If you want to drive quality traffic to your business website, the key is not to merely rely on traditional SEO practices. You may have heard that content is king, and yes — that still holds true today. But more than just providing content that merely informs or entertains, your goal should be building authoritative websites.
So a higher level of care should go into putting together truly useful information that will position your brand as a leader not only in the eyes of your audience, but also with the algorithms released by major search engine Google.
How are websites categorized as authoritative sources?
According to Google Webmaster Matt Cutts, the search engine is able to pinpoint authoritative websites in the midst of countless other sites (that are just considered to be popular) primarily by looking at links.
The Google Hummingbird algorithm, in particular, is designed to study sites to see if they have any form of authority in a certain field as well as any evidence that they should rank well with Google’s page rank feature.
Cutts provides a comparison between government websites and pornography sites as an example of how authoritative sites are discovered. While porn sites are undeniably popular and have high traffic, they don’t have high search results rankings. Government websites, on the other hand, are visited by many Web users because all kinds of websites include links to them as an authority reference. So they are often among the top search results when Web users perform a search.
Tailoring your content marketing strategy
Following this example, here are three simple content marketing techniques that can help elevate your website into a credible online resource and drive authoritative traffic:
- Produce material that is valuable and useful to your readers, with links to reputable websites as your sources. Google will be able to track online users’ movement between your website and those authority sites, and determine that you provide high quality content as well.
- Make sure that the content is original and well-written. You may be citing established organizations and reputable websites as sources, but always keep in mind that the pieces you write should present the idea in an original manner, and take care to write it out clearly and in good form.
- Share this content with targeted communities. Part of being a successful content marketer is being able to understand what kind of content your target markets are looking for so that you can position your campaign accordingly, to benefit the right consumers.
If you share your content to the right people (who will find it useful, relevant, and worth sharing with their own circles), you will help encourage social signals. And whenever other people (especially well-known and respected figures) take notice of your content and share it with others as well, your authority becomes validated, and your website gains even more credibility.
When you provide valuable content on your website, you help direct organic traffic to it. But more than that, you also cultivate trust among your audience. And that helps ensure that your customers regularly turn to your website as a quality source of information — a true authority in your field.
How is your content marketing strategy working for you? If you need assistance managing your content marketing or simply want to free up some of your time, contact our team at MGR Consulting Group.
Thank you for reading. Until next time, this is Manuel Gil del Real (MGR)
