If there’s one conversation that I have on a continual basis with clients, it’s on how someone can get better search results for their webpage. In the past, there were a variety of techniques and strategies that would “game” the system to get your page to come up higher in the search rankings. Companies that specialized in SEO did everything from embedding keywords hidden in the background of the main page to embarking on strategies to build backlinks to the website in an effort to improve the search results of a page.

Things Have Changed

But now, Google and the other major search engines have gotten smarter—they know about these techniques. They view these efforts as “gaming” the system in a negative manor and have taken measures to counter these strategies. In fact, Google is continually changing its algorithm in an effort to find these techniques and eliminate their effectiveness. As a result, the very strategies you put in place to help your search rankings could actually be working against you since Google now penalizes you when they find them while crawling your site.

Create Killer Content

So, what can a company do to improve search rankings in an age where the strategies of the past are no longer working? One of the best things you can do, and something I see lacking most frequently when I audit a website, is create quality, consistent content. Search engines love that! In my opinion, the best way to accomplish this is through the integration of a blog on your website. This blog will give you a place to share content related to your company and the products you sell. A blog should be a mix of posts that you create from scratch as well as the sharing of relevant stories you find on the web along with a brief commentary from you. These posts should be written in a way that reads well, but integrates in relevant terms to create “keyword rich” content.

Socialize It, Because …

Your blog can also serve as the “home base” for you to post the content and then share to your other social platforms. That way, you’re not having to create separate posts for each of your social platforms and you can drive traffic back to your website by sharing to social media from your blog. If that content gets shared out via social channels, this strategy also helps build “relevant backlinks” to your website from other associated websites. These backlinks from associated sites are viewed favorably by search engines, so they will also help your search rankings. Mind you, I specified “relevant backlinks,” as this differs from the practice of mere backlink-building from non-relevant sites that search engines now frown upon.

So, while this is not a quick-fix approach that many of you are looking for, this strategy is sure to help your website achieve better search engine results in a way that Google won’t frown upon. Creating good, quality content that’s useful to your target audience will build your brand, increase your online impressions and give you a boost in search engine results. It will take both effort and time to follow this plan, but when it comes to achieving lasting results, content is still king!