Most businesses may have heard of the term SEO but don’t know exactly what it is or may think it’s just a buzzword. The truth is SEO or search engine optimization is a necessary marketing tactic for any business with a web presence. Successful SEO drives more customers to your website and should get your business more leads. 

There is a multitude of ways to improve your SEO, including through technical changes, but one of the most important and effective is through a proper content strategy. Content and SEO go hand in hand. Google and other search engines judge your website based on the content on your pages. 

With users now researching businesses and products more than ever before, it’s no wonder content marketing has become such a powerful tool. Here are ten ways a proper SEO strategy can improve your content. 

1. Rank higher on Google 
2. Gives your content credibility 
3. Drive more traffic 
4. Drive quality traffic
5. It makes your content look better  
6. It’s free 
7. It’s a long-term investment 
8. It’s trackable 
9. Creates a better user experience 
10. You may avoid a lawsuit

1. Rank higher on Google

When investing in a content strategy, you want your content to be found. While some readers may find your content by directly landing on your website, social media, or even email, if your content isn’t being found on Google, you’re missing a huge opportunity. 

The best way to ensure this happens is to have content that ranks highly. Ranking highly takes more than just a well-written piece of content. You’ll need keywords, backlinks, and other important factors to make sure you reach the top spot. 

When ranking on Google, you’ll want to aim to be in the top ten results. Being in the top ten nearly ensures you’ll be on the first page of SERP results. Why does being on the first-page matter so much? Well, that’s because over 90% of users don’t click to the second page to find their answers.

2. Gives your content credibility

Let’s be honest, ranking highly on Google looks great for a business and helps build credibility with your audience. Google algorithms do an excellent job of filtering out spam websites from their results. 

For the most part, users trust Google to provide reliable and safe results. Users are correct in thinking this way, as Google has over 200 different ranking factors to determine SERP results.

Most users don’t know that Google has so many ranking factors, but they trust the content they see on the first page. Customers want to work with businesses with a strong and trustworthy web presence; SEO can help build the credibility your business needs to bring in new customers.

3. Drive more traffic

If you ask any SEO professional what’s the main objective of SEO, you may get a lot of different industry answers. But at its core, the main goal of SEO is to drive more organic traffic to your website. When SEO is done correctly, and as part of a content strategy, you should see your organic traffic start to increase. 

Increases won’t happen overnight, but given an extended period of time, you should see organic traffic start to increase. The industry average to see improvements is around six months. With adequately done SEO, you can expect website traffic to increase on average between 10% to 20% year over year.

4. Drive quality traffic

It’s not enough to just drive more traffic; you also want to drive more quality traffic. We want your content to target users looking for your service or product. That’s why it’s important that you put time and effort into keyword research as you develop content for your website. 

Keywords are the terms or phrases that users are going to type into Google when searching for a product or looking for an answer to a question. Finding the right keywords is crucial in making sure your content is being found by the right users. Not all keywords are the same, and Google results can vary greatly between searches.

A content strategy has to involve keywords, and your marketer needs to have an in-depth understanding of the current layout of SERP results. By combining quality content with SEO, customers will have an easier time finding your business.

5. It makes your content look better

SEO isn’t just about keywords and technical aspects — the appearance of your website and content also play a large part. Google and users like content that looks professional and is easy to scan. The truth is, most users aren’t going to read your entire webpage no matter how well it’s written; users are going to scan pages quickly, looking for the information. 

By incorporating SEO best practices into your content, you’ll be able to capture the eye of these users and keep them on your content longer. There are a few ways we use SEO to improve the appearance of content:

1. Headers 
2. Mobile-friendly formatting 
3. SERP result appearance

Headers

Headers help break up large chunks of content and divide content into sections. By properly using headers, your content will be easier for users to scan. Headers are also an excellent place to use keywords. By using keywords in a header, you emphasize to Google it’s a word or phrase you consider essential.

Mobile-friendly formatting

In the last few years, mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic. A majority of users now use their mobile phones to surf the internet. Your websites need to adjust to these changing trends, and that means having mobile-friendly formatting. 

Mobile-friendly formatting means keeping your sentences and paragraphs short. You’ll want to keep your sentences under 15 words and your paragraphs to two long sentences or three short sentences. 

Not only does a mobile-friendly format look great to users, but it also looks great to Google. Google gives priority indexing to websites with a mobile-friendly formatting.

SERP result appearance

The first appearance most users get of your website is in SERP results. In SERP, they’ll get a limited view, including your URL, title tag, and meta description. If any of these elements do not look visually appealing, users are less likely to click through to your website.

By using SEO best practices, you’ll ensure all of these elements match Google’s guidelines. Not only will these elements add value to your SEO strategy, but they’ll also look appealing to users.

