Rellify's Blog

By Dan Duke

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Content optimization is a strategic process for improving digital content to boost its visibility and relevance. It focuses on maximizing organic search traffic by improving a webpage’s search engine ranking. It does this by formatting and structuring content so that it can easily be found and ranked by bots. Just as importantly, it involves making content as satisfying and useful to readers as possible.

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There are many elements to content optimization and it must be considered as an ongoing process. Key components of content optimization include:

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• Thorough keyword research, where relevant search terms are identified.
• On-page SEO techniques like optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, and headers.
• Composing quality content that answers readers' search intent clearly and authoritatively.

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The content optimization techniques that we are going to describe will help you create high-quality, user-friendly, engaging content that caters to your target audience.

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Failure to use content optimization means less traffic on your website. It means you waste time and money on articles because you didn’t go that last mile to help them fulfill their potential. Without optimization, your content falls into the vast ocean of words on the internet that are seldom, if ever, seen.

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What is the impact of content optimization?

According to research by digital marketing firm Conductor, consumers who read a brand’s educational content were 131% more likely to buy from that brand. A week after reading that content, the study indicated, people were still 48% more likely to buy. Those people also tended to maintain trust and brand affinity.

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But first, the content must be seen. Research indicates that the No. 1 result on a Google query earns about 28.5% percent of all clicks. Also, 88% of searchers click on organic results on the first page. The second page of search results gets less than 6% of website clicks (a marketer’s nightmare).

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The competition for those top spots is fierce, and content optimization is essential. However, SEO-driven tactics have had to change to keep pace with ranking factors and search visibility.

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Jürgen Kranz, CTO EMEA for Rellify, explains that millions of websites and content providers compete for the first page of a Google search. “In the past decades, the SEO industry tried to guess and re-engineer Google’s search algorithms that were handwritten by human developers. The SEO industry implemented all kinds of tricks and hacks to get website listings to #1.”

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Now, search engine optimization requires more than loading up on keywords. Newer algorithms put more emphasis on content quality and the context of articles on websites, Kranz says.

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How to approach content optimization like a pro

Google wants to make every user experience satisfying by providing exactly what a searcher wants as quickly as possible. Part of how it achieves that is an emphasis on what it calls E-E-A-T — experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Google wants to exhibit that, and it rewards websites that display it by putting them at the top of Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs.

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Here are several ways that content optimization

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will help you establish E-E-A-T:

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Keyword research

How can you show your expertise and experience if you don't write about the things that people care about?

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Your custom-made Rellify Relliverse™ can help you find ideas for content and focus them so you can create high-quality content that yields high search volume while avoiding competitors who have SERPs locked up. Our deep machine learning will help you find content gaps — the keywords and long-tail keywords that have good search volume but have not been addressed by competitors.

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Authority

Savvy use of links is one way to establish page authority. Search engines judge you, in part, by the company you keep, or the links on your page. Links from your content to reputable, well-traveled sites bolster your reputation. Avoid external linking to sites that give off a spam vibe and get little traffic. If your quality content has been mentioned by other sites but didn’t get backlinks, reach out to them and request it.

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Internal linking to quality web pages on your own site also helps bolster your reputation as an expert in your field or market. Readers and bots will see that you have plenty of relevant content to check out. This also will help you keep a low bounce rate, which is the percentage of visitors who enter your site and leave without continuing on to any other pages there.

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Trustworthiness

Consider the user intent behind searches that could draw traffic to your page — a potential customer or someone who shares the interest or passion that drives your site. Answer their questions accurately and thoroughly. If the users, or search engines, sense that you lack expertise and authority and are wasting their time or manipulating them, they will bounce quickly and never return. Part of earning trust is being vigilant about monitoring and updating your site to maintain content freshness. Even an article that's only 2 or 3 years old might make readers wonder about its accuracy and relevance.

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Don't neglect technical optimization

Website managers can tighten up their sites and establish formatting standards for the optimization process in relatively simple ways. Here are some examples of technical aspects and on-page elements to look out for.

• Title tags. These tell visitors and search engines what a web page is all about. They also can lead to positive SERP and social media placement. Make them count by using your focus keyword and getting it as early in the title tag as possible.
• Meta descriptions. This is one of the most common types of meta tags. They are one-sentence descriptions of the content and are a great way to sell your content and boost click-through rates (CTR). Make these rich in keywords, within reason.
• H1 tag. The H1, H2, and H3 tags are, respectively, the main head, subheads, and sub-subheads. They help readers and web crawlers navigate an article. Think of them as clear, engaging signposts. It helps to use keywords here, too.
• Page speed. Google, and readers, want a page to load instantly. Elements that load slowly and shift about can be frustrating and disorienting. It makes for a bad user experience and low user engagement.
• Crawling errors. Every link on your website should lead to a working page. These errors frustrate users and the bots trying to index your content.
• Image optimization. When you optimize images, you compress and resize them while using descriptive and keyword-rich alt text to enhance on-page SEO.
• Alt tags, or alt text. These often represent a lost opportunity. These HTML tags allow you to describe an image, making it easier for search engines and readers with vision trouble to know what the image conveys. It's a good practice to use your focus keyword in alt tags and captions.
• Mobile optimization. With so many people using their smartphones for voice searching, mobile optimization is a must. The key is to have a responsive web design (RWD), which means your pages will adjust to the size of the display window and still look great and perform well. Another way of approaching this is the use of AMP (Accelerated-Mobile-Pages). This technique gives a better user experience for mobile users by creating stripped-down versions of web pages for mobile devices.

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How content optimization services can help

There are many free SEO tools on the market, including Google Analytics. But there are so many elements that go into content optimization and the stakes are so high, you might want to hire someone to help.

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If you are comfortable with things like migrating your website to HTTPS protocol and using schema markup, you could use Rellify's platform to produce content and make the most of our AI and SEO tools. If not, Rellify can provide the expertise you need to build a content plan and line up top-notch writers to do the work for you.

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We can begin with a content audit and technical SEO audit to make sure your foundations are solid. Then, Rellify’s content performance application uses AI to identify strategic topics and leverages IA (Intelligence Augmentation) to produce and optimize relevant content that naturally ranks well in search engines.

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Rellify’s AI connective writing and content brief functions help you to structure articles according to your content optimization strategy. We combine the functions of many content optimization tools used by other services, simplifying the journey from brainstorming to boosting your conversion rate.

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Level up your content optimization with Rellify

You can’t automate content optimization. It requires vigilance. There can be risks to a business if things are not done properly. Unethical or clumsy SEO companies and practices (looking at you, keyword stuffing) can also result in a company being penalized by Google — dropping you down in the search rankings.

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Rellify can help you to constantly monitor the effectiveness of your content marketing, just as we constantly strive to improve our service. For example, we recently updated the platform to enable users to create LinkedIn posts directly from articles. This feature is a game-changer for professionals and businesses looking to expand their reach on the popular professional networking platform. With just a few clicks, you can now repurpose your existing articles and turn them into engaging LinkedIn posts.

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Another notable enhancement is the integration of AI-powered image generation. Visual content plays a crucial role in attracting and engaging website visitors. With the new AI image generation feature, you can effortlessly create captivating images for your blog posts, enhancing their overall appeal and SEO optimization.

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Ready to create new content, get more traffic, and secure more leads? Maybe you’re looking to optimize your existing content? The experts at Rellify are ready to develop a customized content strategy with end-to-end content development, management, publishing, and analysis. Want a free demo? Contact the experts today!

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Content Performance Hot Topics

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According to the judges, Rellify’s Content Intelligence Applications offer the highest level of innovation, the best value and the most flexibility for the future.

Aug. 29 - Rellify Inc., the Virginia-based SaaS content marketing company, has won the Best Technology Award in Marketing and Sales in an international competition.

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According to the judges, which included members of leading educational and research institutions, Rellify’s Content Intelligence Applications offer the highest level of innovation, the best value and the most flexibility for the future. The award was granted by Germany’s leading business magazine, WirtschaftsWoche (WiWo). Rellify is based in Virginia Beach and its German subsidiary, Rellify Germany GmbH, is based in Cologne.

