Over the last few years, SEO campaigns have evolved a great deal. The focus on ranking was often technical, which helped sites get further ahead in the SERPs. The problem with the old model is two-fold. Firstly, Google has evolved to the point where it is no longer ranking sites the way it used to, instead of looking at how sites provide genuine value. Algorithms have gone from exact match keywords and aggressive link building to identifying content based on relevance. Secondly, audiences are looking for information that adds real value. This means that content needs to be written for people first, and then search engines.
It also means that your SEO campaigns need to be able to achieve this goal, giving value while still growing your site’s rankings in the SERPs.
SEO Campaigns That Drive Genuine Value
There are a few ways to bring more value to your SEO campaigns to strike the ideal balance. Here are two examples to consider adding to your campaigns.
Content
Since the growth of SEO, content has been king and not much has changed since then. With that said, content is no longer the keyword-stuffed blog posts and on-site pages that look like they’ve been written by bots or auto-rewrite tools. If you are writing regular content that people want to read, that is relevant to your industry, focused more on helping rather than selling, engaging, and interesting to read, you will slowly start to see a difference in your ranking. If that content is optimised in a way that is subtle and natural, you will still get the benefit of optimised content, without your content looking like it has not been written by a real person.
FAQ
Another way that keywords have evolved is that they are more question-focused. People are asking questions every single minute, every day. They are not only asking on Google, either. They’re asking on Reddit, Quora and various other platforms. Being aware of questions that people are asking right now is very useful for SEO. You don’t have to use these questions specifically as keywords but you can still bring them into your content to ensure that you tell people what they want to know. You have a better chance of being featured on Google Snippets, too, which is always a benefit when it comes to ranking.
Value-Driven SEO Campaigns
When you shift out of the traditional approach to SEO and begin to think like your potential customers, it will be easier to find ways to attract, inform, engage and convert customers organically, in a way that ensures your SEO campaigns give real value.
