Here’s how your business can utilize content marketing to bring in more much-needed web traffic.

What’s the first thing you need when you need information online? Yes, search engines.

In a land before search engines, we saved a list commonly visited website URls. Ya know, just in case we forgot the URL.

Then, what happened?

Sort of.

Search engines, actually.

They made our lives easier by crawling, indexing and retrieving the websites we now know and love. All we have to do is to go to the search engine page, type what we want and Viola! Information.

In fact, we use search engines so much that it’s hard to imagine living without it. We use it to look up word definitions, look for directions, get suggestions on where to go for dinner, how to make dinner, etc.

Searches have now evolved to become more conversational like “How big is the sun?” or “Why is the sky blue?”

Just decades ago, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN were used to search for specific pages rather than content. For example, in the past, Google was used to search for the site “MSN messenger download”.

So how does content marketing come into play to accommodate the shift in searching behaviours?

Before answering this question, let’s study some mistakes made by companies when employing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Keywords are what helps search engines bring searchers to websites. That’s why some marketers resort to black hat SEO techniques to bring their rankings up in the results.

Using unrelated keywords in website content is an example of black hat SEO techniques.

Like this:

”Clint Eastwood uses our good washing machine to clean the ugly stains. What a bad boy.”

Others such as cloaking, link exchanging, duplicating content are some of the common black hat SEO techniques that can harm your Google ranking.

Google is constantly improving their algorithms. And it’s giving black hatters a major headache. Almost certainly, websites with unethical content presentation will be dropped faster than you can say content marketing.

On the other hand, businesses that practice proper content marketing and ethical SEO optimization techniques, also known as white hat SEO techniques, see an increase in website traffic and rankings on search engines.

So let’s talk about how you can garner web traffic with these 5 content marketing tricks.

Putting on your white hat

Write for the people

This is probably why you’re doing content marketing anyway.

Before creating any content, work on your target audience.

Who are they? What do they like? How do they use the internet? What are their interests?

You get the drift.

Next, work on answering their queries, solving any potential problems you think they might have.

What do people use search engines for? Yes, they search for answers. Identify their questions, then you can be the provider of answers.

Write for the bots

Effective content is only 50% of the battle won.

Contents need to be picked up by search engines too. Think of it as passively increasing your web traffic while you’re asleep or offline.

Now we all know bots read more than just the visual content. They read the scripting elements of your webpage. Which is good news! That means we are able to apply semantic elements in our scripts.

Semantic elements in HTML5 such as <article>, <h1>, <form>, <table>, gives meaning to section of your content and allow bots to provide better links to your webpage.

Including semantic elements in your scripts, searches such as “articles on semantic scripting” will have a higher chance of producing search results with <article> semantic element in their scripts.

Technical jargons, blah, blah, blah…

That’s why, pay your developers well. They know what to do.

Oh, pay your writers well too.

Using loads of synonyms can help place you higher on the ranking results.

Because repeating exact keywords in the content can be viewed as spamming. And Google will penalize websites for that.

E.g.

<section>

<h1> Increasing organic web traffic</h1>

<p>Content marketing, a proven strategy for increasing web traffic</p>

</section>

<article>

<p>Let’s learn how to apply ethical content marketing when writing online. Content marketing is not only good for garnering readers’ interest, it can also help to increase organic web traffic using SEO techniques and enriching content.</p>

</article>

Thus, linking search words such as “increasing web traffic”, “gaining readers’ interest” and “articles on getting more web traffic”, to your page.

In short, search engines are already in place to help you grow your business.

You just need to put on your white hats, load content with semantics, write content that provides answers for your target audience and simply wait for the bots to pick it up. It’s that simple.

Using Social Media

We repeat this so many times but it’s so necessary: social media alone is not the answer to business growth. And guess what, neither is it the answer to more web traffic.

But because search engine spiders now track your content’s results on social media, it somehow makes an impact on the rankings.

Why somehow?

Because your content still constitutes as the major search engine ranking factor.

How should you make your content viral? Longer forms of content that evokes emotions or provide a certain level of amusement can be potential viral material.

So start getting those brain juice flowing.

Be like Sun Tzu

Before you pick up your pen to start writing, let’s talk about some content strategy.

It’s somewhat fun, somewhat troublesome.

To get started, you need to ask and answer a couple of questions.

Okay, maybe more than a couple. It’s 48 of them. But they’re all essential.

They are designed to know your brand’s position, set the future content direction, establish your target audience, etc.

Let’s do a complete example (saves a whole lot of explanation).

See? When you have the answers to the right questions, you’ll have a direction.

Work with your content strategy, use search engines and social media to your advantage and you’ve a few things less to worry about.

Good ol’ internet mailbox

What happens when content on social media moved too fast? Or when search engines don’t find your content fast enough?

Emails.

Emails are direct, personalized and communicative. Especially towards existing leads.

Existing leads don’t have to deliberately go on social media to see your content. It’s also a good way to say hello.

To increase web traffic, link the email content to your website. Be it a coupon, subscription discount or newly added content, they’re all opportunities to boost traffic.

Tip: Be creative and less spammy when creating the email subject—make your readers click on it than send it to trash.

In conclusion

Every piece of content count.

Use pictures and hyperlinks to improve the quality of your content. Do your best and let search engine and social media handle the rest.

Oh yes, before I forget, ranking does not equate to organic web traffic.

Some companies use ranking as their content marketing KPI (Key Performance Indicator). It’s a good start, but if your audiences are not interested in the topics, they won’t visit your site.

The takeaway? Make your content timeless and of value so it stays relevant even after eons. Ranks change everyday, but good contents are what pulls in the traffic.