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Rellify’s Content Intelligence Application can provide a client with its own  Relliverse™ — a custom-made AI subject matter expert that identifies the best content opportunities — and an Article Intelligence Application that enables them to create high-quality content that is found and read. The judges said Rellify provides powerful tools to help clients overcome current challenges, find solutions for tomorrow’s problems and make significant gains in competitiveness.

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Peter Kraus, CEO of Rellify, said the US and German companies that are using Rellify’s Content Intelligence Application to develop content for their online marketing would agree with the judges. “All content teams working with our Content Intelligence Application report significant time savings. They say the process is both simple and sophisticated: from topic identification and content ideation to the intuitive drag-and-drop creation of smart briefs to writing with either AI augmentation or full automation.”

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Rellify’s approach to AI is unique, efficient and results-oriented, he said, because it starts with machine learning of relevant data for content strategy and forms the ideal basis for large language model alignment. The precision with which the Relliverse™ identifies topics, subtopics and the questions to be answered about them provides a distinct competitive advantage, and Rellify users are reporting topline growth as a result.

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Kraus said that using Rellify’s content intelligence in the AI-guided production process of the Article Intelligence App systematically generates the best Google rankings and significantly more organic traffic.

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Jürgen Kranz, CTO of Rellify, is responsible for the development of the Enterprise AI-as-a-Service platform and the Rellify solutions. He said the award is confirmation of Rellify’s approach to developing proprietary, topic-specific generative language models for enterprise customers: “Many top brands and corporations have enormous reservations about exploiting the theoretically breathtaking potential of widely available generative AIs, such as GPT & Co., in their marketing. The now well-known risks, such as false ‘facts,’ unacceptable bias, and even copyright issues, are considerable. Therefore, we are very pleased that our approach of offering generative AI experts specifically for a company’s core topics is seen as a valuable, promising innovation not only by our customers but also by the jury.”

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The Relliverse™ is a proprietary enterprise AI that, starting from the websites of the client company and its most important competitors, scours the World Wide Web on the specific topics that move the company and its competitors. The content found is analyzed, categorized (clustered) and evaluated using Rellify’s patent-pending machine learning and AI technology. Marketing organizations use the Relliverse™, delivered as a browser app, to:

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• Develop successful content strategies.

• Populate the right topics
• Use the relevant keywords, answer the most pressing questions.
• Create the highest-quality content.

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With a Relliverse™, companies understand their content and that of their competitors like never before, while knowing their content market share and visibility. They always know what to write about and how to write it, without having to constantly perform tedious, time-consuming and — compared to AI — incomplete analyses.

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The Article Intelligence Application is an AI-led, end-to-end platform for content teams that adds significant value (even without a Relliverse™). It supports each step in content production:

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• Planning and creating detailed briefings via drag and drop.
• Writing with AI augmentation or full automation.
• Polishing with AI-assisted SEO optimization tools.
• Publishing at the click of a mouse.
• Monitoring article performance using the integrated Google Search Console.

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Users report time savings of 50 to 95 percent per process step. Interested parties can test the Article Intelligence Application free of charge for 30 days here.

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The award was announced Aug. 29, in Munich, Germany. The jury included representatives from Fraunhofer ISI and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT.

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Within the dynamic landscape of content creation, the long-standing debate over long-form vs. short-form content continues to influence strategies across platforms. Wading through the infinite stream of snappy tweets, quippy blog posts and attention-grabbing micro-videos, it's easy to get swept up in the appeal of short-form content. But while the bite-sized morsels are undeniably attractive and trendy — and sometimes totally scrumptious — it's essential not to overlook the power of short-form's worthy counterpart: long-form content.

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In fact, often long-form content proves to be a superior choice. Long-form articles, guides, scripts, books and other assets present opportunities to dive deep into topics, foster meaningful engagement, and showcase an organization's industry leadership and expertise. With it, you offer your audience a more substantial, enriching experience with lasting impact.

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Here we'll explore how creating content within these two formats differs, including when and how long-form content can give you the competitive advantage in your market.

What is long-form content?

Written, long-form content typically exceeds an average word count of 1,000 to 1,200 but is shorter than 10,000 words. In any medium, long-form content can provide detailed, well-researched, in-depth analysis and insights on topics when the author or presenter aims to give the audience something more. Examples include:

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• Detailed and lengthy blog posts.
• Evergreen informational pages.
• Gated premium content.
• Pillar pages.
• Guides and tutorials.
• Whitepapers.
• E-books.
• Webinars and virtual events.

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Long-form content is the gold standard when it comes to visibility on search engines and higher conversion rates.

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What is short-form content?

Short-form content is brief and concise in nature. It's typically written in fewer than 1,000 words. The goal of short-form content is to convey information quickly and effectively to capture the attention of the audience and encourage engagement. It can be more mobile-friendly and is particularly effective when used strategically on social media platforms. Short promotional blurbs are one great example. Others include:

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• Short blog posts.
• Short videos.
• Standard-length news articles.
• Infographics.
• Social content.
• Sales and marketing emails.

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Short-form content certainly has its place in marketing, especially when it comes to storytelling, promotion, and brand awareness. Some markets or specific sects also may be a better fit for short-form content; think gaming, entertainment and news.

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Long-form vs. short-form: Does the length of your content matter?

SEO experts and content marketers have been debating this question since the beginning of time. Okay, well, since the beginning of online marketing.

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While the simple answer is yes, it warrants a closer look into the broader context. Focusing solely on short-form vs. long misses the point. Your decisions about content length should always align with your individual marketing objectives. Ultimately it should all drive you closer to your goals.

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‍Content length should match the audience's desired intent and engagement preferences. Use a content length and type that will win your audience. Long-form content generally performs well in SEO, but providing the right and “best" answer on a topic will be a better choice than merely focusing on length.

Why you should focus on long-form content

When it comes to longevity and versatility, long-form content is an excellent asset. It's fuller, richer and more generous than "thinner" versions could possibly be. And it's wise to understand the long-term benefits and value of rich vs. thin content as you develop your content marketing strategies.

SEO ranking

Long-form content typically ranks better on search engines, assuming that the search query demands detailed results. You can use search intent to your advantage, understanding who is searching and what their exact intentions were. This type of content also typically ranks for a higher number of keywords due to covering more depth and breadth of a topic.

More backlinks

Long-form content typically earns more backlinks than shorter pieces of content. Building quality backlinks to your web pages can boost your site’s domain authority, SERP rankings and traffic and, in turn, generate more leads. Be selective about your backlinks, though. Poor-quality external links or irrelevant backlinks generally won’t help and may even hurt search rankings. Strategic use of high-quality links from credible websites will help develop trust. You’ll see increased traffic from both search engine bots and humans.

Thought leadership

In the current digital era, where the competition is fierce, long-form content can make a significant difference in your content marketing strategy. Long-form content can help position you as a thought leader in your space and a strong voice in your industry. Your target audience will naturally see you as a market leader if you regularly produce written content that educates, informs, and helps them make good decisions.

Conversion rate

The conversion rate of long-form content is typically higher than that of short-form, largely due to the attention given by a reader and the intent of their visit. When you provide comprehensive and insightful information, your readers perceive you as an authoritative source of knowledge. This can lead to increased engagement, social shares and ultimate conversions.

It's dynamic

Once you have a piece of long-form content, it can be repurposed into various formats, giving you more bang for your buck. For example, an e-book can be broken down into several blog posts, infographics, podcasts or even videos. A 1,200-word article can be summarized and repurposed into infographic posts across social media. This process not only saves time and resources in content creation but also ensures consistency in your messaging across multiple channels.

The enduring value of long-form content

In the tug-of-war between long-form vs. short-form content, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Different companies have different business goals, and any given goal can involve multiple approaches. At the end of the day, a balance of both forms can effectively flesh out a winning marketing strategy. Developed and used right, they're complementary sides of the same coin. So we urge you to never underestimate the compelling advantages of long-form pieces. Investing in long-form content development is wise for those aiming to have a more significant, lasting imprint with the ever-changing content landscape.

