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In the last few years the “c word” has become so overused it has almost become a profanity. That’s content of course. So what exactly is “good content”? James Cole* unpacks the concept.
Content can mean many things in digital marketing, Instagram stories for influencers, youtube instructional, infographics are just some of what falls under the content banner. However onsite written content for search engine optimisation (SEO) is still one of the most overlooked areas of content.
It’s oft maligned, probably because SEO has a history of making content worse. A decade ago, the internet was filled with low-quality and robotic 300-word pieces and SEO was to blame. That turned many writers and editors off of SEO for a long time, probably even to this day in some circles.
But the truth is that content and SEO need each other. A single piece of high-ranking content can drive traffic to a site for years to come. Content posted to social or distributed through an email newsletter has a significantly shorter lifespan.
And SEO is largely pointless without content. High-quality content is one of Google’s top three ranking factors. Without content, it’s very difficult for a site to rank for anything other than its brand name.
So how do you marry SEO and content together in a way that lets you please both your audience and the search engine algorithms?
Here are out top 10 tips for creating content that your audience can’t wait to read and the search engines can’t help but rank.
1.WRITE FOR HUMANS, NOT ALGORITHMS
When creating a new piece of content, should you write for search engines first and optimise for humans later, or should you write for humans first and optimise for search later?
Your first focus should be writing for people, not search engines. In the long run, that’s what wins. If you provide the best answer to the search query, Google will figure that out. Trying to take shortcuts won’t get you to where you want to go.
Writers should avoid getting bogged down trying to include keywords or phrases a particular number of times. If you craft an authoritative, well-written piece of content, it should naturally include those relevant terms, and it will be enjoyable for humans and bots to read and rank.
2. CREATE HIGH QUALITY CONTENT
It might sound harsh, but this has been my experience: no amount of SEO will save bad content, but great content will rank even if it wasn’t written with SEO in mind.
Set out to create content you genuinely believe will be the best source of information for that topic on the internet. Holding this sort of standard means going the extra distance with research, writing style, and execution, all of which combine into the highest quality content possible.
3. IDENTIFY (AND SATISFY) USER INTENT
Pay attention to the intent i.e. what information the searcher is looking for, behind the keywords you’re targeting. If your content doesn’t satisfy user intent and provide what searchers want, it will never rank.
Writing better copy for SEO means considering the user intent and solving for searchers’ challenges, needs, or opportunities.”
There are four types of user intent:
4. COVER TOPICS COMPREHENSIVELY
Make pieces of content comprehensive. Content that ranks in 2019 doesn’t just answer the user’s initial question; it also answers
questions searchers didn’t even know they wanted the answers to.
5. ANSWER YOUR AUDIENCE’S QUESTIONS
Google seems to love very specific and detailed responses to searches that are frequently in the form of a question. By looking for these kinds of searches and keyword opportunities, you are being more supportive to your customers and ingratiating yourself to Google at the same time.
Google provides these for you normally on the search page but another way of working this out (and finding new ones) is by talking to your sales team to find out what questions customers are asking. Have them make a list of frequently asked customer questions – the ones that come up so often that they should probably have an email template for it.
6. UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS TO KNOW
Writing content with SEO in mind means writing content with your audience in mind. Keywords are important, but what your audience wants is even more important. Ask:
7. DO YOUR RESEARCH
Research is the key to becoming an expert. The more in-depth your research is, the easier it will be to produce content that is not only informative but also covers the breadth of a topic.
Most content producers spend more time researching than writing the content itself.
8. CONSIDER THE ATTRIBUTES OF WHAT’S ALREADY RANKING
It’s important to find out what’s currently ranking. Do a quick search for your target keyword and review the posts that are already ranking highly. Then, use these posts for inspiration when creating your own content. Remember this is the bar that google is setting for you. If you can improve on this content then you are half way to winning the battle.
Pay attention to the length and nature of articles ranking in the top 10 for the keyword you want to target. There’s no magic number in terms of how many words an article should be, but you should consider the length and breadth of top-ranking results.
9. USE SIMPLE AND ACCESSIBLE LANGUAGE
Write simply and clearly. You may think that writing highly technical, jargonfilled content means you’ll come across as a knowledge leader. But people skim when reading on the web, and this type of content will make their eyes glaze over.
Instead, stop and ask yourself: What does my target customer call it? What do they call me? What are they searching for on Google? If your language doesn’t align with their language, then you’ve missed the point of SEO.
10. FORMAT YOUR CONTENT CORRECTLY
One final area of copywriting that is often neglected is making the content “skimmable”. While optimising an article with targeted keyword phrases and internal hyperlinks is important, the readability of a website can also directly contribute to its success.
Use subheads, bullet lists, and multiple images. And never, never write long blocky paragraphs. This is bad for time on page, and therefore, bad for rankings.
Add images, charts, blockquotes or other elements that break up the monotony of text and add variety to the page.
Finally use short sentences and a conversational tone when writing, and illustrate it with beautiful visuals.
F R O N T P A G E PUSH
OPPORTUNITY
One of our clients had a specific range of soft furnishing products that they felt they had a competitive advantage in the market. We saw that the site was ranking on page 2 of Google. When reviewing the market potential on Google we saw that the main product category search term had around 3,000 searches per month which included a number of smaller search variations.
METHODOLOGY
When we audited the clients’ website, we noticed that their product page had very small amounts of copy that did not cover the entire topic related to the product category. We used AHREFs (a search engine keyword tool) to build a list of sub-topics that people were searching for, and wrote copy that covered them all. After we published the copy on the product page we then published links from other product pages back the new content to validate that this is the page we want to rank for these search terms.
RESULTS
Once Google had re-indexed the page and the new internal links we saw a rise in organic profile to page 1, we also further validated the page by having two blogs published on external sites which helped push this page to the top 3 spots on Google. The additional traffic from this ranking increase led to a 30% annual increase in sales for this product category.
*James Cole is a digital marketing strategist and campaign manager with 10 years’ experience in the industry. He currently heads up WFA publisher Boston Publishing’s content marketing business, OBD Services.
