Last Updated on May 22, 2020
This article was written as part of the SEMrush Big Blogging Contest.
Be it a blogger, website owner, startup, small business or a global brand, everyone wants their site or content to be listed on the first page of search engines because of course, they are aware of the perks of ranking higher on SERP’s. Nobody wants to leave millions of traffic unclaimed on the table and therefore is doing whatever it takes to tap the free organic traffic.
We’ll talk about the perks further in the post before that its best you understand, What is Organic Search Ranking?
The search results returned by the search engines that are an exact or similar match to the search query or keyword/s entered by the users without paying or running an advertisement on the search engines is known as Organic Search Ranking. These results are the most relevant and helpful for the searcher according to the search engines, hence is also called ‘Natural’ search results.
On the other hand, if you bid for showing your website as a result when a user enters certain search queries or keywords related to your product or business, it is termed as Paid Search Ranking.
Organic search can turn out to be the most valuable marketing channel in the digital marketing strategy of your business once you master it. In fact, Search is the number 1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300%.
One of the best and most effective ways of driving targeted traffic to your site is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
For those who don’t know what SEO is, here’s a brief definition;
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique of making your website or content ‘Search Engine Friendly‘. This simply means that you use certain methods to rank your website as high as possible on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) in order to attract high traffic on your website. SEO is all about optimizing your website as per the needs and requirements of search engines to get in their good books. SEO is divided into two broad categories i.e. On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.
There are many useful SEO tools available on the market that can help you optimize your website for search engines.
Not to forget, generating organic views through SEO is a long term game and shouldn’t be mistaken as a ‘Get Rich Quick Scheme’. It requires a lot of effort, energy, money, and of course time to make this strategy work.
Nowadays, businesses are more impatient than ever and want instant results no matter if its short term. Maybe that’s the reason, many online businesses don’t include SEO in their marketing plan.
SEO is a marathon, so don’t treat it like a sprint.
Now let us list a few benefits of being on the first page of search engines, organically:
#1: Boost in Organic Search Visibility
According to BrightEdge, 50.1 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search, 10 percent from paid search, 5 percent for social, and 34 percent from all other sources.
Search engines are still the largest driver of organic traffic to websites.
Search Engine Watch says websites that are on top grab 36.4% of the traffic that lower ordered sites miss.
Can you imagine the amount of exposure and reach your business will get if you manage to get a spot in the top 10 search results. Maybe in the top 3, even better. All that for FREE.
#2: Increase in Traffic to your Website
It goes by no surprise that better search rankings result in a jump in traffic to a website. More and more keywords you’ll rank for, a number of people will start visiting your website.
According to Hubspot, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. So in order to get a chunk of this traffic, you should aim for the first page with better content.
#3: Build Brand Authority and Trust
Once you start featuring on the first page of search engines for queries related to your industry often, this will send a signal to search engines like Google that your content is relevant and is liked by its users.
This, in turn, will help increase the reputation of your brand and build brand authority in your industry.
People are more like to purchase from a business that they trust or one who is a leader in the industry.
#4: Boost in Engagement
Visitors coming through search engines are more likely to engage to your content as their intent is clear and exact and are actively looking for a solution.
They already know what they are looking for and if your related content is pushed by search engines to this traffic, it will result in a boost in engagement and eventually help your site in attaining user satisfaction.
#5: Better Conversion Rate
Since the majority of the traffic landing organically on your site is targeted, its easier to convert them into paying customers. The journey from the awareness stage to the consideration stage and all the way up to the decision stage is less impediment.
#6 Better ROI
Search Engine Marketing unarguably is the most economical and profiting means of marketing for a business. The return on investment (ROI) is huge and impeccable. Once you start seeing the results there is no ending to your surprise.
Since SEO is an inbound marketing process, the cost per acquisition is low.
The organic search results even outshine the paid search results when it comes to getting a high click-through- rate. People still trust the organic search results way over paid results.
Having talked about the importance of organic search and organic visitors it would be appropriate now to discuss the factors that make a website rank higher on the search engines.
Well, search engine giants like Google and Baidu hire a team of highly qualified mathematicians, data scientists, coders, software engineers and more to get the search algorithm developed and keep updating it from time to time.
So there are a very few chances of breaking into their algorithms and finding the exact ranking factors that these search engine companies use to rank sites.
But having said that, there are times when companies like Google releases articles explaining some of their ranking factors.
Not just Google, but webmasters around the globe keep on experimenting with new techniques and methods to rank better.
So much so, that Brian Dean (SEO Expert) has jotted down around Google’s 200 Ranking Factors (210 to be exact) on his blog Backlinko.
Here are the most important Google ranking factors according to Brian Dean:
- Referring domains
- Organic click-through-rate
- Content quality
- Domain authority
- Mobile usability
- Dwell time
- Total number of backlinks
- On-page SEO
Content quality is surely one of the major ranking factors that search engines consider for a long time now. In fact, long, well researched, and more detailed content tends to perform better and rank higher on search engines.
Since this post is about boosting organic search visibility through better content so our prime focus will be Content.
Content is King. We have heard this a gazillion times. And no doubt it is true and stands the test of time. But the fact that is equally true is that there are more than 505 million blogs on the internet pushing out more than 4 million blog posts every single day.
That’s a lot of content and apparently a lot of kings fighting for the throne that lies on the first page of search engines.
Can everyone win?
Of course not! There are only ten places to occupy on the first page and the competition is in hundreds.
So Is “Content is King” the biggest myth?
Whatever topic you’re are writing on there is a good chance its already been written, maybe 50 times or more. So should you even invest your time in creating another piece of content around the same topic?
You should. Definitely. Using Better Content.
Writing more detailed, relevant, well-researched, and fresh content will help you outrank your competitors in no time.
