Google is an ever-changing beast.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the latest updates and changes that you need to make on your website.
Content is still king, or queen in this case, especially when it comes to SEO. Google rewards quality content that provides value to its users, making it a great asset for SEO. Given the power of good content, it’s important that you do everything in your power to optimize your content.
Search engines are always improving how they rank and deliver the best results. This is why SEO has to be an ongoing practice. Even if you have an amazing website, you still want to keep an eye on things and make adjustments from time to time.
Have you ever wondered what you can do to improve your website rankings?
Check out these eight tips for content improvement.
Eight Tips To Improve Your Content
1. Write for your audience, not Google
Google’s goal is to show its users the most relevant content for their search. Your website should include useful information that solves a problem or answers a question. It’s not just about stuffing keywords into your page.
Myth
In the early days of SEO, keyword density was a key metric in determining whether a piece of content would rank well on search engines. Fast forward to today, and it’s clear that search is far more sophisticated than that. Content must be written for humans first and search engines second.
Use keywords
Writing for your audience means starting with keywords that are relevant to the topic of your content. For example, suppose you’re an eCommerce store selling photography gear, and you’re writing an article about how to take great photos of kids at play.
In that case, your keywords might include terms like “action photography,” “kids at play,” “photography tips,” etc.
Once you have a list of relevant keywords, you can use them to bolster the value of your content for both readers and search engines by including them in strategic places.
Include keywords in headlines and subtitles
The main headings and titles within the body of your content should include one or more keywords if possible. This helps tell readers what they can expect from each section.
2. Focus on long-tail searches
A long-tail search is a three-to-five word phrase that is very specific to whatever people are looking for. While you might think that focusing on broad terms like “credit cards” or “mortgages” will get you a lot of traffic, the competition for these popular terms makes it difficult to rank highly in search results and drives up your cost per click (CPC).
Focusing on less competitive, more specific search terms will give you better results with lower CPCs and make it easier to drive traffic to your site through organic search.
3. Take care of the word count
While writing content for your website, you must take care of the word count. When you are writing SEO copy, it is important to write for your reader, i.e., your target audience. You need to use a simple and easy language to understand and use.
It is not possible that a writer who has the ability to write 300 words will be able to write 15,000 words. The word count is directly related to one’s ideas and thoughts. If a person has enough ideas, then only he will be able to write in long paragraphs.
There are many people who have a lot of ideas but cannot express them in words due to a lack of practice or focus.
This type of writing requires a lot of time and effort. You need a lot of concentration and focus while writing an essay, blog, or article on the topic given to you by your client or boss. It is not possible that you will sit down and complete everything immediately without taking any breaks in between.
You can get very good results if you do not give up on anything and keep trying hard until you achieve something. If you think that it is not possible for you to write 500 words, then try for 300 words only.
Likewise, writing meta titles and meta descriptions also requires following a specific word or character count. If you write beyond that particular limit, you are not likely to get the desired results.
How to keep track of the word count?
Using an online word counter tool is the most suitable solution to keep track of the total number of words or characters. Such a tool doesn’t require any installation and can be accessed from any device which is connected to the internet.
You just have to paste the text in the designated area, and the tool will let you know about the total number of characters, words, paragraphs, sentences, and more. You will also be able to see the keyword density of different keywords used in your text.
Advanced word counter tools come with a bunch of useful features such as grammar checker, auto saver, text magnifier, and text style.
4. Target one keyword per page
Having too many keywords per page can dilute the power of each one, making it harder to rank highly in search results no matter how strong they are individual.
Instead, focus on one or two keywords (maximum) per page and make sure they appear in all the right places (the title tag, body copy, etc.).
When writing a blog post, it’s important to consider your target audience and how they’ll find your content. Most of the time, this means focusing on one keyword per page.
There are several reasons why you should focus on one keyword at a time with each piece of content:
- It makes it easier for Google to understand the intent of your page.
- It helps you focus your content and avoid keyword dilution.
- It will help search engines rank your pages for just one keyword.
4. When you have more than one target keyword, it makes the user experience confusing because people may land on your page through different keywords and end up disappointed because they didn’t get what they were looking for.
5. Make your content easy to read
It’s a well-known fact that content is king, and it’s the lifeblood of your eCommerce or any other website. It’s also important to make your content easy to read.
The goal of content marketing is to attract and retain customers by creating and curating relevant and valuable content.
Make it easy for your audience to consume that content by using readable font size, color, line height, and line length in your design.
It’s important that your website presents information in a way that is visually appealing, functional, and easily digestible. Good typography can play a big role in this.
When the majority of people think about typography, they typically just consider the font itself; however, there are many other factors that contribute to effective typography, including typeface, font size & weight, line height & length, and color & contrast.
Also, break down large paragraphs into small ones and make maximum use of headings. This will make your content easy to read, no matter how long your article may be.
6. Write a unique meta title and description
Meta title and meta description are HTML elements that you can customize to reflect the content of your web page. They help search engines understand the content on a page and what it’s about.
Meta Title
The meta title is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. In other words, it’s the text that appears in the tab at the very top of your browser or in a search engine result.
Most content management systems (CMS) automatically generate this element based on the page title, but you can customize it to appear differently than your actual page title.
Meta description
The meta description is a snippet of up to about 155 characters – a tag in HTML – which summarizes a page’s content.
Search engines show the meta description in search results mostly when the searched-for phrase is within the description, so optimizing it for relevant keywords can influence many users’ decisions to visit your website.
7. Focus on writing quality content
There are many ways to increase your search ranking on Google, but improving the quality of content can play a big role. This is why writing quality content should be a priority for your marketing efforts.
Here’s how writing quality content can improve your search rankings:
By writing quality content that provides answers to common questions, you establish yourself as an authority in the industry you’re in.
For example, if you’re a mechanic and write about how to tell when your car battery is dead, readers will see your website as a reliable source of information about car-related topics.
This can work for any business in any industry.
Create backlinks
When readers find the content on your website useful, they might link to it from their websites or social media accounts. Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for Google algorithms.
When there are many backlinks that point to your website, Google’s algorithms will recognize that your website has something valuable to offer and rank it higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Boost engagement
Engagement indicates how much time users spend on your website. Google’s algorithms consider engagement as a signal that people enjoy reading your articles, so it will rank them higher on SERPs.
8. Write long-form content
Long-form content is valuable, and it’s the most important element of your website. But what does long-form content mean, and how does it affect your authority in Google?
What Is Long-Form Content?
Long-form content is any piece of content that contains 1,000 words or more. This can be in the form of a blog post or a webpage.
Why Write Long-Form Content?
Long-form content has numerous benefits for businesses. Here are just a few:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Google gives preference to websites that produce high-quality content on a consistent basis. If you want to rank high in search engines, then you’ll need to write more in-depth articles. Writing with SEO in mind will help you improve your ranking and lead to more traffic for your website.
Brand Authority
The higher the quality of long-form content you create, the more people will recognize your brand as an authority for that particular subject matter.
People will visit your site because they know you provide extremely useful information, and this will dramatically increase their trust in your brand.
Social Media Traffic
The more valuable information you share, the more likely people are to share it with others on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. This will increase social engagement.
