Don’t SEO for Good SEO
Don’t SEO for good SEO. Seem like a strange statement? That may seem like a strange statement, but unfortunately for many site owners, it happens and it has a negative impact on their website. But, exactly what do I mean by that? Let me explain, the explanation, may just take your site from mediocre rankings to the top of the page.
Completely unique, useful written content is the key to creating an SEO strategy that works and succeeds. In cases, where the website is using stock photos and descriptions to sell a product, this is even more critical. Which takes us back to using SEO to create SEO, which isn’t as complicated as it sounds, let me explain.
Absolutely No Cutting Corners On Content
SEO is not magic, it simply will not do anything for your site, if your content is mediocre. How your Search engine optimization performs is dependent on relevant content that will attract links that have value to your site. Simply copying and pasting content from some other site will not help your rankings. If you want lasting results from your SEO campaign, you must have unique content. Period.
Your target audience needs a reason to come to your site,stay, engage and for them to return. If your audience receives value from your content, they will feel compelled to give value to the site. They add that value by ‘likes’, comments, reviews and ‘shares’. That audience engagement is unique and will help to make your site popular, which in turn improves your rankings.
Content is typically thought of as just text with keywords thrown in to help cement rankings for the future, all written for the search engines, not for a human reading the content. Content does need to be search engine friendly, but human readers are who you need to cater to. Writing content that caters just to search engines, is using SEO to get SEO and it will not benefit you in the long run.
Content That Caters to Consumers
Think about what types of content will be helpful to your readers. There are so many different kinds of content available to today, from infographics to interactive apps. Consider what would benefit your readers, If your site is health relative, you could post helpful tips or share articles related to your niche that would be valuable to your audience. If you want to retain visitors, you need to make sure that you are providing content that they want and need, rather than just pushing your product or brand. You need to provide value, in order to receive value.
Re-think What Didn’t Work
Just because it didn’t work the first time, doesn’t mean it will fail again. In many cases, content doesn’t help ranking for one of two reasons. A, it wasn’t really what your audience wanted or B, no one saw it. If you have new content to add to your site, don’t just post it and forget it. You have to actually promote it, so that people know it is there or no one will see it. If you did promote it and it tanked, you may need to take another look and make sure that it is something that is relevant to your audience. If that is the case, you need to find out what your audience is really wanting. Why not just ask what they want to see?
Content that is created just for Search engine optimization, does not mean you can ignore the human element. Unique content is critical, but it needs to be content that your human audience will want to see and benefit from. That is what will ultimately increase and keep your traffic.