How Content Affects Your SEO

Blog Articles Increase Traffic to Your Site and Increase Discovery

What’s SEO without the content? It’s a boat without a paddle. Content and SEO must go hand-in-hand for a successful marketing campaign. In this article, we’ll examine the mutually beneficial relationship between SEO and content and how it benefits you to have both.

First of all, let’s define these two so we’ll have some clarity before moving forward. SEO is the process of increasing quality traffic and attracting more visitors to your website. SEO deals with keyword selection, correcting 404 errors, optimizing tags, load speeds, linkbacks, and examining Google analytics to see where your website can be tweaked to do better. Content marketing is the use of valuable and relevant content to drive traffic to your site and encourage clients to take action. Quality content most likely comes in the form of blog articles. 

It’s obvious how important content is to your business. What’s a website without the words, articles, images, videos, etc.? SEO strategy is tailored around the content.

Blogging Is Key Content

More and more businesses are turning to blog articles to increase traffic and indexing. Here’s a few @HubSpot and @Optinmonster statistics to chew on:

• 90% of B2B and 70% of B2C businesses are using content to promote brand awareness, increase ROI, and build authority.
• 57% of Marketers Say They Gained New Customers through Blogging @optinmonster
• Blogs Are Among the Top 3 Most-Used Formats in Content Marketing @Hubspot
• Using Blogging as a Marketing Strategy Gives You a 13x Bigger Chance of Achieving Satisfying ROI @Hubspot
• Some 55% of Brands Identify Blog Creation as a Major Priority in Marketing @Hubspot

Think about this: Each blog article you create, allows you to produce a page of optimized content. Google now has more pages to index. This is far better than a website without a blog. You’ll have the upper hand over websites without blogs. This does take time though. So many business owners mistakenly believe that one or two blog articles will do it and BAM their company lands first page ranking in the SERPs. It’s not that instant. 

Remember, blogging isn’t an As Seen on TV scheme to make a fast fortune. To boost your brand’s visibility, you need to be familiar with how content affects your website’s SEO. Below, you’ll find some points about how content and SEO go hand-in-hand in your endeavor to reach the top of the SERPs.

Keyword Importance

One of the key elements in SEO is keyword selection and strategy. Finding relevant keywords and using them in your blog articles helps them to rank high in the SERPs (search engine results pages). However, never try to stuff more than two target keywords on one page, and never “stuff” numerous keywords on one page. For example, let’s say the target keyword for a page about “Keeping Your Motorcycle Serviced” was “Harley motorcycle.” If you stuff ten or so “Harley motorcycle” keywords on one page, Google will assume you’re keyword stuffing which is an old black hat SEO tactic that will land you in hot water with Google. It’s a good idea to conservatively sprinkle a keyword throughout the content on one page. 

Some people choose two target keywords per page and that’s fine. You could repeat those keywords about four times throughout the page and be perfectly fine. However, if you put the keyword in every other sentence, that could be considered “keyword stuffing.” A good rule of thumb is to repeat one keyword no more than five times in a blog article. (Note: Headers are great places to place keywords.)

This reminds me of a keyword stuffer I encountered in 2018. A Canadian marketer asked me to write content for a client using several keywords for each article. He sent me a spreadsheet of 20+ keywords for one blog article! I immediately declined the contract after learning this. He wanted almost 80 keywords “stuffed” into one article. I asked him if he was concerned about the negative effect keyword stuffing would have on his client’s website. He wasn’t concerned at all! He was only interested in their money and showing them “Hey, look your website is now on the first page of the SERPs!” That site would most likely be penalized by Google for keyword stuffing. His client would probably only enjoy about two days at the top of the SERPs. This shows you how important it is to steer away from keyword stuffing and black hat marketers. They simply do not care. Fortunately, there are not many of these marketers out there. I have met many good, ethical digital marketers in my journey as a content writer. There are more good ones out there than the one I mentioned, but it’s wise to be on the lookout of black hat SEO techniques. For more detailed information about how to recognize black hat SEO, check out HubSpot’s article “An Introduction to Black Hat SEO.”

A great and free keyword search tool to use is Google’s Keyword Planner. It’s an excellent keyword analysis tool and fairly easy to use. Pay close attention to the keyword’s volume and competition. For tips on choosing the best keywords, check out my article “How To Choose the Best Keywords for Your Content.”  

Quality Beats Quantity in Content

If you’re going to write a blog article for your business, make sure it’s a high quality one. Don’t just copy and paste someone else’s work and slap a new title on it. Also, don’t post vague articles that amount to a waste of time for the reader. Offering your readers something of value, makes them trust you more as a credible source in your industry. People buy from those they trust. That’s the real value of blog articles. They establish credibility, offer valuable information, and encourage sales.

Conclusion

Clearly, SEO can’t be successfully effective without quality content. Content may be “king,” but without SEO tactics like keyword integration, it can go undiscovered. When you bring these two  together, you’re sure to reach more customers and build a rapport with existing ones.

If you’ve got an in-house blogger, make sure they’re familiar with the use of keywords and basic SEO. It will help your business gain exposure in the ever-growing online marketplace.

How does your SEO and content complement each other?