Google: Five Considerations for Search Traffic in Content Marketing
Brands now realise how important it is to get content marketing right. The digital age means there is a significant advantage to writing good articles and blogs and that can generate traction for your website.
There are various considerations to think about before writing content, and it’s essential to take search traffic and SEO into account. This article will address the topic further and look into things to consider.
1. Ensure you use popular search terms in your titles
If you don’t have much experience with online content, you may think the key is to write a catchy headline. It’s certainly true that this can work if your website is incredibly popular and your traffic is almost guaranteed. However, that’s not the case for many businesses, so it’s crucial to divert traffic from different sources.
Many brands will find that social media and Google work best for them. Therefore, you need to know that the topic for your content is compelling enough and then title it, so it’s clear what it’s about without giving too much away. One of the mistakes made is when search terms are not included or at least not in the right places. Generally speaking, your most significant search term goes right at the start and titles should be short and concise whenever possible.
2. Keywords are crucial but make sure your writing sounds natural
It’s easy to get carried away with keywords and think you must use them as much as possible. However, it’s only necessary to use your keywords a few times throughout your article and doing so more often has no real advantage.
Of course, this article is all about search traffic and getting the attention from Google that you deserve. However, it’s equally important to demonstrate excellent writing, and that means ensuring your content flows and sounds natural. The critical thing is when you include a keyword it should seem like it fits there, rather than you have deliberately added it for SEO purposes.
3. Trending topics aren’t always the way to go
The first point discussed the importance of ensuring your search terms are popular. However, that is not about looking at topics that involve short-term trends. Many writers check on these hot topics and write their content exclusively around them. Of course, this strategy can be haphazard.
The thing to remember is that there’s plenty of competition if you choose to do this and the traffic will probably only last for a short time anyway. Therefore, it all comes down to how long you want those page views to last for. The goal of engaging content is to ensure readers will continue to come back and read it for some time. Unfortunately, trending topics and breaking news doesn’t fit that strategy.
4. List content tends to be more popular when done well
Regular blog posts can come across as a bit bland, and they can lack excitement. Therefore, list articles may well be just what you need to spice things up. Also, they do allow you to create content that leaves a little bit of intrigue. It’s common for brands to develop list-style content and to continue sharing it over time.
The critical thing here though is to ensure your list content is not on a breaking news item that will get old quickly. Ideally, you want to write on a topic that will seem fresh whenever it’s read, but it’s also important to vary the types of blogs and articles you write.
5. Ensure some of your content relates to your business or products
It’s certainly true that consumers don’t like to read promotional material all the time and you want to keep a balance between good content and selling your services. However, Google searches can help you here. For example, mentioning your business name or products can drive users to your website, so it’s vital that you are doing that in some of your content.
Content marketing is crucial for nearly every brand irrespective of whether their core business is based online or not. However, writing useful content is about more than only stringing a few words together. It’s crucial to consider search traffic from Google and how that drives people to your website. Therefore, remember to include keywords in your titles, ensure your writing sounds natural, maximise long-term views, use list content, and ensure some of your articles relate to your business.