How to Create High Quality and Searchable Content
May 2, 2013 by 0 Comments
|Great content is obviously what a website needs to attract and engage visitors. Quality website content is a must to compete in the digital space from Sydney to New York. Companies like 7th Media can provide you with the content your business needs, but what makes a quality and searchable website content?
Before starting to write your website content, it’s expected that you’re already done researching and selecting the ‘right keywords.’ Then you’re also ready with a subject to write. But you have to take note of one more thing: making your content searchable. So now, here are some of the steps to start writing findable content:
Structuring content
Without a structure, your article will just fall flat both to search engines and your website visitors. A structure is necessary to help your audience find the information they’re actually looking for. Who would read your article that’s only made up of big chunks of text with no paragraphs, headings and even a good title?
Readers and search engines will appreciate it even more when you publish quality content that follows appropriate and correct structure. A smart content adopts structure to help your visitors read your article better.
The first thing that we’ll do to add structure to your content, and what many believe to be the easiest, is through headings. Headings are like guideposts that will help your readers take a quick glance for relevant information. In other words, headings are effective in properly showing the order or hierarchy of your content. Search engines do not ignore your h1 and h2 for nothing.
Another useful approach is using bold for important elements of your content. Use bold format to hint your readers when a text is important. Strong and bold tags have the same weight in Google, however.
Lists, which have its own intrinsic SEO value, is another eye-catching way that you can employ to structure your texts. Readers want to be guided and lists that break up big chunks of text give the impression that readers will be up for some easy reading.
Don’t forget that pictures! You’ll often hear this advice from SEO experts and from books about search engine optimization. For your readers, your content will appear to be more appealing than a content sans pictures, isn’t it? Not only will you get extra visitors to your content via Google Image Search, your prospect of ranking higher in search engines will also rise if you know how to optimize your images. Provide alt-text to the images that you are going to publish as well.
Aside from the use of generic anchor text (e.g., ‘this article,’ ‘here’), providing internal links is a helpful strategy to bring more visitors to your content. To do this, use keywords from the content and provide links on certain subject or topic.
Moreover, make your content visible above the fold of your website. There are plenty of reasons why you should give importance to this technique. You don’t want to give your visitors some headache scrolling several inches down your page just to read the beginning of your content, right? When Google noticed the cries of users about ads they come in the way of content, the search giant started penalizing websites where the topmost part is ads-laden. Still, it’s a matter your webmaster or your company can decide on. But don’t say we didn’t remind you.
Keyword Placement
The right keywords play an important role in making your content rank. In the digital era, you can no longer be purist about being strongly opposed to SEO activities. When you publish your content on your website, certain parts of your web page will automatically be subjected under the scrutiny of search engines.
Use selected keywords in some key elements of your content to increase your page rank:
- URL
- Title
- Headings
- Images
- First paragraph or near the top of the page
It is also expected of you to use the keyword several times in your content article aside from the elements already mentioned above. Abusive use of keywords is bad so to avoid being too redundant, try looking for synonyms.
Another best practice to use to make your content rank is by using keywords in a natural way. Keyword density or the ratio how often a keyword has been used may be one such tactics you’ll encounter along the way. But it takes some trial and error before you can master using keyword density.
Black hat SEO is an absolute no-no because it will only lead you to more trouble. So don’t employ keyword stuffing to trick Google.
Unique Website Content
The advantages of making your content unique include helping you readers find useful information they need. Second, your content will become more findable as search engines strive to provide readers with the most relevant pages for a search query.
But don’t confuse unique with unique value, which are two different matters. You can have a very unique article but that content’s value may not be as high as you might have imagined. Remember that your role as a content writer is to solve people’s problems. So if you think your content helps solve a user’s dilemma, then we can assume you’ve created a unique value.
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