Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Content Marketing SEO Ranking

Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Content Marketing SEO Ranking

Content marketing for SEO rankings is a major priority for cross-brand marketers. It makes sense – think about it. When was the last time you searched for anything online, be it business insights or hotel reviews, without going to Google?

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends, 62% of content marketers look at their website traffic when measuring success. Additionally, 39% believe content marketing SEO rankings are critical.

Although SEO is important, it is still difficult for content marketers to master. It requires them to be wary of Google’s frequently changing guidelines and approach the top ranking target from every angle. There is no one set of methods to master; instead, content marketers have to throw a bunch of darts and hope they’ll be the bullseye.

The only way to have a chance at ranking high is to keep up with Google’s standards and find out what works for others.

Improve your content marketing SEO rankings

1. Create original, high-quality content

Google’s algorithms always look for the highest quality content based on relevant terms entered by the searcher. Google crawls websites and determines relevance based on keywords that appear on the website.

If other high-quality websites link to yours, search engines will judge whether the website is high-quality. Additionally, it looks at user engagement with your site and how much of your site’s content is unique.

Engagement means, do they click on you in a search engine and immediately return to their search? Or will they stay on your page for a while and maybe pursue more content there?

When it comes to content, marketers should focus on quality, says Brandon Leibowitz of SEO Optimizers. “A lot of people want to publish as much content as possible. People focus on volume, that’s the SEO strategy in 2012.”

First, Leibowitz recommends writing content for the benefit of readers, rather than focusing on SEO. You should use relevant keywords in the title of your content, but don’t try to grab someone’s attention with clickbait.

Instead, think about how to answer questions relevant to your consumer base while incorporating keywords relevant to your brand.

Writing long-form content, especially if you’re initially trying to rank high, is more effective than content with fewer words.

“Study after study shows that long-form content performs extremely well on Google and with audiences,” said A.J. Ghergich, founder of content marketing agency Ghergich & Co. When people first start content marketing on their blogs, I encourage them to start with long-form content. “

In terms of length, Ghergich recommends posts of 1,500 to 3,000 words with visual assets. These include images and videos throughout the content to help readers.

Images and videos are important because they reduce the likelihood that people will quickly leave the page.

If someone visits your site and only browses for 30 seconds before leaving, and this happens frequently, it means your bounce rate is likely high. Long-form content broken down with visuals, headlines, and bullet points will engage your prospects.

2. Modify your URL

In addition to putting keywords in the title of your website content, Rand Fishkin of Moz also recommends putting them in your URL.

When a person hovers over the anchor text, he or she will see, based on the URL, that the site is relevant. If there is no anchor text, then he or she will identify the relevance in the text.

Additionally, the URL will appear on Google and help people decide whether to click on your site. If the title matches the URL, they will trust it and visit your website.

URLs should be short (50 to 60 characters or less) and as easy to read as possible. Avoid using anything other than words and dashes in your URL. A bunch of numbers, symbols, and random letters confuse people and prevent them from clicking.

Even if your content title includes words like “the,” “and,” or “a,” you don’t need to include them in the URL to keep it coherent. Finally, don’t use too many folders (slashes) in the URL.

3. Use SEO Keywords

Keywords need to appear in your content title, as well as in its body. While SEO used to be about keywords only, it has since expanded to a wider field. Still, keywords are very important.

To use keywords effectively, you must first do your research and find keywords that apply to your content. This has to be an ongoing practice, not something you do all at once. Keyword popularity is changing all the time, and you have to keep up with it to get high rankings.

When deciding which keywords to use, brands can conduct free searches on sites like the Keyword Tool. On it, you can see which keywords are popular so you can incorporate them into your content.

WordStream, which provides ideas for keywords related to any keyword you enter, is also useful. For example, if you enter “content marketing,” other popular keywords include “original marketing content services” and “how big is the content marketing agency.”

You don’t want to use keywords multiple times in your content, or Google will think you’re spamming (and your readers, too).

If you don’t use them adequately, Google won’t know what your site is about. SEO firm Bruce Clay recommends using the keywords that are most effective in your content naturally, rather than forcing them to be there.

However, a good rule of thumb is to include the keyword in the first 200 words of the content, and once in the first 160 characters of the page meta description. In addition to being present in your written content, keywords should be integrated into your optimized images.

According to content marketer Jayson DeMers, your keywords need to be built into your logo and header images, as well as buttons and graphics in alt image text on your website.

4. Design for the user

If you want your users to be engaged, you need to design your website to be easy to navigate and user-friendly. Make sure your website has:

Good color contrast

A sensible, logical order, i.e. top navigation and content below, a call to action at the end of the content, appealing visuals:  

• Larger font
• Contents of different sections
• An obvious search bar

• Blank space

Your website also needs to be responsive to all the different types of devices, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This means it resizes and adjusts itself based on the device it is viewing. Mobile friendliness is key, as many consumers use mobile devices when deciding whether to buy.

