Content is King: Myth or Truth?

“Content is king” is a mantra that has permeated nearly every digital marketing conversation since the phrase was first coined by Bill Gates in 1996.

We’ve come a long way since then as the internet has paved the way for a surplus of other lead generation opportunities to choose from.

In this post, we’ll explain why the age-old cliché is misleading and discuss some of the proven methods you can use to drive traffic to your website without having to rely solely on content.

What We’ll Cover:

• Why Content is King…Sort of
• Create Content that Solves a Problem
• Promote Content
• Prioritize Pages
• Optimize Internal Links
• Regularly Update Content
• Improve Site Structure

Why Content is King…Sort of

Many marketers make the mistake of drafting keyword-rich content, repurposing it, and then publishing it on numerous platforms and channels expecting their click-through rates, social shares, and customer retention rates to skyrocket.

Unfortunately, amazing content is never enough. The ultimate goal is to convert site visitors into loyal subscribers and customers.

To achieve this, you need to know how to get your message out there and reach new audiences. A lot of this comes down to timing your posts and segmenting your audience.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Aside from relevant, engaging content, keep in mind that there are several factors that contribute to your content marketing strategy. While high-quality content is king, SEO is queen, and customers and search engines have all the power.

And in order for your content to rank higher in search engine results, SEO components should definitely not be overlooked.

From on-page optimization to site structure, here’s what you can do to ensure your site ranks higher in search engines.

Content is King, Create Content that Solves a Problem

Kick off this process by putting yourself in the shoes of your customer base. What are they looking for? What are their pain points? How can your business help solve their problems?

To position yourself as an authority in the SEO space, you need to conduct extensive research on your target audience and start building a list of blog post and article ideas that address their specific needs.

Whether it’s an ebook or a video tutorial, the objective is to develop a piece of content unlike anything else that exists on the internet.

And remember—the more content you have on your web page, the better chance you have at trying to convince Google to rank you higher.

This will also help differentiate you from competitors who are trying to rank for the same keywords and phrases as you.

It may be more of an investment in both time and money to produce this type of content, but we promise you it pays off in the long run!

In fact, according to a report commissioned by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs, 85% of participants surveyed cited the creation of higher quality content as a major factor that contributed to its success.

Promote Content

It may be tempting to keep churning out content and then leave it to fend for itself on your website or social media channels.

But, this isn’t the approach you want to take. Instead of mindlessly promoting your content, follow a plan that makes a concerted effort to connect with your audience.

Social marketing expert, Derek Halpern, suggests that content marketers should follow the 80/20 rule— “Create content 20% of the time. Spend the other 80% of the time promoting what you created.”

This may vary depending on industry, but it’s generally considered a good rule of thumb because the 20% only focuses on easily shareable content that captures your audience’s attention and encourages them to learn more about your product or service.

You can maximize efficiency and rework your strategy (if necessary) with the free time you have to promote your business.

Prioritize Pages

If you’re a company that’s been around for a few years, it’s likely that you’re already ranking for some valuable keywords off the first search results page.

These keywords and their following pages should be your number one priority.

Practical Ecommerce advises businesses to “look for pages that (a) already rank at the bottom of page one or the top of page two, (b) that drive some traffic but aren’t the highest performers, and (c) that keyword research shows have significant amounts of search demand.  In objective terms, these pages are the ones to prioritize for optimization.”

Optimize Internal Links

Internal links are critical to SEO success. They enable users to get from one page to the other with ease and can often result in a better user experience.

Google recognizes the relationship between your web content through these links. Google bots are used to crawl through your website to understand how topics are related across various pages.

Link value is another element that allows Google to prioritize pages that have more links and increase ranking. Right internal link optimization helps Google comprehend page relevance, how pages relate to one another, and the value of a page.

Google notes, “Google must constantly search for new pages and add them to its list of known pages. Some pages are known because Google has already crawled them before. Other pages are discovered when Google follows a link from a known page to a new page.”

Regularly Update Content If Content is King

Web content serves many purposes, including helping people find your website and informing customers about your offerings.

However, your site should be updated every six months or so as outdated content can become stagnant or irrelevant. These changes should be made frequently enough to reflect any major developments taking place in your field.

Fresh, up-to-date content not only gives you a higher rank on Google, but it can drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into sales. Not to mention, it also shows your visitors that your company is active. Routinely refreshing your content can even result in a lower bounce rate and higher search traffic.

Improve Site Structure If Content is King

To develop a site that achieves search excellence, it’s important to be careful with how you structure your site. The site hierarchy should be organized, structured logically, and easy to navigate.

Can users put the pieces together and locate content where they’re expected to be?

A good way to make sure this happens is by limiting the number of main categories between 2-7 and balancing the number of subcategories within each category.

The more appealing a site is to your customers, the more appealing it will be to search engines like Google.

Wrapping Up Content is King

There you have it—we’ve separated fact from fiction and debunked one of the internet’s most pervasive marketing myths!

But, don’t get us wrong—content still matters and content is king on many levels.

It may not be the solution to all your search engine marketing woes, but it’s safe to say it is indeed the king of SEO.

If you incorporate these above mentioned pointers into your marketing strategy, we have no doubt that you’ll start seeing results in no time!