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That said, we know the landscape isn't always easy to navigate. The evolutions we're experiencing in the content marketing world are historically unprecedented. And the more time passes, the newer and truer that statement rings.

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We know it because we're in it with you. That's also why the content marketing experts at rellify™ develop and use the most comprehensive AI-supported content-development solution available. We call it "Content Intelligence." And from start to finish, from industry-specific topic ideation to content strategy, writing, editing, optimization, management, publishing, analytics and so much more, it makes our jobs exponentially faster, easier, more efficient and more effective.

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It's also how we help organizations and creative teams of all types and sizes produce their own high-quality, results-oriented content. Chances are, you know their brands. Do they know yours yet?Let us know if we can help. With professional services to fill the gaps, a free 30-day trial of the rellify™ Article Intelligence Application, or a custom combination, we're built to suit your content development needs, goals and budget.

Virginia Beach, Va, 07/07/23 – Rellify, provider of robust and innovative “Content Intelligence” technologies and applications for content marketing teams, has been selected by WirtschaftsWoche, Germany’s leading business magazine, as one of three finalists for their Best of Technology Award 2023 in the Marketing & Sales category.

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This new category honors innovators whose digital solutions help users align their companies with the market by identifying market changes and recognizing shifts in needs in order to more quickly gain and apply competitive advantages.

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Rellify applies its proprietary, patent-pending machine learning technologies to its powerful Article Intelligence Application and the creation of its proprietary Enterprise AI Models-as-a-Service (MaaS), or Relliverses™, to do that and more. A Relliverse™ is an ever-expanding enterprise- and topic-specific large language model (LLM) that enables a user organization to confidently leverage generative AI for unsurpassed market-specific competitive intel and insights. Content marketing teams combine rellify’s Relliverse™ and Article Intelligence Application for reliable, relevant, performance-level topic ideation and end-to-end content development workflow. From strategy and planning to writing, optimizing, publishing, monitoring and beyond, the efforts of content managers, analysts, editors, writers, SEOs and webmasters are more supported, informed and effective than ever.

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Peter Kraus, CEO of the Virginia-based startup Rellify Inc., sees the award status of his German subsidiary as clear evidence that Rellify’s innovations have identified and addressed both the need and the process for organizations to integrate and apply generative artificial intelligence, or AI, in a reliable and effective way for advantages within the highly competitive content marketing environment.

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“The emergence of the AI revolution presents marketers in the enterprise environment with unprecedented challenges,” Kraus said. “What topics should they occupy to be relevant? How can their messages get the attention they deserve amid the influx of unreliable AI-synthesized content? And how can they create high-quality, well-optimized content efficiently and economically when ChatGPT and other free or low-cost text-generating chatbots are inappropriately influencing marketing budgets?”

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Moreover, Kraus noted, “those machines can’t help organizations create original thought-leadership content by serving up thoughts they’ve scraped from the articles of others. They’re chatbots,” he said, “and they shouldn’t be relied upon as an authoritative source.”

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What Rellify had begun developing long before the current trend emerged is distinctly more efficient, helpful and effective for entire content marketing teams, Kraus said. “It’s human intelligence supported by AI for a most reliable and powerful total content-development solution,” he explained. “We call it ‘Content Intelligence’.”

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The company’s “intelligent” applications address today’s content marketers’ challenges with powerful tools for identifying highly relevant topics and content and the cost-efficient creation of content in an AI-guided process. Authors and editors can also control the degree of augmentation to the automated functionalities based on their needs and preferences.

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“We offer companies with high demand for relevant content a solution to three of their most pressing problems,” Kraus explained. “First, our customer-specific AI models deliver topic-focused insights with a depth and precision that the other large language models can’t offer. Because knowledge is power, the understanding generated by our models alone gives our customers significant competitive advantages.

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“Second, he said, “Rellify makes these insights directly actionable with the Relliverse™. In their own custom Relliverse™, our customers can see at a glance what topics they need to address, what questions they need to answer, and what keywords they need to serve in order to reach, engage, and be noticed by their target audiences.”

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Finally, the Article Intelligence Application brings Rellify customers full circle, Kraus said. In this AI-powered browser application, content teams with NLU and NLG support create and publish content tailored to the needs of their business. It’s highly cost-effective and, most importantly, true to their brand.

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“In short,” Kraus concluded, “we offer our customers a) a deeper understanding of relevant topics and content on the Internet, b) precise, company-centric topic ideation, and c) a production environment that guarantees massive efficiency benefits.” Content teams needing support either on or off the platform can also outsource professional services from rellify’s expert SEOs, analysts, writers and editors, who use the Rellify applications to strategize, produce and optimize high-performing content for them.

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Against the backgrounds of Rellify’s successful activities in the German-speaking markets and the high satisfaction of its customers, the nomination as one of the most innovative marketing and sales technology solutions doesn’t come as a complete surprise, Kraus said. “We are very pleased that our innovations, which are already in use by renowned brands in Germany and the U.S., are being so positively recognized by WirtschaftsWoche. We see this as affirmation of our efforts to make the enormous opportunities that generative AI can offer available to companies within an easy-to-use, value-creating and ROI-optimizing environment.”

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The winners of the WirtschaftsWoche Best of Technology Award 2023 will be announced August 29, 2023, in Munich. For more information, visit: https://award.wiwo.de/bot/

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For more information about Rellify, visit: rellify.com

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Press contact:

Peter Kraus
Mail: peter@rellify.com

By Dan Duke — Thoughtful long-form content can, and probably should, be an integral part of your content marketing strategy.‍

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It is especially useful for providing detailed, well-researched, in-depth analysis and insights on a topic. It can be heavy, like "the impact of artificial intelligence on the search marketing industry." And it can be fun, like a look at "how to keep our canine companions healthy in the winter" — including a video with happy puppies playing in the snow. The important thing is to take advantage of that longer word count to establish authority and expertise on the subject.

What is long-form content?

Long-form content generally ranges from about 1,000 words to 10,000 words. It comes in a wide range of formats, including:

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• Blog posts.
• Evergreen informational pages.
• Pillar pages.
• Guides and tutorials.
• Whitepapers, e-books, and gated premium content.
• Webinars and virtual events.

What is short-form content?

In contrast to the main subject of this article, short-form content is brief and concise. It's typically written in fewer than 1,000 words. The goal of short-form content is to convey information quickly and effectively to capture the attention of the audience. It tends to be more mobile-friendly than long-form content and is particularly effective when used strategically on social media platforms. Examples include:

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• Blog posts.
• Videos.
• News articles.
• Infographics.
• Social content.
• Sales and marketing emails.

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Short-form content has its place in marketing, especially when it comes to storytelling, promotion, and brand awareness. Some markets or specific sectors also may be a better fit for short-form content, such as gaming, entertainment, and news.

Why you should focus on long-form content

When it comes to longevity and versatility, long-form content is an excellent asset. It's fuller, richer and more generous than shorter, "thinner" content could possibly be. And it's wise to understand the long-term benefits and value of rich vs. thin content as you develop your content marketing strategies.

SEO and search rankings

Long-form content can present many of the qualities that help web pages rank well in organic search. Content creators can satisfy search intent by using keyword research to find the best topics to cover. The content also provides ample opportunities to use content optimization techniques to earn the appreciation of both readers and search engine bots.

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Google wants to make every user experience satisfying by providing exactly what a searcher wants as quickly as possible. Part of how it achieves that is an emphasis on what it calls E-E-A-T — experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Composing quality content that answers readers' search intent clearly and authoritatively is at the heart of long-form content as well as SEO.

More backlinks

Long-form content typically earns more backlinks than shorter pieces of content. Building quality backlinks to your web pages can boost your site’s domain authority, SERP rankings and traffic and, in turn, generate more leads. Be selective about your backlinks, though. Irrelevant backlinks generally won’t help, and may even hurt search rankings. Strategic use of high-quality links from credible websites will help develop trust. You’ll see increased traffic from both search engine bots and humans.

