SEO is essentially built around content so yes, it is absolutely important. The reason lies in the fact that for search engines to index and rank web pages, they need content to assess. Creating web pages without content means that search engines will not have enough information with which to work with to rank your site for online users to find them.
Hence, it is a must to dedicate enough time and effort towards continually creating high-quality and optimized content that will help get your web pages ranked and eventually drive more traffic to your website. Content creation and SEO must work in tandem to achieve online marketing goals.
What Is Content?
Content is what we use to convey information to online users. It can take various forms including written words, videos, images, and audio. The goal is to create content that provides value to whoever views it. This means it should be high quality and useful, and if possible, entertaining. Creating engagement through comment sections and social media widgets can also help add value to content.
It should be tailored to match whatever products or services that the website offers and therefore be relevant to the target audience. Content will mainly appear under the blog page and will need to be continually updated to keep providing value to online readers and give search engines reasons to keep indexing and upgrading your web rank. Here is why you should seek to create high-quality content if looking to achieve your SEO targets.
Benefits That Content Brings To SEO
1. Boosts attention and visibility
The more high-quality content that you create and publish, the more opportunities there are for online users to find and share the content. Making use of social media widgets and posts makes it easier for your content to become shareable and possibly go viral.
Regularly updating your content will also attract the attention of search engine crawlers who will keep revisiting to index the content and grant your web pages a higher rank. As more content is indexed and ranked, your site can also become considered more authoritative.
2. Retains audiences
With great content, there is a strong reason for online users to keep coming back to visit your platform. Content that adds value makes a positive impression on online readers, prompting them to want to follow or keep revisiting the site for more similar content. This creates more opportunities for sharing content and engagement which will still add to boosting visibility and ranking.
3. Secures ranking
Continually updating your site with high-quality content will help to build and preserve rank. Sites that add good content that is well-optimized and suddenly stop publishing anything new can end up steadily losing their rank and even being penalized. Content creation must be an ongoing process.
4. Enables keyword use
Keywords are vital in connecting online users to content, products, and services they are interested in. Building your content around keywords that are relevant to what your business offers and what online users want is a great way to link your target audience to your business offering.
Through SEO, you can create quality content that will have a direct impact on lead generation, conversion, and sales which are the lifeblood of business.
5. Building links
While providing good links within your content can help to add to its credibility, developing your own high-quality content can attract the attention of other sites and encourage them to link to it. The more other sites make links to your content, the more authority that is earned and the rank that is built.
Optimization and How to Achieve It
Creating and publishing content alone is not enough to build rank. To ensure search engines perceive your content as relevant, useful, and high-quality, you need to optimize it to be audience-centric. This means it should be content that your target audience will want to consume rather than just what you want to put out there. Here are some tips on how to optimize your content to build rank.
· Keyword research and usage
To link your target audience to your content and eventually the products and services your business offers, you need to identify what keywords they are most likely to search for on search engines.
When you choose the right keywords, you can then build audience-centric content around them. They should ideally be long-tail keywords that are not overly competitive to avoid getting lost in the massive search results for competitors’ content.
You can find inspiration for keywords from various sources including top online search queries, customer queries from your social and email channels, and trending topics in your industry.
When using the keywords, ensure that you give your content good focus and not be too varied in your choice of keywords for a single piece of content. Staying on point when it comes to a chosen topic will also help search engine crawlers when they are trying to index your content.
· Use good format and outline
Keep the content broken down into easily digestible small chunks. Online readers have short attention spans and like to be able to glean information quickly.
Try to ensure short paragraphs to your content and break up the flow with bullet points and subheadings. This will make your content appear more readable and appealing.
· Build backlinks
Link building is very useful in not only helping to build rank but also giving your site more credibility. You need to create links to reputable sites that are also considered relevant and trustworthy. This will help give your site a more authoritative rank.