What is really good content on a website, and why is content marketing important for a webshop to rank well in search engines?
NB: This article primarily deals with why content marketing and other content has value for online shops and service sites, although many of the advice from this point of view is relevant for most types of website. We use a online store that sells outdoor equipment as an example of how they can use content to achieve more organic traffic, higher branding knowledge and more conversions – all as a synergistic effect.
Do you provide good content to users of your website? This is undoubtedly among the more subjective questions when it comes to the different factors that constitute a good search engine optimistic side.
Is the content unique? Are the texts of the different products copied from the supplier and bearing the character of uninspired and generic product descriptions – descriptions also found on a sea of similar websites? Since search engines crawler and read all the content on the web, and devalue pages that copy others, the content must also be unique to your website.
Is the content useful? Is the content useful to the user in view of the need or problem that he wants to solve? Is there an information and clarification response about a product that she considers buying? Is it written in a way that inspires and increases curiosity within the subject or product?
..or is it just “side-fill”? The content is written only to “fill” the page with text. from the idea that medium content is better than zero content?
In a phase where you evaluate how well the content of your website is, or where you plan to produce future content, this is an important question you should ask yourself. Content quality is perhaps the most important factor in modern SEO, since search engines read and understand the content and contexts of the texts, as well as analysing how network users interact, consume and distribute the content. Another important side effect of strong content is that it attracts good and valuable links to your website – links you need to outsource your competitors. A powerful SEO strategy MUST today include content production.
Various websites, different needs and requirements Depending on the type of website, there are different requirements as to how important content itself is for you to succeed. Traditionally, useful and unique content has not been an important success factor for online shops. Today, however, this is a critical factor in order to be able to rank well in the search engines. A central reason is the ability of modern search engines to understand the content, as opposed to “old days” where only the right meta-tags were needed to fill in and get some links to rank well. The kind of content that Google will reward you today is content that makes you appear to be an authority in your industry. These are content that people really want to consume and that is of genuine use to users who come to the side – whether they are going to choose a product, will read about the products you sell, or about the topic your range of products falls within, e.g. outdoor life.
Examples of useful content for a online store selling outdoor equipment:
- How to choose the right sleeping bag adapted to different price classes, season of use, benefits with down vs. synthetic substance.
- How to pack the bag for long foot trips
- Important tips when tenting in wet weather
- Development and innovation of outdoor equipment in the last 100 years
- What can you do if you have been gnawing?
- What gas burner/coke system is suitable for you and your luck needs?
How do you know what kind of content you should offer to applicants? A well-completed keyword analysis will give you a very valuable insight into people's information needs.
Google Keywords Planner is a useful tool to detect average search traffic on various search phrases. The disadvantage is that people use rather varied search phrases when they're going to find answers to things and solve problems, and Google Keywords Planner is not intelligent enough to “clusse” the diversity of search phrases together so that you get clear answers around what people are trying to know. Google Keywords Planner is also not ideal for tracking low-traffic search phrases precisely, and since Norwegian-language Google searches are much lower than those in English-language ones, you rarely get an accurate insight into the exact search phrases people use.
Google Suggest (also referred to as Google Autocomplete) is often a better tool for using search behaviour as a data base for SEO friendly content production. Here you can easily start typing search phrases related to the theme theme/problem you are working on, and Google will make suggestions in the box below.
This method gives you direct numbers, but gives you a good picture of what are typical questions and search phrases related to different themes.
The Keywordtool.io (link) utility provides you with the same insights as Google Suggest, but it will extract search numbers and provide several related search phrases that are used a lot. In this way it combines the benefits with both Google Sugarest and Google Keywords Planner.
Although keyword data should be a basis for content marketing, it should not govern the topics, the theme and the angle of your content alone. As an actor in a particular industry, you may have a particularly good overview of your customers’ typical questions and information needs. Seasonal variations and new trends on the horizon should also play a role. Maybe you've done some research that tells you what visitors on the website will know more about. Along with these questions, keyword analysis is an important foundation that is affecting how to attack content production and marketing. This way you maximize the value of the content and work done on SEO, SEO works very best when it interacts with the other marketing activities on the website.
What benefits will you reap with good and satisfying content? If you as a online store offer well-produced content of this type, you can reap a number of advantages in the long and short run:
- You win customers by helping them solve a specific problem, e.g. “What kind of sleeping bag should I buy?”. When you help them find a model in your online store, the chances are that they will buy it from you.
- Google has an interest in helping its users solve problems, and tries to direct them to web sites that do just that, rather than having to have several different pages to do research before they buy. If you can assist your customers both in the research and purchase phase (and also in the post-use phase with your outdoor life content), Google will give you the incentive to lift you up in the search results.
- Google also respects authorities in the various industries, and with good content you demonstrate authority – both for users and for search engines.
- You attract organic traffic from search phrases that are not directly related to the products you sell, such as ‘How to choose sleeping bags’, ‘best way of setting up tents’. You simply increase your match lot for all the search phrases that are shot out in Google from users.
Shopify (https://www.shopify.com/) has very good video series around a number of web commerce issues. This video explains in an exquisite way why good content is important for SEO, and what kind of content you should offer.