5 SEO FACTORS FOR CONTENT MARKETERS

1. High Quality Content

There is absolutely no substitute for high quality content. Gone are the days of throwing together keyword-dense blog posts, pointing a few internal links at them, and getting floods of search engine traffic.

SEO in 2013 is all about providing information that people are hungry for, and presenting it in an engaging, interactive way.

We’re seeing a trend towards longer, more information-rich blog posts. Find out what information people are looking for, and do your best to give a detailed, definitive answer, or a thoughtful, unique perspective on the topic.

Generating good quality content:

Plan ahead using an editorial calendar. If you know you’re going to be writing about something next week, you can start mulling over the topic today. Great ideas sometimes need time to settle and refine themselves.

See what topics are hot in your industry or niche. Keep up to date on popular blogs to see what topics are trending, and what gaps you may be able to fill.

Take a topic and dissect it. There’s a time and a place for ‘big picture’ posts, but many of the most successful pieces are detailed ‘how to’ type posts on very specific topics.

Research. Commit some time before you start writing to researching the topic chosen. Find out what industry experts think about the topic, and what the main streams of thought are.

2. Sharable Content

This should be a natural extension of producing high quality content. If your content is truly valuable, it is more likely to be shared, retweeted, and +1’d. How often your content is liked, shared, and mentioned is likely to play heavily in search rankings in the future. Although there’s still some debate about how important it is for current rankings, making sure your content is ‘share-worthy’ is always a good idea regardless.
Make it as easy as possible for your readers to share, like or retweet your content by including social share buttons at the end of each and every post.

3. SEO Basics

Some content marketers are moving away from implementing even basic SEO strategies, assuming that their excellent content will be good enough to achieve high rankings. And while good content truly is irreplaceable -- now more than ever -- don’t make the mistake of completely dismissing SEO in favor of content marketing.

Optimize your posts to the best of your ability. Include keywords that accurately describe or depict your content, use a descriptive title tag and subheadings, and accurately name and tag your images.

Have an accurate and current XML sitemap in place. Make sure Google is able to crawl each and every page and post on your site.

Make sure your site loads quickly.Load speed is definitely a factor in current search rankings, and is likely to become even more important in the future.

Do keyword research to make sure you’re writing what people are wanting. Keyword research is (and always has been) about figuring out what people are actually looking for. What’s the point in writing something no one’s ever going to care about? Before you write, find out not only what people are searching for, but what words or phrases they’re using when they search for it.

4. Google Authorship

The author was able to get his image displayed with his url, this is what’s known as Google Authorship, and although the jury’s still out in terms of it’s value for search engine rankings, many suspect it will be important for rankings in the future. There’s even a discussion on the concept of Author Rank whereby, the credibility of the author plays a role in how well your page ranks on Google.

In the meantime, there’s no doubt that having an image next to your posts is good for click through rate and building an immediate sense of familiarity and personability.

5. Diversified Links

Don’t rely on any one source of links to your site. It’s hard to imagine a time when external links won’t be important for search engine rankings; links are the foundation on which the web is built. Links act as recommendations to your business from third parties, and plays a key role in determining your company’s credibility and authority online.

Branching out and getting backlinks using multiple methods lowers your risks, and increases your chances of long term success. Pursue multiple high-quality link-building strategies, like guest posting, social sharing/links, content syndication, infographics, and testimonials.