SEO and content marketing go hand-in-hand – there’s no point in writing great content if no one can find it organically and read it. On the flip side, there’s no way a brand’s site will be able to rank organically without high-quality content. In this blog post, we’ll explore how content marketing can boost your website’s SEO efforts, diving into the benefits of content marketing in ranking higher on search engine result pages and attracting more organic traffic.
6 ways content marketing helps SEO
Content marketing plays a pivotal role in improving SEO, serving as a useful tool to elevate your website’s search engine rankings and add value to your online presence. By creating valuable, targeted content, brands can boost organic traffic and engagement.
1. Content increases your keyword profile
When you’re looking to boost your SEO ranking, keywords—that is, the words and phrases in your content that make it possible for people to find your site—are king.
The basic premise of SEO is that the more relevant keywords you strategically target across your website, the more likely Google and other search engines are to push your site higher on the result pages for those targeted keywords. A content marketing strategy helps you identify which keywords to target, what type of content to produce to effectively target them, and how to write and structure that content to follow SEO best practices.
Let’s take an example. Say your website sells organic pet food. You would target commercial and transactional keywords in your landing, category, and product page copy, such as ‘organic pet food’, ‘best organic pet food’, or ‘natural pet food’. Then, you would target informational keywords in your blog content or FAQ pages. You could write blog posts like ‘Choosing the right pet food for your dog’ or even ‘How to make organic pet treats at home’. Yes, content marketing is meant to entertain and educate your customers – but it also greatly helps your SEO effort.
2. Long, unique content is valued by Google
Though it feels like our own attention spans are getting shorter by the day, Google actually prefers longer content. One study found that pages which ranked highest in Google search result pages tend to also have the largest amount of content.
While this doesn’t mean that blog posts should waffle on for thousands of words, cramming irrelevant content on the page just for the sake of making it long, it is true that detailed, informative, and entertaining content statistically overperforms in terms of SEO. If you can get people to click through to your site – and stay there, reading – it signifies to Google that it’s quality content and should be ranked high in the results. More on this in a minute!
3. Optimized content helps your site rank higher
A better-optimized page with metadata, alt text and high-quality, unique content will always rank more highly. Mastering SEO isn’t just about filling your site with keywords and calling it a day. High-quality SEO content is what makes your pages rank higher.
When your content is of a high quality, it will:
- Keep potential customers on the page
- Signify to readers that you’re a trustworthy brand with authority
- Compel users to click to other pages – including sales pages
4. Great content improves the user experience
In trying to optimize your site to rank higher on Google, there’s a set of rules that should ideally be followed. This also has the added benefit of helping your site look more polished, cohesive, and attractive to users who come across it.
On average, internet users in the US visit over 130 web pages per day. And if any website isn’t up to our standard, it’s pretty easy to find another one that serves the exact same purpose. You can’t trick Google into ranking your content higher – the only way is to create high-quality content that will actually benefit readers. No clickbait here!
By optimizing content for SEO, it becomes easier for users to find the information they’re looking for – and also delivers exactly what’s promised, leading to a smoother and more efficient browsing experience.
5. Content keeps customers engaged for longer
Okay, so let’s go back to basics for a minute. When someone comes to your page from a search engine, finds that the content isn’t relevant, and promptly leaves the page, this is called a ‘bounce’. The amount of people who do this contributes to your bounce rate.
High-quality content encourages readers to stick around, simultaneously lowering your bounce rate, increasing your SEO score, and gaining you new customers.
If a website has a high bounce rate, it signifies to Google that its content is irrelevant – perhaps it’s just filled with keywords to get clicks but doesn’t have anything of value for users. This will, in turn, cause these pages to be ranked lower in search engine result pages, therefore negatively impacting the SEO value of your site.
On the flipside, high-quality content encourages readers to stick around, simultaneously lowering your bounce rate, increasing your SEO score, and gaining you new customers.
6. High-quality content earns your site backlinks
Backlinks are links from one website to another. They play a crucial role in SEO because search engines view them as votes of confidence and authority. When high-quality websites link to your content, it signals to search engines that your content is valuable and relevant, ultimately improving your site’s search engine rankings.
High-quality content marketing offers an excellent opportunity to earn backlinks because when you create valuable, informative, and shareable content, other websites are more likely to link to it. These backlinks not only drive traffic but also validate your content’s quality and authority, making your site more appealing to search engines and users alike.
How to create content marketing for SEO
Ready to kick start a killer content marketing strategy and boost your website’s SEO? Scribly is the one-stop shop for brands and businesses looking to step up their web presence.
We’re a content marketing agency dedicated to helping brands boost traffic, generate leads, and increase sales across the board. Partner with us for an end-to-end service that takes care of everything from keyword research to data analytics.
Together, we can come up with the perfect tailored strategy for content creation and management across all your platforms: websites, blogs, socials, and email. Get in touch for a free content audit today.