Thought leadership

In the current digital era, where the competition is fierce, long-form content can make a significant difference in your content marketing strategy. Long-form content can help position you as a thought leader in your space and a strong voice in your industry. Your target audience will naturally see you as a market leader if you regularly produce written content that educates them and helps them make good decisions. By looking at the big picture and providing depth, you can produce evergreen content that will draw readers and benefit your website for many months, and possibly for years.

Conversion, engagement, and bounce rates

The conversion rate of long-form content is typically higher than that of short-form, largely due to the attention given by a reader and the intent of their visit. When you provide comprehensive and insightful information, your readers perceive you as an authoritative source of knowledge. This makes them more likely to respond to your call to action, whether that's social shares, signing up for a newsletter (providing lead information), or conversions. High-quality, long-form content can boost your site's engagement rate by holding readers' attention for long periods of time. It also can improve your bounce rate by motivating them to click into other pages on your website to learn more.

It's dynamic

Long-form content is not just for blogging. Once you have a piece of quality work, it can be repurposed into various formats. Creative content distribution gives you more bang for your buck. For example, an e-book can be broken down into several blog posts, infographics, podcasts or even videos. A 1,200-word article can be summarized and repurposed into infographic posts across social media. Repurposing content not only saves time and resources, but also helps you maintain consistent messaging across multiple channels.

How do you write long-form content?

Successful long-form content that will connect with readers and deliver content marketers tremendous results isn’t that different from your typical high school English essay. Here are a few tips and steps to get you started in the content creation process.

1. Start with a focus keyword

This keyword or phrase is a cornerstone when you create content of any length. Research your focus keyword and see what others have written about your topic. You want to pick a focus keyword that has a relatively large search volume, with low competition from websites that have high domain authority. Often, you’ll have more success using a specific phrase — a long-tail keyword — than one word to draw in your target audience. For example, “dogs playing in the snow” as your keyword rather than “dogs."

2. Add a strong topic sentence

The article should immediately tell readers what the article will focus on and how this knowledge might improve their lives — or at least how the information will satisfy someone’s search intent. Does it entertain, inform, or compel us to make a purchasing decision or other transaction? Create a great first impression and catch the reader's attention by showing them how the article will answer their questions and help to solve problems.

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For example, if you’re writing an article about dogs getting exercise in the snow, your intro sentence could be something like: “The temperatures are getting colder, but our favorite furry friends still need their exercise. Let’s look at ways to help them make the most of the season.” This sentence sets an engaging tone and, along with the Meta title and Meta description, tells readers what ground the article will cover. Your audience members know exactly what they're getting into.

3. State your thesis

The thesis crystalizes the point and tells readers what's at the heart of the content. The most important thing here is not sophistication, but clarity. It could be something like:

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“We all need to know how to give our dogs the proper amount of exercise during cold weather — and how to do that safely.”

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That way readers interested in this topic will know the answers are here. And they might even see cute pictures of snow dogs.

4. Provide evidence that supports your thesis

The main thing that will demonstrate authority for your content and your website will be the originality and depth of the information in your content. Generic information rounded up from other sources won't get you far. The more original information you can provide, and the more distinctive your take on the subject is, the more you will impress readers and search engines.

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In addition, links to another well-established source or two will let readers and search engine algorithms know that you know your stuff. Use links to academic studies and statistics from credible sources where it makes sense.‍

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‍You might even want to provide points/counterpoints to let the reader know you’ve explored different options that inform your overall conclusion. Link to helpful information, but not articles that are exactly like yours and not articles on your competitors' sites. And when you choose the words to highlight for your link, make them match as closely as possible the headline of the article you are linking to.

4a. Pick relevant evidence that aligns with the overall article

Choose your statistics wisely. Use respected sources and don’t overwhelm readers with numbers. For the dog article, you could say something along these lines:

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“With an estimated 56% of American dogs considered overweight or obese, it’s important to keep our canine friends active during the winter months.”

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Here, we’re citing the American Kennel Club, an authority on dogs. It's sobering information. If you want to help readers get motivated to trudge out into freezing temperatures for the sake of their dogs, you could tap into their emotions, too. Include more links and information along these lines:‍

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"Your dog will be happy to get outdoors in the cold, and that will make you feel better. Studies show that even looking at photos of dogs can make people smile, so here are some pictures to brighten your day.” This citation also comes from a reputable source, Psychology Today, and aligns with the article goals established by the topic sentence and thesis.

5. Add supporting information and visuals

Obviously, long-form content can accommodate evidence and research to make the reading experience engaging and satisfying. However, because it’s longer and requires more concentration than shorter items, follow SEO best practices to make an article easier to follow and comprehend.

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It can get pretty overwhelming when reading a long-form piece that consists only of black and white print. Add visual content to illustrate ideas and make points efficiently. Charts, tables, and other infographics can vastly improve your readability. They help readers better visualize complex ideas and make sense of things.

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The dog article is a great example of long-form work that can use photos and video content. Articles like this, and the visual content, engage your audience. What’s more, they can help you engage with your audience. For example, you can invite user-generated content, either in a comments section or through social media.

6. Wrap things up

What did you find as a result of your research? A good way to end long-form content is by restating key points:

• “Now you can use our 7 safety tips for exercising dogs in cold weather and snow."
• "Use our template for planning cold-weather outings to keep your furry friends healthy and happy."

Simple recapping statements, and maybe a supporting sentence or two, are all you need to help readers feel good about spending time on your article.

If you have more serious web pages or educational content, you might want to wrap things up with a more sophisticated analysis of the material you’ve presented. 

7. Call to action

Always invite readers to follow up on what they’ve learned. Your content should be part of an overall marketing plan, and the call to action should reflect the goals of the plan. Do you want leads? Ask them to click on a link where they can provide contact information. It might be a link to a white paper, survey, or free assessment. Do you want to move them through the sales funnel? Ask them to follow a link to a product page or a page on your site that describes one of your services.

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For our example, the call to action could be: "If you enjoyed these photos of dogs playing in the snow, post your pet's photo on our Facebook page (with a link to the page). And share this article with your friends so they can benefit, too.”

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For this long-form content article — spoiler alert — the call to action will be to contact Rellify for all of your content marketing needs.

Create the best content for your audience

Rellify upgrades and streamlines every part of content creation, from keyword research to blog introductions to analytics. We can start you off with a content audit, then help you form and execute an effective content strategy.

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With a custom Relliverse™, a company-specific AI subject-matter expert to identify your strategic topics, you're set on the path to better SEO from the very start. In our content management system, AI tools help you create content briefings that lay the foundation for great long-form content. You also can keep track of how well your blog fulfills crucial SEO elements by checking the "R-score" our AI tools provide. Every single part of the Rellify platform is designed to make evergreen content creation simpler and more effective — and that means a higher ROI and more conversions for your blogging efforts.

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Ready to find out more? Contact a Rellify expert today to find out how Rellify can change the way you blog.

Looking for a way to unify your blog posts, add structure and purpose to an overly long piece of content, and see massive gains in the search rankings? Incorporating topic clusters could be an ideal way to improve your website’s user experience and refine your content strategy.

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Read on to learn how the use of a content cluster can transform a broad topic with disjointed blog posts into a focused strategy that produces significant organic traffic.

What are topic clusters in content marketing?

A topic cluster is a series of articles that covers various aspects of a single broad topic that is selected strategically to achieve content marketing goals. Topic clusters help you organize and structure the content on your website. Considering your marketing goals and target audience, you create a topic cluster of specific, related subtopics. Individually and as a whole, this content satisfies the search intent of potential customers.

Also known as a “content hub,” its structure resembles a bicycle wheel. Your core topic is the wheel itself. The central hub is the pillar page—a longer, wide-ranging article on the cope topic. The spokes are the various content cluster pages, each on a specific subject.