6. SEO is (pretty much) free

There are plenty of forms of digital marketing, including PPC or paid advertising on Google. Along with SEO, PPC is one of the few forms of marketing you can do to influence search results.

PPC has some significant benefits, including getting results quickly. However, it’s expensive, and campaigns budgets can easily spiral out of control. 

SEO, on the other hand, is technically free. You’ll pay for the services of an SEO professional, but with SEO, you’ll never need to worry about campaign budgets. Most businesses work with an SEO professional to agree on an hourly rate and number of hours per week or per month.

Even a small amount of SEO can fit into nearly any business’ marketing budget and can have long-term impacts.

7. Content with SEO is a long-term investment

Some marketing tactics lead to quick wins, but the investment can be short, expensive, and not bring in the long-term gains your business is looking for. Content with SEO is a long-term investment that continues to have impact months and possibly even years after the content goes live. 

If you want to have the most success with your SEO strategy, you must think of SEO as a long-term investment. Working with an SEO and Content Specialist, your business will make changes and updates throughout the year to stay atop the rankings and improve traffic. 

These changes may include technical fixes, element updates, and of course, publishing fresh content. If you’re willing to treat SEO as a long-term investment, you’ll see organic traffic levels increase, better brand awareness, a higher amount of leads, and more.

8. SEO is trackable

Not all marketing is easy to track or judge the success of, but with SEO and the right tools, you can clearly track progress. To properly track the success of your SEO, you’ll need a few things:  

1. Google Analytics
2. Google Search Console 
3. An SEO tool like SEMrush or Moz 
4. A marketing specialist to tell you what you’re looking at.  

Google Analytics and Google Search Console are both free tools that provide crucial information on the state of your SEO efforts. With Google Analytics, you can easily track how many users are coming to your site, how long they’re staying, and compare information over an extended period of time. Google Search Console gives some similar information but can also tell you about keywords and important technical issues.  

Any SEO professional you talk to should have a litany of paid tools to use. Two of the most common tools in the SEO industry are SEMrush and Moz. Both tools are used for keyword research, technical scans, and many other SEO tasks, but they are also powerful reporting tools. 

For example, SEMrush can track keyword growth, backlinking, authority score, and keep track of tech scores over time. When interviewing an SEO or Content Specialist, don’t be afraid to ask what tools they use to track performance and success.

9. Creates a better user experience

Google is always updating its algorithms and ranking factors. These consistent and often significant updates cause SEO to constantly be changing. One of Google’s most recent updates is focused on user experience. 

SEO in the past may have been primarily focused on answering questions and content, but user experience has started to play a more significant factor in rankings. One of Google’s most recent updates, the core web vitals update, was almost exclusively focused on user experience.

Making sure elements load correctly, quick loading speed, a website that works correctly, and more, all influence user experience. A better user experience not only improves rankings but also increases your amount of leads and the time spent on your website.

10. You may avoid a lawsuit

Not all users can use a website the same way. Users with disabilities have to use your website differently. You must consider these users when building web pages and maintaining a website. 

Major brands and companies have faced lawsuits for not having websites accessible to disabled customers. A court found that Domino’s Pizza violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by having a website that was not fully accessible to a blind customer. 

Proper SEO will ensure that some of the most important aspects of accessibility are addressed; this includes alt-text. Alt-text is a small amount of text that goes with every photo and is used by users who rely on reading software to view a website. 

By using an SEO Specialist, you can also learn more about what accessibility software is offered. Some software may not be necessary and can add a significant amount of load speed to your site. 

How to start your SEO journey

Now that you know some of the benefits of SEO, you might be wondering how to get started on your own SEO journey. The truth is there are plenty of how-to articles, Youtube videos, and free tools that claim they can help build up your SEO. 

However, you shouldn’t rely on these articles and tools to implement a full SEO and content strategy. Instead, you need to find a professional and experienced SEO Specialist. 

Agencies, free-lancing job boards, and even through networking are all a great way to find the right SEO Specialist for you. When searching for an SEO Specialist, don’t be afraid to interview them and ask questions. 

Not all SEO Specialists are built the same. Some Specialists focus more on content, while others may be more tech-oriented. You may find SEO Specialists specific to your industry as well. 

Here are a few questions you may want to ask during the interview: 

• What tools do you use? 
• What do the first three months together look like? 
• What are the first steps? 
• What do you need from our business to be successful? 
• Have you worked in this industry before? 
• Can you tell me about past results you’re proud of? 

Even if you don’t know a lot about SEO, these simple questions can help you find the right SEO Specialists for you. 

If you’re a business that has been thinking about investing in marketing, SEO, or content, now is the time. Every day more and more users turn to the internet to find information and new businesses. If you aren’t targeting these customers, you’re missing huge opportunities to grow your business. Contact us today to learn more about our SEO and Content offerings.