How Do I Create Perfect SEO Content for My Website?
Creating content can be difficult, but there are several important ingredients to achieve success with search engine placements and overall SEO. The following is a 10-step process that is very effective, but first, it is important to understand the topic you’re writing about.
- Step 1 – Keyword research: select 3-5 primary keywords, 6-10 secondary keywords, and 30 related words.
- Step 2 – Analyze the top 10 results in search engines for your given topic. See what works, see what types of media are included in those results, and think about ways you can do it better.
- Step 3 – Make a list of questions you can answer with your content. 15-20 questions isn’t too many!
- Step 4 – Build a list of relevant words and “proof terms” for your topic, using an available tool like LSI Keyword Researcher (LSIKeywords.com) that scrapes Google for these relevant terms.
- Step 5 – Create 5-8 customized, original images for your content. Remember that original images carry a lot of weight in search rankings, so you can’t have too many images accompanying your text.
- Step 6 – Create or locate videos you can use with your content.
- Step 7 – Locate or create other rich media formats you can use to flesh out your content. These can be items like PDFs, white papers, and MP3 files, among others.
- Step 8 – Make a list of 1-5 authority resources to cite. These can/should be external pages from trusted sources that help to explain and support the content you’re creating.
- Step 9 – Make a list of internal pages you can link to in your content. Remember the Wikipedia style of linking, where text is linked inline. This linking strategy pays big dividends in SERPs.
- Step 10 – Take your research, keyword lists, and resources and start building your perfect article!
What Are the Most Important Features of Good Content?
For the purposes of OnPage content, there are many features that are important in getting those coveted placings on SERPs. Some, however, are more important than others. In terms of hierarchy, the three most important are:
- - Semantics – the keywords and proof terms used in the content piece
- - Internal links – links to other pages and resources on your website
- - Overall content length -- remember, 1000 word articles is the goal to shoot for
There are many other features, but these three are the most important for achieving the best results in search engine rankings. Don’t discard the other features, though, like word count, keyword placement in the body of the text, well-written content, and the many other attributes the search engines look at when analyzing a piece of content.
It is important also to remember what NOT to do. Google and the other search engines tend to penalize websites that make use of extensive advertising. So, remember to keep ads to a very minimum – no more than one ad per page if at all.
Other features that can impair search engine rankings can include:
- - Page titles that are too long
- - Adlinks, with or without AdSense
- - Keyword stuffing, which means adding excessive or unnecessary keywords to content in a way that makes readability suffer.
How Well Do These Techniques Work?
In testing, these techniques work almost immediately to boost results on search engines. If all the elements are in place, including keywords, original images, other rich media items, internal and external links, and the other pieces, one can expect to shortcut the time it takes to achieve top ranking positions. Try it for yourself – make a test page containing these elements and post it, then search for terms using a variety of keyword strings that relate to your content.
Remember that the secret formula to success in placing highly on SERPs is to:
- - Create long content of 1000 words or even more
- - 5-6 original images
- - Include video content where possible
A Few Words About Image Content
The search engines, particularly Google, use image recognition software and algorithms to determine whether the images in your content are original or if they’ve been used elsewhere. This is an important factor in their ranking strategy. The images don’t have to be complex, but they should be new and original to your website. The best part of using images in your content? Google includes a link from the images to the source page in their search results, helping get people to visit your site!
You can even take existing image content, and modify it to make it original. For example, if you have an e-commerce site that needs a lot of product images, you can use the manufacturer’s own images and do things like:
- - Flip the image
- - Resize the image
- - Add tints or effects to the image
Don’t forget to also rename the image, including appropriate keywords, after you’ve modified it.
TIP: Google responds better to larger, higher resolution images.
In other words, one doesn’t necessarily have to pay an expensive photographer to create utterly original image content. Modifying existing images by putting your unique spin on them gets them past the image filters on search engines.
Back to Online Learning Center
- Video 1 - Intro & Mindset for SEO & Digital Marketing
- Video 2 - Does Your Content Deserve to Rank in Google?
- Video 3 - On-page SEO Technology Ranking Factors
- Video 4 - On-Page SEO User Metrics CTR, TOS, BR
- Video 5 - OnPage SEO Content - Quality, Semantic Relevance, Proof
- Video 6 - How To Create Perfect SEO Content For Google
- Video 7 - Advanced Off-page SEO Ranking Factors & Link Building
- Video 8 - Advanced Social Signals as SEO Ranking Factors
- Video 9 - The Brand Factor & How Google Rewards Brands
