Have you ever wondered why so many websites have blogs? Is it because business owners have an unquenchable desire to write dozens, if not hundreds of articles about their products and related things?
Possible, but unlikely. The real reason, is, like so many other things online these days, is because it pleases Google. Google’s business rests on their search engine giving users good results for their searches, and so it is crucial that you can shape the content on your website to give visitors what they want. This is the key to ranking highly on Google.
What is site content?
Of course there can be many different types of content on a website. Videos, images, infographics and even interactive elements are all important parts of a website. However…
In the context of this article, we are referring to content mainly in terms of text content. This is because whilst Google is very sophisticated, it is still only a computer, and cannot read images and videos. Therefore, the most important content within a site for ranking is still text based.
The various different types of content on a website are:
- Site Text – this is the text on the main site pages, including titles, text passages and calls to action.
- On-Page SEO elements – these are a crucial part of the SEO value of any site and include page titles, descriptions, H tags, alt tags on images and more.
- Topical articles around your site topic – these can be as part of a blog, or structured in any other way on your site that makes sense.
A content strategy starts with your keywords…
As we discussed here, the selection of your keywords is the first step in any content strategy. You will need to know what your target keywords are, so that you can create a content plan and strategy that will enhance your chances of ranking for these keywords.
Topical Authority:
So, what should you write about? This is where the content strategy is crucial, and it comes down to an SEO concept called topical authority.
Google is in the business of offering users the best search results. If you went to Google and did a search and the results had nothing to do with what you searched for, before long you would stop using Google. If that happened on a large scale, then Google would no longer be able to sell ads around their organic search results, which makes them hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
Therefore, Google want to present the most relevant search results for each and every keyword. So your job when creating your content plan is to make you site the most relevant for your desired keywords.
Way back in the 2000s, SEO was much simpler, and sites could rank simply by placing the keywords that they wanted to rank for within the text on their page. However, now things are much more difficult, due to the massive amount of competition. Now, sites need to create content around a particular set of keywords to display what is often known as topical authority.
Essentially, creating topically authoritative content is looking at the keywords, and thinking about what long form related content will display a large amount of knowledge and expertise around the area. This will then ideally tell Google that you are an authority on the subject, which will help your rankings.
As is so often the case with SEO, there are no quick wins. The best way to win is always to do exactly what Google wants:
Create a selection of content that is high quality, helpful to the user, and answering the questions that the searcher wants answered.
A well planned content strategy will let you do exactly that.
Creating Your Content Plan
As mentioned, the content plan starts with your target keywords. Once you have your keywords, you will generally find that they will fall within topical groups. You will generally not have to create content around each single keyword, but rather each topic.
So, what should I write about?
The best thing is to get on Google, and to look at the content that other high-ranking sites have created. This will give you an idea of what types of content are related to your topic.
It is important to think laterally here. Try to imagine Google as having a spreadsheet of each and every topic in the world, and within this, they will list all of the things they see as related to this topic.
For example, if you had a coffee shop, then there is only so much you can write about how great your coffee is and the offers you have. However, you could write content around:
How your coffee is sourced and roasted.
Different types of coffee and beans.
Coffee equipment that you can use at home.
Famous coffee drinkers and movies involving coffee.
Then you could expand depending on your keyword. If you are a coffee shop in a busy area of a city, then there may be 100 other coffee shops in the same area. How can you differentiate yourself? You could create content about the area your shop is in, such as details of things to do, best restaurants to go to, and anything else. This will tell Google that you are not just an authority about coffee, but also about your area, which could give a great boost to your Google ranking for keywords that include the name of the area.
Structuring your content
The content itself can be within a blog, a knowledgebase, or any other hub of content within your site. The most important things to take into account are:
- Ensure that the hub of content is linked from the homepage so easily accessible.
- Consider using a hub and spoke structure, or pillar and cluster model, i.e. have a main article around a topic, which is the hub, which then links to articles related to this main topic, which are the spokes. For example, you could have a page called “The most popular coffee types”, which lists out the main types of coffee, and then this page links out to pages containing more detailed overviews of these coffee types.
- Ensure that you use internal linking i.e. links between your content, so that Google can easily navigate between them and see that they are connected.
Is AI written content acceptable?
Writing is a skill that not everyone has, and even those who can write may not enjoy it or simply not have time. Not everyone has the stomach for sitting down and writing 2000-3000 words on a niche subject!
In the last few years AI has emerged, and various AI powered programs have emerged that will make it far easier to write content.
But how does the mighty Google feel about AI written content? Well up until recently, within their content guidelines, Google stated that their algorithms prioritized ‘content written by people, for people’. However, in September 2023, that was removed, and they now just say ‘content created for people’, with no reference to prioritizing content written by humans. This is really a green light from Google to use AI for content creation.
So, is it enough to just pump out hundreds of articles using AI and you will rank highly on Google? In short, no. Google rewards high quality content that is informative, authoritative and above all, helpful to the user. So, whilst AI can be very useful to cut the time taken to create content, you need to ensure that the content is high quality. Generally the best way to create content efficiently is to use AI to create base content, and then go in and human edit the content to ensure it is correct, well structured, and containing as much real world, human experience as possible.
Conclusion
Content is one of the hardest areas of SEO, because it can involve such a large workload, and you need to ensure that you are creating the correct content before committing to that task. If you feel that any help is required, don’t hesitate to contact Hooley, as we have created many content plans, featuring thousands of articles and tens of millions of words.