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Running a successful business today means being both a good entrepreneur and a savvy marketer, especially if most of your business is online. A significant number of consumers do their shopping and brand research online, but simply having an online presence doesn’t mean your business will automatically attract their attention. You must also have a solid digital marketing strategy to increase traffic.
Even seasoned business owners can find digital marketing and all they must do to appeal to online audiences daunting. But if there is one thing to take away from all the noise, it’s that content is king — particularly blog content.
As an online business, blogging can significantly increase your traffic and sales. However, as most e-commerce businesses today are already producing content, you must create higher-quality content if you want to stand out.
When you put the time and effort into crafting better content, you attract links, and backlinks are essential to building your domain authority. And the higher your domain authority, the more you improve your search engine rankings, which will help you attract more traffic to your website and boost your sales.
Understanding Domain Authority
The complex definition of Domain Authority (DA) is that it’s a search engine ranking score that measures the probability of how well a website will rank on Google search engine results pages (SERPS). In other words, a DA is a score from 0 to 100 that shows how successful a website will likely be when it comes up in search results.
Sites that have a higher DA, such as 80 or above, will appear higher in search results. And the higher your website appears in search results, the more it increases the chances of your link being the one people choose to click on, which means more traffic to your site.
The simple definition of Domain Authority is that it’s about credibility. If you have a high DA, people will trust you more. High Domain Authority sites produce high-quality content that informs and engages their audiences so much so that people know that they can trust that brand to give them what they want and need.
So if you have a high DA, you have good credibility, and if you have good credibility, people will flock to your website more often.
What Are Backlinks?
One of the most essential elements that play a role in determining Domain Authority is backlinking. Backlinks are simply hyperlinks that link from one page to another.
For example, if someone else sees your content, likes it, and wants to share it, they will post a link on their website, blog, or social media account that links back to your content so others can see it. This is a backlink. And when you build backlinks, it helps boost your DA because it shows that you must be a trustworthy, authoritative brand if so many people are sharing links to your content.
But how do you get backlinks, you ask? Well, that’s where crafting high-quality content comes into play. The better your content is, the more people will like it and want to share it, and the more it gets shared, the more backlinks you build.
“Authority signal building,” which occurs when you earn links from other reputable industry websites or social media channels, is another way to increase your DA. To do so, you need to create content that will attract backlinks from high DA sites. This will position your brand as a leading authority figure within your niche.
How to Create Better Content for Building Backlinks and Improving Domain Authority
Now that you understand the “what” of DA and backlinking, it’s time to dive into the “how.” How to craft high-quality content to build your links and boost your DA.
1. Quality Over Quantity
Rule number one of blogging content: quality over quantity.
You’ve likely seen sites that say things like “You can never have too much content” or “The more content, the better” — and while there is truth in these statements, it’s important not to take them too literally.
Yes, it is important to produce a steady flow of content, which does mean you’ll need to create a lot of content. But there is such a thing as having too much blog content if that content isn’t good. Relevance and quality are much more important than quantity.
You also want to ensure that your blog content establishes you as an authority in your business niche. This in turn will help consumers associate your brand as an expert within your field. You should also aim to craft evergreen content that will continue to generate backlinks no matter what is trending, so you continue to rank highly in the SERPs over time.
2. SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is also necessary if you want to create high-quality content that drives traffic. When you optimize your blog posts and titles, you are enabling them to rank higher in Google SERPs, which means more people will click on your link.
There are many ways to optimize your content, but these are the most important and effective methods:
- Crafting catchy titles;
- Conducting keywords research and using relevant keywords throughout your content;
- Using title tags;
- Limit titles to no more than 60 characters;
- Writing a great intro for your posts that delivers on the promises you made in your title.
3. Visual and Dynamic
Users today have short attention spans, and as such, your content needs to grab their attention quickly if you want them to stick around and share your content with others. To do this, you need to create blog content that is more visual and dynamic.
Instead of simply posting long paragraphs of text, break things up with visuals. Infographics, for example, are an excellent storytelling medium and a great way to get complex information across in a more appealing manner.
Videos are also highly engaging and are more likely to keep your readers interested. The more images, videos, and infographics you use, the more pleasing your content is to view. But remember to make sure these visuals are relevant and enhance the content.
5. Post Consistently
One of the keys to keeping a steady flow of traffic to your website is a consistent posting schedule. Quality is better than quantity, but you also need to post regularly to keep views up.
If you post one blog that gets a lot of attention, you don’t want to wait around to post again until next month. That one post might boost your website traffic initially, but the traffic will reduce over time if you are consistently posting things to keep people interested.
The general rule of thumb is to post 3 or 4 times a month. This way, once one blog starts losing traction, you’ll have a new one ready to go to keep traffic up.
Final Thoughts
While crafting quality content to get backlinks is essential, you also need to promote your content and track your traffic. If you write a blog, for example, but you don’t share it anywhere, how do you expect people to find it and link to it? So after you post, make sure you also promote your new posts on social media.
You’ll also want to track your traffic stats to keep an eye on how successful and effective your content is. If you are posting consistently but you aren’t getting more traffic to your site, then you likely need to do something different. Be sure to experiment with different topics and adjust your content strategy as needed. By committing to creating high-quality content and posting it on a regular basis, you’ll be sure to earn the backlinks you need to be seen as an authority within your industry.
