Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of creating content that will rank high in search results. Marketers have had to adapt their content over the years to try and master the ever changing landscape of SEO.
Creating content with searchers’ intent in mind is a very important skill for anyone trying to create an authoritative site. There are things you need to keep in mind when creating content and other things you need to avoid when creating content. Here we will go over some of the dos and don’ts of SEO.
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Dos
Focus on searcher intent
When you are deciding on topics, organizing your subtitles, and content of your website you need to create with the searcher in mind. When creating high ranking content you need to think in the form of queries. Always think how a searcher would ask a question and every way that searcher could rephrase a certain question and what related questions would naturally flow from the first.
When you are creating content don’t just focus on the overall topic, consider searcher’s intent with your subtopics. If you are going to break up your content into subdivided topics each subtopic title needs to be in line with a possible query your searcher would ask.
If you create content that has sub headings and content that answers related questions, Google may pull your article for those smaller related questions. Even if your main topic was not intended for that particular search query. This method will increase your pageviews significantly because your one article may be pulled for multiple searches.
Provide original content
Search engines have become more intuitive and have tried to limit duplicate content. If you want your content to rank high you need to be concerned about providing original content. When you are creating content you need to be focused on providing some sort of new unique viewpoint.
You need to try and get creative in how you organize information and research. This doesn’t mean you have to go out and do complicated research and pull together lots of data from your own experiments, but you do need to utilize what information is available to you and figure out how to put a unique spin on it.
With SEO you have to constantly be concerned about new websites popping up or a major update. If you provide original content that users find valuable you will likely continue to see success despite any major changes. Google’s ultimate goal is to provide high quality content that matches the searcher’s intent at the top of its first page. Ultimately if you focus on providing unique valuable content a major update or a new competitor won’t be a big concern for you in the future.
Optimize your website and images
When ranking content Google does take into consideration your website’s mechanics. This includes pagespeeds, and file and image optimization.
If you have a website that takes a long time to load you may find that your ranking in Google suffers. You want to make sure each page of your website loads quickly so that the user experience does not suffer. To make page loading speed quicker you can compress files and images, use browser caching, and limit the number of redirects.
When you are using images or files you will want to make sure that you are using the best file formats for your website. For instance images that are .png over .jpeg work much better for websites. This is due to how it loads in and the quality of the image as well.
Interlink your content
Interlinking your content is where you provide a link to another page on your own website. Interlinking content will help rank your website higher and gain site authority. If you take the time to organically link your pages together your users will be more likely to click through and read more of your content. Make sure to link content related together that flows naturally, don’t try to force internal links where they don’t belong.
Another helpful way to provide internal links that may not have a great place for a link within the content is to try and provide it at the bottom or the side of your page. Having a related, or “you may also like” section will help keep viewers on your page and help your website’s SEO. Most of the time a reader is interested in related topics and may check out your other articles so long as they are readily available to them. Don’t make finding your other content difficult for your readers, go ahead and have your other pieces of content visible on the page somewhere even if it is not necessarily an internal link.
Don’ts
Try and stick keywords everywhere
Google SEO is constantly moving away from keywords and key phrases and focusing on semantic searches with the goal of understanding the context of the content. In the past Google used to only pick up certain keywords or phrases with no regard to the intent of the searcher.
However, with each update Google’s ultimate aim is to try and find relevant content that matches the searchers intent. Google also has AI known as BrainRank that continues to analysis how users are interacting with content and adjusts the search results as it learns what users are looking for.
When keywords were all Google was looking for people would stuff their articles full of keywords, hidden texts and links. The content tended to be thin and low quality. The only focus was to gain as many page views as possible without concern of the end user.
You do want to look for topics people are looking for and make relevant titles and subheadings but don’t force keywords in your articles over creating quality content. If you only focus on putting in keywords and not the actual quality of the content users won’t find your content as valuable and Google will learn that users don’t like to interact with your content. This could hurt your website’s authority and your content’s ranking.
Only push products
Even if your website’s main focus is to sell products, whether your own or affiliate products, you will find a benefit in creating informative content that doesn’t necessarily push product. There are several reasons that informative content performs really well on google.
First, Google searchers are asking questions and not always looking for products. Most people turn to Google for answers rather than products. If you make informative content you will capture more viewers that will ultimately lead them to your product pages. If your website only does reviews of products or product descriptions you won’t be that high in the ranks.
For instance, if a searcher asks “How do I train my dog to sit?” and your article is “Best dog treats for training,” Google will not likely find your content relevant to that search query. However, if you did provide an article on how to train a dog and gave the reader information and you mentioned that treats are very important to the training process your reader would likely start to think that they need to purchase some dog treats. They would either browse your website for that information or they may Google “Best dog treats for training” and find your product page that way.
Second, providing informative content legitimizes your brand and store. If you create informative articles that answer many common questions of readers they will gain trust with your website. Unlike in person sales where you can explain exactly how a product works and how it will help them you have to rely only on your website. If you are in a competitive industry, coming across as an expert in that industry will grow your viewers’ trust and they would be more likely to buy directly from you than someone who only provides product reviews.
Only focus on the volume of pages
It is true that the more content you have the better chance you have at ranking. It is a strategy some people use to grow websites, they will publish as much content as quickly as they can in order to grow their page views. However, for many starting out it can be tempting to put out as many short-form articles as they can write.
When it comes to creating the best SEO content you want to focus on long form content. It is well known that Google prefers long form over short form content. When Google is trying to pull relevant content to the top of the page for the searcher it considers the entire article. This includes the title and the subtitles. If you have your content broken up into a lot of short form content consider putting related content together into longer form content with some articles acting as content for subheadings.
SEO doesn’t come easily at first and there is a hard learning curve to creating SEO friendly content. If you need help getting started or want to outsource your content, we at Astoria Advertising Company have experience creating SEO friendly content that can help grow your website.
If you still have questions and need help implementing SEO friendly content see how Astoria Advertising Company can help. Just fill out this form to get started.
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