What is content marketing and why is it so important to the SEO process?
Introduction
Okay, so you’ve had your website for quite a while, there’s one major problem with it, that is, well its not generating any new business.
So, you may have friends in business, that’s to say other business owners here in Cardiff, Wales, well they might have told you about “organic seo”- and why your business should invest, and your interested, yet when you go shopping around, and you contact a few Cardiff firms, they start to talk to your about backlinks, and content marketing, and this has you well, a bit confused, what on earth is content marketing?
Well, our agency thought we would write a rather detailed article, explaining what content marketing is, why its important to the organic seo process, why the work should be white hat, what Googlebot is, and how Google’s algorithm will often reward very high quality, white hat content marketing.
Tell me, what is content marketing?
So, in a nutshell, its often just what you are reading right here, that’s to say, helpful blog posts, main pages and guides, which a business has written, or its appointed marketing agency, to help improve the businesses seo, but here’s the thing, the main purpose should be to help your customers, so you have a low bounce rate, incoming good quality do-follow and no-follow backlinks, with white hat anchor text, and also the work must be well written, so that it follow’s Google’s EAT advice.
What is Google’s WebMaster Guidelines?
So, what are “Google’s Webmaster Guidelines?”Well, before you do any SEO work, you must understand these, that is, the work must be of high-quality, if its not, lets say the work is substandard, that’s to say, as an example, you hire the wrong agency, they don’t do a good job, then its entirely possible the business incurs a penalty.
So, its worth saying fairly early on in this article, that whichever agency you do hire, the work must be white hat, plus, it must also be completed in accordance with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
What does this mean, when my seo agency says the work needs to be indexed by Google’s algorithm?
Well, let’s say that your company has spent a huge amount of time writing a rather long piece of content marketing, you’re really happy it.
For example, let’s say that run a coffee business, you sell organic coffee online, and you’ve just written a rather long article, let’s say 2000 words, it explains how your company goes to great lengths to source your coffee, now obviously your going to want as many people as possible to ready the article, because it promotes your company, so for it be displayed in Google’s results, which SEO’s call the SERP’s, then the page will need to get indexed, so this means that Googlebot, which Google uses to “crawl and index” the web, will need to crawl that page, then bring the page into the index.
This is what is meant by indexing a page, your company should therefore make sure that all of the content marketing can be indexed.
Is organic seo a fast process?
No, it’s not, that’s the short answer, if you’re looking for fast results, an overnight solution, then organic seo most definitely is not the solution. It takes time, a great deal of it, that’s because let’s consider the business that’s number 1 in the serps, its there because it has the strongest ranking factors, which might have been the result of let’s say an SEO agency improving the businesses seo for that length of time, the business might have invested a lot, so to think such a business can be overtaken quickly, well that’s a mistake.
What does Google’s Sandbox period even mean?
New websites are thought to pass through a “Sandbox Period”, meaning that for these companies, the organic seo process takes longer, this is something that’s worth bearing in mind, if your business, has a brand-new website?
What does “Evergreen Content Marketing” mean?
Okay, so what exactly does Evergreen content marketing mean? Well, let’s say that you run a solicitor’s practice, your solicitors’ practice is based in Cardiff, your based in the city centre, and the services you offer will not change, this means that the web designers, and the seo agency, may write the text to describe say the “divorce” page, and this might not change for say the next 10 years, so its called “evergreen” because it stays the same for a very long period.
How is AI used?
When you talk to a lot of business owners, what they think is important when improving seo, well, a lot will instantly say backlinks, and content marketing, yet a lot less people will know about Google Rank Brain and how AI is now an important part of seo.
So how is AI used?
Well, its thought at our agency, that “bounce rates” and also how engaged someone is with your company’s website is important, we think AI measures this.
So, what do we mean by this?
Well, let’s say there are two businesses, they both start at the same time, now, one invests in an seo agency, yet the work isn’t very good at all, and the business both sell the same goods, that’s expensive running trainers.
Yet, business one, well it hires an seo company that writes content marketing about running shoes, yet with that said, the work is not very good, it has a very high over 90% bounce rate, the work doesn’t generate much conversation on social media, on Facebook, as the adds, that the digital marketing company, that the business hired, are not that engaging to the businesses audience.
Now, we think a business which has a super high bounce rate could sometimes be a strong disadvantage to some businesses organic seo, as what it can sometimes mean is that the shoppers are not interested in that company, so lets give you an example, lets say you know exactly which running trainers you want, you know you the brand, you just want to find a supplier.
