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9 Simple Steps to SEO Friendly Content

SEO marketing should be an important part of any webmaster’s marketing strategy, as the power of organic search traffic can hardly be replaced by anything else. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex… These are the search engine giants that allow users to interact with our content. The better our content is optimized for the search engines the more traffic they’ll send us.

In order for your website’s content to make an impact in today’s highly competitive digital marketplace, it must be written for your audience; yet at the same time, it should respect the written and unwritten SEO rules. In today’s post, we’re showcasing 9 simple steps that’ll help you develop content that will not only boost your SEO rankings but also create a positive impact on your target audience.

1. Make Your Introduction Count

When Google’s spiders are crawling web pages, they’re keeping your content introduction in very close consideration. Why? Because normally, Google (as well as the other search engines) perceive the introduction as the first “insight” concerning the context of the webpage. Therefore, including relevant keywords at the beginning of the content is a sure way to accelerate your page’s indexing.
Moreover, a proper introduction that attracts the attention of your visitors will decrease the bounce rate of your site. The lower the bounce rate the higher boost in your rankings will be.

2. Strive to Be Relevant

Everyone advises you to write quality content but very few will actually explain what it means. Nowadays, the competition in the digital environment is stronger than ever. The best way to stand out from the crowd is to prove yourself extremely useful. People read information because they want to gain something. Entertainment, solving of their issue, or the fulfillment of their needs are few of the main reasons why people continue consuming content online.
When you are relevant to your target audience’s needs and bring value that no other brand in the niche does, Google immediately notices. Once your website presents a strong social engagement, it proves its relevance for the user.

3. Develop Data-Driven Content

Don’t just say it. Prove it. That’s what both Google and your audience actually expect from you. In order to maintain your company’s reputation and preserve your Google rankings, you should only publish facts that are true. Label your opinions are pure and make sure that you’re not pointing your audience to the wrong facts or stats.
Publishing data-driven content will also boost your SEO rankings since search engines now check the sources presented in your articles. Despite developing data-driven content is harder than writing as usual, the more you implement the better you get.

4. Write Longer and More Useful Posts

According to the Backlinko report which analyzed over 1 million search results on Google, longer posts rank higher in the SERPs. Two thousand words of useful advice, tips, and stats are always better than one thousand, considering that both pieces of content have the same quality.
“The problem with long content comes when you’re running out of time or money to outsource. When that happens, your content becomes long and ineffective. Don’t do the mistake of writing long texts just for the sake of writing more words; better make it more relevant and useful. That’s what both Google and your future content reader expect you to do to find your website” – Carry Hanson, Content Marketing Specialist at Superior Papers.

5. Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search is the new trend in search marketing since the number of individuals who search for information asking verbally instead of typing grows. The major technology brands such as Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft have created smart digital bots or “voice assistants”. To see how the voice search marketing trend increases see the statistics.

However, voice search is not 100% stable and efficient because most of the voice recognition software cannot perfectly understand what the user wants and expects. Nonetheless, you may start optimizing your content according to the new trend:

  • Focus on long-tailed keywords and key phrases
  • Focus on developing content which reflects natural language
  • Choose behavior-driven keywords
  • Optimize questions and take advantage of your FAQ page

6. Recycle the Content into Different, Multiple Formats

Even though you might already have a well-established target audience that prefers consuming a specific format of content text, video, audio, graphic, etc), keep your mind open and consider recycling your content in multiple media formats. Here’s an example.
Take topic X and write an article about it. Then…
1. Take the same topic and turn it into slideshows (post it on Slideshare and other platforms)

2. Take the slideshows and turn them into a video. (post it on social media channels)

3. Take the article, or the slideshow, or the video (with the same X topic) and create 5 quote images out of it. (Share them on different image platforms)

4. Use the same topic to create a podcast piece around it. Post it on your website and promote it further.

As you may notice, out of a single topic, you can create few unique pieces of content that will reach more people. If all the pieces are interconnected through links and mentions, Google will understand your strategy and favor your website in the future.

7. Internal & External Backlinks

Both internal and external links are critical to a successful SEO campaign. When you link to highly reputable sites in your niche, you’re showing Google that your website is valid. Ideally, you should only link to websites that have a high Alexa rank. The higher the better.
Moreover, forget about the old existing content. Have a list of everything you’ve published until the present moment and look for internal link building opportunities. It is well known that Google ranks websites that present high-quality links (both internal and external), so stick to this rule until it changes.

8. Promote Your Content Through Influencers

Have you ever considered the opportunities that some influencers might bring to your brand? If you manage to find an influencer that speaks to the same target audience that you do, you have a goldmine sitting in front of your face.
When an influencer posts your content on their social media channels or websites, you’re gaining a very valuable backlink. Moreover, you’ll improve your brand’s reach allowing more people to interact with your content, products, and services.

9. Make It Readable and Neat

Did you know that Google can analyze the readability of your content? This term is quite abstract, so let’s split it into the half.
Readability, in a sense of understanding what the author means through X or Y sentence, is one of the meanings. Write short sentences, remove unnecessary words, and use the active voice preferably.

The second way to make your content more readable is by using the proper font, text size, and color. Moreover, the design of your website should never distract your visitors from finishing their reading. Use headings and subheadings split your content and make it neater and more readable.

Takeaways

Evidently, SEO is an essential optimization technique that modern webmasters have to deal with constantly. As you can see, most internet users receive their information and answers from the search engines. I don’t see this changing; thus, optimizing your website content for the search engines (while preserving the quality and relevance for the end user) is an absolute must for every marketer and webmaster who wants to be the best in their niche.

Written by Alexandra Hayes

Alexandra Hayes is a social media and content marketing specialist from Orlando, Florida. She enjoys visual arts and yoga. Besides, Alexandra is a starting photographer and blogger. Meet her on Twitter!

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