9 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing SEO Ranking
When you publish a website or open social media accounts for your business, you expect people to find you online through search engines, like Google. The thing is, you don’t want to end up on any other search engine results page but first. The majority of those looking for a business like yours pick from that first page and it’s all thanks to efficient SEO optimization of your online presence. For this reason, you should focus on ways to improve your content marketing SEO ranking and this is how.
1. Ensure quick loading time
If your pages are loading too long, chances are visitors will give up on it altogether. Use PageSpeed Insights from Google to see what is your website’s loading speed and what you can do to improve it, both for mobile and desktop versions. The statistics say 64% of users will give up if the website is not loaded in 4 seconds on their smartphones, so keep that in mind from the start to build traffic.
2. Review and optimize your content
Remember, Google rewards fresh content! If you are out of a new one, you can always review the old and popular pieces, make some updates, and publish them again. Here are two things that can make your content marketing more effective and better ranking:
- Use SEO tools that will perform a content gap analysis that will show you what you are missing to have a high-ranking page, like keywords and topics,
- Contributing with original data will bring more likes, shares, and inbound links, so use tables, charts, and other ways to create unique content to stand out.
3. Remove the duplicates
If you have duplicate pages that can lower your Google ranking because the algorithm won’t assign link metrics to the right page, but divide them between all the versions. Use a 301 redirect to point users to the current page that needs to be added to the website’s code. Moreover, if you have similar content, you need to diversify it more by adding new and unique data to each page. This is why it’s crucial to have original content on your website since Google will give you unfavorable points for copies and duplicates.
4. Develop content for social media
Being present on social media and attracting the target audience can increase brand awareness so the content there needs to be carefully planned. Firstly, start by figuring out which social media platform is the best option for your business. To help with this, use the 5E’s: Entertain, Enrich, Educate, Enrich, and Evolve to decide where you fit in and what kind of content you need. Do this with the intent to create an emotional response to your content, like showing the professional and personal sides of your employees.
5. Use the right keywords
Using keywords is not a one-time thing! You need to regularly research, find, and incorporate new and trendy ones into your content. Content marketing SEO ranking doesn’t depend only on keywords anymore, but they can still contribute to your appearance on the search results page.
Websites, like Keyword Tool and WordStream, are free and decent enough to find appropriate keywords. Also, avoid using the keywords too much in your content since Google may label it as spam. The rule of SEO is to place keywords in the approximately first 200 words of both content and meta description, as well as within images.
6. Consider local SEO
If you are not an international company (or at least not yet), you should create a location-specific SEO. This means that you will pop up in search results based on user’s IP addresses and geolocation on their computers and cell phones, respectively. To put this into perspective, let’s say you are a Sydney-based business that offers products or services only for this area. To improve your rankings, you should do one of these things or both:
- Hire a Sydney SEO agency proficient in creating localized content that will put you among the first results when Googled by people in your area, and/or
- Create Google Business Profile and unique content your competitors lack, but which will target the local customers.
The best option for small or locally-driven businesses is to start by creating local exposure, and as your company grows, so can your SEO.
7. Promote your content with influencer marketing
Promoting your content should be an active part of your marketing campaign. The best approach is to build relationships with influencers that will benefit you all. For example, if they write, offer them to do a piece for you or ask them to be guest writers on their blogs. The key is to show them why they should cooperate with your brand and how it can benefit their online exposure. Do this like you would approach any pitch to partners and clients with compelling details on mutual benefits from the arrangement.
8. Start with SEO localization early
Localized SEO means that you are making efforts to increase traffic by being accessible to minority groups and the rest of the world. Plainly put, you are translating the content on your website to other languages that can bring more visitors and customers to your online presence. However, it’s not only about translating articles, but also respecting and including different cultures and populations.
For example, if besides English, a lot of people speak Spanish where you live, you should localize your SEO to that language group. It’s not as easy as it sounds since translating into another language requires finesse to relay the right message and not turn your SEO into a disaster.
9. Leave it to professionals
As mentioned before, hiring SEO professionals is a better move than trying to learn and do everything on your own. It’s best if you know the basics of SEO so you can choose the right company for the job and avoid wasting your resources. The good news is that you can hire professionals for one segment of your SEO, a few, or a complete service. It all depends on what you need, but keep in mind that investing in SEO will pay off in the long run and help you grow your business successfully.
The bottom line
Before you start work to improve your content marketing SEO ranking, ask yourself this: Can you do it by yourself? It can make a huge difference whether you are versed in SEO practices or not, leaving positive or harmful consequences for your company. Lastly, if the answer to that question is ‘no’, then consider it a sound investment to employ SEO experts that will do it for you.
