Content Marketing and how it effects Rankings

[CD_2016]

Hi there everyone!

I have what I think is a simple question, but one I can't fully understand the answer to.

If I had a homepage that I wanted to optimize for the keyword, e.g. "Second Hand Cars", so I add the keyword in the page title and text etc etc. But I still don't rank well for it. So I turn to content marketing and create some content on my site's blog about new cars, sports cars, and of course second hand cars, with some great content and anchor text pointing back to the home page.

Now here's my question, how does creating that content on a blog, or on someone's blog/website help my homepage rank higher for my chosen keyword? Surely it would just help the blog post rank higher?  And if someone were to search for "Buy Secondhand cars", wouldn't my hypothetical blog post (with more shares and links than my home page) rank higher than the home page itself?

If anyone can clear this up for me I'd be eternally grateful! Thanks in advance

Cheers

[CD_2016]

Thanks everyone for such great answers! You've all helped a great deal in answering the question

[Chris.Menke]

Mathew,

You do have to watch out for keyword cannibalization and synonyms in your content.  A term like "second hand cars" is a slippery slope in that it is the same as "used cars", "pre-owned cars" ,"previously new cars", and then you've got all  the variations of "used automobiles", "used cars for sale" "used vehicles", "used cars in miami", "billy bob's second hand cars" etc.  When you are building out content on a topic with so many synonyms and similar words, it's just about impossible to create pages on each of the many varieties of these term that are so distinctly different from each other that Google is likely to rank them the way you would like, or think they should be ranked.  You're not going to rank for all of them anyway, so why try--choose a brand focus and stick with it.

Rather, when you are creating your site and editorial calendar, reserve the hierarchically uppermost page of the site or category for your  most competitive term and use content on it that includes all (or most, or a lot of) the synonyms and variations of your main term.  Then stay away from anything but casual use or of those synonyms in the rest of your content.  You can get away with content on sub pages dealing with "used fords" and below that "used mustangs" and "67 mustangs" below that--those terms are distinctly unique and lend themselves to content that can be distinctly unique and engaging to distinctly different audiences.

Think of your content as something that would appeal to aficionados.  How would they talk about the page's product or category?  If they would split hairs on the meaning of terms, then you might be able to too if you can effectively used written words to juxtapose their arguments.  Search engine's are not any better at differentiating synonyms than we are and if we can't write down words on our sites that are going to help them, they're going to be lost.

[redfishking]

When a page links to another page, it is letting Google know that the page it is linking to is of significant value. When you build a page about new cars, and then you link out from that page to something else, Google assumes that that other page is also about new cars, and that it is a high quality page. Of course, the original page is still seen as more influential, but some of this value is transferred along to the page it links to.

The way that this will increase the value of your homepage is, for example, if there were 10,000 pages all about new cars, and they all linked to your home page, then Google would be strongly inclined to think that your home page was a great resource for things about new cars. So even though the 10,000 pages might be more optimized for the "new cars" keyword, since there are so many, and since they all link to your page as a resource, that little bit of value they transfer to your page adds up, and your home page becomes more important than the linking pages in the eyes of Google.

This is the basic concept of Pagerank, and is a very important factor in how Google determines results in the rankings.

[Alex-Harford]

With regards to links, The Rising Tide Lifts All Ships, assuming your blog is on the same domain.

It is possible for sub-pages to rank above the homepage for your lead-terms - http://moz.com/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization - though it doesn't happen too often and I wouldn't like to comment further without seeing the site in question.

[BlueprintMarketing]

To answer your question yes and no. It's never going to outrank your homepage Google knows how to map URLs. So you will not likely see your perfectly optimized page being the only thing ranked in Google however if it's only thing with content on it it might be.

Google likes long interactive enthralling engaging gripping content.

Meaning if I throw a video of relevance and quality in addition to a couple thousand words of high quality information on used cars and not just repeat the word used cars over again and over again although it must be used (no pun intended) in the page title tag and URL to have it be optimized for that keyword.

You want to really give the visitor the most amazing presentation and information that they have ever witnessed in their life. This will not only get you ranked higher in Google because Google sees your content is not thin meaning it's not just you slapping 300 words on a page and using used cars over and over again like the shining when all fun and no play make's Jack a dull boy is implemented things go wrong just like in the book or the movie.

By writing such quality content and of course sharing it on social networks you will have people and say wow that's a great article on preowned automobiles I think I will buy a used car from here. But you must start with quality and just because Google only cares about things over 300 words does not mean that should be where you stop.

What Peter has said is exactly right I wish you the best and I would recommend a tool called scribecontent.com

Sincerely,

Thomas

[crackingmedia]

Hi Matthew

To a large extent, ranking well for a search term will depend on how competitive that search term is, i.e. based on how many other sites and pages are being optimised for it. If the term "second hand cars" is the term you are targeting, then that will be quite a challenge, but not so much if you are targeting a smaller geographical area, e.g. "second hand cars Miami".

However, I realise that doesn't answer your specific question. Even more these days since the Hummingbird update, it's not just about optimising pages - although you are right still to do that - but making sure your site is well targeted. So if you are targeting "second hand cars" for your site (bearing in mind you want your home page ranking for that), then the site as a whole needs to be optimised well for that term.

In terms of pages ranking higher, the anchor text and links you are adding will, to some extent, pass SEO value to the pages they link to. So by creating great content on pages about cars that links to your home page about "second hand cars" each page that is linked will pass on value to the page being linked to. Cumulatively the that page will accrue value, providing the page itself has good content.

This page in the Moz guide may help you further: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

I hope that helps,
Peter