Yet, you do have a few questions that need answering first, so you first visit one website, yet the web design is poor, it doesn’t have much of a product description at all, so that website has a very high bounce rate, of over 90%, we think that Google’s AI, that’s to say Google’s AI RankBrain might pick up on this, and might move the company down the SERP’s.
Now, oppose this to business two, lets say they hire a rather brilliant digital marketing company, like ours, now the web design and seo might be so good that the bounce rate is only 20% in comparison, Google’s RankBrain spots this, notices the ranking factors, such as the evergreen content marketing are good quality and moves the running shoe business up the ranks, so this is how we think AI, that’s artificial intelligence can be used, that’s to say, which businesses offer the best UX, that’s to say, which company has a lower bounce rate, yet with that said, you also have to bear in mind there are other seo ranking factors to improve, not just a companies bounce rate.
How does Google’s algorithm know if the work is quality or not?
We think there are many ways which Google’s Algorithm works to decipher whether the written work is quality or not, for example, lets say that you sell electric mountain bikes, well we think that Google’s algorithm will work to see how high the bounce rate is for your company, how many good quality do-follow and also no-follow backlinks the page has for example.
Are there many businesses investing in SEO, in Cardiff?
Most definitely, seo is not now for just large PLC businesses based in London, nope, businesses all over the globe, including here in Wales are investing in organic seo. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sole-trader, let’s say you run a window cleaning company, or instead you run a business online that sells millions of products out of your warehouses based in Cardiff, a lot of companies here in Wales, both small and large companies invest in seo, yet, its so vitally important that you only invest in top-quality white hat seo.
Why should we bother giving away information for free?
This is question that we get asked as routine as clockwork, that is, why does a marketing company, such as ours, take up so much of a marketing budget writing content marketing?
For example, lets say the business sells chocolate online, you sell real luxury chocolate, and you now want to hire seo companies, to help your company to sell more luxury chocolate, yet, in the first month or two, the company writes long articles, about what makes your chocolate such good quality, where its sourced, how you employ people to quality test the chocolate, and also to make sure consistently good quality, now, you might be wondering well, that’s thousands of words of text, that needs to be written by a copywriter, why go through all of this work?
Well, as any good agency will tell you, whether the seo company is in Cardiff Bay, or the business is in say St Mellons in Cardiff, they will tell you, that a really important to pay for good quality seo.
Make it interesting
Are there other parts to improving a businesses organic seo?
Why must the work be well-written?
What is Googlebot?
How long should my articles be?
How often should we be writing articles?
What does Google’s EAT mean?
So, I need to be an expert to write about it?
when you first visit your SEO company, they are likely to suggest that you invest in an SEO audit and also that’s the agency then writes a marketing plan.
Now within this marketing plan you might see that the agency mentions content marketing quite a lot.
Some agencies might breakdown of what work they are going to offer your business every single month, and you might see that a large percentage of your marketing budget is spent on content marketing.
However, as a business owner, you might not know what content marketing is.
You might also not know why your agency is dedicating so much time to writing content marketing.
This article is dedicated to explaining what “content marketing” is, why the work must be white hat.
What is content marketing?
So, we would say that the vast majority of the time, content marketing that is offered by an SEO company is often just written text like you are reading here.
However, this work needs to be completed in a white hat way.
Now what do we mean by completed in a white hat way?
Well, quite simply put, it’s really important that the content marketing is written in a white hat way, and by this we mean it must be high quality.
The work must follow Google’s WebMaster Guidelines, and this means that it must be white hat.
Far too many businesses, and far too many agencies fall into the mistake they think quantity is better than quality, this should never be the marketing strategy, instead the work must be quality.
If the work is not quality and it is not useful to the businesses customers then this simply means that the business may incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
So in a nutshell, content marketing must be white hat, it must follow Google’s WebMaster Guidelines and it must be useful to your businesses customers.
Now when we say useful, as the business owners or the marketing team that works within the company you will know the sort of questions that your business often get asked.
Now this presents a marketing opportunity, because if you simply answer those questions in a really good way, and your customers find this work useful then it is this high quality work that will help your business.
What is Google’s Algorithm?
Too many businesses, and also to many SEO companies make the mistake of thinking that if a direct competitor has 100 articles, they must write more than this and the SEO will succeed.
This is a flawed strategy if the article is being written on not white hat not quality.
We say this because too many businesses think that it’s all about quantity, when a matter of fact it’s about quality and it is Google’s algorithm which will decide if the work is quality not.
