Common Search Marketing Myths – Part 10: Content Marketing, Facebook Hashtags and Anchor Text
Content marketing only works for certain types of businesses
When discussing off-site content marketing with clients in the past, we’ve been met with a similar question time and time again. Do I really need to invest in content marketing for my type of business? A common misconception is that this type of search marketing can only work for you if your business fits certain criteria. The truth is that content marketing can work for almost anyone, if executed correctly. Not only can it keep you engaged with your existing and potential customers, feeding them useful information on a regular basis, it can also help with your on-site SEO strategy. By generating backlinks to your website on a regular basis, you’re letting Google know that your site is a source of useful information; That the content pointing to the site is being regularly updated. As long as you post content on high quality websites (those which are of a high quality in Google’s eyes, not just those that look good to the end user), then the content marketing you’re investing in will have a positive impact on both on and off-site SEO.
Another point worth noting is that content marketing isn’t all about constantly finding guest bloggers or posting articles on external websites. Whilst blogs are one of those most popular types of content marketing, you can also look into creating and distributing video content and infographics. eBooks and Whitepapers are also a popular form of marketing, as well as case studies and more. Get in touch with the search marketing experts at Varn for more ideas on how to create an engaging content marketing strategy that works for you.
You can’t use hashtags on Facebook
Our next common search marketing myth relates to Facebook hashtags. There are two main misconceptions when it comes to using hashtags on the popular social media platform, the first being that they’re not supported. The second is that they can be added to posts but aren’t at all beneficial. We’re here to debunk both of those myths. Not only are hashtags fully supported on Facebook and have been since 2015, they can actually be very beneficial for a variety of reasons:
1. Using hashtags within Facebook posts actually helps the posts show within their internal search function. People can use Facebook search to find content related to popular hashtags – adding these hashtags to your posts will help your content appear within these search results, thus increasing exposure.
2. If you use hashtags on other social media platforms (Twitter or Instagram, for example,) then also using the same hashtags on Facebook helps ensure all of your online branding is consistent. This also applies to hashtags you might be using elsewhere online, on physical products / advertising and other media.
3. Hashtags can help you create and interact with a community on Facebook, in the same way it encourages similar activity on other types of social network. You can look at popular hashtags and get involved with a number of current conversations and trends.
4. Social media activity can also help with your overall SEO strategy – albeit not necessarily directly. Using hashtags and increasing engagement with your brand is ultimately likely to also help drive traffic to your Facebook page / website. This in turn will help with your engagement / behaviour related statistics which can have a positive impact on SEO and rankings.
5. If you’re looking for a tool to help you find the most relevant hashtags to your marketing campaigns, take a look at com.
Keyword rich anchor text is bad for SEO
Back in the days before Google Penguin, it was common practice in the world of SEO to use keyword-rich anchor text within blog posts to help improve the optimisation of the intended destination page. For example, if we created a blog post about SEO Audits and linked to our page on SEO Auditing multiple times throughout the posts, using the text ‘SEO Audits’ to link to that page, it would have helped that internal page rank for terms such as ‘SEO Audits’. However, since the Google Penguin algorithm update, Google have been able to pick up on excessive use of keyword-rich anchor text and can choose to penalise you for doing just that. So, is keyword-rich anchor text actually bad for SEO?
As with many aspects of SEO, it’s all about striking a balance. Keyword-rich anchor text is likely to be a relevant ranking factor in search marketing for a long, long time and so you definitely shouldn’t ignore it. However, you do need to ensure that your approach is as natural and organic as possible. An excessive use of keyword-rich anchor text should be avoided at all costs. Try to diversify the anchor text you use within your internal links and make sure you use a variety of target keywords / brand related terms and more generic keywords throughout your internal linking. The more natural your linking profile is, the better.
That’s the final instalment in our Search Marketing Myths blog series (for now)! If you haven’t already, do make sure you check in on our previous blogs within this series, starting with Part 1: Exact Match Domains, Backlinks and Google.
