How Content Marketing Can Help Boost Your Site’s Rankings

It’s no secret that Google uses hundreds of factors to rank websites in the search engine results pages it produces. While you’d be hard-pressed to find someone unaffiliated with Google who could tell you what all those factors are, some of them are very well-known. One of those factors is quality content. 

Google’s Guidelines for Quality Content

Over the years, Google and other search engines have changed the criteria that enables a website’s content to help it rank well in SERPs. Today, it’s no longer enough to have webpages stuffed with keywords to rank well. Now, search engines favor websites that have meaningful content that’s directly relevant to users’ lives.

As it has since its inception, Google strives to provide the best experience possible for people looking for information on the Internet. To do that, the search giant attempts to generate SERPs that include results that match a user’s intent the closest.

With so many SEOs trying to figure out how to get their sites to rank well in SERPs in the current digital landscape, Google created a set of guidelines you can follow. Here are Google’s recommendations for creating content that has the chance to rank favorably in SERPs:

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
• Don’t deceive your users.
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
• Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.

The Elements of High-Quality Content

While following Google’s guidelines can certainly help your content leverage your rankings in SERPs, you can do more to improve where you site lands in search engine results pages. More specifically, you can make sure your webpages have some key elements, including relevant keywords, timely updates and metadata.

Relevant Keywords

Even though keyword stuffing is considered a black hat SEO tactic, it doesn’t mean you should avoid using keywords altogether. Rather than using random keywords, you need to select keywords that are relevant to the topic you’re writing about as well as the interests of your target audience. With voice search becoming increasingly popular, it’s often wise to focus on a handful of long-tail keywords and to include them in title tags.

Content Updates

For Google to consider content relevant, your material has to be fresh. In addition to publishing new content regularly, you should make it a point to update your existing content often.

Metadata

To put it simply, metadata is information that explains what other data is all about. As it relates to webpages, metadata appears in SERPs and gives people a preview of the information they’ll encounter when they navigate to a given page. That is, metadata will do that if you take the time to provide this information. At a minimum, you should fill out the meta title and description for every one of your webpages, and  include a keyword in each.

A New Day for Content Marketing

Clearly, a new day has dawned for content marketing. If your business needs help navigating this digital landscape, connect with our experienced SEO agency based in Vancouver, WA. We offer a full suite of traditional and digital marketing services that can help your content rank well in SERPs and make your business stand out from the pack.

To learn more about our marketing services, contact NW Media Collective Inc. today!