You probably already know the value quality content brings to your inbound marketing campaigns. But did you know that content is important beyond its lead conversion value? Let’s explore the impact of quality content on your website’s health—from keeping current visitors engaged to attracting new ones.
Keep Returning Visitors Interested
Once visitors are engaging with your website, you want to keep them coming back for more. Fresh, high-quality content can do that.
A blog is a great way to build a go-to destination on your website. It’s unlikely that the average visitor will go to your product page every week, but a well-run blog can be a visitor’s source for new and relevant information.
Here are 3 ideas to keep your visitors engaged with your blog:
- Grow Customer Loyalty
Content is a great way to generate customer loyalty and should be a key component of your strategy. Consider content that is valuable for both prospects and customers. Brands that can build a “tribe” of loyal customers have been shown to be most successful. - Create a Persona
Make your content more relatable by creating a persona on your blog. This can be a real person at your company or a fictional character that provides advice or ‘personal’ insights. This approach can create a fun blog experience that garners repeat visits and shares. - Repurpose Content
Blogs can be a treasure trove of content that can be repurposed in your email and social media efforts. This ensures your audience is directed to your own digital properties instead of someone else’s.
Attract New Visitors
Freshness is key for search engine optimization (SEO) because it helps content appear more frequently at the top of organic search results. Here’s why fresh content is so central to SEO.
Keywords
Blog content is typically 300 words or longer. This format offers the opportunity to use keywords that your target audience is searching for. For example, say someone is searching for content about canine arthritis, and you have a post specific to a treatment for canine arthritis. If you’ve used the keywords “canine arthritis,” your website is more likely to appear in their search results. Especially if your blog post has had a large number of lengthy views with low bounce rates.
Web Crawlers
As their name suggests, web crawlers crawl nonstop on the internet to index all online content. The more frequently you post fresh content, the more frequently web crawlers will index your website. And the more frequently your website is indexed, the more likely your content is to appear at the top of relevant organic search results. This one is pretty simple: Befriend the crawlers by frequently posting relevant, keyword-rich content.
Site Authority
Build a reputation within your industry! A commitment to posting valuable content increases the likelihood that others will share or link to it from their websites, often called backlinking. Backlinks are a key component to generating site authority. Check your website’s site authority for free here.
A Few Pro Tips
Getting into content creation for the first time? Here are our pro tips to help you succeed.
Have a Keyword Strategy
You can just start posting content, but your content will work harder for you if you have a solid keyword strategy in place. Create a list of roughly 4 keywords you want to be known for and optimize them in your content. Also, don’t forget about your brand name! When appropriate, include it for better SEO results.
Use In-Post Links
Make sure your web-based content contains anchor text links (descriptive words that hyperlink to other content). As frequently as possible, link to your own content to continue to build awareness of the breadth of your resources. When necessary, backlink to other website content, but set those links to open in new tabs, so visitors don’t bounce from your site when they click the external link.
Opt for On-Site Content Over PDFs
It’s tempting to throw PDFs up online or to link to PDFs that open in a new tab, but it’s not a great idea in the long run. Web crawlers can’t read PDF text, so all SEO value is lost. Another consideration is that the user experience is vastly diminished on mobile. And lastly, if visitors can download the PDF and potentially share it, all visitor data is lost, so it’s best to keep the content on your site.
Ask Others to Link to You
Give your content a boost! Instead of relying on people finding your content organically, reach out and invite relevant people and organizations to link to synergistic content that you’re creating. Target those with high domain authority. Cross linking with other high-authority websites will also help your SEO.
Above all, make sure you’re creating quality content. Veterinarians in particular are extremely busy. They don’t have time to sort through long, involved blog posts that don’t offer clear value or answer their questions. Keep your content focus on your ideal reader. Are you bringing them the value they need?