In this post-Panda world, shallow content written for keywords rather than people won’t just leave you with a website no one wants to read but could actually cause a decline in your rankings.  You won’t just see a decline for those pages with poor content but for your entire site! Proper keyword use will always play an important role in content marketing and SEO. Even though you should no longer be writing for search engines, you obviously still want search engines to rank your content on the first page for your most important search terms. You want to make it clear to search engines what your content is about and what terms your content deserves to rank highly for in search. And that involves proper use of keywords. Keywords can and should be used strategically, but they should never be overused for SEO. Let’s explore where and when keywords actually matter for search rankings  and where and when they don’t.Continue reading

Why do you read the Content Marketing Institute blog? Is it to find out what services Joe Pulizzi and his team at CMI and Junta42 have to offer? Or are you more interested in their analysis of the latest trends, research and tips on content marketing? A “reader-centric” blog focuses on the reader – whether he or she is a customer, prospect, journalist, investor, thought leader, or casual Web browser – rather than on the company producing the blog.Continue reading