Is there really one SEO strategy that can do it all? One powerful SEO tactic to get the results you seek? Search engine optimization is a term that is known by all of the top brands in the world, nearly all of the middle sized companies around the globe and continues to grow through small business. SEO is extremely valuable to any company or business. This is why some of the biggest brands in the world spend upward of a million dollars a year or more on SEO.
Online competition is fierce when you crunch the numbers. Trillions of websites competing for ten spots on the first page and a few million valuable keywords. How can your business or website ever compete? Especially against the top heavy SEO budgets of the world? And with each passing day, the competition continues to grow. Why Google, Yahoo and Bing differ when it comes to SEO, all 3 of these major search engines have one thing in common. All 3 give you a fair share to get a piece of the pie.
I don’t have the time to grow my own website like I wish I could. But when I write articles, I can say I try to make it useful, informative and accurate. Sure, I want others to know I’m an expert in SEO and marketing. I believe we all want to showcase our talents and abilities. When my article above landed in the top 3 of the first page for SEO ranking factors 2015, it was an honor. To be even considered with the top SEO companies and SEO experts is big for me. Ranking side by side with industry giants like Moz and Search Metrics, it was a big win for me.
This is the same way many small businesses feel when trying to compete against big companies that have huge SEO budgets. I’ve been blessed to work with some of the top companies in the world. But as a small business competing in a huge market, I understand how small business owners feel. It’s very tough.
Around 70 percent of our clients have worked with SEO in the past and failed. Most small business owners don’t understand SEO and people take advantage of that fact. By the time they get to us, they hate SEOs and everything it represents. Needless to say and rightfully so, they’re mad. They have tried many things and failed. SEO is always changing, and what works today didn’t work a year ago, so you have to keep up with how search engines change.
Google is the largest search engine in the world. Bing and Yahoo together don’t make up half the search volume Google has. Google owns nearly 70 percent of all search results. More importantly, in terms of SEO, Google has different rules than the other two. Since Google controls much of the landscape, most us suggest performing in Google, following Google’s SEO policies and guidelines.
There’s a lot of different SEO strategies and techniques that can be used to improve your SEO rankings. SEO alone has been successful before, SEO with marketing has been successful. Many SEOs feel that there’s over 200 different SEO ranking factors in total. There’s a number of case studies that have shown great success with these techniques. But out of all these different SEO tactics and techniques, one has proved to be extremely successful over and over again.
The Most Effective SEO Technique You Can Use
What’s the most effective SEO technique? Content. Are you serious Ricky? All this lead into the most effective SEO technique in the world and you say content? Yes, I said content. But not just content. Not just any content. I’m talking about GREAT CONTENT. Difference? You bet. There’s actually a huge difference and once you hear me out, I GUARANTEE you walk away with the ability to rank your content first page in most markets. And you can get it to the first page in competitive markets if you learn how to add value and SEO rankings to any page.
My goal here today is to not tell you what tens of thousands have told you before. Which is “content is king” and “content” is one of the top SEO techniques. You likely know this and the rest of this article, along with your time, would be a big waste of time, right? I’m here to teach you how to write great content and change your perspective on content in general. And if you follow and take it all in, you’re going to see SEO success.
Two Important Ranking Metrics That Great Content Builds
Domain authority and backlinks are two crucial ranking metrics for SEO and your keywords. Domain authority is a web metric by Moz that is very accurate at analyzing the value of your website. It’s a scale from 0-100 with 0 being the lowest and 100 being the highest. I’m not referring to monetary value but SEO value. The higher you can build domain authority to your website, the more value that is passed to your entire website.
Backlinks have been a long-time ranking metric for SEO. Backlinks can help you build domain authority, the two work together hand in hand. If a few high authority websites link to your website, you’ll see your domain authority grow. In return, you’ll also be able to increase your SEO rankings. I don’t know how you feel about link building, but you do take risk by building links. For those of you that worry about the risk, with great content, you don’t have to worry. I know it’s easy to say that, but be sure to hear me out.
Great Content VS Good Content VS Content
You hear that high quality content is the way to go. You hear that content is king of SEO. You write content again, and again, and again but see very little value for your efforts. Perhaps you write good content, you may even classify it as great content, but is it? Have you been writing for weeks, months, a year or more still to see no success? If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. You may even be surprised that what you thought was great isn’t. I’m not downgrading your writing service or your personal writing. But if you’re not writing great content, you’re wasting time, money, effort and resources.
You’ve heard of great content, but what is it? I had the same issue and complications understand this very fact.
