When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), the right content strategy is essential. Especially by Google’s standards, your website needs content that’s unique, interesting, and regularly updated (ideally via a blog) to get better SEO rankings.
Or, as Google itself puts it, you should “focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.” But that’s easier said than done, right? If creating that kind of awesome content was so easy, everyone would be doing it.
But wait. “Useful, information-rich content” doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be professionally written. It helps if you’re a good writer, but you don’t have to be a professional. If you hit the four targets listed below, there’s every chance your content will be good enough to get the kind of traffic you’re looking for.
And, as with all things, practice makes perfect — the more content you write today, and the more you focus on it, the better you’ll be at writing content that gets better SEO rankings tomorrow.
With that in mind, then, here’s how content for better SEO rankings breaks down.
Positive on-page SEO factors.
1. Keywords in content. This is critical. Each piece of content you create should be built around a specific keyword — preferably, just one. (See below for the dangers of too many keywords.)
For each blog post you write, start with a keyword you want to focus on. (Use Google’s Keyword tool for help determining what the most searched-for keywords are.) Once you’ve found a keyword, use it in the blog post title, and within the content.
Shoot for a keyword ratio of 1 to 2 percent. That means one use of the keyword for every 100 words of copy, approximately. So, in a blog post of 400 to 500 words (which is the preferred length), your main keyword should be used five to seven times.
2. Freshness of content. Update your blog post as often as you can — every day, if that’s possible. (And since your website should be a labor of love, why not put a little work into it every day?)
Google spiders the internet very frequently. (Just how frequently hasn’t been revealed, but it’s probably at least once a day.) So, if you post new content every day, Google’s search engine spiders will respond favorably, resulting in better SEO rankings. Plus, daily content gives your readers a reason to come back to your site often.
Negative on-page SEO factors.
3. Lack of unique content. The more original your content is, the better SEO rankings you’ll achieve. If your content is largely snippets of other articles with either summaries or links to those articles, it’s not going to be considered very unique.
Even worse, if you copy or (god forbid) plagiarize other sites’ content, not only will your site suffer in SEO rankings, you’ll likely be penalized by Google (to the tune of losing your SEO rankings altogether, even if only temporarily).
4. Too many keywords. This is also known as “keyword stuffing”, and Google doesn’t like it. It means loading your content (and meta tag fields) with way too many of your main keywords. It was once such a common problem that it’s thought to be the reason why most search engines don’t really pay attention to keywords any more (although SEO experts disagree on this point).
“To fix this problem, review your site for misused keywords,” Google advises. “Typically, these will be lists or paragraphs of keywords, often randomly repeated. Check carefully, because keywords can often be in the form of hidden text, or they can be hidden in title tags or alt attributes.”
A flip side to the “too many keywords” problem is keyword dilution, where too many different keywords are used, instead of focusing on just one. That’s another negative on-page SEO factor that results in loss of SEO rankings.
What do you think?
This is all pretty basic level, right? So, have you branched out much beyond these areas? If so, what have you discovered? If you’ve got any helpful tricks to getting better SEO rankings via content that you’ve learned, we’d love to hear ‘em. Sound off in the comments and share your thoughts with the Casino Affiliate Programs community.