It’s common knowledge by now that the content on your website is very important for your ranking on Google and other search engines. For years, the main focus was on the length of your content. It should be as long as possible to achieve the best ranking.
However, creating good SEO content is a lot more complicated. Optimizing content is at least as important as the length of your texts.
How do you tackle something like this? What do your texts and SEO content need to meet in order to rank well in search engines and thus get the most out of your website?
Discover here five practical writing tips for optimizing content on your website.
1. Make sure your content is of value
Far more important than the length of your content is the actual content. After all, the most important goal is to provide value to your readers. If you can do that, not only will people be satisfied with your website, but they are also more likely to link to you or share your content. That’s something Google’s algorithm takes into account in determining your position in search results.
Your website can be as beautiful or long; therefore if your content has no value to your reader, you will achieve nothing. A page full of hot air and words just to satisfy a certain content length makes no sense. Your visitor will soon leave your website again and will undoubtedly not return any time soon.
Therefore, the golden rule is quality over quantity. This is the only way to turn visitors into paying customers.
2. Consider your reader’s search intent
To determine how to provide value to your reader, you need to know what they are looking for. Above all, Google wants to answer a user’s question as well and as quickly as possible. So if your content answers that question, you are more likely to get a good rating from Google.
That question can be a literal question, as you often see in the search results for a particular search term. If your content answers the questions that appear in the search results for a search term relevant to your business, you are fulfilling the reader’s search intent. This is also good for your position and rating by Google.
So determining the search intent of your ideal customer is of great importance for optimizing your SEO content. Most search intentions can be divided into four areas:
- Information – the user wants more information about a specific topic, product or service.
- Navigation – the user is looking for a specific page or website.
- Commercial – the user wants more information before purchasing a product.
- Transactional – the user wants to purchase a product or service.
Once you have identified the visitor’s search intent, you can tailor the content accordingly. So this can also differ per page on your website.
Therefore, in almost all cases, multiple keywords or search terms are important for the content of your website.
3. Apply keyword optimization
Keywords are the essence of good SEO content. Keywords or search terms are the words and phrases that users type into a search engine when they are looking for your product or service.
A big part of SEO is applying keyword optimization. You want to incorporate the right words into your text and other content. The words your target audience actually uses. Google recognizes that you use the same terms in your content and will therefore rank you higher in search results for those specific terms.
But how do you determine which keywords are important to your website? How do you apply keyword optimization correctly?
There are a number of useful programs you can use to determine which search terms are important for your keyword optimization. For example, use Google’s Keyword Planner or an external (sometimes paid) service such as Ubersuggest.
In such a program, you enter a basic search term. For example, do you sell shoes? Then you can enter the term “shoes. You will then see, for that term but also other related keywords and long-tail search terms, how often it is searched for and how much competition there is for that term (i.e., how many other websites also use those words).
For example, you may discover that people searching for your type of product are not using the term “shoes” but, for example, “sneakers ladies. You can then determine which search terms are most appropriate for what you offer and incorporate them into your content.
Optimizing your content also means using the right keywords in images and other content. Also, keep in mind that being more specific is often better. A long-tail search term often works better and gets users on your website who are really looking for your product.
4. Ensure proper grammar and spelling
A typo here and there, is it really that bad? The answer is yes. At least, it affects your ranking. Additionally, it affects how valuable and trustworthy people find your content. So valuable content is written (as well as) error-free.
First of all, Google also sees grammatical errors. That gets penalized. The algorithm can pick up spelling and language errors well these days and also penalizes it if they appear too much on your page. Moreover, there is a chance that your important keywords may not be seen by the algorithm because you write them incorrectly. This is a waste of your effort and easily avoided.
In addition, your user will also notice your mistakes. Texts with many mistakes are seen as unreliable. A customer may then quickly suspect that he is dealing with an unprofessional company or even a scam and will leave your website.
Well-written content is also important simply because it helps people understand your text better. So don’t just think about the correct use of words, but also about clear titles and headings, bullet points, and paragraph structure. Have your content checked and proofread by several other people to avoid errors.
5. Length of your content is still important
How many words should the content be? Opinions are still divided on that one. The fact from above still applies quality over quantity. Still, text that is too short is not always good for your ranking. Longer articles still rank better in Google’s SERPs, so good SEO content should not be too short.
The short answer is that you should see length as part of your SEO content optimization, but not the main goal. At the end of your writing, check the length of your texts instead of trying to reach a certain word count beforehand. That way you can be sure that you are focusing on the content.
Conclusion
In the end, you can still check if your SEO content meets the desired length and add to it where necessary. Much more importantly, however, are you answering all the reader’s questions? If not yet, there is also room for expansion.
So the word count is more of a guideline and can help you determine if your content has value. In the end, it is always usability, reliability, and value that should be leading.