If you’re a freelance writer, you need to make sure you know how to ‘sell’ your writing to different clients. Fortunately, the product you’re selling is (or at least should be) well worth the investment. For most online freelance writers, a great deal of the content you write will be used to help to drive traffic to different websites. Whether it is primarily supposed to be shared on social media sites, attract links or just be found by the search engines, content is always needed to bring in visitors, and retain existing ones.
As a freelance writer, you should know just how valuable good content is when it comes to search engine optimization. A recent article written by Matt Goulart for Business2Community (a popular digital business site) discussed the top 3 reasons why content marketing complements SEO. I found the reasons he cited very interesting, and something that all freelance writers should know. When trying to land new clients, you can use these benefits as a way to show that your writing is well worth the investment.
Reason #1) Google Panda Algorithm
Google has been the reigning king of search engines for so long, which is why any updates it comes up with send SEO specialists in a frenzy. The 2011 Panda update abolished many practices websites used to reach the top of Google’s list of search results. It also established that content is king, penalizing websites that offered weak, plagiarized or duplicate content. Therefore, for SEO practitioners to successfully boost their clients’ page rankings, they needed (and still do!) to tweak their content to make it of value to the reader.
As we’re all aware, Google’s Panda (and Penguin) updates really helped to push the value of high quality content. Sites that are just spamming out useless information that is barely readable are no longer going to rank. While the major changes (such as Panda and Penguin) had a huge impact on the content marketing business, there have also been many smaller changes that are quite significant. Finally, Google has also said that they will continue to make adjustments to their search algorithm, which will likely continue to raise the importance of quality content.
Reason #2) The True Role of Content
Unfortunately, SEO specialists don’t understand that content marketing isn’t limited to article marketing, social media posts, and blog articles. This form of marketing allows companies to project their brand and attract new visitors to both their sites and social media pages. It engages new leads, boosts traffic to URLs, naturally creates back-links, and allows a more natural use of keywords. Isn’t that what SEO is all about? With content complementing SEO, imagine the amount of traffic you’ll receive and the quick fame you’ll achieve in the cyber world.
This is my favorite of the three reasons given in this article. Many so called SEO experts have a very narrow understanding of what real SEO is. Many of them simply try to build up as many back links as possible, but leave it at that. Content should have a key role in all SEO strategies, and high-quality content can actually help get your visitors to do most of your SEO work by sharing your posts, commenting on them and ‘liking’ them on social media sites.
Reason #3) SEO Can Help Fine Tune Content
For content marketing experts, SEO may be the last aspect on their minds. However, by interacting with the SEO team, they can fine tune their own work. Their content can contain the right set of keywords and key terms that complement their clients’ PPC campaigns. SEO can also identify visitor spikes in search strings, allowing content marketers to know when and where they should post their content to maximize its effect. In addition, it will uncover more data about the target audience, such as their geographical area.
White hat SEO combined with quality content is a strategy that will work well today and long into the future. You might not have the instant traffic that was once possible by simple link-spamming, but marketers can build up long-term traffic strategies that won’t ever get ‘slapped’ by Google. This is a much better option for anyone who is looking to take Internet Marketing seriously as a career, rather than just a hobby.
Freelance writers need to know that much of their content is to be used to try to bring in traffic, and with that understanding, we can help our clients to use it in a more effective way. When we help our clients get a better return on investment, they will undoubtedly be back for more content in the future.
You can read the full article from Business2Community HERE.