What Is the Most Important Feature for SEO Friendly Website?
The SEO game has changed a lot over the last few years. With artificial intelligence progressing in leaps and bounds, and now being incorporated into search engine algorithms, ranking factors have become a lot harder to predict.
Harder, but not impossible, that is. When we followed the advice given by SEO experts, things started to get easier. The number one tip? Provide quality content, organize it well, and present it perfectly.
With search algorithms getting smarter, this is outstanding advice. The algorithms are getting more sophisticated. They can now scan a site and get an idea of its context as a whole. As a result, search engines are now moving from a model that prioritizes keywords to one that looks at how the keywords relate to the rest of the content.
So you now have to do more than just find the correct keywords, you need to ensure they fit the context of your page in general. While before you could look at a trending topic and write about it to get more views on your site, now the search engine will assess whether or not the whole site is a good fit for that particular query.
How Do We Get Some Love from a Search Engine?
The basic answer is simple—you need to view this as a kind of relationship. If you’re not willing to put in your best effort, work at keeping things fresh, or keep up to date with changes in the field, the relationship won’t prosper. Here are some other tips to ensure that your page gets its fair share of attention from the search engines.
High-Quality Content Created for People
Way back in the early days of search engines, all it took to rank highly was to be the site with the most keywords. This meant that the content didn’t really need to make a lot of sense. And with keyword stuffing, it usually was pretty obvious that the content was created for search engines, not people.
The practice led to a lot of useless, spammy content making it to the top of the list. When search engines began evolving, they started to look for ways to reduce this spammy content. One effective method they came up with was monitoring the bounce rate of a site.
This move meant that webmasters now had to focus on keeping eyeballs on the site, and that meant writing for readers. How do you do that? By providing quality content that your visitors want to read or watch. (Content doesn’t have to just be written.).
High-quality content takes more time and effort, but it’s one of the best SEO investments you can make. Not only will it ensure that people stay on your site longer, but it also creates a favorable impression of your brand.
What Does Quality Content Consist Of?
In order to keep your website content evergreen, you would want to regularly check for errors and broken link issues. Fixing any outgoing broken links regularly, as well as updating the pages/post that have SEO issues such as missing description, missing image alt tags, duplicate titles etc. will keep your website healthy. Content should be:
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Engaging and interesting: Start off with interesting content. If it’s written content, inject some life into it. If it’s a video, make sure that the presenter is interesting and speaks well. Also, Google seems to like long and informative content. Bear that in mind when optimizing your website.
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Useful: It’s amazing how many companies make the mistake of writing with the sole aim of selling their product. Tell people how great your company is in the “About Us” page, and push the products in the descriptions. For the rest, think about useful content that your audience would appreciate. What about a tutorial? Or articles about revamping a room? Incorporate your product into these lessons by all means, but make sure that the content is useful first.
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The right kind of content: Choose the type of content that best suits your audience. If your audience is part of the younger Instagrammer set, for example, they’ll be more interested in visual content like videos or infographics.
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Expertly crafted: If you’re not good at writing, or you have no idea how to set up interesting videos, consider hiring someone to help you. The writing must be free of typos and grammatically correct.
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Use natural language and consider using questions that people might ask: This is a nod to the increasing importance of voice search. What words would your target market use? What questions might they pose? Incorporate these into your content and consider adding a FAQ page.
Once you have the content completed, pay some serious attention to how it’s laid out on your site. You don’t want to present your readers with a solid block of text, as this is bound to put them off. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to make it easier to scan. Also, you must not neglect the fact that quality content marketing can bring you 3x more leads than paid search advertising. Let that sink in.
Follow through with shorter sentences and paragraphs that are around four sentences long for the most part.
If you can provide top-quality content that’s easy to scan and simple to read, you’ve won half the SEO battle already.
