Creating Impactful SEO Content in 2021
There is no definitive tell-all guide to what Google considers important for a website’s content strategy, but search marketers have found a few common themes that seem to get measurable results for rankings. There are many elements of site content optimization that do not directly affect organic search rankings and PPC quality scores, further reinforcing the belief that building a website catered to people instead of search engine crawlers is a necessity. In this article, we’ll cover a few of the most important aspects of your content strategy to focus on when trying to set your business up for paid and organic search success.
Quality, not the quantity of content, is what matters.
A recent Ahrefs study finds that 91% of online content generates no traffic from Google at all. Just having content is not enough – it must be thoughtful and impactful to your customers for search engines to even consider ranking it.
Optimize For The “Why” Behind The “What”
Google has historically tried to connect questions with answers, but is trying to grow into more of a solution provider. Google’s algorithms are focusing on better understanding the overall context and semantics of a search instead of focusing solely on the keywords included as a siloed instance.
Search elements such as knowledge graphics, carousels, answer boxes, or even data integrations like shipping tracking numbers all serve as examples of catering to intent. A consideration here is that user intent itself is turning into a ranking factor, with leading to similar search queries having entirely different context and meaning to each user.
From a context perspective, it becomes critical to focus on providing more than just a black-and-white answer or stuffing keywords—the entire user experience needs to be supported from the research phase all the way to support. A website can’t rank for what it doesn’t talk about, and now a site needs to become the most authoritative destination it can, regardless of the products or services being offered.
To cater to intent-based search, content authors must remember to:
Predict the needs of their audience, such as doing something, learning something, or going somewhere
Research what kind of information Google is currently ranking for a topic and showcase how your website can “do it better” – usually in the form of going deeper on a topic or adding clarity to next steps
Identify closely related content wells which are semantically relevant and build thoughtful experiences around them
Teach But Don’t Preach
Long-form content has ~2,500 words, and has historically received the most organic traffic. Though that seems to be Google’s sweet spot, nobody reading this article should think that throwing words on a page just for the sake of having words will make any difference.
Deep or long-form content should address a variety of user concerns. It allows creative expression in a way that not only answers the initial question at hand but also provides clarity for next steps because of having learned this new information. If you’re going to lead a horse to water, you might as well show it the best way to drink it, too.
Long pages can be a slog for users to get through, so make sure that your answers are as concise as possible while still saying what needs to be said.
Remember The Basics Of SEO
If you’re taking the time to write amazing content, then you want to make sure it pops within the search results. Semantic search still plays a key role in writing some of the more basic elements of SEO.
Create meaningful content by:
Placing target keywords in page titles, URLs, and headings
Creating a parent-child heading structure to help guide users and search engines through the page in a structured way
Presenting an immediate answer and/or solution to the questions (search queries) that are likely to drive traffic to the page