SEO and content go hand in hand, and this is not something new for the world of marketers. Hearing many people say that “Content is king” has done a bit of damage to our industry. With this in mind, marketers develop a “churn and burn” attitude, simply trying to crank out content on a larger scale to help their ranking on Google. According to content management system, WordPress, 73 million new posts are published monthly.
What these people aren’t aware of, is that the content quality trumps quantity, especially for SEO reasons.
The purpose of Google is to provide users with the most relevant, and accurate content for their searches. The search engine wants you to get valuable information, in the fewest amount of clicks. The emphasis on content has already been acknowledged by Google, telling us that content is one of its top three ranking factors.
With this in mind, don’t post mediocre content just to have something out there. This content won’t help you to rank, as search engines are smarter than ever, and aware when your information isn’t useful to the user.
What is bad content?
Bad content is usually “thin” . This means that the content serves little to no value to the user. Check out your bounce rates for your website pages; if the bounce rate is over 50% – this means the users didn’t find what they were looking for and went elsewhere. With those metrics, it may be time for some fresh, new and exciting content.
What is good content?
Good content can be defined as several things –
1. It serves visitors intent and provides them with valuable information to their questions. SEO is way more than just your rankings. It is about educating your users, helping them to solve a problem and develop a connection with your brand. Do your keyword research here. This will help you cater to your users, find out what they are searching for, and optimize your content for it.
2. The user experience is pleasant on any platform, mobile or desktop. Google notices when your site is user-friendly. A well-designed site will have a positive impact on your SEO strategy, and keep your consumers coming back. Mobile has become a huge platform, and many searches are done on mobile. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile reading, you will be watching your site traffic steadily fall.
3. It’s fast. You deliver the content to the users right away. Load time needs to be next to nothing! If your site takes too long to load, the user will leave, and find one of your competitors who will serve them the content quickly.
4. Finally, your content needs to complete all of these metrics better than your competitors. It is important to always check out your competition. See what they are doing. This can help you find what information they aren’t giving THEIR users, and you can optimize to give it to yours.
Good content is what helps your SEO strategy sink or swim. It does take time and research, but in the end – the results you will see are worth the effort.