In this post, we’ll explore every such tactic that can be incorporated into your current content strategy to boost organic search visibility of your blog through better content.
5 Tactics to Boost Organic Search Visibility through Better Content
1. Stick to your Niche
A niche is a refined segment of an industry which is super specific to a particular thing, product, or a service.
You cannot be good at everything or have knowledge of every field in your industry. And it’s completely Ok.
Its okay to not know everything, nobody knows everything. But trying to be a master of everything will only bring failure. Maybe also at something that you know really well.
And this is a common problem among new businesses or bloggers. They are high on adrenaline and want to go left, right, and center without realizing how fierce the competition is out there already.
When you are starting new, you are low on resources, be it money or manpower, hence it’s always better to channel your resources in the right direction instead of diluting it in every direction.
On the other hand, if you go and tap a particular niche and become an authority in that niche, you will attract visitors that are actively looking for your service or product, instead of just attracting casual viewers.
When you stick by your niche and produce quality content regularly for your readers, you or your business will be seen as the thought leader of your industry.
This will make your brand reputable and trustworthy among your audience.
Creating better content for your niche market will eventually make you stand out from the noise and attract ideal customers for your website.
All, in turn, will boost the search engine rankings and traffic to your site.
2. Make your Content SUPER Comprehensive
Whether its the search engines or readers, everyone loves detailed well-written articles that are aimed at providing value to the readers.
Long form content is worth all the time and money that goes in creating it.
There might be hundreds of articles on a particular topic that you’re planning to write on, but there are high chances that none of these posts are detailed and helpful.
This is where the opportunity lies for you. If you’re ready to put in the hard work and do all the research that is going to be required to create some awesome content that cannot be found on the internet, you are all set to rank higher and get thousands of traffic to your blog.
Brian Dean has beautifully explained this technique in his blog and has named it “Skyscraper Technique“.
So according to this technique, you need to find the best piece of content that has already been written by your competitor and then create something better and more detailed.
Following this
3. Blog Less
There is this major misconception in the blogging industry that the more you push out articles the better.
Yes, of course, search engines are always craving for the content and the more the merrier, but this doesn’t mean you need to create sub-standard content for the sake of creating content.
Nobody wants to read that 200-300 words article that is stuffed with keywords and sounds robotic. In fact, keyword stuffing can get your website penalized by the search engines.
But of course, consistency is also important when you’re blogging as this keeps your readers engaged and excited to read your next post.
Not just readers, but blogging consistently also keeps the search engines and your search ranking happy, as search engines prefer sites that are updated regularly than the ones that are dated.
Search engines want content creators to be authentic and produce valuable content for the people that are high on information and low on spam. Because no search engine wants to give a bad user experience to their users.
So how often should you blog?
Well, the answer depends on which industry you’re operating in. For say, you’re a news agency so the right answer for you might be multiple times a day because news is being created every hour. Although the shelf life of news articles is really small.
On the other hand, if you’re a blogger, you might not post that frequently. You might post every 3 days, weekly, or even monthly, but your post should be long, detailed, well researched and well formatted.
There is no use of producing regurgitated information as your readers will already have read such information and it will add no further value to them.
Search engines like Google are very particular about the quality of the content these days and don’t motivate average content.
All well-known bloggers around the globe prefer this technique and hence post quality content over quantity.
Blog less but blog better. Always put quality over quantity and in no time you will notice your efforts are bringing more and more traffic to your blog.
4. Create Evergreen Content
There are two types of content; short lived and long lived.
As a blogger, your focus should on creating content that will be relevant not just for weeks or months, but years to come.
This way you will be attracting huge portions of traffic from search engines even after years the content was created.
Evergreen content is something that doesn’t get dated in the near future or maybe never gets out of date.
It takes a lot of time and efforts creating an evergreen content but such type of content is surely going to pay you dividends in the long run.
Your readers and even search engines are dying to consume fresh content with fresh information that they have ever read or heard before.
So creating something new and interesting will urge the search engines to push your content to more and more people.
5. Various Forms of Content
Gone are the days when people loved to consume text-based content only.
With the advancement in technology, there are now myriad options available to consume content in different forms. Be it video, audio, or infographics.
Among all the available means of consuming content, videos are becoming popular every day.
Videos are so popular these days that content creators are creating more and more content in videos.
Almost every marketer or business has started realizing the importance of various content forms and hence are preparing their marketing accordingly.
Not every person likes to read, or listen, or watch, so more forms your content is available the better.
Bloggers and marketers are pushing their content on every channel possible to get the maximum engagement for their content.
In today’s digital age there are so many means and mediums to publish and promote your content.
If you plan your content strategy accordingly and create better content in every possible format, you’re surely gonna make big in your industry.
Conclusion
Voila! So these were some of the tactics that you can incorporate in your content strategy to boost organic search visibility through better content.
Getting listed on the first page of search engines can be benefiting in not just one but a number of ways.
The journey all the way to the first page is the sheer result of hard work and patience. In order to reap the benefits of raking higher, you should keep producing fresh and quality content keeping in mind the needs of your readers.
Never create a piece of content based on what you think your target audience will like to read, instead often ask your readers about the problems they are facing and want a solution for.
One of the best sites where you can find out what your target audience is looking for is Quora.
Now your content may rank in a matter of few months or might even take a year to show results, depending on many factors like keyword difficulty, social shares, number of backlinks and more.
There are many ways you can get organic search visibility for your website but always remember to go for a long term approach rather than settling for a short term approach.
A short term strategy might give a sudden spike to your website’s traffic but will not be optimized for retaining your readers for a long run.
So I hope you find this post helpful, and if you did, feel free to share it with your friends and family.
And if you have any questions or opinions regarding this post the comment box below is all yours.
