You may have heard the cliche phrase “content is king.” Well, it’s a cliche for a reason. Good, solid content is definitely king in the online world of SEO. There’s a particular emphasis on “good and solid” because some types of content aren’t king.
Pushing out content just for the sake of it can damage your SEO and hold back your brand. It’s important to remember that as important as SEO is, it’s ultimately about pleasing your customers and providing what your audience actually wants. With advanced SEO algorithms, this is something taken into consideration by Google.
Genuine, honest, and valuable content will win out over mediocre mass content any day. Google wants to make sure it keeps its users coming back for more. Prioritizing relevant content that helps users is precisely how Google achieves that end.
So, let’s dig into the types that work and those that don’t.
What Bad Content Looks Like
Bad content isn’t a cookie-cutter problem where it’s always the same singular issue. Instead, it is a combination of a few key points. Here are a few of the main ones to avoid:
No Links
Think web pages with no links to other pages on a website. The absence of links makes it difficult for users to get to specific pages, find relevant information, and navigate the website in general.
Repetitive Content
After a certain point, reproducing the same content is terrible for your SEO. We know you may want to rank in different cities, but putting out multiple posts or pages with the same content is not the way to achieve your goal.
Built Solely for SEO
As we mentioned above, Google is now sniffing out pages designed specifically for SEO purposes versus page designs with users in mind.
No Traffic
If your pages aren’t generating traffic, Google knows it and will see that your website isn’t benefiting its users. That means lower rankings in the long run.
What Good Content Looks Like
Ultimately, good content serves your users/customers. Because of this, it can be created in many different ways:
Answer Questions
Create a FAQ page/post, answer major questions customers typically have, or even answer questions about a related topic that isn’t necessarily about your product.
How-To Posts
Do people come to your site looking for how-to posts or videos? Give the people what they want! Even if it isn’t your product or service, helpful how-to videos related to your business will go a long way with users. One example would be, if you’re a pest control company, teach users how to prep their home against bugs for the summertime.
Show Off Your Product/Services
People love seeing honest reviews, experiences, and people. Share a customer highlight, an employee of the month post, or show off recent before-and-afters of a job you’ve completed. These types of posts or blog features will keep users going down a rabbit hole of related content.
Summary
If the content you are providing has your end-user in mind, that’s what truly matters. One thing to make sure of is that you provide more links for users to navigate through your website. Giving them more opportunities to stay on your website will encourage them to visit more pages, and it will help your SEO in more ways than you might think!
You can also go back and re-vamp older posts to bring them new life. If you’ve committed some content faux-pas, it’s not too late to fix them. As you do, if you find yourself needing more help, we’re here with SEO solutions that will bring your site back to life!