It's always been important to write online content for humans and not search engines but many marketers did not always listen. They just wanted something up to attract the search engines and rank high. Worse, some unscrupulous “marketers” used trickery to get people to go to their site to only be redirected to more advertisements and paid links. While I know we are all using the trips and tools we learn about search engine optimization and marketing for good, the changes being made in search are actually very good for honest businesses.
With the changes in search engine results, if you want to compete, you'll have to focus on high quality content rather than just getting any content up. The higher quality the content you have, and the more relevant the SERPS become, the more you're going to appear in top results for audience searches. So, don't look at the changes as something bad. They're good for you, the honest business owner.
You need to understand what constitutes quality content and then seek to ensure that all the content on your website meets those expectations.
Content Should Be Well Developed & Researched
It's not hard to research what you want to say before you say it. It's important that content be accurate, reflect some knowledge of the topic due to obvious research. If it's not well developed it's going to look unprofessional and not get the results you want for your business.
Well Written Content Is Imperative
You don't have to have perfect grammar, and you don't need to write college level material (unless your audience requires it) but you do have to use common language that your target audience would use, and write to their level. You don't want to talk down to people, and you don't want to talk over them either. Online content writing requires a deep understanding of the niche as well as the audience you're trying to reach.
A Mixture of Both Timely & Evergreen Topics Develops Authority
Timely topics as well as “evergreen” topics are important to the life of your website as well as generating traffic. Evergreen topics are technically good forever, although if your topic is about technology you may still need to update so-called evergreen blog posts and articles once in a while. A mixture of types is important to show your authority on the topic.
Include A Wide Variety of Content Types Creates Interest
In addition to both timely and evergreen topics you will need to include a large variety of types of content. The types of content that you can include on your website (and off) are: blog posts, articles, white papers, reports, eBooks, tutorials and more. It's also to create content in many forms such as text, video, audio and infographics.
As search engine technology improves, hoping to serve up relevant results to users, if you follow these guidelines for high quality content you should end up with excellent, high ranking SERPS within your niche.
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
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