If you want mobile users to click links to your website on Google and spend a lot of time browsing it, you should:

Get your business to appear in the local search section that appears near the top of Google and is easy to click. When you build or edit your business’s online listing, please include your website, address, hours of operation, and phone number.

Make sure your website loads fast enough. According to one study, 64% of people expect a page to fully load within four seconds. People are impatient, especially on mobile devices, and they won’t hesitate to go to a competitor if the site is faster.

To do this, optimize your images for mobile devices and reduce the file size of your website by minifying CSS and HTML. When minifying, you remove duplicate or redundant data, unused code, and unnecessary comments, and use shorter function and variable names.

5. Remove duplicate versions of pages

Duplicate pages can be a big problem for your rankings. This is because the wrong page can be indexed, and Google splits link metrics between different versions of a page, rather than attributing it to just one version.

Duplicate pages can be caused by a variety of factors. Maybe you use them for click tracking, or you provide print-friendly versions of your pages on your website.

To fix this, normalize your duplicate pages with a 301 redirect to the correct page. This is a tag (“rel=” canonical”) that you can place in your HTML code.

If some pages on your site are naturally similar, write more on each page. This way they will be different from Google and your site will get more clicks.

6. Try useful tools

There are a variety of tools on the web that can help you with your SEO process. Some of the best are:  

Buzzsumo shows you the key influencers in your niche. Just enter a keyword into your website and it will let you know who has created popular content that includes that keyword. Once you have identified these influencers with high-quality pages, you can reach out to them in the hope that they will link back to your content.  

Google Search Console, is an all-in-one platform that shows you if your content is Google-friendly and friendly.

BrowserStack is a website where you can see how your website looks on different browsers. If it doesn’t look good overall, it has to be modified.  

Google Trends, where you can see trending topics and stories. When there are trending news items that you can relate to your company, take the opportunity to use applicable keywords in your content.  

Alexa, where you can view the web’s most popular sites. There is a category section that allows you to narrow your search. Once you know what popular sites are, you can put links to them.

September, which will do a free SEO audit of your website. Enter your website address and it will tell you your strengths and weaknesses in content, links, keywords, images, headlines, and social media links.

Moz is a great tool I’ve used in the past to track our SEO success and learn new tools and techniques.

7. Make valuable connections

You can create long-form content with rich images and links to trusted websites. However, if you’re not actively promoting your content and seeking to distribute it on high-quality sites, it won’t be seen.

In addition to using Buzzsumo to target and connect with influencers in your field, you can also:

Send emails or social requests to these influencers when your company makes announcements or shares great infographics or content. Show influencers how this news or data can benefit their audience.

If these influencers are writers, introduce them to story ideas and conduct interviews with thought leaders at your company.

Ask influencers if they accept guest posts on their blogs. Write high-quality content for them and see if you can link back to your site’s native content.

8. Check your website’s load time

Whether users are using desktop computers or mobile devices, slow load times can lead to high bounce rates. In addition to following the mobile rules above, there are a few other strategies you can use to ensure your website loads quickly.

Start with Google’s PageSpeed ​​Insights. On this website, you can enter the URL of your website and see what your loading speed is, out of 100. Google will tell you what needs to be improved to make your site load faster on mobile and desktop.

For example, they might suggest optimizing images for both platforms, as well as minifying HTML and CSS. The rules are generally the same for mobile and desktop; the difference is that you can have larger images (20-100kb), flash, and more complex designs on desktop pages.

9. Invest in SEO

Some content marketers believe they can achieve high-ranking business results through organic links and traffic, without the need to use paid promotion. Both are needed to be successful.

Whether you pay for press release distribution services, run native ads on high-quality sites, or hire an outside company to handle your SEO, realize that all of these efforts are an investment in your company. So far, you can only use organic food. Paid promotions have huge potential to spread your company message and help you reach your core audience.

According to Ghergich, when looking for companies to help you rank, it’s important that you already understand the fundamentals of SEO. “If you know at least the basics, you’ll make better hiring decisions,” he said.

To avoid wasting your time and resources, before you sign up with a company, look at examples of websites the company has arranged for its clients in the past. “If your SEO agency can’t get you to a site like The Huffington Post, they’re doing it wrong,” Ghergich said.

Start ranking high on Google

Search engine optimization can seem confusing, but these techniques have been shown to help with rankings. By leveraging them, you’ll have a better chance of reaching your audience, connecting with potential customers, and getting them started in your buying funnel.