Did you know that more than 90% of content doesn’t get a single visit from Google Search? That means that less than 10% of the millions of websites out there get exactly 0 traffic from the biggest search engine on earth.
That’s a depressing thought, and might make you question if creating a website makes any sense in the first place. The answer is: it absolutely does but you need to do it right.
The biggest brands on earth invest millions in creating qualitative blog content.
Coca Cola blog content
A good example is Coca-Cola. Few companies have better brand recognition than Coca-Cola, but they still take the time to create a blog that has on average 1.5 million visitors a month, on top of their massive presence on social media. Why? Because the Coca-Cola digital marketing dept knows that having high-quality content in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) is key to maintaining brand awareness.
How does that translate to your business? If you run a small business or even a one-person business, you surely can’t compete for search engine rankings with giants like Coca-Cola, or Apple, right? Wrong.
The beauty of the internet is that you can do a LOT to avoid being in the 90% of sites that don’t get any traffic. Surely Coca-Cola is in the 1% of traffic, largely because they have over 20.000 pages of content indexed on Google Search. As a result, they get most of their visitors for free as their search traffic is 99% organic.
You should be doing what Coca-Cola does but on a smaller scale. Create quality content, get it found by Google, and even if you only have, let’s say, 1000 visitors on your website from organic searches a month, I can almost guarantee you that a few of those visitors will convert into customers. The only cost you will have is the time of writing and optimizing your content.
If you want to know more about how to convert visitors once they are on your site, be sure to check out this article on 5 things to do to make sure your website converts visitors into leads.
What is quality content?
That’s the 5 million dollar question, isn’t it? Quality content is essentially content that helps your readers to solve a problem.
If you are a wedding photographer, then write articles about the challenges and solutions to properly photograph a wedding. If you offer consultancy services, then write about your experiences with customers, how to avoid certain traps, how to solve certain business problems.
Don’t be afraid to give away information that you would normally ask money to provide.
People respond very positively to generosity and will trust you more for it. Shielding your knowledge from the market is something only very few companies can afford to do. Most companies need to prove they know what they are talking about, and sharing (part of) your knowledge is a very good way to do so.
Article length
People instinctively assume that long articles won’t attract many visitors. That might be the case, but Google Search loves it. If you want your article to be picked up by Google and certainly if you aim for the top spots in the search positions, then make sure your article is at least 1000 words long. Keep in mind that you are trying to please an algorithm in the first place, and even if the Google search algorithm gets smarter every day, it still measures quality using certain metrics, and article length is definitely one of them.
Article Structure
A long article has to be well structured. Use headings to split up your content, and images and graphics to keep users engaged. Also, make sure that your key message is repeated a few times in the content. Don’t overdo it though (Google doesn’t respond well to keyword stuffing). More about that in a future article.
Content for the ages
Unless you run a news organization, you should focus on writing content that can stay relevant for years. That is called Evergreen Content, and it’s the type of content Google really loves. Make sure that you add to the content regularly, updating parts that are out of date and adding new thoughts and information. This is an excellent way of signaling to the search algorithm that your content is being kept fresh, and that will result in higher rankings in the search results.
Conclusion
If you want to generate leads from organic search traffic, there are no shortcuts. You need to write quality content, the more the better, that solves a problem for your visitors. If you get them hooked, they will be far more motivated and curious to click whatever call to action you throw at them, which is your chance to convert them into a customer for your product and services.
If you want help creating a high-quality, converting blog for your business website that delivers leads, get in touch and we will work something out!
