When you hit the publish button on your latest blog
post, you have an extraordinary opportunity to engage your customers and
influence their u. But how exactly do you write high-quality content for SEO
that ranks well in search engines and persuades your customers to action?
In this post, we’re going to put aside the mechanics
of SEO for a moment, and focus on something equally important to search
engines: great writing that connects with readers. Sure, there are still
algorithms running in the background, but with the wonders of modern-day SEO,
the content your customer wants to read often meets many of
the requirements for ranking well.
Read & explore with Social Rahu how to produce high-quality content that performs better in search engines and helps you meet your business goals — by putting people first.
Importance of Quality Content for
SEO
As a marketer, you have a chance to engage your
audience each time they type a relevant query into the search box. They’re usually
turning to Google at distinct stages of the buyer journey: when researching a
problem, learning about products and solutions, learning about your specific
brand, and making a purchasing decision.
When you create the kind of engaging, comprehensive and
reliable content they’re looking for, you improve your chances of appearing
higher in search engine rankings. You also fulfill your business objectives —
by satisfying your target audience’s informational needs, you can drive traffic
to your site and bring customers into your sales funnel.
What Is Quality Content for SEO?
Keywords play a role in helping customers find your content, but algorithms have evolved to the point where they can also analyze the language on the page to determine overall context and meaning. Search engines are capable of identifying rich, purposeful content that makes for a great user experience.
High-quality SEO content:
- 1) Appeals
to your customer. Offer content that’s
interesting, compelling and effortless to read.
- 2) Answers
user queries. Deliver content at
the right touchpoints to address your customer’s needs and concerns by
knowing what keywords they use when trying to solve a problem.
- 3) Is
reliable and trustworthy. Show that your
content and site are credible and authoritative, and that you’re an expert
in the topic you’re writing about.
- 4) Is
easily understood by search engines. Employ SEO best
practices to optimize your content and website for search bots.
10 Tips for Creating High-Quality
SEO Content
Now that we know what great content looks like, let’s
explore steps to achieve it. Here are tips for producing high-quality SEO
content that’s useful for customers and effective for search engines.
1. Know Your Customer
High-quality SEO content is
customer-centric, so spend some time getting to know your audience through
market research. Understand the pain points that they’re looking to solve and
how they search for information. The more data you have about their needs and
behaviours, the better you can target your content. Remember, the goal is to
serve the right information when they turn to Google for knowledge.
2. Consider Search Intent
Think about the reason your customer searches for
these keywords, and write with their purpose in mind. Where in the buyer
journey are they? Are they gathering information or looking for the best deal?
Your content should be relevant for the keyword you’re
trying to rank for. As Social Rahu explains, a landing page designed to convert
visitors to sign up for a credit card probably won’t rank for the term “best
credit card.” Google looks for informational blog posts and comparison charts
that help searchers decide what the best credit card is.
A quick way to determine search intent is to plug the
keyword into Google and look at the type of content that’s currently ranking.
3. Use Topic Clusters to Organize
Content
Approach your content creation strategically and
use topic clusters to organize your pages. A topic cluster is a hub
of content anchored by a pillar page. The pillar page sets up a broad overview
of the topic, using links to direct readers to more specific but related
content.
Topic clusters are useful for SEO as they can
establish expertise in a topic. For example, a pet food store can create a
topic cluster about feline nutrition. The pillar page might discuss the overall
importance of feeding cats healthy food, linking to more specific pages based
on a reader’s interest. These pages could include in-depth nutrition guides for
cats at different life stages, such as kittens, seniors and adults.
This type of structure is more useful than a random
assortment of pages as you can match keywords to the buyer’s journey. Broad
keywords are used in pillar pages to draw in readers researching a topic. As
your content gets more in-depth, the keywords become more precise. Our
fictional pet food store may eventually guide readers to an article comparing
foods for overweight cats. This comparison piece may then drive readers to a
product page for low-calorie cat food.
4. Leverage
Semantic SEO
Keywords are a starting point for creating your
content, but focusing on a single keyword can make your writing stiff and
robotic. That’s why semantic SEO is so great for customer experience.
Search engines scan the words on a page and use semantic analysis to determine if
content is relevant, which means you can weave related keywords and ideas into
your copy.
With semantic SEO, you can focus on a topic rather
than a keyword, adding depth and nuance to your piece. What are people who
search for your primary keyword interested in? How can you add value to keep
them on the page?
