What does “high-quality” content marketing even mean?

You may have noticed that on your competitors websites, that they have a section on their website called a “blog” or the “article” section?

Within this article we are going to talk about what content marketing is, and why so many businesses invest their marketing budget in this.

So, it doesn’t matter if you sell camping gear like tents online, or you are selling high-value sports cars, most companies want to be on the first page of Google’s SERP’s (The Search Engine Results Pages) and to do this you need strong SEO ranking factors.

To have stronger ranking factors than some of your direct competitors, then you often need the skill of a respected white hat SEO agency. However, you have to pick the right agency here in Cardiff, South Wales, hire the right one, they can simply get your business to the top of Google, hire the wrong one, well they may implement rubbish, low-quality seo, which could mean your business incurs a massive penalty!

This article is going to explain why a lot of agencies spend so much time writing content marketing, we will also explain why this work must be “white hat”.

We are also going to explain why the content marketing work must be:

·        High-quality (White hat)

·        Researched (Include sources)

·        Written by an expert

·        Contain on-site SEO in a white hat way

·        Have a sufficiently high word count (400 words no longer cuts it!)

·        Should include facts and figures

·        Must be indexable (Googlebot)

·        Must be well written

 

You start to go through these blog posts, you might notice that they go back many years, and on each article there is a lot of text, for example some articles might be over 10,000 words in length.

Now obviously to write a long article, for example an article that is 10,000 words, that is going to take a lot of time and effort, if it is written so that it is high quality.

So as a company owner you might be wondering well, why is the business going through this effort to write so much text?

While quite simply put, often it is written by an SEO agency, and the aim of the work is to improve the businesses organic SEO.

Now, what’s important to note is that a lot of companies want to rank on the first page of, however it is only the businesses with the strongest SEO which are ranked on the first page.

Now to rank on the first page, you need to improve your businesses organic SCO, and to do this you need to improve the strength of your businesses ranking factors.

Now obviously a lot of businesses will not have the expertise to do this in-house, so often a white hat agency or an SEO consultant is often needed in order to improve the businesses SEO.

Therefore, what is needed is a company which can improve the ranking factors, and to do all of this work in a white hat way, therefore you need to partner with a quality white hat agency which is able to build quality backlinks, improve the on-site SCO such as the meta titles and meta descriptions, improve the off-site SEO by building backlinks in building business citations for example.

Now an integral part of the SEO process is to write what is called content marketing, this work must be white hat, it must be well written, it must be researched.

This is obviously going to take a lot of time and effort, needs to be done right, and it if it is white hat it can help to improve your company’s SEO.

However, if it is not white hat then it could mean that your company incurs an algorithmic penalty.

 

It’s a question that’s as old as the hills, okay well not quite, but it is a question that digital marketing agencies get asked a lot- that is what qualities make content marketing “high-quality”?

As after all the description “high-quality” is a rather subjective one- it can be used to describe anything from a used car through to food you buy at the local supermarket- yet that doesn’t help someone who’s trying to figure out how to write “high-quality content marketing”.

So here at Adore we thought that we would be super helpful, and that’s by writing down a few things that we think you should think about when you are writing a blog post for your company’s website:

And if you’re in a bit of a rush, or turbo charged through drinking too much coffee, well here’s some bullet points on what we think needs to go into your content marketing for it to be deemed as “high-quality”:

·        Must be white hat

·        Well-written

·        Researched

·        Written by an expert on the subject

·        Have outward bound backlinks to where you sourced the information, for example, if you read a statistic on the BBC’s website, then you should link to that page using anchor text and an outward-bound backlink

·        Should have a high word count, we believe a blog post shouldn’t be below 500 words

·        Should not have the keywords that you wish to rank for repeated too much

·        Must follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

·        Should have a title

·        Should have H1-H6 tags

·        Should have a meta title

·        Should have a meta description

·        Should use alt text

#1 Is content marketing still king?

The short answer to this question is yes, most definitely.

However, with that said, here’s the thing, every year so many digital marketing agencies come and go, that’s because they may fail to implement quality white hat SEO.

Sure, some of the work will be white hat, but that’s like saying “our cars just about meet the standards that are applicable in order to sell our vehicles in Europe- they do not aim to exceed the standards set”.

Now if you were thinking of buying that brand of car, well, would that statement inspire much confidence for you to purchase that car?

It applies that the company does the absolute minimum required in order to be able to sell the cars, when people will be looking for quality and car manufacturer that aims to excel, beat the competition, and offer a product that you want to own because it’s a quality product.

Well, this is exactly the same when it comes to content marketing, that’s because so many digital marketing agencies just produce content to tick a box, that’s to say that piece of work is done, let’s bill the client!

That’s to say a copy writer may well be tasked with writing 2000-3000 words a day, and they do just that, write to hit a word count.

