Author of The Content Code and overall marketing guru, Mark Schaefer, has written hundreds of pages on the art of standing out in a saturated niche and the secret sauce it takes to create shareable content. If you choose to stick with his latest and greatest book to the very, very end, you'll be rewarded with what could be said is the most important lesson of all. Lucky for you, we already did the hard part.
Long story short, Mark (as usual) wrote an incredible blog post focusing on content saturation. He delved into strategies on how to find higher ground during this content flood of ours and how to make headway in the content arms race. Most importantly, he introduced a brand-spanking-new term, Content Shock. Here's what happened in the following weeks.
"This post had all the elements of great, shareable content, and it really ignited with my Alpha Audience... and beyond! The post was shared thousands of times and attracted hundreds of comments. Talk about social proof! In just a short time, dozens of other content pieces had been created all over the web, linking back to my idea and my post.
A week after the article ran, I did a Google search for the term "Content Shock" to see what others might have written about my commentary. To my utter amazement, my own post—the original idea—came up THIRD in the rankings... on a search term I just MADE UP a few days before!"
How could this be? Schaefer then closes the horror story with this gold nugget. "The most important content did not rise to the top. The most important websites did." How could these two sentences, just 15 words altogether, haunt a content creator so much? Had everything I'd learned up until this point been wrong? Should I have been solely devoting my time to site rank instead of focusing on powerful, effective content?
The answer is no. One can not flourish without the other. It starts with creating rich, meaningful, desired content that addresses the needs and interests of customers and prospects. Simultaneously, there needs to be a deliberate approach to mastering built-in shareability. It is this shareability that will form your Alpha Audience who, over time, will increase your page authority. People will share your links, and your site rank will hike upward and upward! It's a complicated but very calculated content domino effect.
So don't worry, all hope is not lost! Although stories like Mark's occur all too often, there are many things that can be done to regain the ranking you deserve. It doesn't take a superhero to get it all done, but it does take a conscious effort and a GREAT deal of planning. Taking a few of the list below into consideration should get you off to a solid start in regaining your rank justice!
- Keyword research
- Meta data
- Keyword-rich content
- Keywords in hyperlinks
- Consistent and frequent publishing of new content
- Reposting of content
- Social media activity
- Link building and directory listings
- Guest blogging
- Internal link referencing
- Website size
- Quality of outgoing links
- XML sitemap
- Promotion
- Speed of website
- The accumulated page value
The above list is far from all-inclusive, but meant to show that achieving a quality search engine ranking is challenging and consists of many components. While nobody can realistically (and ethically) ensure top ten results, businesses are all playing from a level playing field, so best efforts typically bear the most fruit.
At 30dps, we are fortunate to have clients that are committed to a persistent and focused effort, and as a result, we've been excited to see positive outcomes. Let us know if you'd like to explore how we might help you also.
