Content has always been a vital part of any SEO strategy. Due to Google’s preference for new content, most SEO campaigns usually (and should!) involve posting regular high quality articles to your website blog. After all, blog is shorthand for “web log”, and is designed to showcase content in chronological order. Perfect for Google, and great for readers to stay up to date with your brand!
However, it can be difficult for small local businesses or certain industries to consistently generate weighty and engaging blog articles. Thankfully, a blog isn’t the only place where content can be updated regularly.
Portfolio Content
One of the most effective ways to build credibility for your brand is to highlight and showcase your previous work with outstanding portfolio content.
Portfolio Content is an umbrella term that covers the following:
- Portfolios
- Case studies
- Reviews
- Testimonials
Best for: Design based industries
Portfolios are excellent for displaying examples of work carried out for previous customers. Generally used in design industries such as art, architecture or website development, portfolios allow your users to “see” your actual handiwork. If they like what they see, one can imagine this would significantly influence their decision to work with you.
Portfolios are intended to be highly visual, with images as the main focus. However, there is substantial SEO benefit in a having an online portfolio if each entry is accompanied by some content concisely describing the work process. A great way to do the write up is like a basic “timeline” which goes over the following key points:
- The customer’s problem / pain point / issue to resolve.
- Your solution / interpretation / how you helped.
- The customer’s (positive!) feedback / testimonial
There is also plenty of opportunity here to add internal links leading to other sections of your website, which is great for internal SEO and maintaining on-site user activity.
Case Studies
Best for: Service/information based industries
Case studies are a great way to provide an in-depth look at how your business handles a project from start to finish. Most suitable for more technical, project delivery or professional services based industries, often carried out on a larger scale. Examples include engineering, marketing, or IT systems.
Case studies differ from portfolios by placing more emphasis on the explanation of the process carried out and analysis of the consequent results. Images are not the focus, though they can be helpful in illustrating the case more clearly – such as with diagrams or infographics. They are generally lengthier and explore the whole project in detail, covering the following points:
- The customer’s problem / pain point / issue to resolve.
- Your proposed solution
- The steps implemented to reach the final outcome
- An analysis of the results
- The customer’s (positive!) feedback / testimonial
By outlining the whole process from start to finish, potential customers gain a deeper insight into your operational process, building your credibility and helping them make an informed decision towards working with you. The SEO benefit is significant, given how much content a case study normally entails.
Want to see an example? Check out some of our SEO case study examples.
Reviews
Best for: Product businesses
Reviews usually live on independent websites, where users can submit reviews about your business and you usually have no control over what is posted.
However, you can often have a review system or third party application installed on the product pages of your B2C website, where users can still submit reviews based around the products you sell. This is particularly powerful for the sale of physical goods.
While you may be at the mercy of the reviewer, this type of on-site review content is both fantastic for SEO in building on-site content, and very helpful towards turning website visitors into paying customers by providing legitimacy and trustworthiness to your website.
If you’ve ever researched a product before purchasing it, you’ll understand the value of good reviews. After all, positive feedback from a previous customer is the best kind of referral you can get!
Testimonials
Best for: Service businesses
Testimonials are commonplace in service industries and a great way to put your best foot forward to potential customers viewing your website.
Testimonials are positive customer reviews, with the distinction being that they are vetted by you before being placed on your site. This allows you to highlight only positive feedback. They are generally sent to you directly by a customer who has been pleased with the outcome of contracting you and happy with your level of service.
The obvious prerequisite of obtaining a testimonial is to satisfy the customer by providing a great service in the first place. At that point, it’s a lot easier to stroke the customer’s ego and ask for the testimonial, along with permission to display it on your website.
An abundance of testimonials is fantastic for SEO, and even better if updated regularly. This signals to visitors that you carry out a high standard of work on a consistent basis, which lends highly to your credibility as a business.
Summary
The lines between SEO, content marketing and building credibility continue to converge. It’s now more than possible for businesses to collectively address these points by applying smart content curation strategies.
A strong blogging strategy will go a long way for SEO. However, for small businesses in particular, this may be difficult to achieve in the short term.
Assess your resources and requirements for content creation on your website, and you may find that portfolio content may be the most practical way of boosting your content for SEO purposes, while immediately demonstrating that all important credibility that successful businesses thrive on.
If you'd like to learn more about content best practices for your website, chat to us today!