The right SEO services will provide value long after the content has been written or the landing pages have been optimized. However, not all strategies are created equal—nor does all content boost the SEO value of your site.
Knowing where to place your budget for long-term results is key to making the most of your efforts and seeing the greatest ROI from the content you create, both on your site and off. If you want to improve your SEO, don’t ignore these content-based SEO services that will drive traffic and leads for many years to come.
Keep Reading: Organic Marketing: A Complete Guide for Getting it Right
Consistent High-Quality Blog Content Creation
One of the best SEO services to invest in is content creation if you don’t have the resources to do it yourself. Content creation is the top activity outsourced by both B2B and B2C organizations and for good reason. Creating high-quality content consistently, that’s also SEO-optimized, can be challenging if you have minimal time or employees.
When done correctly, it can boost rankings, leads, and traffic. If done incorrectly, however, it’s a waste of your time because it reflects poorly on your brand and doesn’t earn the same SEO benefits.
Consider that the cost of this content creation is often a reflection of the quality. For example, paying an overseas organization $30 per blog post may sound appealing, but you have to consider:
- Are they doing keyword research or do you need to do that?
- What is the quality of the content itself?
- Are they writing with proper English?
- Do they truly understand your audience, voice and brand?
All of this affects how successful your content actually is. In many cases, paying more to work with someone who has expertise in both writing and SEO, and takes time to understand your brand and voice, will pay dividends in the end.
Keep Reading: How the College of Exercise Science used content to increase student applications by 49%
SEO-Optimized Guest Posting
Guest posting, also referred to as guest blogging, is the strategy of writing content for other websites that link back to your website. It’s also one of the most popular content marketing services offered through Jessica Thiefels Consulting. I’ve also been doing guest blogging for 10 years.
The value of this type of link building is that it does more than provide SEO value. It also boosts brand impressions, improves your brand authority, and allows you to build thought leadership within your industry and adjacent industries.
However, guest posting gets a bad reputation because many organizations do it poorly, which can actually hurt your website’s ranking. When outsourcing this service, avoid any potential problems by understanding these important details:
- What is the criteria for choosing guest posting websites?
- Which pages on your website will be included in the articles?
- Do the websites chosen follow SEO best practices themselves?
- Is the website pitching and placements automated or done manually?
If the agency you’re working with is choosing low-quality websites that aren’t relevant to your brand, you risk being penalized. Finding someone who is experienced in providing these SEO services is key to avoiding penalties and reaping the long-term benefits.
Keep Reading: How Selz increased their organic traffic by 99% with link building
Diverse Link Building Practices
Your link-building practices should be like your stock portfolio: diverse. It’s important that you have a natural backlink profile. This is why focusing on more than one link-building tactic is important.
Your goal is to create link diversity and you can easily do so by building a well-rounded link-building strategy using different channels for driving backlinks to your website. Check-in with your agency or freelancer to see if their SEO services include different link-building strategies, like:
- Proprietary data reports: Drive organic backlinks by publishing with proprietary data. Publishers and websites can source it in their own content, which allows you to earn links without asking for them. Collect data based on your own clients and customers or do a survey through tools like Google Surveys or SurveyMonkey.
- Podcast guest spots: Podcasts are an opportunity to connect with another audience and expand your reach. You can also use podcasts to get backlinks because the podcast host usually links to the guest’s website in their show notes. Those shownaotes are then published on all the podcast platforms and usually their website.
- Help a Reporter Out (HARO): Sign up for HARO to get featured as an expert in publications of all types. As a HARO source, you get three emails a day that include dozens of queries from writers and editors looking for sources to include in their articles. When you find a query that you can respond to, don’t forget to share which link you want included so they can properly link to your website.
Keyword-Optimization for Landing Pages
Everyone talks about SEO for your blog content, but what about for your landing pages? This is one of the often-overlooked SEO services, and yet one of the most important. The pages that have contact forms, your services, and other conversion points are arguably your most valuable. If they aren’t optimized for search, you may struggle to get targeted, organic traffic to these pages.
The good news is, driving organic traffic to your revenue-generating pages isn’t challenging. It requires the same tactics as those used for optimizing a blog post. For example:
- Start with a single, high-value keyword. It should be highly-relevant to your offering or the overall message of the page.
- Place that keyword in all the right spots throughout the page (I.E. headers and intro content).
- Link to other relevant pages within your website.
You can also use other SEO-optimization techniques for these pages that you wouldn’t need for blog posts, like:
- Up-to-date NAP info (name, address, phone number). This information should be up-to-date and consistent across all platforms, from your website to social sites and Google My Business page. This is key for ranking locally.
- Use Schema Markup to highlight reviews (star ratings), products, events, video, etc. While schema markup isn’t shown to directly impact SEO, it can increase your click-throughs from search, which in turn increases long-term traffic.
- Optimize page speed for mobile and desktop. While this is important for blog posts, it’s especially critical for the pages that will help you convert clients.
Regular SEO Content Audits
It’s important to regularly audit your website if you consistently publish new blog posts and add new pages. This can be part of an annual or quarterly content audit process, allowing you to assess your entire content landscape in terms of SEO and may even wrap into SEO services you’re already paying for.
The goal of your SEO content audit is to understand where you need to make changes so every site on your page is ranking as well as it can be. When choosing an outside organization to do this, consider what comes with the audit—will they simply give you the information to implement yourself or can their team make the updates for you?
Ultimately, by auditing and updating your content, you allow it to live longer and drive the long-term results that are possible with well-executed organic content creation. If you let your content sit and collect dust, on the other hand, you risk losing out on conversion and traffic opportunities.
Keep Reading: 5 Questions to Ask Before You Outsource SEO for Content Marketing
Drive Long-Term Results With These Content-Based SEO Services
SEO is non-negotiable in our modern search world—but not all tactics are created equal. Consider these SEO services and whether your freelancer or agency can provide them. From high-quality content to diverse link building, when done well, you’ll see an increase in organic traffic, that ideally leads to conversions, for years to come.