This is a guest article from professional blogger, Sharon Gourlay, the founder of digitalnomadwannabe.com.
Why Increasing Your Relevance Can Bring Increased Revenue
Keeping readers on your blog for longer is one of the key targets that many bloggers have. After all, if they’re reading, they’re also potentially clicking and that means revenue when it comes to advertising. Increasing search relevance is a great way to do this.
This post explains what relevancy is in the context of combining ad revenue and SEO, and why it’s really important for getting readers to your site, keeping them there and improving your revenue.
What search relevancy?
Search engines look for the content that provides the closest match with what the reader has submitted as a query.
If the reader clicks away from the post that appears in the top search spots then search engines know that the content wasn’t relevant for that reader. This is a simplification, but this is essentially one of the most important signals that search engines, like Google, measure to rank keywords.
If a reader stays on the content for a decent length of time and engages with it then the search engine knows it’s relevant. Of course, it takes more than one single reader to give the search engines the idea that the content is or isn’t relevant, but that’s the concept.
Relevance also has a bearing when it comes to engagement in the post. It’s great, of course, for readers to spend a long time on your content, but if they engage with that content it can show even more relevance. By engagement, I mean, of course, actions.
This could be that they click on your email opt-in, it could be that they click on one of your affiliate links, or they engage or view an advertiser’s ad. There are a lot of potential actions.
The other aspect of relevance is the other content that you have on your site that supports what it was that the reader clicked on to read in the first place.
If you have supporting content that is relevant, then it’s all going to work towards keeping your reader on your site for longer, encouraging more brand advertisers to see your site as a premium partner, while showing the search engines that your site as a whole is relevant for that particular content niche.
And, don’t forget your reader who is going to view you as more of an expert in the area because you have all this extra content that is helping answer the questions that they have.
Why relevancy should be important to publishers
The more relevant you are for a topic area, the higher in the search rankings you will appear and the longer your readers will stay on your site. The more your readers trust your content, the more likely they are to buy from you or engage with your advertisers (i.e. trust your recommendations – or buy products from affiliates or products you create yourself or endorse).
Think of it this way: Say that you were to only write 10 blog posts, and in the first instance you write 10 about the top 10 things to do in 10 different cities across the world. If they’re well written they might get some good one-off traffic for each post.
If you write 10 blog blogs about a single city or area, then you’re much more likely to be seen as an expert and your opinion trusted about that city. This will help your readers see you as an expert in a way that they are more likely to interact with your site and return.
Relevancy should be important to you because it can drive traffic to your site, it can improve the trust that your readers have with you and it can make you more money. If at least one of those things is important to you then keep reading…
Search relevancy can keep your readers on your site for longer
Readers spend longer reading and engaging with content that is relevant to them. Length of time on page can actually drive up advertisers bids. So, ensuring that the content that they see on the page and on the supporting content to that page is relevant to them really helps with keeping them around for longer.
How can you do this?
Well, make sure that your content is the best that it can be and that it answers the questions that your readers are asking.
Make sure that any internal links you put in the post are linking to relevant content for your reader.
Make sure that any affiliate links you use in your content are to products that should be right for your reader at the stage in the buying cycle that they’re likely to be (so, no best wine fridge links if your post is about where to get the best beer in Tallinn!). Also, be sure your affiliate links from now on include the correct parameters Google is telling publishers to use!
Using search relevancy to improve revenue
An engaged reader who is reading and clicking on your content is more likely to click on related content links. I love the analytics that Ezoic provides me with their Big Data Analytics that allows me to see which pages, posts, and content types are generating the most revenue.
This really helps me to create more relevant content around that topic niche which makes my existing content even MORE relevant to the reader.
But, even better, it helps me to create more relevant content for areas that are generating higher revenues. It’s a win-win situation!
The more engaged my readers with a topic area, the more likely they are to click on additional content, links and advertising, and the more premium advertisers that content attracts.
One final tip to increase search relevance and revenue
There’s another area that the search engines look at when it comes to relevancy and that’s inbound links.
Search engines might see you as the subject matter expert in your topic, but if other sites around the internet do, then you’re really cementing your chances of success. So, go ahead and build those links from other sites—from other bloggers, get some social proof by sharing your content on social media—but please, please, please make sure they’re relevant.
There’s nothing worse than building a whole set of inbound links to your fabulous content from completely irrelevant other areas and the search engines spot this technique easily.
So be careful with your link building, only work with trusted sites and relevant content and look forward to seeing how you can reap a revenue reward with relevance!
Next steps to building search relevancy
Take a look through your blog and all your blog posts. Do the topics discussed support each other, build your relevancy and help you become an authority in an area?
If not, it’s time to rethink what you are publishing on your blog. What is your niche? How can you make sure your future content supports each other and creates relevancy? Look at Google Analytics and see what content is doing well and Ezoic Big Data Analytics to see which topics are the most profitable.
Plan out your future content taking all of this into account and you’ll not only have a better chance of increasing your readers and income but a better site.
Final thoughts on search relevancy
Relevancy is an often ignored topic of getting more traffic and monetizing that traffic on blogs.
However, it is extremely important as it can make a big difference to not just how easy it is to get traffic in the first place but how likely it is that you can make money from that traffic, that readers will engage with your site, trust your brand and continue to return.
