This is the second in my series of SEO posts and will deal with the issues of writing unique and interesting content that will build links and generate visitors and in turn improve rankings. I’m going to touch on as many topics as possible in this article:
– Why writing content for a site is important
– The advantages of writing good content for your website
– Content Architecture for new Content Aimed at Optimal Results
– New content and linking strategies aimed at promotion
– New content and linking strategies aimed at promotion
– What to do when you have run out of ideas for writing new content
Disclaimer
It is important to note that these are my opinions and are formed what I think works well. SEO is all about your own personal approach and I would not recommend anybody take 100% of any particular idea without adding your own flare or approach. There are 1001 ways to market a site successfully online. Hopefully some of the tips mentioned here will be of use to you.
1 – Why Writing Content for a Site is Important
It would be very easy to get bogged down in discussing here if the freshness of your content matters to Google. Personally I think fresh content is good on a number of levels and I can see advantages Google algorithmically could take from this, but I prefer to focus on the quality of the content.
Where the freshness of content comes into play is when it comes to search engines spidering your site, but any active site will have natural updates concurrently. It would be very easy for me to throw up a 200 word article on my sites every day so Google thinks my content is fresh, but what value would that add to my visitors or my site?
I’m not going to argue Google doesn’t care about fresh content as part of its algorythmn, just that it isn’t something I focus on. I write content for websites to generate traffic, build website authority on a particular subject and hopefully mine good data from Google Analytics. If I write content people will read and enjoy, links / authority will build up naturally and increase rankings.
Example:
Wikipedia is a great example of this principle. Quality content is generated by editors which in turn gains links and ranks extremely well. You don’t have to look far on the internet to find examples of Wikipedia articles ranking very well for highly competitive terms. If you find yourself competing against Wikipedia drop me a line for some approaches or read this.
2 – The Advantages of Writing Good Content for your Website
While this topic is going to overlap on the previous topic. Good content as opposed to content for the sake of content will have a positive effect on your site:
– Frequent content updates will encourage search engines to visit more
– Bringing quality content to visitors is central to Google
– By adding good quality content Google will view your as an authority
– People will link to good content they read online
– New content allows you to target additional keywords
– The more content you have on a the more information you are giving Google
Good content will also keep people on your site longer and result in lower bounce rates which could also form part of the Google algorythmn. If somebody has a positive experience on your site they are more likely to return and remember your site.
Potential customers will research a particular product or service in detail before making a decision. In the case of a holiday, flights will be purchased first, then hotels and car rental finally. By writing good content around a subject you may be able to influence future customers and provide positive information about your company and service. Maybe your service distinguishes itself from the competition because of your personal service?
New content along with a good working knowledge of Google Analytics can give you valuable insight into possible new niche areas or emerging markets in your field.
3 – Content Architecture for new Content Aimed at Optimal Results
Every SEO you ask about this will give you a different answer. Personally I build pages on a subject around a focus page which I want to rank. I think the best way to demonstrate what I mean is by example.
Fictitious Example: A Dublin Hotel site wanting to target Dublin Airport Hotel related terms.
My first step would be to build a dedicated Dublin Airport Hotels information page which would provide valuable information for people looking to book a hotel at Dublin Airport. I would build external links to this page where I can with a mixture of anchor text, both with my key phrases, containing variations of my key phrases and with more natural text such as click here etc.
I would then build a sub section of the site in question with as much quality content to do with Dublin Airport, Hotels, Accommodation and any other information I could find including latest news stories. I would link these back to the page I want to rank with a variety of anchor text. These pages may rank for niche terms and will allow me to carry out active keyword research and ensure I’m not missing any terms I should be looking closer at.
I believe external links to relevant pages is an important factor when it comes to giving Google information about your topic. For the record I don’t believe in Page Rank sculpting or no following links (either internal or external) within a site (further reading). I personally haven’t checked the Page Rank of a site in Google in recent memory.
4 – New Content and Linking Strategies Aimed at Promotion
Considering the fictitious example above, I would link out extensively to sites in order to build relevance, hoping that some webmasters may notice I’ve linked to their website and return the favour. I’m not going to rehash any of the thousands of posts out there already giving 101 link building tips. If you are at this stage and are short of ideas I personally would see if I can get guest posts on relevant blogs. This blog for example would be an ideal target in our fictitious example above and always welcomes guest contributions.
If you think your content is sufficiently strong you could submit your site to StumbleUpon or other social book marking sites (technically you should wait for other people to submit your site first). If you buildauthority to a page that is already relevant to your chosen topic, you can pass this authority along to your target page which will result in better rankings.
5 – Advanced Linking Strategies For New Content
Promoting a Site You Wish to Obtain a Link From:
If you wanted to get a link from a particular website you’ve linked to, you could give it a prominent place on one of your sub sites that is receiving traffic. The chances are some visitors will click on the link, possibly resulting in your website becoming one of their most prominent traffic sources, one they won’t want to lose.
When you contact them regarding returning the link love you could mention the fact you are sending them traffic to further your case. Obviously you could artificially inflate the amount of traffic you appear to be sending them, but I couldn’t recommend such a strategy here (clicking on this link daily yourself to simulate traffic). There is no point in attempting this if you think you will be dealing with a less savvy webmaster or if you can’t see an analytics package installed on their site.
Log Link Matching:
Chances are your new content will build links naturally if it is good enough, but having links and Google seeing these links and counting them are two different things. You can very easily compare your traffic sources against indexed links in Google Webmaster Tools to see if there are significant differences.
If you find a number of links you would like Google to discover, you could encourage Google to index those sites better. Simply set up links from other sites you control to these pages. This maintains the natural one way nature of these links, but might help them be counted by Google.
6 – What to do When You Have Run out of Ideas for Writing new Content
Every webmaster will run out of ideas on how to approach a particular subject. Luckily there are a few ways to help you generate new ideas for a subject.
RSS Feeds:
Monitoring latest news through a RSS reader for particular topics may provide you with endless new content fodder and keep you on the pulse for your subject of interest. Google News easily allows you to create custom RSS feeds based on a search phrase (example).
StumbleUpon:
This is my particular favourite for getting a good overview of existing good content. For those of you who don’t know what StumbleUpon is please click here for an explanation. Bearing in mind that StumbleUpon provides content based on other people’s views, there is a good chance the pages are high quality.
Go to StumbleUpon and search your topic of interest, in this case Dublin Airport Hotels. Then click on Stumble Dublin Hotel Sites and StumbleUpon will bring you through highly rated content related to your area of interest which will hopefully get your creative juices flowing.
YouTube.com:
YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world and can form an important part of the decision making process for many potential customers. My last tip for when you have run out of all content creation ideas is to change focus and create a video for promotion on YouTube.com.
For example the top result on YouTube for Dublin Airport has been viewed over 66,000 times in 2 years. You can embed the video on your own site and a good quality video will generate links.
If you have any questions related to this post or feel I may have missed something please don’t hesitate to comment bellow.
Related Stories
– Log Link Matching from Blue Hat SEO
– 7 Tips for Writing Quality Content
– A Big Bunch of Link Buildi ng Ideas
– Catalysts for Earnign Natural Links
– Exactly Why is Fresh Content Good for SEO?
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