Search Engine Optimization involves focus on two main aspects to be successful. Focusing on great content optimized for targeted keywords and link building to improve the authority of the webpage. Is it possible to focus on one of them and be successful or do we need to do both together to get the desired results?
Keyword rich content will help you only partially improve the search engine results. Search engine results give priority to sites having keyword rich content and large number of sites linking back to the content. Content and links work as a team in SEO. Without one, the other cannot succeed.
Content marketing involves approaching your customers directly. Social networking channels like Twitter, Facebook, etc. are a source of content for majority of the customers besides traditional method of using search engines. Understanding needs of the customers in your niche and making a product as per their requirements is essential to be successful. Creating an appealing content beneficial to the customers in your niche helps. There are several methods to reach your customers like videos, podcast, webinars and emails.
Content marketing involves outreaching influencers in your niche and reaching the customers using direct form of communication like email or SMS services. This will result in discovering new audience that helps you grow your social media profiles and get more subscribers. Some of the audience will find your content useful and link to it. This will help you build domain authority and rank higher in search results. In content marketing one cannot predict which keywords would be used to link to your website.
Link building on the other hand involves researching for a set of keywords and getting others to link back to your blog using those keywords. Links are similar to votes in case of search engines and sites with maximum votes will top the search rankings. Link building is more direct and involves actively hunting for links instead of waiting and hoping people will link back to your blog. You search engine placements improve in due course of time as more and more sites link back to your site.
If you can get links of high authority websites, it helps you to boost your rankings in the right way. Avoid links from spam websites as it can have a negative impact on your search engine placements. Only links may not help you if you do not have quality content on your blog that your readers are seeking. Link building done in the right way can help you get targeted traffic and fulfill your goals.
Focusing on long term will help you get traffic even though search engines may introduce updates that change the way they rank sites. Quality content and back links will remain the top factors influencing search engine rankings in future as well. Hence, SEO done in the right way will always be useful to get traffic to your website. As a blogger, you have to decide the SEO strategy for your website. Focusing on your goal will help you choose wisely and adopt as per the requirements.
What is the SEO strategy you have adopted for your blog? How much traffic do you get for your blog? Please share your experience with all of us in the comments so that we all can learn and improve.
