Characteristics of SEO-Ready Content

Finished writing a blog post or updating information on landing/service pages recently? Is the content worthy enough to fit and get indexed in Google to compete with millions of other posts and pages that supply similar information? Did you make your content SEO ready for your audience? This blog will give you a clear answer to all these questions.

Content is one of the most important factors when it comes to implementing an SEO strategy. It is crucial to have well-written and SEO-optimized content to ensure that it reaches your target audience. Coming up with creative and well-structured quality content is how you can thrive and stand out in today’s competition. Making your content SEO ready can make a huge impact on your website’s ranking.

In this blog, we are going to make you familiar with SEO-ready content including SEO features or characteristics, types of SEO content, the importance of content in SEO, and how to develop a good SEO content strategy. Let’s dive in then!

What is SEO content?

Before we get into SEO content, we hope you are familiar with what SEO means. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is mainly used to improve website visibility and help rank organically in top search results. SEO content means optimizing your content using SEO practices to help your web page rank high in SERPs.

It is important to have your content SEO optimized so that your page has a better chance of ranking in the top search results or at least on the first page. There is also a catch. Only by creating high-quality content will your page stand out among the millions of pages on Google that share similar information.

Importance of content in SEO

Creating a content strategy is the sole focus of every marketer to add and implement SEO practices to improve search engine rankings. Content marketing and search engine marketing should go hand in hand in order to rank well in SERPs.

The content posted should be of utmost relevance for a user so that it may have higher chances of getting ranked in search engines like Google and provide the same results for the user searching for that specific area of topic, service, or even a product. Search engines like Google read through the content posted to see if it is relevant for the search results.

If your content does not have useful information for the users, there is a higher chance it will rank lower. Having quality content is the only method to use keywords that can help your business stand out from other brands.

Types of SEO content

Content marketing can help your website to rank higher in search results, drive more user traffic and generate leads. Here are some of the types of content for SEO:

Blog post content

When it comes to content creation and content marketing, blogs or articles are the first ones that come to our mind. Text-based content drives more traffic in search results. Blog posts are the ideal method for implementing an effective SEO strategy. Users tend to engage more in blog posts designed in a user-friendly manner for them to grasp the provided information at a faster pace. It is a casual approach when it comes to sharing the information that a user is looking for. The number of words can differ depending upon the topic in discussion but with a minimum of 1000 words. Although it is important to be consistent when it comes to blogging. According to a recent study, 60% of bloggers publishing at least one blog post per day are getting to see better and great results.

Product or service pages content

A well-designed website is important for any business. Nowadays, businesses without a website are not actually a business. Due to the tight competition in today’s market, marketers of different industries bring up more creative methods to get a user to their websites. With well-designed user-friendly SEO optimized websites, it can be of favor to your business. The service page is one of the most crucial pages on your website which can help you sell your products and services. Ensuring that the content on this page is well optimized will fetch you good results.se

Guides

Apart from blogs, another type of content that helps your business and the audience is a guide. Guides offer more in-depth content differing from a blog page. Most businesses may have guides related to a particular topic, service, or product. This long content can include every little aspect of the relevant topic, service, or product  that work for SEO ranking. There are two types of guides – open content in which the published content is fully accessible to a user. Gated content includes a few available paragraphs which can be accessed fully after the user registers with their email-id. Although this is an effective way to generate leads, this can have a negative impact on your website as there is a higher chance to drive low traffic. Another issue with gated content is that it won’t add up to your SEO ranking as Google cannot access the SEO-optimized content. Google can only have access once the optimized guide is published fully on your website.

Video Content

Similar to content marketing, video marketing is one of the effective strategies to deliver large or short information to a wide number of audiences. It can increase engagement and make users interpret the information in the visual presentation creating a positive impression on Google which in turn results in improving your ranking. A large form of text eg: a blog post, can be converted into a video and designed with attractive animations and pictures delivering information on what the users are looking for. Video marketing is one of the best marketing strategies to provide the required information to a larger audience.

Characteristics of SEO-ready content

Image Source

It is important to ensure that the content you created makes an impact on your target audience. Here are some of the important characteristics of SEO-ready content.

Keyword and topic research

Keyword research is an important factor when it comes to SEO. When you are researching for keywords to be included in the content that you created, ensure to add keywords that sound natural. The keywords that you have researched are to be added to the titles, subheadings, and content.  Google is on the lookout for keyword stuffing. The best practice is to count your keywords once your content is complete and find the density by this formula: (number of times keyword is used) / (total number of words) x 100.

After researching the relevant keywords, you get an idea of what the users are searching for. It is important to keep in mind to develop content that provides answers to the persistent issues the users are facing. Thorough keyword research can help you get deep insights into the needs, interests, problems of the users, and the competition level of those queries.

Derive the keywords from the research and include the keywords in your content so that the users can see you when they search with those queries.

High Quality

To get your audience to come to your website is one thing, keeping them for a longer duration is the ultimate task. When a user finds your website and gets on, but the quality of the content that he/she is looking for is not relevant or complex, there is a higher chance the user might leave on the spot. This can have a negative impact on your website. When a user leaves your website as soon as they enter, it increases the bounce rate of your page and can directly affect your ranking. It can give Google an impression that your website is not relevant and not meeting the needs of the user. Recovering from that damage can take an insane amount of time as the level of competition is rather high.

It is important that you provide high quality content and the content that the user is looking for to ensure that the users stay for a longer time on your page.

Updated and non-plagiarized content

After you have conducted proper keyword research for your topic with quality content, next on the list is to ensure that the content you have developed is your own. It simply means that, when your content is fake or if you borrowed the content from any external websites then all your SEO efforts will go down the road. Because Google will penalise your website for duplicate content. Similar to quantity, originality is what will get people to read. It can create trust for your users and authenticity to Google.

