Content Marketing
How Content Can Improve Search Engine Rankings
If you spend too much of your time trying to understand SEO and what it all means for you, you’ll most likely get nowhere fast. That’s why it’s always much better to focus your attention on content. These days, content truly it king. By focusing on content, you can improve your search engine rankings and make improve the traffic flowing to your website. This doesn’t need to be confusing or difficult for you.
A successful approach to content for your business should be one that’s as simple and straightforward as it possibly can be. Below, you will learn all about how Google ranks your content, and why you need to focus on content rather than worrying about the complexities of SEO. It’s a winning strategy, so read on now to start learning.
How Google Ranks Your Content
First and foremost, it’s important to remember that Google cares about the people who use it. The search engine is not there to serve businesses like yours. Instead, it’s geared towards helping searchers find the kind of websites and content they’re looking for. This is what their ranking system revolves around. Of course, when Google does its job well, businesses and search users will both be happy with outcomes.
The algorithm used by Google sifts out a lot of sites that don’t offer quality and are not relevant to the keywords being searched for. One of the main things that matters is trust. Google needs to know that your site can be trusted. So, if you have other reputable sites linking to and interacting with your website, it’s a sign that your website can be trusted. The usefulness of your content matters a great deal to the algorithm as well. It needs to be useful and it has to offer quality to rank high on a page of search results.
Ignore the Jargon
If you allow yourself to get too caught up in what lots of so-called experts are trying to tell you about SEO, you’ll just get lost down a rabbit hole. All that jargon filling your mind will have no practical use to you or your website, so why spend so much time fretting over it all? It makes no sense. Rather than letting that happen, you should focus on the actionable steps that can be taken to improve your content.
For example, you might want to research and hone the keywords that you use in the content you produce. Or you could take steps to use and cultivate links better. All of these things have a direct impact on the quality and performance of your website. That’s not something you can say about a lot of the tips and advice circulated regarding SEO.
Relevant Content is What’s Most Important
As was touched on above, relevancy is the word that you should be focusing on. How relevant is your content to the kinds of people who you want to find it and visit your website? If you don’t yet have an answer to that question, it’s about time you found one before you get left behind.
You might want to use analytics tools to find out how your content is currently being received and read. This might help you change it to target people in a different way. Most of all, you need to know your target reader inside out. Model them in detail, and this will help you understand and, ultimately, target them much better than you would otherwise be able to. Then you can develop your brand as a trusted authority voice on subjects that matter to those target readers.
What Does Good Quality Content Actually Look Like?
If you’re going to produce good quality content for your website, you first need to know what good quality content actually looks like. First of all, let’s get the basic things right. Great quality content has to be original. If you’re just ripping off content you’ve seen elsewhere, not only is that unethical, but it’s also going lead to a poor ranking from Google and a poor reception from readers.
Aside from originality, the content you produce should focus on the things that your target audience is likely to type into Google. It has to be directly relevant to searches. Otherwise, it’s chance of securing a top ranking will be decisively damaged, and that’s not what you want. Try to ensure your writing achieves something too. It could be educational, informational or entertaining, but it has to have some kind of purpose.
Sharing Your Content Once It’s Out There
Your content needs to be easy to find and share if you want it to achieve real popularity for your site. The first thing to do once your content has been published on your website is share it on your social media accounts. At the least, these should be Twitter and Facebook.
When your content is published on your website, you should provide simple buttons that allow the reader to share the piece via a range of social media platforms, as well as WhatsApp and email. That will ensure people have the chance to notify others of the piece if they like it.
What You Should Avoid
Regarding your content and how it ranks, one of the things you need to avoid is the assumption that you’re going to be able to do well on Google without putting in any real effort. You will need to get things like meta descriptions right, and think about your keywords. Those issues don’t take care of themselves when you’re creating content and sending it out into the world. You also need to avoid lazy promotion of your content. It won’t promote itself, so you’ll need to put in the legwork.
If you focus on your website’s content and drawing more people towards it, you won’t need to worry quite so much about the intricacies of SEO and all the confusion that comes with that. By keeping things simple and making use of what you’ve learned above, there will be no stopping you.