Nearly every business owner we meet with wants to have their website rank highly on Google. That’s because they know a successful Milwaukee SEO effort can bring them hundreds or thousands of visits from potential customers or clients every week. That’s the perfect start to any online lead generation or e-commerce campaign.
However, many of these new clients misunderstand how SEO works. They think that we’ll simply adjust a few things on their pages and Google will start sending unlimited traffic their way. That’s not quite accurate. On-site optimization – the steps involved in making your pages more visible to Google search spiders – is important. But over the long run, content is the key to making SEO work.
In today’s article, we want to look into the simple reasons why. Let’s start with the obvious.
Google Needs Something to “Read” on Your Site
Have you ever wondered how search engines determine which results to show for a given query? The exact formula is a highly guarded secret (similar to the formula for Coca-Cola), but web designers know the basics. Essentially, Google uses automated programs called search spiders to “crawl” content on the web. Then, it matches that content up to search queries with some allowances made for location, user history, and other individualized factors.
The key point to take away is that the content on your website needs to match the intent of the user’s search. If you don’t have much content to begin with, or if what you have is outdated or duplicated from another website, then your site is going to be ignored. In other words, you have to give Google something to read before it can catalog and categorize your pages.
Search Algorithms Are Contextual
In the old days, the kind of matching we have described was largely one-to-one. For instance, if you had a term like “Milwaukee web design” on your site dozens of times, then anyone searching that phrase would be likely to find you.
Over the years, however, search has gotten to be more sophisticated. Google’s users are more discerning and the company knows that marketers have gotten better at trying to game the system. For that reason, the big search engines now use contextual models that are backed up by artificial intelligence.
What this means to you, as a marketer, is that having more content is much better than having less. The more pages (and specifically text) that live on your site, the easier it is for search spiders to piece together the topics where your business is relevant or has authority.
Fresh Content Improves Rankings
So, you need lots of unique and focused content on your website to win the search engine optimization game. But the challenge doesn’t stop there because you should be releasing new updates on a regular (or semi-regular) basis if possible.
Once again, this isn’t due to any complicated algorithm strategy. In fact, it’s just common sense. Search engine users like recent results because they tend to be more timely and accurate. And so, in an effort to give users what they want, Google and the other search engines will prioritize newer pages and blog posts. They tend to float to the top of the search listings.
Put these points together and you start to see the need for an SEO content strategy. That means sharing new ideas on your blog or static pages regularly, rather than updating your site one time and then forgetting about it.
Content Leads to Engagement
While we’ve been concentrating on Google’s automated search formulas to this point, it’s worth pointing out that content – or at least good content – leads to engagement with potential customers. They can read or watch and update and comment on it, share with their colleagues, or even decide to contact you for a meeting.
What’s more, Google, Bing, and the other search engines all track this kind of engagement using artificial intelligence. That’s because search engine programmers know that these types of interactions signal that a user has found a particular site or search result to be incredibly helpful. So the more engagement you get, the stronger your SEO campaigns become.
In the end, this all turns into a cycle that is positive and self-reinforcing. You create great content and get found on search engines. Then the potential customers or clients who are finding you on search engines engage with your articles or videos and decide to do business with you. That motivates you to create more content while further improving your search visibility, leading to even more visits, and so on.
All of this is fairly intuitive, but clients still hold off on creating content for their search engine optimization campaigns. That’s because they hold on to the mistaken belief that it’s going to be incredibly expensive or time-consuming.
Creating Content Isn’t as Hard as You Think
Let’s start by telling you something every business owner should know: keeping your search engine optimization and content marketing plans moving isn’t as difficult as you think. If it were, there wouldn’t be thousands of companies doing so well on Google.
There are essentially two ways to generate momentum when it comes to content creation. Either you can set the right habits (like writing a new blog post each Saturday morning, for example) or work with your creative partner to get their help. Either way, the investment of time or money is likely to pay off in a big way down the road.
You certainly should speak with your creative team about optimizing your site for search. But then, make the commitment to producing and releasing new content on a schedule that’s sustainable for your company. It might take a few months for you to notice the effects, but soon the results will start to show up and then you’ll wonder why you ever put off creating search-friendly content in the past.
Need Help With Your Web Design and SEO Strategy?
Tired of following tips and fads and want to see real results from your online marketing strategy? Let our team of designers, programmers, and business growth experts help. Contact Brew City Marketing today to schedule a free consultation and learn more about what we can do for you!