Yet this will never work- think for a second of Google’s algorithm, it will be able to supply millions of different businesses to supply an answer to a question- now why would it serve a business that doesn’t put much effort into answering the question?

Well exactly it wouldn’t.

That’s why your content marketing must aim to be the best, and by this we mean:

·        Expertise- are you an expert on the subject? Well make sure that this is shown when you write the article

·        Sources- where did you source the information, is there a perspective that you have noted in your article, say by a journalist, well why not link to their work?

·        Effort- has enough effort been exerted to answer the question to a good standard? I.e will the reader walk away happy they got an answer to their question?

So here’s the thing, when your writing a piece of content marketing, you really shouldn’t be thinking of improving your SEO at all.

We here you gasp- and shout, well why not- that’s the whole point right?

No, its not, the whole point is to supply a quality answer to a question, so that the person who reads your article thinks that it really helped them.

And then this will help your seo, because that person may link to the work, the bounce rate for your website may well be low, plus your whole website may start getting quality backlinks, as your business becomes a source of quality information.

So, for example let’s say that you sell car parts, but if you have a really good blog section on your website, or an area that offers advice, on say how to change the oil on your car, then this may attract backlinks.

If these backlinks are good quality, Google’s algorithm will spot this, it will notice that you  have possibly hundreds, if not thousands of good quality backlinks, and this could really help to improve your company’s seo.

#2 Search Quality Rating Guidelines

Whether you run a large digital marketing agency, or you’re a sole trader thinking of working on improving your businesses search engine optimisation, the Search Quality Rating Guidelines are most definitely worth a read.

So grab a coffee and have a read before you start to write that 2000 word article!

#3 High-quality and informative

So let’s say you run an employment solicitors practice, and you want to manage your SEO inhouse, so all your solicitors are flat out busy, so if one solicitor quickly writes a 300 word article which offers some insight into the company, and how the company is growing in terms of taking on new staff, attending award ceremonies, and also writing a bit about the employee of the month, that’s enough right?

That will improve the businesses seo?

Well, we would answer that with a big fat massive NO!

Your customers are not going to care too much about that, instead they will have questions, and you should answer these questions, and how do you do that?

Analyse commonly asked questions, for example if you run an employment law practice, you may write a detailed article that is titled, “how can I prove I am being bullied in the workplace”– that’s a question that employment solicitors may get asked a lot, so why not create a really detailed article explaining how an employee can do this?

People will then want to read this article, and if its high-quality, then this could improve your businesses SEO.

That’s to say the article may gain backlinks, plus also your business may have a low bounce rate, Google’s RankBrain and Google’s algorithm may then spot this good SEO work, and your business may go up the ranks.

#4 EAT Expertise, Authoritative, trustworthiness

This returns us back to our previous point, the days where a digital marketing agency can write 300 words of complete nonsense in the vague aim of improving your businesses organic seo are most definitely over.

Google’s algorithm is now very sophisticated, it will know if the work is quality or not.

And how does it do this?

Well, that’s a good question, here’s what our SEO agency in Cardiff thinks about how Google’s algorithm works out if the work is good quality or not:

·        Entities- does the article talk about known entities, if so, are the facts correct? Such as the date an event occurred, such as when a new algorithm roll-out occurs?

·        Bounce rate- has the website got a low or a high bounce rate?

·        Internal links- does the article link to other articles, so does the business talk a lot about a subject, such as a business that sells bikes, do they write a lot about mountain biking

·        External backlinks- does the business link out to websites where they obtained quotations or lets say a statistic?

·        Is the website easy to use, i.e is it responsive?

·        How many good quality backlinks lead to that page?

·        What’s the word count, is it high?

#5 Mobile friendly?

This point is worth making really quickly, some businesses stick with their website, even though it is very old, well, you have to make sure that the website is mobile friendly and responsive, as if your website does not work on mobile phones, well, your seo efforts may well be wasted.

#6 White hat?

All SEO work must be white hat. All work that your marketing agency offers, or that your business does to improve your seo must be white hat.

If your seo work is not white hat, then your business may incur a penalty. There are two main types of penalties, algorithmic and manual, an example of an algorithmic penalty would be a Google Penguin penalty– your business should avoid getting any type of penalty.

An algorithmic, or a manual penalty will mean that your business could be removed from Google, or your website could drop, and by drop we mean move from page 1 to page 10, so you really do have to make sure that all work is high quality.

#7 How our digital marketing agency can help

If your business requires help to improve its organic SEO, then why not call us?

We are a marketing agency that’s based in Cardiff, we work with businesses from right across the city, that’s from Cardiff Bay right through to Roath, so why not give us a ring?

#8 Why not give us a call?

Why not give us a call today?

/by