Therefore, it’s not just about quantity, and saying that your direct competitors add 100 articles written, that you must beat this total, it is far better to have say 10 articles which are really high quality, and this work is more likely to be rewarded by Google’s algorithm.
What you have to bear in mind is that low quality work, could incur an algorithmic penalty, if your business was to incur an algorithmic penalty and this is likely to drag your rankings down.
So instead of quantity, trying to produce as much work as possible, you must think about quality instead and you must think about the type of content marketing that your customers can find useful.
So, for example if you manufacture DIY tools, why not offer DIY advice on your website.
If you are a divorce solicitor, why not offer advice about the divorce process on your website.
If you sell dog shampoos, why not write articles explaining why your dog shampoos are simply Superior to many other products that are on the market.
So, what you have to do is not think about writing as many articles as possible, what you have to think about is what information will my customers find useful, and then aim to offer the best information that you possibly can.
If this work is good quality, and this is likely to have a low bounce rate, it’s also likely to attract good quality do follow back links.
New so for example let’s say that you manufacture dog shampoo, and the ingredients are going to your dog shampoo a completely natural and that you believe your product is superior to many other products which are on the market.
Why you must follow Google’s WebMaster Guidelines
All content marketing should adhere to Google’s WebMaster Guidelines, if the work does not, and it does not adhere to Google’s WebMaster Guidelines, then it’s entirely possible that the SCO work is deemed as low quality, and if it is deemed as low quality by Google’s algorithm, then it’s entirely possible that the business will incur what is called an algorithmic penalty or perhaps a manual penalty.
This means that the business has not followed “Google’s WebMaster Guidelines”, and therefore Google has issued either an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
Now obviously all businesses should avoid a Google Penalty, as the business could have its SEO negatively impacted.
For example, after an algorithmic, or a manual penalty, such as a “Google Penguin penalty” that’s issued by Google, the business could sometimes drastically drop down the ranks, or could possibly be removed from Google.
Why can the quality of content marketing vary massively now when you go out to various SEO companies, obviously you want to obtain a quote, yet let’s say you go out to 6 different SEO companies, you are likely to have six totally different quotes.
These quotes are likely to vary quite a lot as well, for example, where one company might put a quote forward for a few hundred pounds, another agency might play quote forwards that is £1000 per month.
Now as the business owner this might have you scratching your head, you might not understand why do these quotes vary so considerably?
And the reason for this is sometimes quality of the work can vary massively as well, for example where some companies might offer low quality work, another company might offer the best quality work.
And although price shouldn’t be the guiding factor in which agency you choose, you do have to make sure that you pick a company that is offering you as a business quality work.
Now if this quality work comes at a high price, we think it’s better to pay a fair price for SCO, that to partner with an agency which offers you substandard SEO and then results in the business incurring algorithmic or a manual penalty.
Now, a lot of business owners do not fully appreciate what an algorithmic, or a manual penalty will mean for the business.
That’s to say, some business owners might think that if a manual penalty or an algorithmic penalty is issued, that its not going to impact the rankings that much, however, if they think this they would be greatly mistaken.
If a business was to incur an algorithmic penalty or a manual penalty and this could have a massive impact on where the business ranks, for example the business might have been on page 1 of Google.
However, after a Google algorithmic penalty, or indeed a Google manual penalty, then the business might be greatly impacted, it may be fully removed from Google or the website could drop down multiple pages, for example where it might have been on page 1 it might drop down the page 11.
So, the work must always follow “Google’s WebMaster Guidelines” and be white hat
How some content marketing can improve your businesses SEO and some will not help to improve your businesses organic seo.
So here’s the thing, some businesses and indeed some companies believe that by adding blog posts for example, on a regular basis that this will improve the businesses SEO.
Now, it’s true, if the work is really good quality, then yes, this will help the business to improve its organic SEO.
However, so many businesses fall into the trap of writing what is called “content thin”articles and low-quality content marketing.
Now, what some business owners and some SEO companies do not appreciate is that they think that by adding this content marketing that is bit basic, that this will not damage the businesses SEO.
But it will, even if the business does not incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty, if the work is still low quality or just not the best, then this could still adversely impact the businesses SEO.
Why did we say this?
Well, some businesses just add low-quality content marketing, or content marketing which is content thin, this is likely to have a very high bounce rate, which will negatively impact the businesses SEO.
why you should only invest in quality
So, as you probably have already gathered we would only recommend that you
Algorithmic penalties
many companies will have incurred a Google algorithmic or perhaps a manual penalty, this is because the SEO work is low quality.
