Write Content Google Loves

So you want to rank on that first page right? Preferably right at the top? Well, it takes effort to get organic search visibility, rankings and traffic. One of the key ways to get that sweet, sweet spot right up top is by consistently creating valuable content.

Great content mixed with some optimisation, makes for a sweet concoction that can make your website go straight to the top of search engine rankings.

If you want to know how to create optimised content that lands you on your audience’s radar, look no further. Here are some tips for creating great content that your users and search engines will love.

What is SEO content?

SEO content is writing that Google can understand. Not only that, it is content that people want to read, link and share. If you have both of these things down pat, well you’re creating the perfect content for your website.

What does content have to do with SEO?

Google wants to deliver us the most useful and relevant results instantaneously. These results that Google is attempting to deliver are pieces of content from websites like yours or heaven forbid, your competitors!

When you do a Google search, these pieces of content are ranked by their order of usefulness, relevance to the individual user and the authority of the publisher. So the more authoritative, relevant and useful your content is for the searcher, the higher it will rank on Google.

Here are a few guidelines to follow:

• Useful Information: If you are launching a restaurant make sure it has opening times, an address, menu and blog to share upcoming events.
• Credible Sources: Use citations, links, testimonials and reviews to give your site more credibility.
• High Quality: Your content should be unique, specific and draw upon your industry expertise.
• Be Engaging: Use colour and images that coincide with your text. It is also important that you proofread everything so there are no spelling or grammatical errors.
• Give Detail: Don’t skimp on the detail, Google favours longer form content so it’s common to see in-depth blog posts ranking highly (try not to be the annoying cooking website that tells the author’s life story before getting to each recipe though).

If your content covers these points, you will maximise its SEO value.

Audience-centric content

When writing content for your business you must focus on what your audience wants to hear. The more useful and relevant your content is for your audience, the better it ranks. For example, if you own a retail rug store, you need to write content that your audience will search. This could be blogs around, how to clean a rug, choose a rug, or rug trends.

How to create optimised content

Performing keyword research is important to ensure that the resulting content can be found through search engines. Here’s a guide to follow when choosing your keyword topics:

• Focus on long tail keywords
• Avoid super competitive keywords with massive search numbers
• Use a proven keyword research tool
• Match your topic to your keyword
• And most importantly work to answer your audience’s questions

Format is important

As you’re creating your outline, be sure that you’re formatting your content into broken down subsections. Online readers have pretty short attention spans and they’re not going to continue reading if it is one big paragraph.

When writing your content, it is best to aim for paragraphs that are ideally 1-2 sentences in length, with a maximum of four short sentences. Another important thing to note is inserting subheadings or visuals every 150-300 words to break up the content further and make it easier to read.

Stick to your target and keywords

As you begin writing your content, keep in mind the importance of sticking to the topic and target keyword that you’ve chosen.

Don’t write about everything and anything within a single piece of content. This prevents you from creating the most useful and relevant content on the topic you have chosen to write about. The more you focus on providing relevant content on the topic and the keyword, the more Google is going to love it!

Yes, so if you are writing about rug trends…make sure you only stick to that!

Use internal links

For your content to rank, it needs links. Google follows links to discover content on websites and to rank this content in the search results.

So what is an internal link?

An internal link is any link from one page on your website to another. There are several types of internal links such as your homepage, menu etc. You can also add links within your content called contextual links. These links point users to interesting and related content, boosting the credibility of your content.

The more links an important page receives, the more important it will appear to search engines.

How to optimise your content once it has been created

Once you have written your amazing and relevant content, there are a couple of steps to optimise your content even further. These are as follows:

Title Tag

Title tags are the clickable headlines that the user sees at the top of the search result. Optimise your titles tags by doing the following:

• Keep it under 60 characters.
• Don’t put multiple keywords into the title.
• Be specific about what the content is about.
• Place target keywords at the beginning.

Meta Description

Your meta description is the information that appears under the URL and title tag. To optimise your meta description it is best to.

• Keep it under 160 characters.
• Provide a short overview of what the content is about.
• Include relevant keywords.

URLs

Your URL structure is another component of SEO that has an indirect impact on rankings. Readability is key here, you don’t want search users to be scared of by long mysterious URLs.

Once you’ve got all this down pat, your content will drastically increase its visibility!

If you are wanting to get your website more SEO friendly, or you need a hand with writing some epic copy that will make your customers pay attention, give our expert team a call or fill out our quote form to get started.