“Content is King”
Some webmasters would say that this is true, especially since a website wouldn’t be complete without anything on it. On the other hand, some experts would claim that a site’s content wouldn’t be available to its target audience without enough promotion. Accordingly, it wouldn’t be exactly dominant because it needed a boost from other elements.
How about you, what do you think of these arguments? Do you agree with the former or the latter?
Let us presume that both sides are correct given that webpages require relevant information, visual appeal and marketing. Provided this insight, what do you think is good content?
Value For The Users and Search Engines
According to Google’s quality guidelines, you have to create pages mainly for your audience and not for ranking purposes. Given that, which is more important then—text or images?
While visual elements (e.g. pictures and videos) add appeal to your website, you need the former because it is where you integrate keywords to appear in SERPs for relevant queries.
Even if you rank in search results for photos that have captions and targeted terms, it is better to supplement these with descriptions.
Writing Creative and Effective Content
So you already have an idea that text matters. What must you do next?
You have to learn to combine content writing with SEO. How do you this? Use the following ideas:
1. Follow the Proper Mechanics
Sure, you have keywords and links. But these are not enough to put your site in the first page of Google Search. With the launch of regular Panda refreshes, content quality matters greatly these days.
Therefore, you need to use the right language, grammar and style to deliver your message effectively. If you can’t do this, your readers will only give your webpage a once-over and won’t return. To top it off, you will lose your credibility.
2. Use Short-Tailed and Long-Tailed Key Phrases
Simply put, they are keywords with modifiers (which mostly consist of adjectives or adverbs). For example, you can add your primary target term “SEO” with “effective,” “tips,” “techniques,” or “strategies” to turn it into “effective SEO tips” or “effective SEO strategies.”
Do you get the idea?
This is important since most users don’t just use one word to conduct a search. To find out which key phrases rank well in queries or which terms your target readers likely use, you can refer to Google AdWords, Trends and Insights for Search. You can also combine these examples with other keyword tools.
3. Stay Updated About the Latest Happenings in Your Niche
If you want to grab the attention of the people, keep away from the same topics. Instead, tackle trending issues that relate to your industry or website’s theme.
This is the reason you need to keep up with current events. By being aware of what is going on around you, you have an idea what to write. What is more, you know which keywords to use to rank for timely searches (by your target audience).
4. Get Ideas From User-Generated Content
What’s user-generated content? They usually consist of reader comments, inquiries and remarks. You can come up with an article or question-and-answer based content to address the people’s concerns. Not only will this give you the chance to incorporate relevant keywords, you can also win the users’ favor.
5. Create Internal and External Links
The former involves linking to the other pages on your site, while the latter to other references. While practicing this strategy, you have to ensure the anchor texts or hyperlinks are relevant to the topic. Additionally, the outbound links have to be from credible and authoritative websites.
Wrap Up
Before we end, you have to know that writing content is not a breeze, contrary to what many people say. If you spend less time and effort on your work, it will end up less convincing and valuable for your readers.
Therefore, pour every ounce of your dedication and learning on it. Most importantly, don’t forget to integrate SEO, so you can cater to both search engines and users.
What do you think? Are these ideas enough? If you have additional tips, please share them in the comments.
About the Author: Emma Tomlinson is the Head of Retail at Smart Traffic, a search specialist company that offers SEO reseller packages and other solutions to clients from around the globe.
