7 quick ways to use content marketing to boost search ranking

7 quick ways to use content marketing to boost search ranking

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Content marketing can be very effective in increasing traffic, generating leads, enabling sales – and contributing to SEO. So how can businesses use it to improve their search rankings?

When done well, content marketing can contribute to boosting a site’s position in search rankings.

Although this may not seem like the most obvious benefit to a successful content marketing strategy, it’s an effect that no business can ignore.

Here’s how to take advantage of your site’s content to rank higher in the SERPs.

1. Create fresh content

A site can never have enough content. There is always an opportunity to create new pieces of content, and the newness – or ‘freshness’ – of content is also one of Google’s ranking signals.

Content freshness as a ranking factor is not just judged by the publication date of the page, but can also include:

  • updates to the content
  • new pages
  • an increasing number of links towards a page
  • an increased level of traffic reaching the page

These criteria show that older posts can still be valuable, especially if they offer an in-depth analysis on a topic, are evergreen, or have been regularly updated to keep them relevant. Which leads us on to…

2. Repurpose old content

There’s no reason to ignore the older content you’ve published in the past, especially if it still gains a significant amount of traffic.

As content marketing evolves, it is more beneficial to go beyond the written posts to new formats that allow you to broaden your value.

That’s why repurposing content can help you analyse a topic in more detail, by allowing you to create multiple types of content without losing their value or becoming repetitive. This saves you time spent coming up with new content ideas, and also gives you a regular supply of fresh, valuable content to boost your ranking.

Screencap of the first slide in a presentation entitled: How to get more from Slideshare, super-simple tips for content marketing.
Going beyond blog posts, here are other types of content you could create from your older material:

Your target audience might be more receptive for example to infographics rather than a blog post, or you may discover that you can achieve higher conversion rates through a presentation rather than a podcast.

Every content type serves its own goal and as every audience has different needs, experimentation can be very useful, until you discover which formats work best for your business.

3. Test headlines

A headline is usually the first thing we notice when accessing a search engine, and this reminds us that a headline should be:

It may seem as if some of these points contradict each other, but the trick is in striking a balance between informativeness and length, or relevance and complexity.

Keywords can also be used as part of a headline, and this requires further planning on finding the best way to be SEO-friendly without sacrificing the flow of the headline.

Moreover, there’s a thin line between a click-worthy headline and clickbait, which is why it’s important to bear value to the reader in mind when creating a headline.

CoSchedule’s free headline analyzer is a very useful tool that can help you explore all the possible ways to improve your headline. Once you add your suggested headline, you receive a quick analysis, along with a score and…

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