In 2024, we know the days of simply stuffing your website content with keywords are long gone, but where does that leave us now? If you’re reading this blog post you probably understand that good content is important for SEO, but you may be unsure on why that is or what good content looks like. So, let’s work at unpacking this topic together.
What is website content?
To some, this might seem like too obvious of a place to start, but I thought I’d just clarify what we mean when we refer to content or website content. As best put by Shopify, website content is defined as ‘any written, audio, or visual content element on a website, including blog posts, marketing copy, photos, logos, videos, and more.’
So what does that mean? Essentially, any visual element that can be seen on your website – from the text to the images and everything in between.
How can good content improve your business?
Now that we have a baseline understanding of what content is, the next question will likely be ‘how can it actually help my business?’. Fair question. Here are a few ways good content can add value to your business:
Keyword ranking: Let’s get down to brass tax. If you’re reading an article on the role of good content in SEO, you probably know what keywords are and how important they can be to your business.
So if you have a certain keyword you want to rank for, your first move should be to study Google’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP) and identify what type of content is ranking, and more importantly, why is that content ranking. From this point, you can identify what content you should be creating to rank – and leverage your business’s USP in the process.
Sell your business: Use the content on your website to tell your prospective customers who you are and what makes your business superior to anything else in the market.
Give your business personality: In a world where new competitors are popping up constantly, use the content on your site to sell the personality of your business. The more engaging and lively you can make your content, the better chance you have of people actually reading what you have to say.
Begin the path to purchase: Foster a path to purchase for prospective clients with topic blogs or education content, generating awareness for your brand. This helps you get your business in front of people who are interested in the area your business operates in, but may not necessarily be familiar with your specific offerings.
What does great SEO-friendly content look like in 2024?
At this point we know what content is, how it can be helpful, but the natural follow up is: well how do I make my content the best in the game?
Understand a reader’s intent:
Great content should always be underlined by satisfying the reader’s intent. If you want to create high-quality content that ranks on Google, you need to focus on who you’re writing it for.
Write for users, not search engines:
To expand on that idea further, Google wants you to create content that’s written for users, not to manipulate search engines.
What does this look like in practice?
Say you’ve got a business that sells reusable coffee cups, and you think it would make sense to write a blog on the best cafes in Melbourne. That feels like a slam dunk? Now let’s look at how we go about it.
Focus on the intent of the user: The person visiting this page is coming to it wanting to know what are the best cafes in Melbourne, which is exactly what your content should deliver.
- Thorough Research: In this instance, do the research, actually find out what the best cafes in Melbourne are and list them accordingly.
- Avoid Spammy Content: Don’t half heartedly put a list together that has content littered with the words ‘best cafe Melbourne’ scattered throughout the text dozens of times – this isn’t a good experience for the reader, and Google will rank the content accordingly.
Following on from this example, you should be proactive on ways to make this the best possible content it can be. For instance, be sure to link to the cafes businesses, as this will help the reader find the cafes you are discussing on your list, again, putting the experience of the reader front of mind.
At this point, you’ve done everything the right way and you’ve written a good, well thought out content that is reader centred – at this point I would still want to consider what your blog brings to the table that others don’t.
Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing
If Google ranks your competitors in high positions, they’ve done so for a reason. Examine what they’re doing and how your content can go above and beyond that.
This could be adding small things like menu suggestions, listing trading times, having google maps widgets to help people find the cafes. If you wanted to subtly add in a way to promote your business, you could even find out if any of these cafes to discounts for those that bring reusable cups!
All these are ideas that can improve the reader’s experience and make for a better end piece of content.
Never ignore the SEO fundamentals
Beyond this process of looking at creating a concept from a conceptual level, obviously, we need to cross your t’s and dot our i’s. It’s crucial to make sure you have optimised your meta title, your H1’s and H2’s to give Google a clear understanding of what the page on this content is all about, and if you’re targeting specific keywords, this is the appropriate place to do it!
Further to that, look at other ways of making your content engaging – this could come in the form of original images, graphs, external links to trusted websites to support your writing.
What to avoid in your content
Keyword stuffing: you’d be shocked to learn that we still see quite a lot of this going around. If you’ve considered stuffing your well-written, well-thought-out content with unnaturally placed and excessive keywords, we’d strongly advise against it. It hinders the reader experience and Google hates it – there is legitimately no upside – no matter what that blog post from 2008 says.
Duplicate content: To rank well in Google’s search algorithm, Google needs to have a clear understanding of which content, on which page, satisfies a readers query, so if you have the exact same word-for-word content on a topic scattered across four different pages, it won’t know which page to rank and it wont rank any of them well. Granted, there are some exceptions to this rule (as well as workarounds, such as canonical tags), but as a general practice try to minimise duplicating your content.
Neglecting mobile: A study by Backlinko shows that by the end of 2023, adults were spending on average 3 hours and 50 minutes a day on their smartphones. This is increasingly how people are viewing your content. Making sure your content (and really your entire website) is optimised properly for mobile friendliness is an absolute non-negotiable.
Do you need help with content creation for your business? Or alternatively, are you looking for an SEO agency to help guide your online strategy? Contact us today to see how we can help your business take the next step in maximising its online presence.
