It’s no secret – content marketing has become one of the most effective SEO tactics to enjoy higher rankings with the search engines, particularly Google. Users will be delivered fresher, more current results when they search, so it’s essential that you constantly keep your content “new” and fresh.
In the past, older, more established websites would often rank highly in the SERPS; now, it’s not unusual to find content that’s just days old ranking on page one for search queries. This is proof positive that Google’s top priority is delivering unique, valuable and fresh content to users.
So, how can you experience greater success through content marketing?
Make sure your content contains the publication date. Google pays attention to dates, and uses them to deliver the most recent information. It’s best to use a format such as YYYY-MM-DD, or “2012-07-11,” for instance. Try to include the date of publication beneath the title of your article when possible.
Blog. We can’t emphasis this enough! Blogging is the easiest way to provide fresh, unique content on a daily basis. True, some topics are tougher than others when it comes to writing content that is fresh every day, but you can build a community and have guest bloggers provide their own perspectives and ideas to keep things from getting stale.
Create content that really connects with your audience. Instead of crafting content that focuses on branding and information about your products, cast vanity aside and provide your audience with compelling, valuable content that sparks their interest and connects on a personal level.
Attract links naturally through great content. When you write content that engages your audience and publish it to your website or blog, your readers will share it through various platforms such as email, social media and even linking to it from their own blogs. Artificial link building isn’t effective anymore, but attracting links naturally because your content is useful and fresh shows Google your content is worth reading, and provides value to the reader.
If you’re still “stuck” in the dark ages when it comes to SEO, consider putting more focus on creating outstanding content. It’s almost a sure bet that you’ll enjoy better Google rankings!
