How Do I Rank Higher in Google?

So you’ve built a new website with a slick design, killer functionality and great content for your target audience.

Now what?

Without enough visitors to your website, it’s kind of like buying a new car and then not driving it – it collects dust while depreciating in value. It becomes a liability rather than an asset.

Below are three factors that drive traffic from Google and other search engines to your site.

All of them, however, depend upon an ongoing content marketing strategy.

Without ongoing content to support each tactic, (to keep the car analogy alive), it’s like installing a sun roof on a rusted out Ford Pinto. It may seem like a welcome addition, but you’re not getting anywhere faster.

1. Links, Links, Links

One basic tenant of search engine optimization (and therefore ranking higher in Google) is that you need a lot of other websites to link to yours before Google recognizes the importance of your site.

But don’t get stuck there.

The point is, you have to develop content that people actually want to link to.

Within your content marketing strategy you should have identified your target audience, the specific types of content that audience values and other influential voices within this niche. If you’re sticking to your strategy, the links will come.

A link-building campaign is great, but so many marketers put this ahead of a robust content creation strategy, and that is a mistake.

Content is still king.

2. Keywords: It’s All About Relevance

You have to include the proper keywords in the proper places on your site: within title tags, in headings, in subheadings, etc., right? That’s old news.

The problem arises when marketers become overly keyword-obsessed.

If you start by saying, “I need to rank highly for keywords X, Y and Z,” then you’re starting in the wrong place.

Instead, start by saying, “I want to offer valuable information to this audience in topics A, B & C.”

Let that content strategy drive your decisions (including the keywords you use throughout your site) and stop worrying about squeezing in certain keyword phrases in unnatural ways. It stilts your writing (and probably frustrates your writers).

3. Write Early, Write Often

When Google crawls your website, it’s looking for new and updated content. If you have written new content or updated existing content, you’re sending Google a signal that you update your content regularly, and that it should come back and check in more often.

Now, does that mean you should rush off, log into your content management system and start writing?

Again, the truth is a bit more nuanced than that.

The takeaway is that your content marketing strategy should account for writing, editing and republishing, and be manageable enough for your internal resources to execute.

If you can only write one blog post per week, for example, write one blog post per week.

Need help developing a content marketing strategy? Drop us a line. We’d love to talk.

Have any other advice on climbing the search engine results?