Branded Content by Cosmic Press

Google search continues to be a primary driver of web traffic for brands, people, places, and things. With billions of searches conducted daily, every company wants to be seen in that top spot on the results page for keywords – this is the whole premise of SEO in a nutshell.

But as Google upgrades its algorithms, the rules of the game change for SEO, and brands shift priorities to gain small but important advantages.

Kevin Miller, a tech entrepreneur and investor based in Los Angeles, has made a career of SEO expertise, helping businesses get traction in search and rise in the rankings.

His latest mission? Launch clients to #1 spots on Google with exceptionally written content. Here’s how.

From Quantity to Quality

We don’t have to go back very far to remember the early days of SEO, when marketers were first learning the fundamentals and establishing best practices.

Very little was known about the inner workings of Google’s mysterious algorithm. What caused a web to rise to the top spot for certain keywords, and what could be done to accelerate the process?

Despite all the question marks, one thing made sense to these early SEO pioneers: more written content meant higher rankings, provided the relevant keywords were included in the text.

This led to shady practices like keyword stuffing, hidden text, and endless pages of meaningless gibberish. Strategists tried everything – a true sandbox of trial and error.

“It was the wild west when back then, and blog content was rudimentary, to put it mildly,” said Miller. “Those were just the growing pains of a brand new technology and a field that nobody really understood.”

Those early days were necessary for learning the ins and outs of search, even if the content wasn’t always useful or nice to look at. Now, Miller is all-in on quality content that delivers value to readers and drives numbers in search.

What the Algorithm Wants

It’s not just a matter of preference – high-quality written content is now prioritized by Google’s algorithm based on persuasive evidence from SEO strategists and researchers.

For starters, Google has waged war on dishonest and deceptive practices that once brought webpages to the top spot on search engine results pages. It didn’t take long for companies to realize that quality content was the way of the future.

“These days, you get penalized pretty severely if you engage in any of these ‘black hat’ practices that go against search engine guidelines,” said Miller. “You still see websites trying to take shortcuts and spam keywords, but they’re just holding themselves back.”

Instead, Google is encouraging practices that encourage quality, authority, and trust online. Brands that put their best foot forward with well-written content are now at a huge advantage, positioned to ascend in the rankings with time and continued effort.

This has led to a noticeable shift in content strategy in the past few years, with many brands playing catch up after years of bad habits that needed to be unlearned.

No longer do aimless, fluffy blog articles serve businesses any good from an SEO perspective. Miller suggests these brands make the shift to quality content that serves a purpose and attracts genuinely interested readers to their site.

“There’s no substitute for real, valuable content, and you can’t fake it, either,” said Miller. “You can only get so far before readers realize they’re being fooled or led to a dead end. The content needs to be clean, make sense, and improve the life of the person reading it.”

The formula seems simple, but this no-shortcut policy isn’t always easy to implement. Great written content takes research, time, and resources to pull off consistently.

However, this is the approach that Miller and his team at GR0 have used to get fantastic results for clients across industries, particularly companies operating in direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models.

Becoming an Authority

Today’s SEO buzzwords are all over the map, but one term can’t be ignored, denied, or misinterpreted: authority. This is the X-factor that brands need to write compelling content and springboard to the top of search engine results.

It’s not some wishy-washy metric, either. Authority can be measured quantitatively by the number of high-quality backlinks in a website’s catalog, which can be seen as “votes of trust” that Google takes very seriously.

“If your page has a backlink from an authoritative news source or a huge publication in your industry, it’s a huge plus for your website since you’re now associated with that authority,” said Miller. “The best way to get those all-important links is to write valuable content and expand that network.”

By building authority online, brands get a multi-tiered boost to organic SEO, with backlinks and the improved public perception of the company in general. Readership leads to shares, which leads to more visitors, email sign-ups, interested buyers, and sales.

For these reasons, written content is always a great investment for companies looking to establish trust, become an authority in their field, and improve their standings in Google search – all important aspects of digital marketing today.

“Strong evergreen content is really a pillar of SEO at this point,” said Miller. “That’s why we lead with that at our agency and make it our main focus.”

Beyond the Written Word

Miller’s agency, Los Angeles-based GR0, has had massive success taking clients’ written content to the next level. GR0’s strategists, writers, and PR experts work together to create relevant, in-depth articles that draw attention from around the web.

“We come up with ideas for content based on what’s relevant or where we see untapped potential, then capitalize on it with top-quality writing,” said Miller. “Subject matter expertise will never fall out of favor.”

In addition to writing services, GR0 offers strategic PR and on-paged optimization services to tackle SEO from every angle with established best practices.

Miller and his team will continue to lead the charge for white-hat SEO, with great client results to back them up.