No matter how great your website is, if you want it to work for you, you should make sure that your target audience will actually see it. As much as 75% of internet users only check out the first page of search results.

Moreover, most of them don’t even click on the links at the bottom of this page: the top three search results get 60% of clicks. Therefore, if you want your website to fulfill its purpose, you should make sure that it will reach the top of search results.

To improve your rankings, you should use search engine optimization (SEO). You can make your content more attractive for search engine algorithms so that your pages will appear higher in search results, increasing the exposure rate of your content. Creating SEO-friendly content is necessary for any online business because it brings organic traffic.

Why do you need organic traffic? On the one hand, you can use paid ads so that people will visit your pages regardless of their positions in search results. On the other hand, more than 30% of internet users use ad blockers. Besides, people are used to seeing ads everywhere so their effectiveness declines. If you really want to attract attention, you should provide high-quality content. Content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing approaches, while also being 62% cheaper.

At the same time, creating high-quality content that is engaging, informative, and effective in terms of conversions isn’t easy. According to statistics, 44% of marketers claim that content production is one of their main challenges. In this guide, we will consider SEO content in more detail and share some tips that will help you get started with creating SEO content.

What SEO-Friendly Content Is

SEO-friendly content is created not only to inform or entertain readers. This type of content is intentionally optimized for search engines so that their algorithms will notice it, quickly understand what it’s about, as well as how authoritative the source is, and rank this content high. Many marketers think that creating SEO-friendly content is all about stuffing it with keywords, but the truth is that the Google algorithm is much more advanced now than it used to be, and keywords are not the only thing you should care about.

Keywords are still important, but if you simply put as many keywords as you can in your content, the algorithm will quickly understand that your content isn’t valuable for readers. You should make sure that your content is actually useful for your audience. It should be informative and well-structured.

How You Can Benefit From SEO-Friendly Content

• First of all, SEO-optimized content enables you to get more organic traffic to your website. Given that other methods of increasing traffic are less effective, high-quality content can be your main source of traffic.
• SEO-optimized content also provides better leads and enables you to increase your conversion rate.
• SEO-friendly content allows sustainable growth.
• Proper SEO optimization can help you access your target audience.
• Ultimately, SEO-friendly content can help you increase your revenue.

Tips for Creating SEO-Friendly Content

1. Determine the right length of your content

The length of your content is one of many factors that search engines take into account when ranking your website. You should have longer or shorter content, depending on its type. For instance, if you’re writing a post for a lifestyle blog, there’s no point in making it long. In this case, 600 to 800 words will be the right solution. If you’re writing for an infographic blog, you may write 1,000 to 1,600 words.

The length of content is also an important aspect of the skyscraper technique. This technique implies finding articles dedicated to your subject that have the highest rankings on Google and then writing a longer and more informative article. When the algorithm sees two similar articles, the longer one might rank higher.

2. Determine the type of content and do keyword research

It’s important to choose the right topics for your content. Search for your main keyword and take a look at the top search results. This way, you will see what topics are most popular. It’s also important to take into account the “people also ask” section. Google provides quick answers to specific questions. This section is especially important because it reflects voice search queries.

Google’s algorithm keeps evolving as the popularity of voice search grows. People use voice assistants more and more often so their search queries change. Many years ago, people used to search for “Thai food New York,” but now they’re more likely to simply ask “What’s the closest Thai restaurant.” There are many questions related to your topic that people may ask, and you should take them into account when planning your content. For example, the “people also ask” section can help you come up with the best subheaders.

Once you’ve chosen the right topic for your content, start researching relevant keywords. You can get some good ideas on keywords from Google, or you can use various SEO software. As we’ve already mentioned above, you shouldn’t simply try to include as many keywords as possible. Don’t overuse keywords but make sure that most of them are concentrated at the beginning. The density of keywords at the beginning of the article is called keyword prominence, and it can impact your rankings.

3. Write high-quality content

Your content should be well-written, interesting, and engaging. The ultimate goal of content creation is to make it shareable. If you manage to create content that people want to share with others, your readers will not only generate revenue but also provide additional exposure.

