Why content is an important part of an SEO marketing strategy

In a recent article, we looked at what an SEO content strategy is and the part it plays in a digital marketing campaign. Here, we look more closely at the importance of content in SEO marketing.

What is SEO marketing?

In its simplest form, SEO marketing is the process used as part of a digital marketing campaign to increase the number of visitors who arrive at a website via a non-paid-for, or organic, search engine result. It serves to increase not only the volume of traffic to a website, but also the quality of the traffic. The focus of content marketing is to create and share relevant, well-written content to attract customers. As all websites contain content in the form of product descriptions, instructional text, articles and interviews, an SEO marketing strategy will never yield maximum results without high quality content.

Quality content

Poorly written content that is produced for the sake of it, is counter-productive. As Google acknowledges content that will establish a website’s authority in its field, repaying that expertise by ranking the site higher in SERPs (search engine results pages), content needs to be relevant and be seen to answer the questions potential customers are searching for.

Keywords

Good content uses keywords people are entering into search engines so well placed keywords that target a potential audience will always rank more highly than content that is pointlessly saturated with them. An effective SEO strategy therefore needs to include keyword research that targets the correct audience and returns search volumes and competition for the keywords. Once these have been identified, they can then be embedded into the website’s content, a process vital for ranking well and boosting traffic. 

Brand awareness and reputation

Quality content that establishes your business as an expert in your field will attract more visitors as you move up the search result ranks. As you consistently add new content, so more visitors will be attracted to it and your brand awareness will grow. When content is relevant to your customers, when it speaks to them because it is driven by their interests and questions, then they will come to understand that your brand is one on which they can rely, because they can learn, be fulfilled, or be entertained by your content.

When Bill Gates wrote the speech that spawned the phrase ‘content is king’, he described the future of the internet as a marketplace for content, saying that “Content is where I expect much of the ‘real money’ will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.” (Bill Gates, 1996) A website with no content cannot feature keywords and give your customers a reason to visit, when people do not visit a site, Google cannot process any searches for it and your site will never rank. Content, then, is a vitally important part of an SEO marketing strategy and one that will result in increasing the organic visibility of a site, over time. This can be seen in Our Work with clients, with one website experiencing an increase in organic visibility of 1220% in one case.   

To discover how content and SEO can work together to create impressive results for your website, call us today on 01507 525500.