Why do I need topic clusters in content marketing?

Topic clusters make it easier for search engines to understand and rank your website. Creating a more comprehensive and interconnected set of content that covers a wider range of related topics helps establish your authority in your industry or niche. This can lead to higher rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). You may see increased organic traffic to your site and, ultimately, more conversions and sales. One internal linking campaign from Ninja Outreach found a 40% increase in organic traffic to their web pages thanks to implementing a topic cluster model.

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In short, topic clusters help you:

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• Create content that's more comprehensive and interconnected, and optimized for search engines.
• Improve user experience on your site.
• Support your overall content marketing strategy.

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It can also create content more efficiently. Once you’ve done the bulk of the work creating a pillar page, topic cluster pages are simpler to create since the research will apply to all of that content.

What’s an example of a topic cluster?

For example, let's say you run a website selling shoes. You have a long-form article that’s the definitive guide to women’s footwear. While the length of your article might promote your "E-E-A-T"—experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness—the search results show that few people in your shoe-buying target audience want to read 6,000 words on the subject. This article, and your strategy behind it, isn’t working.

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Instead of hoping that one massive article with the targeted keyword "women’s footwear" will do the trick, you can use it as the hub of your topic cluster. You then break the topic of "women's footwear" into smaller, more targeted topics, based on keyword research.

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Restructure your original article on "women’s footwear" to be a pillar article that gives an overview of the subject with a focus on shoe-buying. This article is tighter and more concise than the original, but still provides an authoritative review of the subject to establish subject matter expertise. You probably can pull some of the original's material into your new "spoke" articles. These smaller, supporting articles might cover topics like boots, sandals, sneakers, stilettos, wedges, shoe sizes, summer footwear, and style trends.

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Organize your site to clearly show the relationship of these articles and make the effort of internally linking related content. Add internal links from the hub article to the cluster content and from spoke to spoke.

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Once you’ve published your articles, see where you’re getting traction so you can sharpen your understanding of user intent. Suppose you notice your audience is loving your page on sneakers but ignoring the one on stilettos. In that case, you might want to gear your future content marketing strategy towards casual footwear versus formal shoes. You might also improve the search engine optimization facets of that underperforming article.

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Because your content is relevant, insightful, well-researched, organized, and strategized, you should see substantial gains and more organic traffic.

How do I create a topic cluster?

So how do you get from one meandering article with disappointing search volume to a series of articles that boost each other's success? A topic cluster consists of a few key components that work together. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Audit your existing content

Before you begin creating content, audit your website and that of your competitors to see what you already have and what you need. At rellify, our experienced experts perform thorough content audits. One of the main focuses of our free content audits is topic coverage or content gap analysis, which sets the foundation of a content strategy. That way, you can produce high-quality content that will outshine your competitors in a search query.

2. Establish your core topic

Based on the audit and additional keyword research, plus your marketing goals, you select a core topic or topics. Some of your subtopics—the spokes from your hub article—will use long-tail keywords to draw in different sets of readers who are on different points of the customer journey. Each article also will have a set of specific keywords meant to improve SEO performance, site authority, and search results. Now the stage is set for producing quality content.

3. Anchor with a pillar article

Write a pillar article to establish a base for the topic. Use the core topic as the focus keyword. However, if your core topic is broad enough, you might have more than one pillar article. One will have the core topic as the focus keyword. Choose the focus keyword for the others based on your research.

4. Create your content cluster pages

These cluster pages, also known as subpages or subtopic pages, will expand on the pillar article and include links to it and each other. These pages can help direct a customer journey from research to purchase. The structure of the pillar article should make it easy to find the section on summer footwear, and a reader interested in flip-flops can click on the link to it. Or, a Google search might take a reader straight to the spoke article.

5. Organize internal linking

If we have not made it clear by now, internal linking is a vital part of this strategy. Organizing internal links is a way of guiding users on the content journey. You want to give your audience the right tools, aka “cluster pages,” that will fully answer any user query. The traffic generated by those links also signals to Google that your site has authority and relevance.

6. Use analytics to track your results

What gets measured gets done, and SEO tools like Google Analytics can give you great insights into the success of this marketing strategy. Track the average user journey. What part of the content do your users like? What aren’t they reading? Use these analytics to guide your content strategy and next steps.

What if I’m not seeing results from my topic clusters?

While several bloggers and companies have successfully transformed long-form content into multiple topic clusters, extraordinary results might not always be the case. If you still lack the traffic boost you’re looking for, go back to your core keyword and ensure your pillar article and cluster pages support it effectively. Here are a few questions to consider.

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• Have you identified the appropriate target topics your audience really cares about?
• Are there gaps in supporting pages you need to fill to be the industry authority? So if you’re writing a topic cluster about ice cream, do you only have the basics like chocolate and vanilla? Are there other related keywords like strawberry or caramel that you should pay attention to boost your results?
• Does this particular topic cluster match my company’s overall mission and area of expertise? If not, how can you ensure that what you’re writing about aligns with those objectives?

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If you can answer those questions and still aren’t seeing a content boost, be patient. Sometimes it takes a while for your pillar pages and their offshoots to index on Google. You might also want to make sure your technical SEO components are optimized. When you write targeted, well-structured articles your audience cares about, you should soon see the desired search engine results.

Need help creating topic clusters?

While topic clusters can generate big results in your content marketing strategy, they can be difficult to implement effectively on your own. That’s where the experts at rellify come in. Their expert content teams can work with your business to help produce an in-depth content audit. They’ll also help you hone in on your audience and create quality content people want to read. Contact them for a consultation to ensure your new articles and content clusters deliver the value you need.

By Jayne Schultheis — Do you have product pages, blog posts, or landing pages that fail to drive much web traffic despite you jumping through all the right SEO hoops? The cause may be something that many site owners have never considered: keyword cannibalization.

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Keyword cannibalization is a common, yet often overlooked issue that can do a lot of damage to your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) performance. In this article, we’ll delve into what it is and why it’s detrimental to a site’s search engine rankings. Most importantly, we’ll cover how to resolve it effectively.

What is keyword cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization is the negative impact of multiple pages on a website targeting the same keyword or phrase. When this occurs, it’s difficult for search engines to determine which of the multiple URLs to rank for that keyword. As a result, the pages may end up competing against each other in search results.

What are the negative effects of keyword cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization, and the closely related content cannibalization, can significantly impact how Google crawlers interact with your website and subsequently affect your rankings. When multiple pages target the same keyword, it:

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• Dilutes the website's authority on that topic, making it harder for any single page to emerge as a definitive source of information.
• Leads to inefficient use of your crawl budget, as bots spend more time navigating through similar content rather than focusing on more unique, high-value pages.
• Damages the user experience.
• Depresses conversion rates.
• Confuses potential customers who are redirected between competing pages.
• Reduces the likelihood of any single page achieving its intended goal.

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As a result, the visibility of your primary or preferred page diminishes, leading to a lower overall search ranking. If you notice that rankings of your URLs is changing rapidly, that's a potential clue that keyword cannibalization is taking place.

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Your backlinks will also become diluted when they're spread across multiple pages instead of a single page. In other words, five backlinks to one article is better than two backlinks for one article and three for its keyword cannibalization companion. Considering how difficult link-building is, this is a tragedy.

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With all of these factors combined, your overall domain authority may become weakened. This often leads to a lower overall ranking on SERPs.

How do you avoid keyword cannibalization?

To avoid keyword cannibalization, you have to start at the very beginning of the pipeline: conduct thorough keyword research before diving into content production. This will include determining a unique focus keyword or phrase for each web page. Long-tail keywords are often best, as they provide more unique content and a better chance of ranking.

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Beyond the diversification of the content itself, it's also crucial to ensure that your meta-tags and URLs are distinct and do not overlap in addressing the same user questions.

How do you fix keyword cannibalization?

To address keyword cannibalization, several strategies can be employed, tailored to the performance of the competing content.

