In past blog posts we've stated quite clearly that search engines aren't what they used to be. They require more effort, attention and care, and in today's blog we are going to prove just that.
What do you need to be able to do to create good search engine content? Well, that's not really the correct question, rather than creating, you are optimising, as in 'Search Engine Optimisation' (SEO). Now, we have also said that SEO is becoming a thing of the past, and to an extent, yes. The extent being that it isn't the bunch of simple tricks it used to be, it's about complex changes and a serious amount of dedicated time.
So we aren't creating content, we are optimising what you've produced - whether that's blogs or webpages. How?
- Unique, precise titles
- Meta, image, heading tags and anchor text
- Compact, structured URLs
- Relevant and high quality content
- Promotion and analysis
1. Unique, precise titles
As we have said before, your title is essentially the thing that will sell your page, or blog, to the reader. Whether they are already on your website or your title comes up in SERPs, you have to be the most attractive. Keep It Simple, Silly (KISS)! Never have a title longer than 9 words when online, and ensure keywords are included - if you're writing about Twitter it should be in the headline.
- Include the topic - what you're writing about, i.e Facebook
- Mention the audience - who is supposed to read this, i.e. Parents
- Significance of the page/post - why should they read it, i.e. Privacy settings change
Parents warned of children's Facebook privacy settings change (8 words)
2. Meta, image, heading tags and anchor text
Or as we like to call them, 'all the fiddly bits' behind the scenes of your webpage or blog post. Why are they important? They contain additional content, and all content is good if it is in line with what your audience is searching for.
- Meta description: Piece of HTML which isn't displayed on any actual webpages but used by search engines as the 'description' part of SERPs.
- Image alt attribute tag: An effective image alt tag is a clear description of the image, or page on which the picture belongs. Using keywords in your image alt tag is a clever way of increasing SERP impact. It's also making your site user friendly, so if technical errors result in the image not being displayed, some suitable text will be in its place.
- Heading tag: These form part of your web coding, however they are supposed to contain the topic of the page, thus pushing up your keyword usage. Also, they tend to be deemed more important than the rest of your content, by search engines.
- Anchor text: These are brilliant for user friendliness and SEO ranking. Anchor text is the little - usually yellow - box which appears when you hover over a link, usually including the page title of where you're going, or a brief description of what is on that page. The Google Penguin update has looked carefully into link relevancy and having irrelevant, repeated text in the anchors on your site, can decrease your level of authority.
3. Compact, structured URLs
Keep all of your web content organised by carefully structuring URLs, it also makes it easier for visitors to share links, if they're more definable. Google can usually crawl most URLs fairly easily, but editing URLs to look simple and understandable have the following benefits:
- Smarter appearance on SERPs - they appear right under your webpage title.
- Including relevant keywords provides users and search engines with more information than an ID number would.
4. Relevant and high quality content
We are starting to sound like a broken record when it comes to strong writing, relevant topics and quality care. However, it's important. Take a look at our online writing rules and plan your web strategy, what will your pages have on them and how will they be relevant? When you've planned, you often operate better.
5. Promotion and analysis
Using social media and even paid advertising can dramatically increase your SERP presence, and Google Adwords is a great tool you should look into. Analysis is a great indicator of how your content can be optimised further.
Thrive say...
You may not be capable of doing all of this yourself, and the vital one is of course number five - the content itself is key to building any audience. Once you have your content to a high-quality standard (our content creation blogs are a brilliant starting point) then put time aside for initiating these other top tips.
