepreneurs and marketers believe there’s a conflict between content and SEO, there isn’t. For the most part, the two work together to help you create engaging marketing ads that make your site visible on search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, striking a balance between search engine optimization and content marketing isn’t easy. In most cases, what’s required to develop engaging content isn’t always in line with SEO technical considerations. To find the perfect balance between SEO and content marketing, below are some tips you can follow to get the best results.
Perform Keyword Research
Successful SEO starts with researching keywords relevant to your business and using them appropriately to rank high in search engines. With this in mind, invest a considerable amount of time planning your marketing strategy and finding keywords you want to rank for. Next, create a strategic approach that allows you to use search terms properly throughout your content.
Remember, to be truly effective in online marketing, your content and SEO strategies should work harmoniously. This means you should never stuff keywords in a page or over-optimize. To achieve the best results, use tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner to identify relevant keywords. And then, implement your preferred search terms throughout your site by selecting one search term per page. Consider using long-tail search terms on cluster pages and short-tail keywords on pillar pages, and use them naturally to boost organic SEO.
Additionally, use the right keywords strategically by incorporating them into your title, meta description, and throughout your body content. You can also use them in your images, videos, and social media posts. Lastly, the search landscape is constantly changing. Make sure to revisit your keyword research on a regular basis to ensure your keywords are still relevant.
By following these tips, you can perform proper keyword research and improve your chances of ranking high in the SERPs.
Use Your Keywords to Create Quality Content
Once you’ve identified suitable keywords for your website, start developing your content strategy. Typically, your keywords will be your source of inspiration when determining the type of content to produce. For instance, the keyword’ digital marketing’ will inspire you to write about ‘Ultimate guide to digital marketing.’ That way, you can be sure your keyword fits perfectly in your title. Including keywords in your headlines is the easiest way to abide by SEO guidelines and stay true to your brand’s mission. Also, consider adding keywords in your subtitles and content in a strategic manner. Doing so increases your chances of ranking high on Google and other search engines.
In addition to writing compelling titles with keywords in mind, focus on creating unique and creative blog posts, videos, newsletters, and case studies. Quality content gets indexed quickly and ranks higher on search engines than repetitive and low-value content. So, make sure your content attracts a target audience and provides solutions to their problems. To create meaningful content, use relevant keywords and target your ideal customer or audience. Moreover, get in the habit of brainstorming creative content ideas and incorporating relevant keywords. This tactic is key to ensuring your content is acknowledged and ranks high in search.
Enhance User Experience
User experience is something you should never overlook when creating an SEO marketing strategy. UX in search engine optimization refers to the level of satisfaction internet users experience when they visit your website.
For instance, if someone visits your site searching for information and returns to Google within a few seconds, it means they aren’t pleased with the results on your page. Note that search engines won’t rank your pages on top spots if your content doesn’t satisfy internet users.
Therefore, invest in enhancing the user experience for website visitors by creating an attractive and easy to navigate website.
Also, create quality content using the right keywords, incorporate authoritative links, speed up page load time, and optimize web pages for mobile. Optimizing robot.txt and ensuring pages don’t have error codes like 404 goes a long way in keeping your visitors engaged.
On the other hand, you can also improve the user experience by refreshing website content. With a refreshed content, your site can appeal to search intent and as a result, rank highly in organic search results. However, you can only update the content by conducting an inventory and audit as they help establish a game plan.
A content inventory is a list of all the content on your website or digital property. It includes information such as the content’s title, URL, author, date published, and other metadata. A content audit is a more in-depth analysis of the content inventory. It evaluates the quality of the content, identifies any gaps or problems, and makes recommendations for improvement.
Luckily, SEO tools are available to help you perform a content inventory and audit which are important in getting the most out of your content refresh efforts. They can help provide you with a clear picture of your published web content and how well each page is performing. The findings will then provide you with directions as you make updates to ensure your content is more SEO-optimized.
Boost Traffic with Link Building
Link building is a vital part of SEO because it determines how Google ranks your web pages. According to Google, SEOs can boost site rankings by increasing the number of high-domain authority websites that link to their pages. For example, let’s say you own a website promoting solar panels and you’re competing with two or three other solar companies. Google will determine how to rank your pages by evaluating your site’s link popularity. If you have many links to your website, you can rest assured of ranking high on search engines.
Besides boosting website ranking, link building drives traffic and boosts site metrics and search engine optimization scores. Other benefits of link building are enhanced credibility, increased visibility, and reduced bounce rates. It’s worth noting that links also have a significant impact on your local SEO strategies. To succeed in local search engine optimization, you’ll need links from locally high-domain authoritative sites. Industry-relevant links and quality inbound links to your landing page URL on Google My Business are vital for improving localized SEO marketing strategies.
Improve Your Technical SEO
Trying to optimize content during the development phase is a mistake content creators commit from time to time. As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t optimize a single paragraph immediately after writing it. That’s because you’re not sure how long your article might be, the number of links you’ll end up with, and how comprehensive your multimedia will be. So, if you’re looking to strike a balance between your SEO strategy and content, improving your technical SEO should be a top priority. This step involves integrating schema markup into your website’s content to boost exposure.
In most cases, search engines misinterpret website data because marketers do not provide coded information. By incorporating schema markups, search engines can rank your site appropriately because the coded data explains what your content is all about. Other essential technical SEO elements you should add to your created content are metadata, internal links, alt data, and title and subtitle tags.
Creating fresh and unique content for your website can be daunting. Striking a perfect balance between your content and SEO is even more stressful. However, you can create an SEO and content marketing strategy that works in harmony if you research keywords and use them accordingly. Also, prioritize link-building, enhance user experience, and strengthen the technical part of SEO.
