Long-Term SEO Content Strategies: Watching What You EAT

A long-term SEO content strategy is essential to getting your site recognized by local and national audiences. Long-term effort helps build authority that signals to search engines, your site is an authoritative resource in your industry.  This leads to higher visibility and more engagement with your target demographic.  There are many ways to approach search engine optimization (SEO), but clients typically want to know our approach to writing for long-term vs. short-term results. Thinking long-term with your content creation can reap further benefits than the instant gratification of a quick, yet short-lived fix. Here’s how to do it.

Stop Chasing Algorithms With Your Content

Google constantly makes algorithm updates that impact the search engine placement of websites across the internet. In 2018 alone, Google reported 3,234 updates. Although many of them were small changes, some, like the Panda, Penguin, and Bert updates, presented substantial difficulties for sites striving to rank well. When you focus on short-term strategies, search engine algorithm changes can have devastating effects. You may find yourself scrambling to revamp original content just to stay above water. This game of constant catch-up is a vicious cycle that creates:

• Roller-coaster traffic
• Client frustration
• Rushed efforts to analyze and implement changes

Play it “slow and steady”⁠—a long-term content strategy can help you avoid these stress factors!

Put Your SEO on a Diet

The recent State of Search (SOS) conference here in Dallas put short-term vs. long-term strategies into perspective. Think of SEO as a diet. Essentially, focusing on a short-term strategy is like trying to lose weight on the latest crash diet. Sure, you’ll most likely see some success, but it’ll only be short-lived. Much like crash diets, short-term SEO results in frequent setbacks as Google updates bury your content beneath competitors that take a long-term approach.

EAT For Long-Term SEO Success!

So, the goal is to think ahead with your SEO strategy. An SEO team that focuses on what Google may do next has the potential to keep your rankings up when a major change does occur. Google’s search quality guidelines now support a concept called “EAT” for long-term SEO success. A well-planned SEO content strategy must emphasize:

• Expertise
• Authority
• Trustworthiness

By emphasizing these factors, Google hopes to protect searchers from wasting their time with low-quality content. Let’s take a look at how to make them part of your well-balanced SEO diet.

Expertise

Customers often invest in companies, because of their expertise. In terms of your site’s content, this expertise can be bolstered by giving Google what it wants as ranking factors. In order for Google to consider you to be an expert on a topic, crawlers will look for signals that your site content is accurate. This means your content should emphasize:

• Content from known authors
• The use of bylines to give the content a face
• Credentials cited with links to certifications
• Links to original sources that help signal you understand the expertise of your industry

Authority

Authority means that you are the “go-to” source for a certain product or service. One of the easiest ways to give your content an authoritative boost for long-term success is to create exceptional pieces of long-form content. Not only does this content show that you have what it takes to be a point-brand for a specific industry, but it also allows you to use specific keywords to further prove to search engines that your pages deserve to be at the top of the results.

Trust

Finally, gaining consumer trust is a long-term strategy that just can’t successfully be accomplished through short-term optimization efforts alone. An experienced SEO and design team will take the time to cultivate trust through their work on your site. Long-term trust is garnered through:

• Quality site architecture
• Attention to the details of technical SEO

• Relevant content
• Reputation management
• Your site’s accessibility. (Is it mobile friendly? Does it utilize ALT text? Is it fast?)

Is a Short-Term SEO Strategy Ever a Good Idea?

Some businesses include PPC ads in their digital marketing strategy. When a specialist creates an ad campaign based on the goals of the overall project (i.e brand awareness, target audience engagement), this can be a great way to integrate short-term and long-term strategy into a successful campaign. For example, if a new keyword emerged within an industry as a high-ranking term and business wasn’t benefiting from its use, focusing a PPC ad campaign based on the current relevance of the term could contribute to successful short-term and long-term success for the business’ rankings. (SHEILA PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THIS SECTION)

Get Your SEO on Track for the Long Haul With Dallas SEO Dogs

Sure, short-term results may be nice in the moment, but don’t you want your content and Google presence to be something that outlasts even the biggest algorithm change? At Dallas SEO Dogs, we have our finger on the pulse of both current and upcoming ranking factors for Google and other major search engines. We’re ready to help your brand become an authority in your industry. Contact us today to schedule your free consultation.