We caught up with Mitchel White, Managing Director at Reward who discusses the benefits of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), how content can rank without links and how you can create content that ranks on Google.
When people think about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) they tend to think of link building and on page optimisation.
Whilst it’s true you need to have your on-page content optimised including things like H tags, meta data in place and a link building programme to increase rankings – it’s not the full story.
Content is and always has been king. Good quality content on your site is the foundation of SEO.
Content can rank without links
A quick read of top SEO blogs shows you lots of stories of people who’ve managed to get their site ranking without link building.
That’s good news for small business – link building can be pretty labour intensive and tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing.
But to rank without links – you need to get really good at content creation. Adding value to your audience is the key to success when it comes to SEO.
How can you create content that ranks on Google?
Blogging is the easiest way to create content that ranks.
Firstly, create a blog content plan.
Create content groups and themes to write about. For example at Reward we focus on Marketing and Design as two distinct content groups to write about. On your content plan you should also outline who each content piece will be read by and who the target audience is. This will guide your planning.
Your blog content plan also needs to include target keywords.
You can carry out your own keyword research using tools like Moz and SEMRush. Try to opt for keywords that don’t have much competition but have enough search traffic every month to be worthwhile writing about to drive traffic to your site.
Once you’ve got your content groups, target audiences and keywords together you have the bare bones of an SEO blog content plan.
You’ll need to write the headlines and decide when you’re going to post them. That will give you a deadline to complete the blog writing by.
Then the easy bit. Writing the content. Try not to focus too much on word counts, the evidence for a specific word count being preferred is minimal. The best way to rank is by writing about a specific subject your audience care about and helping them in some way with really helpful content.
Playing the long game
SEO isn’t an overnight fix for your business.
It takes time for Google to notice your content and rank it accordingly. There’s no exact science to when your content will rank. Some sites take weeks to get onto the first page, some take months. Some never make it.
The important thing is to keep consistent with your content – don’t over commit to producing content each month unless you’re working with an agency like Reward to produce your SEO content and boost rankings.