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One effective approach is to merge the overlapping content by implementing redirects or canonical tags. In this method, you should evaluate which page has:

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• Better web traffic
• Higher SERP rankings
• Lower bounce rates
• Stronger social media signals
• Better keyword density
• Better synchronization with user search intent

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Then, consolidate the competing pages into the one with superior metrics.

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Alternatively, if certain pages are underperforming or offer minimal value to your business or blog, consider deleting them or applying a noindex tag to prevent them from being indexed by search engines. This helps eliminate unnecessary competition and directs the search engine's focus to your most valuable content, enhancing overall site authority and improving search rankings.

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Here's a five-step process for solving this problem.

1. Identify keyword cannibalization

To identify where two or more pages are targeting the same (or closely related) keywords, crawl your website using SEO tools like Ahrefs, Google Search Console, or SemRush. You can also use a Google Search Operator. Simply type “site:(insert your website) (insert keyword)” into a Google search if you suspect you have two pages targeting the same keyword. If you have content that's published on different URLs, this is more accurately described as "duplicate content," which will inevitably lead to cannibalization. If you want a comprehensive content audit, contact an expert at Rellify. We recognize the harm that keyword cannibalization and duplicate content can cause. That's wy the Rellify platform also alerts authors if they try to create an article with a focus keyword that’s already been used.

2. Evaluate the pages and choose a primary

Review all the pages competing for the same keyword. What's the purpose and quality of each page? Identify which one is the most relevant and valuable for that target keyword. It should be the page with the highest relevance, value, user search intent match, and potential to rank well in search engine results. This is your primary page.

3. Decide on the most effective resolution

What do you do with the non-primary page or pages? If it has valuable content that can complement the primary page, consider merging the content and redirecting the old URL(s) to the primary page by implementing redirects or canonical tags. Alternatively, if certain pages are underperforming or offer minimal value to your business or blog, consider deleting them or applying a noindex tag to prevent them from being indexed by search engines. This helps eliminate unnecessary competition and directs the search engine's focus to your most valuable content.

4. Improve the primary page

Optimize the primary page for the target keyword by strengthening the title tag, meta description, headings, and content. Boost the page's authority by adding internal links from other relevant pages on your website. Use descriptive anchor text that includes the targeted keyword. A canonical tag can also help search engines understand that this is the “master page” among any similar content on your website. Since you are revisiting this page, update it with any fresh information or developments. Make sure the page provides valuable and unique information to users and follows SEO best practices.

5. Monitor performance

Use analytics tools to monitor the performance of the primary page in search engine rankings. Choose the right KPIs to track, check for improvements, and adjust your strategy as needed. Regularly review your website for instances of keyword cannibalism and address any issues that arise. Regular audits will help you maintain a healthy site structure and maximize your SEO efforts. Be sure to educate your content marketing team on keyword cannibalization, how to identify it, and how to address it.

Get help fixing keyword cannibalization

Identifying keyword cannibalization can be a tricky task, especially if you have a robust website filled with lots of content. And once you find it, fixing keyword cannibalization problems can take a lot of time and effort. That’s where Rellify comes in.

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The experts at Rellify can help by quickly conducting a thorough audit of your website and its content. We’ll flag instances of multiple pages targeting the same keyword. And we’ll help determine a keyword strategy that most effectively gets your content ranking higher on Google search results pages. Contact an expert at Rellify to learn how our state-of-the-art content optimization and creation services can help revamp your entire digital marketing strategy.

By Dan Duke — Blogs have come a long way since their inception in 1994. And they’re still at the forefront of online marketing. Blogs have become a tremendous asset for businesses looking to reach their target audience via web searches. Ready to get more site visitors who will turn into valuable customers? Read on to learn why your business needs a blog and how to use one effectively.

What is a blog?

Think of a blog as a kind of forum. The term “weblog” surfaced in 1997, when people had begun sharing information about their personal lives and observations on their websites. People still use blogs the same way, and many have found that monetization enables them to turn their blogs into a lucrative business.

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Some blogs are websites that present a series of brief items with links to other web pages, presented with the newest items at the top. For most businesses, the blog is a section of the website placed under a header of "Insights," "Learning Center," "Resources," or, simply, "Blog."

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In that blog section, a business can engage branding and storytelling to reach potential customers and establish itself as a serious player in its niche. The posts lined up there can include product updates, company announcements, explorations of industry trends, and articles — from quick-hitters to in-depth guides — that show thought leadership.

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Blogs have become an essential part of content marketing. As such, businesses realize the need for a content strategy and finding the best blogging platforms. (WordPress is the most popular content management system.)

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According to Forbes Advisor report on content marketing, 74% of companies say that it has boosted lead generation. The report also says content marketing campaigns cost 62% less to launch and maintain compared to other types of campaigns.

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Blogging is an excellent technique for reader engagement. Far from the "mommy blogs" of the 2000s, today's business blogs provide a cost-effective way to market your business and engage with customers.

What are the benefits of having a blog?

With the power and extended reach of the internet, blogs are a powerful tool for both small businesses and big guys alike who are looking to establish or expand a strong customer base and boost brand presence. Let’s look at nine specific ways a blog can help.

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1. It drives traffic to your website

Whenever you create and publish a blog post with fresh, relevant content, it’s one more indexed page on your website. This means one more opportunity for you to show up on the search engine results pages and drive organic search traffic to your website.

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According to Hubspot, businesses with blogs get 55% more website traffic than businesses without one.

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However, it’s important to note that blogs provide an opportunity for this type of boost in traffic. To maximize your returns on this content, you’ll want to focus on search engine optimization as you write. This means using the right SEO tools for keyword research, following SEO best practices, tracking the right analytics, and refining your process to see what works.

2. It produces long-term results

When you buy ads, any gain in traffic ends when your ad-buy ends. A blog can yield results for years.

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This is welcome news, because content creation isn't easy — at least not for quality content. It requires planning, creativity, and great attention to detail. It pays off for the long haul, though. Once you post a new page on your blog, it can immediately start getting traffic. Because of internal linking and backlinks, each new blog page can generate traffic for other parts of your website, too.

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Even better, those pages can pay dividends for years. That's especially true for evergreen content, which is written specifically to stay relevant for a long time. The only thing you need to do is update the blog posts from time to time to make sure the information is up to date and the links still work. Tools like Google Analytics — and Rellify's Monitoring services — will help you keep track of your contents' performance so you'll know when to update.

3. It builds and expands brand recognition

People tend to choose what is most familiar to them. Visibility is crucial if you want potential customers to recognize and choose your brand. This is where a blog with highly-optimized and well-written content comes in handy. You’ll start to show up higher in search engines when people search for topics, long-tail keywords, and related terms that your blog incorporates.

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Guest posting is another way to use blogs to increase your brand's exposure. Invite a recognized expert in your field to write a blog post for you. Each party can link to the other's website to build readership. With the right guest blogger — like a popular social media personality — this can become a form of influencer collaboration. You might even produce that rare and delightful internet phenomenon: viral content. The catch is, trying to go viral doesn't work. It happens when creativity and genuine love for a topic come together.

4. It establishes expertise, authority, and trust

To take it a step further, the people exposed to your brand must associate it with trust and expertise. Content marketing through blogging can help convey your business’s value and expertise in ways that traditional advertising can’t. Fill your content calendar with a steady flow of creative, authoritative blog posts that demonstrate expert knowledge and experience. You'll encourage people who are saying “I know this brand” to start saying: “I trust this brand.”

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Additionally, you can use your blog to respond to comments and feedback from readers. This helps build relationships with customers and demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction through communication. Increasing trust with your audience is a powerful way to persuade them to choose you over a competitor.

5. You can repurpose blog content for marketing across channels

Blog content on your website has value beyond indexing on search engines. The content you publish can be repurposed and distributed wherever your target audience likes to hang out. Content distribution strategy can include using multiple channels to deliver messages to customers. Digital marketing experts know that choosing the right ways to distribute your content is just as important as the content itself.