Here’s some important details to note about great content.
Great content leaves your readers wanting more. In return, users are more likely to visit your website, share your content and read more pages. The SEO benefits come in your user metrics, more page views per user, more time spent on your website, usually lowers your bounce and exit rates. All of these are important user stats that play roles in search engine optimization. Social media signals are among the top ranking SEO factors for 2015. All of these add SEO value and great content boost user and sharing metrics.
Great content can be used as a resource page, a point of reference. This can bring a lot of SEO value also. If your content is being used as a resource page, you’re going to see an increase in referring domains. If it’s niche specific, especially those of you in the educational department, this could lead to some big EDU links. Referring domains are a big SEO value.
Great content helps build brand awareness and people will remember. Great content is crucial to your brand identity. It helps build awareness, credibility and trust. Customers know when they are reading B.S. If you’re in a skilled trade, great content will help you become a thought leader in your niche. It will show potential leads your experience and help build confidence.
Great content will bring waves of organic traffic to your website. If you don’t know by now, organic traffic is often the highest level of converting traffic. Many people think PPC marketing is but studies suggest otherwise. However, depending on your market, these types can differ. So don’t bite off my head. But you can’t deny the power of organic traffic to your website. SEO is used to bring in your organic traffic. Great content will allow you to rank keywords to bring in that high converting organic traffic.
Great content improves your SEO rankings. Writing top tier content gives you the opportunity to have a chance of ranking on the first page of Google and other search engines. You know why great content is still relevant today? It’s because great content is becoming more competitive. Every day that passes, millions of new articles are published. Competition is fierce. If you want to rank on the first page, you need great content.
How To Write Great Content For SEO
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the years, it’s the fact that you need to write for your reader and not for SEO. Kinda contradicts itself I know, but that’s fact. But I’m not referring to using your keywords in the title, URL, first paragraph and everything else you’ve learned to do. I suggest that you concentrate on making your content informative.
Here’s some great ways to make great content.
Make sure you use sub-titles and sub-headings. This serves a SEO purpose also, but having your content in sections helps the reader. You may have a lot of skim readers looking for main points. Try your best to be accurate with the sections and keeping them relative to each section. Nothing wrong with using bold words, just don’t overdo it.
Go into great detail on the subject. This is very important. Did you know that on average, the articles ranking on the first page have well over 2,000 words? This doesn’t mean that you have to write over 2,000 words, but rather it means to go into deep detail about your subject manner. Again, use your sub-headings, sub-titles, bullets. Keep your content clean and professional.
Make sure you do it better. More than likely, someone has written what you’re planning to write before. If they haven’t though, jump on it and get a great article published. But if it has been done before, better make sure you write it better. Include points and details that are not included in other articles.
Include images, graphs and statistics in your content. Some of the best resource articles that rank on the first page include several images and pictures per article. You can’t go wrong with adding pictures, diagrams and anything else that can give your reader value. I don’t use this technique as much as I should. I’ll be honest with you. However, it’s a great way to add value to your articles. When you can see it visually, it can make a big difference. Use it and use it often.
Give your reader the value they deserve for their time. This is big for me personally because I truly enjoy teaching. I’ve only been teaching SEO for a few years. I love helping others and I love the challenge of building success in anything that I do. I take great honor in my content, you should also. I want you to want to put out great content every time.
Strive to make your content great. I meet a lot of business owners that put up content just to have something there. I’ve met others writing 5 200 word articles a day. I know some that have hundreds of small articles with no purpose. Before you can ever rank first on Google, or other search engines, you have to give your content the opportunity to rank there. You can do that by writing great content.
Let your personality shine. Why this doesn’t have SEO value, your readers will be appreciative and it’s a great way to keep readers coming back. It can lead to referral traffic and leads. It can be hard to let your personality shine in words, but it can be done. And it connects you and your audience on a whole new level, one that can make great content even better.
This SEO strategy, you hear it all the time. It’s a SEO strategy many of us use. Who doesn’t use content? But until you use it correctly, you’ll never receive the full benefit and success that great content brings. It honestly takes practice. I’ve wrote thousands of articles in the past decade. I do my best writing now, but it takes practice. Practice makes perfect though. It’s not about the quantity of the content you publish, but the quality. And the quality needs to be at the highest level possible.
If you have a lot of old content, you can always go back to make it better. That is one big advantage you have for those of you that have been writing content with limited words. Any of you can refurbish old content to make it better.
I hope all of you that read this article understand content more. Great content is a powerful SEO technique when done correctly. And I guarantee, your results will improve.
