Flying High with SEO

What’s the relationship between SEO and content? This sounds like an easy question, but it’s actually not that simple. To many people, content and SEO are synonymous, but they are actually two different things. In this post, I’ll explain how to understand the difference between the two and how content can be used to improve your search engine optimization (SEO). Let’s get started!

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a search engine’s attempt to make sure that its users have access to high-quality websites when they search. Search engines try to figure out what content on a website is most relevant for what people are searching-and then rank it accordingly.

In other words, Google wants you to find exactly what you’re looking for as quickly as possible. And with billions of searches every day, there’s no shortage of competition between pages competing for spots in those coveted results pages.

What is Important About Content?

The content itself (the words, images, videos, etc.) is paramount in search engine optimization. Keywords are important, but not as important as your content itself.

Readability, clarity and most importantly trust are elements that people want from a website before handing over their money. Your content should clearly deliver value based on your keyword research.

Optimizing for search engines should be a secondary goal when building content for your site. If you’re wondering how to write for search engines, focus on creating high-quality, informative pieces of copy that build trust with readers first!

How Much Content is Required?

Search engines are only as good as their databases-and those databases are only as good as your content. The more comprehensive, thorough, well-written, frequently updated (and relevant) information you have in your database, the more search engines can use that content to match searchers with businesses.

However, many new marketers make one of two mistakes when it comes to creating content for SEO purposes: They either don’t create enough or create too much.

If you want to take a slow approach with search engine optimization on your website, start by creating 50 pages per month (about one or two pages every weekday). That will give you a nice base of 250 pages in six months-plenty of time for Google and other search engines to index everything.

How Does it Work?

Google has launched numerous algorithms to better understand how content on web pages can affect a site’s overall ranking. In other words, Google uses algorithms that know if you have optimized a page for users or if you are trying to trick them into giving your site a higher ranking.

If it’s not beneficial for Google searchers, they won’t want it. While these weekly tweaks to the algorithm may be minor, major changes can occur from time to time, too.

For example, back in 2012 Google rolled out an algorithm update that created additional opportunities for quality content (not keyword stuffing) resulting in improved rankings for sites with high-quality content over those with low-quality content.