Content is King
2017 is pretty fresh and we already have a glut of articles about SEO best practices written by marketers, developers, journalists and other people who call themselves those things. Well, we are marketers and developers — and we can tell you that SEO is something most clients want, but few understand.
SEO is Search Engine Optimization and, to be blunt, it means winning Google — within your industry. You want SEO because you want your website to come up on a Google search before any of your competitors. And it’s definitely a sort of black magic.
Marketers and SEO specialists agree: Content is king. Well known sites like Forbes.com to niche-industry sites like MarketingProfs.com all agree that relevant and original content is a major player in making the most of your site. A December 19th, 2016 Forbes.com article written by Liraz Postan states, “Have Actual Experts Write Your Content. If your business is gaming, then approach real gamers. If you are a B2B company, have marketing/business experts write about and for you; they know what your users are interested in.”
That is sagely advice. Invest in creating original and relevant content if you want Google to serve your site ahead of your competitors.
Some simple solutions are: create a blog for your site, create a media page (for photos and video) and create a resources page filled with valuable information about your business. Now, le’s go over some things that can help keep your blog in top-shape. The following insight is pulled from the good people over at BACKLINKO and their entry, “Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List” written by Brian Dean.
Google Caffeine (Google’s indexing infrastructure which supports its ranking algorithm) favors freshly updated content. Google shows the date of a page’s last update for certain pages; this highlights the importance of recency.
The level of edits and changes is also a “freshness factor.” Adding or removing entire sections is a more significant update than switching the order of a few words.
Next, ask yourself: is my content original? Content scraped or copied from an indexed page won’t rank as well as original content. And it could end up in their Supplemental Index, a secondary database containing pages of less importance.
As mentioned earlier: images, videos and other multimedia elements may act as a content quality signal. And make sure to link to other relevant pages on your site. The number of internal links to a page indicates its importance relative to other pages on the site.
Put these simple steps into action and see how it affects your SEO. Remember: these steps require work, and the effects won’t be immediate. Stay steady, supplement your site and you will see your SEO change for the better.
