Content Relevance

Finding Content Relevance

If content is to be king and top dog, what would be the approach to getting there? Allowing companies to impact their customers in the most positive ways by providing actual and important information that is easily identifiable to the potential user and the search engines is the driving force behind these points.

Companies today use search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that their audience can find their online content. SEO experts and your audience today are more interested in quality rather than the quantity that produces traffic for search engines. And guess why. Experts have discovered that the tried and proven methodology of giving people their money’s worth is far better than the one-trick pony that produces slim results.

In the old days, when SEO was in its infancy, the relevancy equation was not addressed nearly as often as was the concept of being number one at the top of the hierarchy of search pages. To be in the number one spot was the end game, with the usability of the information being secondary. Not only that, but the entire industry is so much more sophisticated today. The software is easier to use and, therefore, researching topics are faster to find and much more is accessible. Today, you have to follow content best practices to ensure your audience finds you and sticks around a while.

Good Content Writing

When considering how appropriate an article or blog post will be for your website, it’s important to remember that the question of relevance is about both the search engine and your target audience. The word relevance here relates directly to the words used in the search bar, also known as keywords, by the web user. As the user begins a search, the search engine begins searching for results that it believes are relevant to the query. How does the search engine determine relevance? Simple. Your content must be appropriate to your website and to the search. Four key features will help you determine results:

• Provide a real source for updated information about the content of your site
• Keywords that make sense and fit the content
• Using bullet points and an interesting, to-the-point text style
• Use images that are targeted to your content text

The Ultimate Website

We have discovered that content must be relevant, text must be smooth as silk your website and must keep the attention of the user. It’s a simple truth and yet difficult enough that not everyone can produce this kind of superb content necessary to rank high in the search engine kingdom and place your site into their search needs. After all is said and done, users visit search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing for specific reasons for example: for information, for carrying out a transaction, or for navigating to a particular “somewhere.” The ultimate website then should provide any user with the most useful and powerful content.

Get a reality check on how your website is performing today by analyzing your Google Analytics. You can find out which pages or posts are most popular; the number of hits and length of time user stay on the page and what content was most meaningful to them. If you’re struggling to find specific topics to write about within a broad umbrella, start doing some searches to find out what kind of content already exists in that field. Don’t rewrite or summarize the information that exists on other sites; look for related subtopics that would offer something new.

The truth of the matter is that when it comes to maximizing your search engine optimization, there’s only a finite number of steps you can take. Some take a lot of work; others are easier. There’s no sense trying to come up with clever ways to game Google. Those who try to do that generally fail.

Answering the Quest for Relevance

Respecting the user’s time should be at the forefront of your search for relevance. You’ll quickly lose your readers if the content is not relevant to what they need. Always assume that they have arrived at your website for a specific purpose. Help them find what they need with clear information and quality content with results that answer the question of their search.

Many SEO writers have been poorly trained or take the route of the quick and easy fix rather than writing with integrity, rather than simply tricking the search engines. Another fatal flaw in the quest for a dynamic website is quickly throwing anything up on the site just for the sake of a quick fix. That’s like taking a test and filling in blanks randomly just because you can or you feel like it. Sure you may answer some correctly, but it is a dicey business to create dicey content.

Search engines seek out irrelevant content and penalize websites that attempt such spam. Not only that but when every other word in your article is a keyword (known as keyword stuffing), search engines quickly learn to stay away. A content strategy that is user focused while keeping SEO best practices in mind is far superior any day than irrelevancy. With SEO the KISS system is best: “Keep it simple…Sarah.”

Irrelevant content has a negative impact on SERP rankings. Here are three reasons you should ban irrelevant content from your site before a search engine bans you:

• Users dislike it and will navigate away from your website
• When users don’t find what they need (or find your content difficult to read) and leave your site, you lose the opportunity for a long click
• If your content isn’t relevant and valuable, you’ll lose the trust of your audience

Find Stability

Ideally, your topic will be a balance of general and specific. So, rather than “style” which is too broad or “denim button-down shirt with leather fringe” which may be too specific, you might try “vintage denim.” You need a term that is general enough that the number of people searching for it is high, but slightly narrowed so you can begin ranking on it. It has also been shown that when customers enter narrower search results, they are generally further along in their buying process and thus are more likely to lead to conversions. Someone searching for “jackets” is still undecided on what they need, but someone searching for “leather jackets” is closer to purchasing one.

Relationship to your product or service

Relevant content directly relates to your product or service. For example, a catering service will want to rank on keywords relating to catering services. So a relevant blog post might be something like “Top ten catering services to call” or “Five tips on how to choose your caterer.” But a post about wedding dresses or wedding photography would not tie in well with food content, even though it may very well be wedding related. Consider why your target audience is coming to your website and not any other, and then provide content accordingly.

Find answers to users’ questions

In choosing a topic, don’t write only to put words online. Place yourself in the shoes of the searcher and deliver to them what they are looking for. Consider the target audience – their interests, needs, lifestyles even. Attempting to fill the square without meaningful and compelling words that are a response to what your audience may be looking for is insipid and fluff, pure and simple. Learn to look at your topic from the potential buyer’s point of view.

Stay in the now

Being an industry leader requires a greater investment of resources and time. It requires knowing what is currently being written and discussed about the topic you want to write on because users don’t want to feel like they are reading the same thing on every blog and website. Offer a unique perspective or a new take on the subject matter that is worth sharing and discussing across social media.

Copy Length Capacity

Select a topic that you can effectively write in long-form text. The interesting thing about copy length is that if it is too short then it will not be seen as relevant. Too long, and you risk overwhelming a user with content. Both of these will lead to a high bounce rate with users merely clicking through, and then leaving. Search engines do monitor the time users spend on each page after arriving from a search query. So increase your chances of that long click with the correct copy length.

Stay on topic

Do not dilute your content relevance by attempting to cover too much ground. Make sure the content of the post relates to the title, meta description, and keywords. If the title and keywords bring a click-through from a user but quickly goes off topic or is diluted, the user will feel deceived.

Consistency is the key

For prime search engine optimization, write blog posts and articles that continue to expand on your focus area. What have you been writing about on your website? Any article or blog post you write should feel like a continuation of a focus you have already zeroed in on. With consistent posts over a given time period, your website will move up toward the top of search queries related to your focus area. Gaining a high ranking on a keyword that doesn’t appear consistently on your website is not very likely. Build up slowly but surely toward becoming a must-read within your industry focus. Small businesses with blogs generate more leads than those without, and generate more inbound links, so allocate resources to maintaining a consistent blogging schedule.

Be Interesting

You know those articles with titles that force you to open them? While there’s a fine line between click-bait and genuinely intriguing content, your post should compel people to want to know more. It should be a magnet for them to find out more.

Latch on to the Keyword

Keyword research should be the first step in writing any blog post or article. With Google tools like Adwords Keyword Estimator and Google Insight for Research, you can determine what keywords will get the best results. Be sure to use the tools on hand to measure the keyword difficulty. You also need to consider keyword search volume, as general phrases have more search but are more difficult to rank on, while narrow phrases have fewer traffic but higher conversion and take less time to rank on. Take a balanced approach and use data-driven SEO expert knowledge to create the all-important and effective keyword. Your quest should not be cryptic either. Conduct keyword research diligently to determine most searched keywords for your topic with as little competition as possible.

Write what you are familiar with

The old writing adage of writing what you know applies to SEO content relevance very well. Write what you know and you will be writing what is relevant to your brand and product offering.