Start by using keywords that are important to your
business, and add related, or semantic, keywords. Let’s go back to our pet food
store example. According to Google, people searching for kitten nutrition ask a
range of related questions. Should you feed your kitten wet or dry food? How
much weight should a healthy kitten be gaining? When can you switch to adult
food?
When you incorporate some of these questions into your
piece, you address your initial topic and deliver value by covering it
comprehensively. This anticipates your customers’ need for related information
and takes advantage of opportunities to rank for other keywords.
5. Satisfy Google’s E-A-T Standards
Readers want content they can trust. To help deliver
this kind of content, Google looks for signs that the person writing the
content and the platform publishing it are credible. The more Google can trust
your content as a reliable source, the more likely it is to rank highly.
As you’re writing content, make sure that you meet
Google’s E-A-T requirements, which stands for:
- . Expertise
- . Authoritativeness
- . Trustworthiness
We’ve already talked about how to establish expertise
by using pillar pages and semantic SEO to create comprehensive content. You can
also demonstrate trustworthiness by:
- . Building links from
respected sites to your site. Links from professional organizations,
publications, influential bloggers and other authoritative websites can
show that your site is alsoconsidered reputable.
- . Using respected
sources in your content
- . Ensuring content is
accurate and up to date
- . Adding author bios
- . Including a detailed
“about us” page to demonstrate your expertise
- . Adding ratings and
testimonials
- . Keeping your site’s
security certificates up to date
Check
our Google E-A-T SEO checklist for more tips on achieving authority
across your entire website.
6. Add Internal Links
As you build out your content inventory, add internal
links to guide readers through your site. Internal links help improve user experience,
directing readers to important pages such as products or services and
additional resources that may be of interest. These links help to keep
customers on your site as they gather information to inform their purchasing
decisions. They’re also helpful for highlighting older, but still informative,
pages readers might otherwise miss from your archives.
In addition to making the site more useful for your
customers, internal links give search engines context by showing how pages are
related, especially if you use clear anchor text to describe where a link takes
the reader.
Links are especially helpful for sharing authority
between pages, which can help with ranking. This is known as link equity. A
strong-performing page that Google already considers authoritative can pass on
some of its authority to another page through links.
7. Make the Headline and
Introduction Count
Even if your content contains the right kind of
information users are seeking, you need to present it in a compelling way so
that your audience wants to consume it. Pique your reader’s interest with a
snappy headline and introduction. Try appealing to emotions, outlining what’s
at stake, or using humor to grab their attention and entice them to read
further. Accurately explain what readers will learn if they invest time in your
piece, and deliver on your promises clearly and concisely in your copy.
8. Write Content That’s Easy to Read
Dense, hard-to-read content is likely to push readers
back to the search results to find a competing site. Make your copy easy to
scan and understand so users don’t have to struggle to find the answer to their
query.
- . Avoid jargon and
write in an appealing style
- . Use short paragraphs
- . Add variety to your
writing with sentences of different lengths
- . Bring ideas to life
with examples
- . Organize ideas using
headers and subheaders
- . Use bullet points and
numbered lists
- . Choose an
easy-to-read font
- . Format the page with
plenty of white space
You can still cover a topic in-depth and make it easy
to read. Try summarizing complex information with illustrations and charts, and
add alt-text so search engines can understand the content of an image. You can
also provide an outline at the beginning of your article with links to key
sections so readers can jump to applicable sections quickly.
9. Create Content That’s Better Than
Competing Sites
SEO is competitive — at the same time you’re trying to
land at the top of search results and convert customers, so are your
competitors. The best way to beat competing sites is by offering something
unique.
Remember, SEO is not just about keywords, so you need
to deliver informative, original content that’s different from what everyone
else is creating. Make your content valuable.
- . Back up your
information with statistics, studies and surveys
- . Make sure research is
current
- . Present ideas in new
ways, such as a shareable infographic
- . Make use of videos
and images
- . Offer complimentary
resources such as downloadable templates or checklists
- . Let your brand voice
and personality shine
10. Implement SEO Best Practices
Once you’ve hit the mark with your outstanding
content, make sure search engines find it. Write a strong meta title and
description, create descriptive URLs, check that your site loads quickly and is
mobile-friendly, and ensure you’re following industry best practices
on how to optimize content for SEO.
Don’t forget to create links from external sites back to your site to establish authority — through guest blogging, for example.
