Using Content Strategy to Drive Traffic

Which came first, the content or the keywords? In a recent secret divulging session with Forbes, Hubspot’s SVP Marc Roberge reveals how Hubspot manages to drive traffic totaling one million visitors and over 60,000 leads through their website each month.  One content strategy Roberge recommends is figuring out what people are searching for before you even decide what to write about. Google doesn’t particularly care how brilliant your blog article is—it cares about two things:

1. How relevant the on-page content is to the information its users are searching for.
2. How brilliant other people think it is, particularly those with high authority.

Let’s talk about the first one. When you’re brainstorming new content, try starting with a general idea of what you’d like to write about—ask the sales team about key customer issues or the tech team what people are calling about, and then use keyword research to narrow your focus.  It’s easier to build an article around pre-selected long tail, low competition keyword phrases than it is to try and sprinkle them in at the end, not to mention the fact that this strategy allows Google to basically hand you a topic on a platter saying “this is what people want to read about.”

But that’s still not really enough, which leads me to point number two: content distribution strategy. Is your keyword optimised content sitting in a vacuum, or are you using your social networks to keep your fans, followers and connections updated on all the interesting ideas you’re generating?  Roberge points out that social’s impact is big with Google right now, and it’s influenced by several key factors:

• How are you ranked?

• How many followers do you have?
• How many comments, views, retweets, shares does your content have?

Both Google and Bing are starting to look at data about the author producing the content, not just the website hosting the content, to determine how it should rank in search results.  Google’s AuthorRank patent establishes the guidelines for this strategy:

“The identity of individual agents responsible for content can be used to influence search ratings. Assuming that a given agent has a high reputational score, representing an established reputation for authoring valuable content, then additional content authored and signed by that agent will be promoted relative to unsigned content or content from less reputable agents in search results.”

So your content is going to do better in search results if you are a trusted and credible influencer, and if popular and trusted influencers are sharing your content.  It takes time to build your social authority, and it takes time to get on the radar of those with significant social authority. Posting lots of random links won’t do it—listen and analyse the type of content they post, and consider what’s going to be interesting to your network. And remember--when it comes to SEO, the same keyword logic for blog articles applies to social media posts.

Being an effective content creator and a respected content distributor are vital to a marketer's ability to drive traffic to a website. For more tips on how to implement your content strategy, check out our e-book “How to Create an Effective Inbound Marketing Campaign.”