How To Use Content Marketing To Rank Higher

September 17, 2018 / SEO

Use Content Marketing To Rank Higher

If there are crucial keywords that you need your business to rank for, then content marketing is one of the most powerful strategies for helping you rank higher for those keywords in search engine results. Content marketing, however, is something that takes time and dedication if it is to be done successfully. Here, we’ll look at the important steps you’ll need to work through if you want to use content marketing to boost your keyword ranking.

  1. Create better quality contentGoogle’s primary aim is to provide its users with the best possible content. For this reason, the better quality content you create on your website, the higher it will rank. There are a number of indicators that the Google algorithm uses to ascertain the quality of your content, including the authority of the sites that link to yours and activities of visitors on your site.
    When creating high-quality content, your aim should be to help search engine users find the best solutions to their queries. You’ll need to answer questions, solve problems, give clear instructions or provide solutions. The longer they stay on your site and the more they like, share and link to your content, the better your chances of ranking well.
    Key factors in writing great content include making the post long enough to provide a detailed answer, making sure keywords are included in the text, title, URL, meta descriptions and headings, and that topic related words are used in the body of the text. You should also make sure that you focus on the topic of the post and that it is relevant to your audience.
    Basic writing features are also required, such as correct spelling and punctuation and the use of headings and sub-headings. If you use images, make sure they are of good quality and have descriptive alt-tags.
  2. Post quality content on other high-quality sites
    To build your authority, you need to get noticed in the right places and this means creating even more high-quality content. However, instead of publishing it on your own website, get it published on other high-quality sites but with links to your own site embedded.
    Sites that are worth trying to get guest posts published on include LinkedIn, Quora, Scribd and Huffington Post, however, there are many reputable sites out there, some perhaps more relevant to your market niche, that will publish well-written content.
    The value of these sites is that they are well respected by search engines and any links from them to your site helps increase your authority. When choosing a site to publish a guest post on, always check its Domain Authority score first. The higher the authority score (it goes from 0 to 100), the better. Do bear in mind that links to your site from low authority domains can have the opposite effect and sink your ranking completely.
  3. Vary your anchor text
    When linking from posts published on high authority sites to your own site, you need to make sure that you choose the right anchor text. Anchor text is the words which contain the link. Ideally, you want these to contain your keywords, however, you should make sure that you don’t always use exact match keywords (i.e. identical keywords) as this can make search engines become suspicious that you are using black-hat SEO techniques to generate higher rankings. Instead, you should make them similar by using alternative wording, for example, instead of writing ‘cheap coffee machine’ all the time, use alternatives like ‘low-priced coffee maker’ or ‘bargain coffee machines’.
  4. Use social media wisely
    When it comes to sharing your content on social media, bear in mind that the content you have guest posted on high authority sites is going to generate more authority for your website than its own content.
    For this reason, it is advisable to focus on sharing your guest posts before concentrating on your site posts. When you do this, the visits, likes and shares that the guest posts receive will send influential signals to search engines about the posts and, crucially, about any websites which they link to. In this sense, sharing your guest posts can help your website improve its authority and thus lead to higher rankings. Once this has been achieved, you can then start to share your own content, too.
  5. Repeat the process on a regular basis
    Old content becomes stale and out of date, which is why search engines like ranking fresh content. For this reason, you cannot sit on your laurels once you have a handful of guest posts on authority sites and a few pages of high-quality posts on your own.
    Once you’ve achieved this, you need to continue writing new content for your site and for publication elsewhere. You also need to keep sharing that content on social media to generate more traffic, likes and shares. Doing this not only keeps your content fresh, it also means you’ll expand the number of high-quality links pointing to your site. And each time a new one is added, it’s a signal to the search engines that your content remains relevant and is worthy of ranking highly.

Conclusion

As you can see, improving ranking through content marketing is not an easy task. You’ll need to create great content not only for your own site but also for other high-quality sites. And high-quality sites won’t accept second-rate content for publication, so it needs to be good. However, if you achieve this and use the right anchor text and social sharing techniques, you will improve your domain authority and see your site rank for the keywords which are so crucial to your company’s success.

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Author

  • Niraj Chhajed

    I'm a SEO and SMM Specialist with a passion for sharing insights on website hosting, development, and technology to help businesses thrive online.

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