As we mentioned earlier on in this article, all of the SEO work should follow “Google’s WebMaster Guidelines”, when it does not ,then a business might incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
If the business incurs either an algorithmic or a manual penalty then the business could drop down the ranks.
So, this is why we always say that content marketing must be high quality.
So for example, let’s say that you run a business, and your business is located in Cardiff Bay, and you run a web design company.
Now obviously as a web design company in Cardiff Bay you will want your business to appear for web design companies and web design agency.
However to achieve this, you need to improve your businesses organic SEO, this means that you will need to add high quality content marketing
so for example a web design company might add articles about’s why WordPress is such a good option for many business owners that want to have a website built.
The following week, the web design business might write an article about how you should think about which “hex codes” that you are going to use on your website, so, that you can create a set of brand guidelines.
Manual penalties
you may also see here your SEO company talk about manual penalties, as because there are two main types of penalties they are algorithmic and manual penalties.
For example, a business that builds back links in the wrong way, for example they have a lot of low quality back links then the business might incur a manual penalty.
Why the work should be highly researched
So, let’s say that you run a business here in Cardiff which sells many electric cars, you might hire a local SEO agency, and obviously their task is to get your car dealership which specialises in electric cars to rank now on the first page of Google.
Now, in order to do this the agency might need to write a high quality piece of content marketing.
Example they might write a 4000 word article explaining the bestselling electric cars and they may also provide details for example about the range of each
electric car, also what the prices of it each electric car and also some of the features that the electric car has such as how long it takes to charge the battery for example.
Now obviously to write such a piece of content marketing is going to involve research, for example they may link to the electric car manufacturers website stop
So, if the marketing agency does do some research, for example, they are quoting the range of the electric car, they might wish to add a link to the car manufacturers website.
Why some SEO agencies can sometimes offer low-quality SEO work
So, some business owners do make the mistake of thinking that various SEO agencies all offer the same work.
They do not, so some companies will offer really good quality seo work, that’s the say they offer high-quality “white hat” work, but some companies do not, they offer low-quality seo work which means that your business could incur an algorithmic, or a manual penalty.
So, when you are picking between the various SEO companies, you have to pick a company that offers high quality SEO work.
What we mean by this is when you contact an agency for a quote, you shouldn’t just automatically picked the company which offers the lowest price, instead you should pick an agency which offers you the best quality work.
It is the best quality work which is the work that will improve your businesses SEO, therefore all SEO agencies do not offer the same work, some offer really good quality work and some offer low quality work
Why we would only recommend white hat work
We would only recommend investing in white hat SEO, so what we mean by this is that when you hire an agency to write your businesses content marketing they must make sure that they write it in a white hat way.
So, many businesses write the content marketing incorrectly, that’s to say, they may write the content marketing in a way where it could be deemed to be “keyword stuffed”- so, this basically means that let’s say for example you run a car dealership selling “electric cars”, the marketing agency might have mentioned “electric cars” too much, and instead of this improving the businesses SEO, it could actually mean that if it is done in the wrong way, so its not “white hat” work then this could mean that your business incurs an “algorithmic or a manual penalty.”
Why we recommend using a high word count
We would always recommend that each blog post that you add to your company website has a high word count, even though the work has a high word count it should still be quality.
For example, there is no point at all in writing a 10,000-word article, if the quality of the work is low.
So, for example, let’s say that you sell electric cars, there’s no point in writing a 10,000-word article about electric cars unless your businesses customers are going to find this work useful.
For example, you might write a 10,000-word article reviewing electric cars, but if it is really boring to read, then it might have a really high bounce rate.
If the work has a really high bounce rate then this is likely to negatively impact your businesses SCO, so you should balance writing a high word count, such as 10,000 words but quality also needs to be good.
So, for example one save quality needs to be good the work needs to be white hat and also needs to be useful to your companies’ customers.
So, for example you might write the 10,000-word article reviewing electric cars, but it is really interesting in that is offers a lot of statistics and it offers really useful advice the somebody who was thinking about purchasing an electric car then this work is likely to have a low bounce rate and because the work is really good quality and it is white hat is likely to earn back links.
titles, meta descriptions, meta titles, alt text, anchor text
So, when an agency is talking to a client about how they are going to improve that companies organic SEO, they will often talk about “content marketing”.
Why some SEO agencies use the content marketing work for outreach.
Why we think it’s a much better idea to earn backlinks.
Why you may wish to pick an SEO company that specialises in your business sector.
Blog
What is evergreen content marketing?
Why is a much better idea to opt for quality rather than quantity.
Why so many businesses make the mistake of “over optimisation”.
How our company can help