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You can re-purpose your company blogs in different, creative ways. To start, we recommend breaking down a blog article into smaller, stand-alone segments. From there, you can post it on social media platforms as a series. An alternative is to boil one blog post down to just the main points. You can also create visuals that explain the key points of the blog post or use quotes from the post to create a social media post or drive an email marketing campaign.

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Going in the other direction, individual blog posts can be combined to form a guide or a white paper and promoted across marketing channels. White papers are great for supplementing a company newsletter or an email campaign and for getting leads by requiring people to register to download them.

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When blogs consist primarily of video content, we call it vlogging. Video is a powerful tool for reader engagement on blogs, and it can work great in social media posts.

6. Blogs help convert traffic into leads

A blog is an effective tool for moving potential customers through a sales funnel. According to DemandCentric, companies with blogs generate an average of 67% more leads every month than companies without one.

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More and more, shoppers do research on the internet before making a purchase. When they search for answers related to your product and service, you want to have quality content developed to pop up at the top of search engine results. The care and expertise you show in that content can turn traffic into leads and leads into buyers.

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This is why seemingly esoteric things, like user experience and blog design, are really bottom-line issues. A clean, well-designed blog with quality content and calls to action make it easy for a shopper to realize your value. Consistent use of calls to action will encourage visitors to fill out a contact form, subscribe to an email list, schedule a product demonstration, or even buy your product.

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You can build relationships with readers by tailoring your blog content to visitors’ interests. They may become loyal followers, re-visiting and sharing your content, and driving traffic to your website. Loyal blog followers are a great asset when it comes to finding a steady stream of potential leads and boosting your conversion rate.

7. It promotes link building

Proper internal linking is rewarded in search engine indexing because it establishes “page authority.” Having a quantity of internal links proves that you’re more than a one-trick (or a one blog post) pony. It shows you have an abundance of interesting content and a broad understanding of related topics in your industry. “Experts” have lots to say.

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Furthermore, blogging provides a platform for content that includes relevant links to other high-quality websites. This type of external linking can help increase the content’s visibility and improve the website’s search engine rankings. Just be sure you’re not linking to the websites of your competitors.

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Blogging can also be used to create mutual relationships with other well-established websites, resulting in backlinks to your site.

8. A blog helps you share company news

Your brand is likely doing exciting new things — growing as a business, releasing new products, providing new services. When you keep your visitors updated with news and new content on the company blog, you show that your brand is relevant. Visitors want to see that people are increasingly investing in and engaging with your brand for a good reason.

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9. You experience continued education and expertise

A blog isn’t just about educating your audience and customers. Blogging can be a helpful tool in your own education and research as you continue to grow as a company. By researching and distilling the information into palatable formats, you’re becoming an expert on topics important to your audiences. That information also educates your entire workforce. The mass of knowledge becomes a powerful resource as your company grows.

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Here’s why your business needs a blog

The bottom line: Most likely, your business needs a blog. Any company with an online presence can reap the benefits of this tried-and-true marketing strategy. If you’re ready to start blogging but need guidance from experts, Rellify can help. We work with companies of all sizes in many industries, providing auditing, creating content, and optimizing existing content. With Rellify’s help, your blog and your business can be found more easily by search engines.

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Contact a rellify representative to learn how our expert content services can provide your business with real, relevant results.

By Dan Duke -Content performance doesn’t hinge on how much time, money, and resources you have. Spend them all in abundance, but you’ll get results only if you create compelling content that resonates with your target audience.

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If you want to know how well your content marketing efforts are working — in other words, your content performance — keep two things in focus: your goals for the content and the KPIs for those goals. And in this article, we will show you how to maintain that focus.

How do you measure content performance?

To gauge how well your content performs, develop a clear picture of precisely what you want it to accomplish. You can’t really determine your content marketing ROI until you know what returns you are after.

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In the context of digital marketing, we can assess content performance across a wide range of measurable, quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs). These include things like total page views, bounce rate, conversion rates, and revenue.

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The key is to prioritize the KPIs and content marketing metrics that matter most to your specific company. If you want to increase brand awareness, measurements relating to total Google impressions might be a good place to start. Are you trying to captivate your audience so they spend hours on your page? Then focus your content strategy on high search traffic, low bounce rate, and average session duration.

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It feels great when your content checks all the boxes. But that actually could be a sign that you are wasting resources. Ideally, you want to exert only enough to achieve or surpass your business goals.

How to use KPIs to boost content performance

To maximize your online content efforts, you must measure the right metrics. But how do you pick the right ones?

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“Better user experience” and “increased brand awareness” are hard to pin down, so attempts to measure them aren’t likely to provide actionable insights. When you’re measuring content performance, stick with categories that quantify content engagement and give reliable performance data.

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Let’s say you’re investing a lot of resources in content marketing related to content optimization and higher search rankings. If so, it could take up to six months or even a year in a competitive topic before seeing traction. Alternatively, you could know right away whether your social media channels or email marketing campaigns are engaging your audience.

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That said, your company should evaluate several digital marketing KPIs. Remember, even after implementing a new marketing campaign, it could take at least a few months to get the insights you’re looking for from your audience analytics.

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The good news is that if you are creating quality, relevant content, most of these marketing metrics will reflect that. If your digital marketing efforts aren’t great, your KPIs will show you how to improve it. Here are a few performance metrics to choose from for evaluating your content marketing strategy.

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• Search engine rankings. How well are your pages performing compared with your competitors in search engine results? Many factors are involved here, but domain authority and SEO optimization are crucial.
• Unique page visits. This is the number of different visitors who come to your page from an external site within a certain period. Repeat visits don't count.
• Impressions. Every time a person sees a link to an ad, video, or search result online, it counts as an impression. The user doesn't need to actually click on something or interact with it for it to count.
• Total page views. This shows that your pages are establishing authority and pulling in visitors. Here's a tip: Use Google Analytics to learn how those visitors find you and what they do on your site.
• Time on page. The more time people spend on your pages (measured as the average session duration), the more value those pages provide. Visual content is an important factor here.
• Bounce rate. This is the percentage of visitors who leave your site altogether rather than progressing to other pages. You want a low bounce rate, with people going from a blog post to a product page or to a page where they can sign up for a demo.
• Click-through rate. This compares the number of times a visitor clicks on a link on a page (or email or online ad) to the total number of people who saw the link. If 100 readers call up a blog post and 6 of them click on a video on that page, that's a 6% click-through rate.
• Cost per click. This is a way of measuring the cost of advertising. It shows how much you pay per click for an ad.
• Cost per acquisition. This reflects how much you spend to gain a new customer.
• Comments, likes, social shares. These are great engagement metrics, because they show that your content compelled users to react. It can help you tailor future content. This is how viral content gets its start.
• Links. You can guide people to other pages on your site with internal links. External links send people to you from other sites. An external link from a high-traffic, trusted website is quite valuable. It pays to have a good backlink strategy for building up external links.
• Conversion rate. Divide the total number of visitors by the number of people who take the desired action (click on an ad or download a white paper, for example) to get the conversion rate. And conversion is the ultimate form of user engagement.
• Organic search/paid search. When people come to you through search engine results, it's organic search. Paid search comes to you through ads.
• Revenue. This is the money you bring in from your digital marketing efforts.

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How to improve content performance

Having clear, quantifiable digital marketing objectives makes it easier to improve your performance. Traffic growth alone is not enough; you need to reach the right people — the ones likely to become customers. You may need the help of experienced content marketers with the right tools to help you refine your future content marketing strategy.

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To give you an example of how that can work in your favor, let's look at what Rellify can do to help you improve content performance.

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We develop AI-driven content strategy to deliver measurable results. We can create a Relliverse™ for each client — a custom-AI subject-matter expert trained on your relevant focus topics. Using deep machine learning, we'll crawl and analyze your website and those of your competitors. It's like a content audit on steroids, and we can use the data to identify your best content opportunities.

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In a few minutes, you can accomplish the kind of competitive analysis, topic modeling and keyword research that otherwise can take days or weeks. With a few clicks, you can have a content calendar filled with relevant material.