How to develop a good SEO content strategy?

Whether it be that you create blog posts, product/service pages or other pages in a website, it is important to make it worth your while. Getting the content right is the first step to having an SEO ready content. Here are a few tips on to write an seo-ready content:

Conduct keyword research

Writing content without proper keyword research is like pulling the trigger with no bullets. The developed content will have no impact whatsoever and no matter how much time you put in, it will all just go down the drain.

• When conducting keyword research, understand what the users are searching for whether an answer to a question, a solution to a problem or even the need that is to be fulfilled. Develop and create content that covers all or most of them.
• Refer competitors ranking in top search results and go through the content and ensure that you have covered all the parts and included more than what those competitors have.
• Keywords can include short tail as well as long tail keywords. Don’t cross off long tail keywords as they can have higher chances to rank in number 1 when longer queries are searched. Long-tail keywords tend to have less competition when compared to short-tail keywords.

Keeping in mind the above mentioned points along with the SEO features discussed before, this can be of great help for you.

Using unique title, headers and subheaders for the topic

After keyword research and deciding with the topic to create the content, start off with an eye catchy title along with headers and subheaders that are easy to understand. Keep in mind to add headers and subheaders that are easy for your readers. It is important to have headers and subheaders as it can increase the overall keyword saturation. Ensure that the title is not too common but also not familiar.

Build a strong content structure

Similar to constructing a building, it is important to build a strong structure before you start writing the content. Explain the core issue in detail, divide the remaining parts into headers and subheaders so that it makes it easy for you to write faster. Having a strong content structure can help the users understand and make them stay for longer in your website.

Produce high quality content

As we discussed before in the SEO feature part, content is king when it comes to websites. Get people to visit your website by providing them with unplagiarized quality content with relevant information related to their search intents. Implementing SEO strategies on content with low quality content is like watering a dead plant for it to bloom. Quality is key when it comes to content. And only with high quality, it will turn out to be an SEO ready content.

Add SEO optimized images and visual content

Apart from writing and optimizing content, it is recommended to add images and other visual content to improve user experience. Content with no images vs. content with a few images or visual content can make a huge difference in traffic. Visual representation can attract a user and make them stay longer on your page. Images and other visual content delivers the information to the user faster and in a more understanding manner. It gives an opportunity for your content to be more catchy and attractive. Content included with images have higher chances of getting shared over content with no visual presentation.

Adding images is a simple task, but how can Google understand that the image is relevant to your content? That is where optimization comes in place. Even if there are in-text images, Google cannot read those text in images. Here are some of the things you need to do:

Resize image size

Uploaded images that are the recommended image sizes so that it does not affect the loading speed of the page. Uneven image sizes can affect SEO of your page and slow down the page load time. Resizing images with the specified dimensions can make your page load faster, get the most out of the SEO benefits and also deliver excellent user experience. Also, keep in mind to not compromise the quality and visibility of the image when resizing or compressing.

Create image name

When you save an image, be sure to give it a name that is descriptive and relevant to your content before you upload it. This can have a positive result on your webpage.

Add alt tags

Generally alt tags are not visible to a user. Alt tags are to help Google understand what the image is and how relevant it is to your content. Similar to giving an image name, make sure to describe the image in one or two sentences so that it can help in better chances in ranking.  If your image doesn’t load on time, the alt text will be shown in place of the image. Try to write unique descriptive sentences rather than repeating the main target keyword of the content.

Edit and optimize your content

After adding keywords, images and other visual presentations in your content, do a final checkup on your overall content, go through it and check for grammatical errors and duplications using plagiarism tools. Check for content length, ensure there is quality over quantity. Writing gibberish information is of no use to the user and will have direct implications on your page. Write the content with useful information that satisfies the users search intent. It is suggested to have longer content to have better chances of ranking, get more likes and social shares and also to generate leads.

Check the optimal speed of your website by optimizing the site for mobile-friendly. Ensure that your content page is mobile friendly for improved user experience.

Create and optimize meta title and meta description

Compress and limit the meta tile under 60 characters as Google displays 60 characters in the search results. When you exceed 60 characters, the words after 60 characters will not be displayed in the search results. Add the target keyword on the title and describe it as informative as you can.

Typically, the length of a meta description should be kept between 150-160 characters, basically 1-2 sentences. .Summarize the content by including primary keywords naturally with spaces. This is shown beneath your meta title in search results. Add call-to-action in the description.

Make readable URL for the content

For the final step of describing the content of the page, add a URL that clearly makes a user understand what the page is about. Follow these Google’s recommendations to have readable URL:

• Include the primary keyword in the URL.
• Use lowercase letters instead of capital or mixing it with capital letters.
• Instead of using underscores (_), use hyphens (-) in between words.
• Make the URL as short and as descriptive you can with the contents of the page.

Looking Ahead

Well, we have reached an end to the descriptive guide on what is SEO content, characteristics or features of SEO content and how to develop a good SEO content strategy. Keep in mind the above mentioned tips and tricks when you start off on writing a new piece for your page or republish the old ones. Adopt and implement these tips and in time you see results of better website traffic, leads and conversions.

FAQs

What is SEO ready content?

SEO ready content simply means, optimizing the content of your website using SEO techniques for better ranking in search results.

What are the elements of SEO ready content?

Elements of SEO ready content includes high-quality content, proper keyword research and non-plagiarized content.

What are the types of SEO content?

The different types of SEO content are blog posts, guides, videos and product or service pages.

Why content is important for SEO?

Implementing SEO in websites with content of useful information to satisfy the users search intent can have better ranking in search results.

The post Characteristics of SEO-Ready Content first appeared on The TechWyse ‘Rise to the Top’ Internet Marketing Blog.