Of course, there is no universal recipe for shareable content that would work equally well for everyone. However, there are many tricks that can make your content more enjoyable. For instance, you should use transitions. Transition words (e.g. “similarly,” “in contrast,” “however,” etc.) can help readers connect the meaning of different sentences and better understand you. Besides, a great idea is to use whole transitional sentences to logically connect different paragraphs.

4. Create a proper structure

The structure of your content is no less important than its meaning. Today, Google’s algorithm is very smart when it comes to figuring out whether or not some piece of content is actually useful for readers. For example, if your content is hard to read, Google won’t display it in top search results.

Imagine that you need to choose between two articles on the same topic. One of them looks like a solid block of text, while another one contains many subheadings that indicate the subtopic of each section. In the second article, all the content is broken down into short paragraphs accompanied by relevant images. The chances are that you would choose the second article, and the vast majority of internet users would make the same choice.

Search engines also notice such details about web pages so you should make sure to invest some time and effort into proper structuring. Stick with short paragraphs and make sure to add subheadings to each logical section. Besides, we recommend that you create an overall structure that makes sense. Your article or blog post should start with an introduction, have the main part divided into logical subsections, and a conclusion that summarizes your main idea.

5. Domain authority matters

Authoritativeness, expertise, and trustworthiness are also factors that directly affect your rankings. Google wants to improve user experience, so it ranks content that demonstrates expertise. Many companies used to hire random inexperienced writers to produce content in the past, but this trick doesn’t work anymore. If you want to rank higher, you need good writers.

Another factor that determines your trustworthiness from Google’s perspective is the information about your company so your website should have a contact page, as well as a privacy policy and terms of use. Although the importance of such pages for search results is easy to overlook, they can actually improve your positions.

6. Get backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most effective tools that can improve your rankings drastically. Try guest posting or come to a podcast so that you can drive traffic back to your website. No matter what strategies you use, make sure to use them consistently so that you can build your authority in the niche and increase brand awareness.

You shouldn’t however, focus on backlinks only. Internal links can also improve your content in terms of SEO. When writing your content, maximize its value by including links to other articles on your website. This way, you will motivate readers to explore your website and demonstrate the depth of your content to search engines.

7. Optimize your images

Optimizing images is important for engaging everyone from your audience and it can also help search engines better understand your content. Both visitors with visual impairment and search algorithms will appreciate proper alt text. Google’s algorithm cannot determine whether or not your images are relevant but it can understand alt text, file names, titles, and image captions. Therefore, make sure to include relevant keywords in these elements.

8. Optimize for mobile

Optimizing your content for mobile used to be an option in the past but now it’s a necessity. You must make sure that your content is equally easy to consume for users of desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Mobile makes up half of the total web traffic, so if your website isn’t optimized for smartphones, you will easily lose 50% of your readers.

9. Optimize meta descriptions

Meta descriptions show up in search results along with the titles of your pages. Usually, meta descriptions are 155-160 characters long. You should make sure that your meta description perfectly reflects the content, and you should also include relevant keywords. At the same time, your keywords should be integrated in a natural way.

10. Use videos

Online videos are more popular than ever, and they’ve also never been so valuable for marketers. 93% of marketers say that video content is an important part of their content strategies. If you don’t want to lag behind, you should also use videos because video content is the most engaging type of content. Besides, Google has Video Featured Snippets, which can be an extremely valuable tool for increasing your traffic.

Of course, creating video content takes some time and effort, but there is a lot of video editing software that will help you. You should try your best to create high-quality video content, but if you don’t have expensive cameras, lighting, and a professional crew, you can still focus on simpler types of videos. For instance, how-to videos and animated infographics are very popular so they will help you attract a lot of traffic.

Wrapping Up

If you want to establish a strong online presence, you should invest your effort in creating SEO-friendly content. SEO will not only attract more readers to your content but also increase your business’s exposure. Follow our tips to optimize your content and don’t forget that optimization is an ongoing process. Google updates its algorithm regularly, so you should always stay up to date about any changes and adapt.