The creation of great content is often overlooked in the overall and sometimes overwhelming push to optimize websites. But good, and even great, content should not be pushed aside or overlooked; it is critical in a number of ways and should not be an afterthought, but a key part of any SEO and branding strategy.
Why Content Matters for SEO
Many say that great content is outperformed on search engines by crummy content with great marketing. While this might be true, consider the following: great content is easier to market. To be sure, content is important for SEO. The text of a given web page serves as the main data that the many search engine web crawlers view as they constantly categorize the web. Beyond this, when you have interesting, exciting, relevant and informative content, people will read what you have written or posted.
If the information is great, many will link to you and you will then gain a key type of online currency—inbound links. If you are running a social media campaign too, you will gain links to the various wide-reaching corners of the social media world. When you have a great blog post or video posted on your site, you can be sure that your link will get shortened, linked to, posted by others, and tweeted and re-tweeted. This is the goal! Content very much serves as a way to draw people in to your site—good content can spread far and wide and draw new visitors to your site who drive up traffic and expand lead generation potential.
Content that is well thought out and well written can also position you or one of your colleagues as thought leaders in your industry or service niche. Such expert positioning can also have the effect of building your company’s brand by aligning itself with such a thought leader. There are great branding benefits when you are able to align your brand with a smart, thoughtful and incisive personality who is a member of your organization. There are people in almost any organization who have expertise that they have not necessarily shared with a broader audience: a blog or social media campaign (perhaps via a new Twitter feed) may be the right way to build such a person into a thought leader.
Below we have compiled some pointers to help you get started in the push for great content.
Ten tips for creating great content
- Understand your space
The best way to understand your space is to read other blogs religiously (and the comments on them). Set up an RSS reader or series of bookmarks to keep tabs on relevant blogs. Also, make sure to read professional materials such as magazine articles and industry newsletters. - Uncover trends
Read the news, use Twitter, Google, Technocrati, and other social media monitoring tools to discover and understand the trends in your space. Set up a Google Alert and browse Google Trends for further access to what is going on. - Offer a fresh perspective
Unless you have uncovered news that nobody else has, and you are the first to write about it, it is safe to assume that there is already written material available on the web on the topic you choose. Great content, content that people will want to share, should bring something new to the topic at hand; whether it’s a different angle, a new insight or an interesting way to present the data or the topic, you should find a unique way to write about the topic. - Be clear
Draft, edit, share internally and revise your content for best results. Great content takes time to write, and you should have a process in place that utilizes various perspectives and knowledge within your organization and allows you to tap into the collective brainpower at your company. - Keywords are…well, key
Optimize your content using the keywords relevant to the topic and trend you are writing about, or for which you have discovered a new angle. (You can read more on this topic on a previous post we published: 7 Steps to Build Your Keyword List) - Link out and link back
The web is all about links and connecting series of articles and information. When you mention sources and websites on your blog post or Twitter feed make sure that you link to those mentions. In addition, when you syndicate your content remember to include links back to your website with tracking parameters that will tell you what asset and link generated the visit. This will help you analyze and understand what content is resonating with your audience best. - Straightforward content
Though you don’t necessary have to dumb down your content, you should make sure you are always reaching beyond an audience that is already informed and knowledgeable about your subject. Not everyone knows what SEO stands for or represents (Search Engine Optimization), or what real time marketing is. If you are using jargon or industry-specific lingo, you can either explain the meaning or definition in your piece, or link to a page that explains it. When you can, avoid using acronyms without spelling them out and steer clear of technical terms. - Put the news upfront
When it comes time to craft your message and put content into context, think about writing like a news reporter. The best news articles have an information-rich paragraph at the top of the story laying out the news and highlighting what is important. This lead paragraph, chock full of data, is then unpacked during the following paragraphs as more and more background is explained. This style of newspaper writing is called the inverted pyramid style and means you should start with the key message and then expand from there. - Above the fold
In a similar vein, just like a newspaper, make sure to place the most important content on your website or blog “above the fold.” That means that when someone arrives at your site they will see the critical information without having to scroll down and look for it. - Imagery helps
Use images, videos and illustrations to make any piece more digestible. Because the web is a digital medium you want to make your materials easy to read and easy to approach in a variety of formats. Illustrations and photographic images serve to break up long paragraphs of information and make data more palatable. Also, images and increasingly video are having more important and larger roles in search results.