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Use our generative AI tools and the expertise of your own writers and editors in any combination you wish to develop briefs and content at scale. And after our platform helps to make content creation efficient and effective, our performance tracking tools will help you monitor the results of the work.

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In addition to creating new content for your target audience, Rellify can help you update blog posts, white papers and FAQs to reflect content trends, improve your company image and boost search engine rankings. We'll also guide you on content repurposing.

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‍Contact Rellify today to discover how to revolutionize your content strategy and create meaningful content that engages your target audience.

By Dan Duke — The term "organic traffic" refers to all the visits to your website that result from clicks on search engine results for which you have not paid. Organic traffic is the opposite of paid traffic, which is generated, for example, by Google Ads or sponsored entries on a search engine.

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Organic traffic doesn't pile up recurring pay per click (PPC) costs, like Google Ads or ads in other search engines, but it's not free either. To generate organic traffic to your website, you need to offer relevant content. This is because search engines use AI to recognize whether content is relevant and will fully answer a search query. If your content achieves this, it may be ranked highly and show up on the first page of SERPs. If your content is not relevant, search engines probably won't offer it up as one of the top results, and it will have little chance of generating organic traffic.

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In short: relevance increases the visibility of your content. More visibility, especially on the first page of search results, leads to more clicks. More clicks on unpaid links means more organic traffic for your website.

How dependent is organic traffic on Google ranking?

Organic traffic depends almost entirely on Google rankings. When you do a search, you might see the top few results labeled as "Sponsored" or "Ad." However, research indicates that about 94% of all consumers skip those paid placements to look for the unpaid links below. Organic traffic comes from clicks on those unpaid links. Content marketers also know that very few people go to the second page of search results. Therefore, to increase organic traffic, it is necessary to appear in the top 10 or so search results whenever possible.

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The competition for those top spots is fierce, and a huge content marketing industry is dedicated to nothing other than search engine optimization (SEO). This is the name given to the efforts made to place content at the top of search engine results. Much of that effort involves satisfying certain formal and technical requirements of Google and the Google search algorithms.

How can I boost Google rankings to drive organic traffic?

The field of search engine optimization is all about helping your blogging efforts  generate more organic traffic. It's a complicated, multi-faceted undertaking. Let's look at the different types of SEO measures that can lead to success.

Content SEO

Content optimization focuses on the quality of the content offered. The first step in producing relevant content that can generate organic traffic is to find the right topics to cover.

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Keyword research is at the heart of relevant content. When Google looks for content to answer a search query, a keyword-rich article will have more credibility than an article with few of the keywords. How could an article answer a query about, for example, organic traffic, without using that phrase and many related words?

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At Rellify, we provide clients with a Relliverse™, an in-house, customized AI subject-matter expert that identifies their best content opportunities. Using deep machine learning, we analyze a client's website and its competitors' sites and then cluster the data by main topics, level 1 subtopics, level 2 subtopics, and level 3 subtopics, taking into account millions of data points.

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This competitive analysis helps clients to quickly create highly personalized and relevant content that resonates with their target audiences. We supply a list of focus keywords for articles — often the long-tail keywords that are more specific than general terms and thus reflect the user intent behind online searches.

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Let's look at some other aspects of content optimization.

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• On-page SEO refers to the optimization of individual web pages to improve their search engine rankings. It involves elements like content quality, keyword use, meta tags, alt text, and internal linking. Its effectiveness can be measured through SEO metrics like keyword rankings, organic traffic, bounce rates, and page speed.
• ‍Off-page SEO involves factors outside a website that affect its search engine rankings. It centers on building high-quality backlinks from other reputable sites, online brand mentions, and social media marketing. (Social media marketing will help build social traffic — users who come to you through social networks and platforms.) Off-page SEO can be measured through metrics like link building, domain authority, referral traffic, and social signals, which collectively indicate the website's credibility and popularity on the internet.
• Local SEO is part of off-page SEO. It focuses on search results for location-specific queries, helping businesses attract customers from their geographic area. It involves strategies like optimizing Google My Business listings, using local keywords, and acquiring customer reviews.
• E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Google wants to make every user experience satisfying by immediately providing exactly what a searcher wants. Part of how it achieves that is an emphasis on E-E-A-T. This type of content exudes relevance. It builds the credibility of your website and brand. It can attract highly coveted backlinks from other reputable websites. It has long-lasting value because the information it provides is not "of the moment," it is evergreen. It has the potential to generate organic traffic for years.
• ‍‍Vigilance is an often-overlooked part of generating organic traffic. Even the most evergreen of content needs to be updated from time to time. Perhaps a new study has been done that could make an important point in your article. Some information might need to be updated. Or the keywords simply need to be refreshed. Regular monitoring and updating of website content is vital. You can use tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics to monitor how your content is doing. Rellify's AI-powered platform makes this an easy task.

Technical SEO

‍Technical SEO focuses on satisfying certain formal and technical requirements of Google through site architecture, structure, content and more. The goal is to help search engines and website users quickly find what they are looking for. Here are some technical SEO issues you might need to address.

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• Maximize site and page speed. This helps to improve the user experience.
• Find and fix crawl errors. Crawl errors occur when a search engine tries to reach a page on a website but fails. If the page isn't reachable, it's not indexable and won't be ranked for SERPs.
• Fix broken internal and external links. Problems with internal linking (links between your own web pages) and external linking (links between your website's pages and other sites' pages) frustrate both users and search engines. To fix broken links, update the target URL or remove the link if the destination page no longer exists.
• Avoid duplicate content. While doing periodic website audits, look for duplicate content, which may arise from scrapped or copied content or the replication of pages from faceted navigation when multiple versions of the site are live.
• Migrate to HTTPS. Hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS), the secure version of HTTP, is a technical SEO ranking factor. HTTPS protects your visitors’ data their web browser interacts with your website.
• Use a clean URL structure. Overly complex URLs can cause problems for crawlers. Whenever possible, clean up and shorten your URLs by trimming unnecessary parameters.
• Optimize the XML sitemap. Sitemaps are files that webmasters can create and submit to tell search engines about web pages they would like crawled and indexed for SERPs. Check the index coverage report in Google Search Console to discover and fix index errors related to your XML sitemap.
• Optimize your robots.txt file. Robots.txt files guide Googlebot and other search engine robots on how to access, crawl and index your website. Include the location of your XML sitemap in your robots.txt file and make sure your robots.txt file does not block pages that you want found by the public. Google’s robots.txt tester can tell you if your file is working.
• Add structured data or schema markup. Schema markup and other structured data give Google context about the importance of a page and helps your organic listings stand out in SERPs.
• Use responsive design. Mobile-first indexing is a significant ranking factor, so mobile optimization is a critical aspect of technical SEO. Responsive design allows a web page to look its best whether the user is on a smartphone, laptop or any other device.

Pros and cons of organic traffic

As you can see, organic traffic does not come easily. Let's review the positive and negative aspects.

Advantages of organic traffic

• Higher user trust in organic search results compared to paid results.
• Generation of continuous and free traffic.
• Gaining expert status in a specific field.

Disadvantages of organic traffic

• It takes weeks or possibly months to build organic traffic with quality content.
• It requires a great deal of expertise.
• SEO strategy must be constantly adapted and content must be monitored and updated, otherwise there is a risk of losing organic traffic.

How to build organic traffic

‍Google uses AI to decide what content is placed in a position to generate organic traffic. Shouldn't you use AI to create meaningful blog articles that have a shot to rank at the top of SERPs?

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At Rellify, no aspect of content creation is left to chance. We use a unique, award-winning approach to content marketing backed by AI. But we go further by giving you the option to employ human intelligence and creativity along the way. Or, if you like, we can supply you with expert services and create content for you.

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Get your content at the top of search engine results. Pull users to your site with a high click-through rate. Turn people searching for answers on the internet into customers and then advocates for your business. Contact Rellify today to revolutionize your content strategy and create meaningful content that engages your target audience.