A wise man once said…”CONTENT IS KING”, and he was right.
Content writing is often overlooked by a lot of businesses. They don’t realise its impact. If you want traffic, rankings, and organic search visibility, then you need to consistently create optimised content. This could include blogs, newsletters, social media posts and so much more.
Content and SEO. They work hand in hand together. Their bond can skyrocket any website to the top of search engine rankings. But that’s only when they’re at their best.
When they’re at their worst, they can cause Google penalties that can be near impossible to recover from. In this article, we aim to provide you with a solid understanding of why content is important for SEO and show you what you can do to make sure they work in harmony.
First, what is Content?
In a nutshell, content is any high-quality information that provides an answer to customers or a solution to their problems.
Why is Content Important for SEO?
Content is extremely important for SEO. Without it, search engines won’t have enough information to index your pages correctly and help you rank.
Authority, Trust, and Expertise are Essential
While not a direct ranking factor, E-A-T is a guideline Google uses to determine whether your content is valuable to readers and whether it should rank well. So, while it’s not a direct ranking factor, it can have an impact on your overall search rankings indirectly.
Good content writing helps you establish your brand or business as an authority, an expert, and a trustworthy site by following these guidelines.
Let’s break it down further.
Expertise:
The first letter in E-A-T stands for expertise. Google is trying to evaluate the expertise of the creator of the content. It’s evaluated primarily at the content-level, not at the website or organisational level. Google is looking for content created by a subject matter expert.
Authority:
The second letter in E-A-T stands for authoritative. Here, Google is trying to evaluate the authoritativeness of the creator of the content, the content itself, and the website. When creating content for your website, you need to create content that is:
- Relevant. You must ensure that all your content is relevant to your industry.
- Link Worthy.Well-written content will naturally have other publications that want to link to it! Backlinks are an indicator to Google that your page is authoritative.
- Share-worthy. Google loves to see your content get shared (or mentioned) on social media, which signals that you’re creating authoritative content.
Trustworthiness:
The last letter in E-A-T stands for trustworthiness. Trust is a HUGE factor in SEO, and search engines promote websites they trust to give users reliable and valuable information. One of the best ways to enhance your trust factor is to link externally, which shows search engines that the copy on your website is reliable.
The greater your ability to follow and apply the E-A-T standards to your content, the greater your chance for organic search engine visibility and ranking success.
If this all seems a little daunting to you, don’t worry, SEO consultants like us can help you gear your website to this.
It’s Beneficial to your SEO
In addition to creating trust, content marketing helps with your search engine optimisation (SEO).
An essential part of SEO is writing quality content focused on your users. Not only do users read your content, but so do Google and other search engines, and they decide when to show your pages in the search results.
When you write content, you usually write much content related to terms your audience is searching for. As you do this, your website will rank for more keywords, and you’ll start to come up more often as you write more and more content.
All of the new visitors who head to your site are potential buyers. So, in addition to increasing your traffic, content marketing could also increase your sales.
So, What Are the Other Main Benefits of Good Content Writing?
- Increases Visibility Online: When you regularly create optimised and relevant content for your audience, your rankings will increase, meaning that you’re more likely to be found when people are searching.
- Targets Keywords: Content is the only way to get essential keywords onto your site and ensure you are found online.
- Helps to Generate Backlinks: The more high-quality links you build, the higher you are likely to rank in the search engines.
- Leads to a Much Better User Experience: By creating quality content, optimising it for search engines, and generating backlinks, you will create a website that is easy to navigate and will provide the customers with the information they need.
7 Steps to Optimise your Content for SEO
For your content to be beneficial for SEO, it needs to be optimised and useful to your readers. Here are some of our top 7 tips for optimising your content for SEO:
- Understand your Target Audience. Understanding your customers will help you to research the right keyword and create content that resonates with them.
- Perform Keyword Research. Keyword research is vital. Before creating ANY content for your website, you must do keyword research first to find out exactly what your customers are searching for.
Spend time finding out what your potential customers search for and assess the strength of the keywords and your competitors for this keyword. Ask friends and family what they would search on. Most of all, write engaging, informative content!
- Focus on Long-Tail Keywords. These are usually long queries, not just 2 -3 words long. Even though these terms have a much lower search volume, you are far more likely to rank for them because of how specific they are and the much less competition they hold.
- Don’t Overdo It. Always stick to the keyword and topic you’re targeting and don’t try to include loads of keywords. Have you ever heard of over-optimisation? Including too many keywords in your content will confuse Google (and your users)!
- Make Sure your Content is Optimised for Readability. Make your sentences short and punchy. Include lots of bullet points and lists. This makes it easy to scan, and that’s what people do.
- Include Backlinks. When creating content, ensure you’re linking to other relevant, trustworthy, and authoritative sites to signal that your content is credible
- PROMOTE! Content marketing is more than just writing a piece of content and publishing it. You also must promote your content on various platforms like social media, which will direct traffic to your website.
Content is just one piece of the SEO puzzle, but we hope this article helps you understand the importance of high-quality content for SEO!
If you’d like more information on SEO and content and how they can work hand in hand to help grow your business, get in touch, and we’d be happy to help.
Categorised in: Content Marketing
Published on Jul 29, 2022
