Although there are several factors that can affect an SEO campaign, it is widely-held that quality, original, and relevant content is among the most important components. Constantly generating new content for your website, whether its in the form of blog posts or landing pages is essential to improving search results for keywords that you’d like your business to get found for.
However, when it comes time to write content, one may wonder what exactly “quality” content entails. There are a number of tips and factors that can help guide you in the right direction:
Write for your Audience:
One of the biggest pieces of advice to keep in mind is to write for your audience, not search engines. While it is tempting to target the latter, search engines are smart enough to recognize the difference. Refrain from stuffing your pages with an excessive amount of keywords. Write fluidly for your target audience, not robotically for Google and Bing.
Have a Purpose for Each Page or Blog Post:
Before you start to generate new content for your site, make sure you have a purpose for what you writing. Do not just write aimlessly in the hopes that your content will get indexed and be deemed, “quality”. Make sure you keep in mind what the purpose of the page or blog post is, and reflect that in your content.
Don’t Forget your Metadata
Just because you’re writing for users and not search engines does not mean you should neglect them altogether. Make sure you optimize the page title and description of every page on your website so that they accurately describe what is on the page. As a reminder, the purpose of metadata is to give search engines an idea of what they can expect on a page when they crawl your website.
Word Length
There are no official rules for how long a page or blog post should be. The length of your content depends on, amongst other things, the purpose of the piece and your audience. For example, if you are writing a “5 Tips for ….” type blog post, you’ll probably want to keep your length on the shorter side. However, on the other hand, if you are adding a case study or white paper to your website, clearly they will be on the longer side.
Avoid Duplicate Content
It goes without saying, but avoid stealing content from other websites. While it is okay to browse other websites for ideas or inspiration, write in your own words to avoid a penalty.
Step Back and Evaluate
Revise your work until you are completely satisfied. After you finish writing, step back for a second and re-read your work. Is it relevant? Exciting? Informative? Entertaining? Whatever your goal may be, take a moment to evaluate whether the content is meeting it.
Keeping these factors in mind will assist you in the process of generating fresh, evergreen content for your website, ideally benefiting your SEO campaigns.