There are plenty of stats out there showing the importance of great content. After all, content marketing is one of the major drivers of traffic and revenue for a lot of companies today. Great content can get you more visitors, more buyers, more money, more recognition, and everything that comes with it.
Compelling content rises in search results
Great content also helps to solidify your positive online reputation. If your content is good enough to rise to the top of Google search results, people will be more likely to click on your content rather than other outdated or untrue articles.
Frequent posting and refresh keep things buoyant
There is one mistake that many businesses make: they’re not posting enough content to keep it fresh and feed the needs of Google and its readers. The two most important factors used by Google (that we know of) to determine search rankings are high-quality content and link building, and the top three things that make content effective are:
- Audience relevance
- Engaging storytelling
- Writing that inspires action and sharing
Here is why you need to constantly publish if you want to succeed with SEO and content marketing.
- Fresh content keeps Google happy
- Your customers love new content
- You can own more trending keywords
- You’ll win new readers and subscribers
Fresh content helps Google come back
The reason why most companies today spend time on content marketing is that it’s still great for SEO. By writing great content, you’re increasing your probability of ranking on Google. There’s a problem though – getting a piece of content to rank on page one is no easy feat. There are lots of checkboxes to hit and one of them is how fresh the content is. For news-related content it's even more important.
Companies that publish more and keep their content pipeline filled with new posts have more success with content marketing. The reason is simple – it’s a ranking factor for Google. The more you publish, the more frequently Google will index your pages. That means that your content will rank more easily and quickly.
Think of it this way – Google checks all websites for new content to “index” pages and determines their rank. If Google is used to your website publishing one post every three months, it will also check back or “index” your articles less frequently. The more you publish, the more quickly your content gets indexed.
While most marketers consider “fresh” content to be the new posts that they publish on their company blogs, this is not all there is to it. You can achieve quite a lot by going back to your older, relevant content that performed well and updating it.
There are certain things that Google calls queries that deserve freshness. These are keywords that change constantly, such as “best smartphone” or “best CRM software.” In essence, a piece of content that covers this topic could be great, but it won’t stay on page one of search results for too long. Simply put, this category changes frequently and the results that get to page one are always fresh and up to date with new entries.
Your customers love new content
We live in a world of constant change. Just in the past few months, the entire world changed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Chances are, the industry that you’re writing for undergoes constant changes as well.
For example, the SaaS industry has new competitors, technologies, and updates all the time. If you want to stay relevant and interesting to your readers, you can’t have content from 2016 on your home page. While the content may be top-notch, it’s not up to date and your customers won’t be interested in reading it.
New competitors can enter your niche, and other changes require frequent updates to your content. This is especially true if you work in a fast-paced industry such as health, where things change every day.
If you want people to come back to your website and not just search engines, your content needs to cover the most recent, most relevant news in the industry. In fact, if you’re the first to cover a certain topic or a piece of news, you’re more likely to get picked up by others. Not only does this mean more views, but it also means more links and press coverage.
Speaking of which, there is an added benefit. The more you write and the more topics you cover in your industry niche, the more likely you are to be considered the authority in your niche. In our case, we’ve been writing about business proposals and proposal templates for so long that anyone who follows these terms more than likely remembers our website as a top resource.
You can own more trending keywords
The most basic element of SEO is a keyword. The more of them you hit, the more likely you are to get your pages to rank. The problem is, keywords are not constant and they change depending on what people search for. A keyword which is popular this month may not be popular at all in a month from now.
The trend for the keyword “umbrella,” guided by an event (when Rihanna published said song) and the seasonality caused by the weather forecast. Image courtesy of Ahrefs.
When you publish fresh content, you’re making it much easier for yourself to constantly write for new keywords that are trending. In our case, the SaaS industry has largely shifted to remote work and this reflected on all the keywords which were trending. Ever since March 2020, things are looking vastly different. All the smart SaaS businesses are pushing out new, fresh content with a focus on new keywords that are now hot.
You’ll win new readers and subscribers
People still consume written content in 2020. In fact, there are lots of people who make it their daily routine to catch up with their favorite websites. Do you want to have a website like that? Then you need to provide your audience what they desire – a reason to keep coming back to your website.
If a visitor stops by your website to read some of your content, they are likely to check back in a few days. If they don’t see new content on your website, they won’t come back. The same holds true for your email subscribers.
In the world of marketing, an email address is the second best thing after making a sale. You can only expect someone to subscribe if they’re really excited about hearing more from you and reading more of your content.
Conclusion
Coming up with new content ideas all the time is anything but easy. However, the benefits described above are well worth the trouble of keeping your content fresh and up to date. If you want more visitors, customers, profit, and a better position in search engine results, make sure to pump out new content regularly.
