In the world of SEO, there’s an array of strategies you can employ.  From social media traffic to link building, SEO agencies will suggest many threads that create your SEO web.  But the old King, content, still reigns, and for many keyword targets adding fresh content to your website is by far the most effective strategy.

Check the services of many SEO agencies, and you’ll get a mind boggling array of solutions thrown at you.  Perhaps the most complex of these is a concept known as content marketing, where you create and respond to content online in an effort to become a “thought leader” in your industry.  Social media, link building, even off-line branding efforts are all said to improve your website’s organic ranking.

All of this may be true, and no doubt if you have the time and resources, content marketing can boost your website’s ranking.

Guys like Rand Fishkin of Moz and the Hubspot folks certainly know their stuff.  But for the typical SMB or niche ecommerce site, much of what they suggests feels like overkill.  Simply put, not every business is going to become a thought leader by investing huge amounts of time providing free content and endlessly networking online.

And you may not have to.  For the purposes of SEO, here’s a consideration.  Instead of looking at what everybody else is trying to do, look at what they’re not doing.

90% of Success is Showing Up

…that’s an old Woody Allen line, and data we’ve gathered at Marketing 360® suggests there is something to this when it comes to blogging for SEO purposes.

Try this.  Audit some of your top competitor’s websites.  Look at their on-page content, articles, and especially blogs.  Take note of how long it’s been since their content was updated.

In many cases, it will have been awhile.  It’s not unusual on a professional service or ecommerce website to find blogs that don’t have a new post in the last calender year.

You have a chance to overtake these sites on organic ranking, just by blogging on a regular basis.  It’s clear that adding fresh content (within the quality scope Google lays out) is a considerable factor with SEO.

Now, this might not play such a big role except for the fact that so many SMB websites never update their blogs.  They’re too busy, they lack writing talent, or maybe they just aren’t aware of the impact fresh content has on organic rankings.

If you’re willing to create reasonable, original content on your domain regularly, you’ll have an SEO advantage over everyone who doesn’t.  Do it for months and you’ll see your rankings go up without having to engage in the amorphous activity of content marketing.

Content is king, but you can’t let the king get old.  If you don’t have the time to blog yourself, hire an SEO agency with reasonably priced copywriters to do it for you.

Content needs to be original – but don’t worry about trying to win a Pulitzer.  Give some good advice, comment on industry trends, and use keywords naturally.

If you’re in competitive, corporate waters, then blogging and onsite optimization may not be enough to rank organically.  Keep watching white board’s with Rand.  But if you’re a small business strapped for time, make sure you keep adding fresh content to your domain.

Be more consistent than your competition and you’ll see your rankings go up.