There are a number of factors that go into an effective and fruitful SEO strategy. As a result, search engine optimisation is considered to be a complex and ever-changing area of marketing that should only be entrusted to a professional SEO company in Australia. An inexperienced team can do significant harm to your online ranking and reputation, particularly when it comes to the task of writing SEO content.
Unfortunately, many people incorrectly assume that writing SEO content just involves adding a few keywords here and there or even worse, stuffing your content with so many keywords that it’s practically unintelligible. Google’s bots are actually a lot more clever than that. Neither of these strategies will do you any good — in fact, they can be quite harmful.
As is the case with all aspects of SEO, content writing is an area that is constantly evolving. This occurs in-line with changes made to Google’s algorithms. It’s not always easy to predict these algorithm updates, apart from the fact that they will always be carried out with the aim of providing users with information that is more relevant and engaging.
If you’re an SEO newbie or wanting to obtain a better idea as to how best your content can capture the attention of Google’s bots (for all the right reasons), read on to discover a little more about how to write effective SEO content in 2021.
What is SEO content?
Many people incorrectly assume that SEO content consists only of long-form blogs. In reality, any content can be optimised for SEO purposes through the deliberate inclusion of well-researched keywords.
SEO content can include content that is visible to real users — such as blogs and product descriptions — as well as meta content, which is only accessible and useful to Google’s bots.
What’s more, SEO content doesn’t have to be limited to the form of written word. Videos, images, and graphics can all be considered SEO content, providing that they have been captioned and optimised correctly.
There are many purposes to SEO content. On the one hand, the inclusion of keywords is obviously designed to drive higher traffic to your site. On the other, SEO content is like any other type of content in that it should be useful and informative to your customers.
Is SEO content important in 2021?
Every year we see the same blog posts and articles pop up — ‘Is SEO content writing dead?’ and ‘Why you can bid farewell to SEO content this year’. So, is there any truth to these claims?
Well, SEO marketers are fortunate in that Google provides quite a bit of information into the inner workings of their SEO algorithms. For example, their SEO Starter Guide, designed for website developers, shares some of the key ways through which their bots crawl and index sites.
If you read through this guide, you’ll notice that the word ‘content’ is used a lot. In this sense, forms of content such as meta descriptions, title tags, and snippets are unlikely to ever disappear from the process of search engine optimisation. Without these resources, Google’s algorithms would be simply unable to function.
However, what does the future of long-form SEO content — think traditional blog posts and articles — look like?
SEO content in 2021
Tracking Google’s algorithm changes gives key indications as to what they expect from content writers. For example, a recent update in November 2021 was designed to target websites that use spam tactics (whether link building or content writing) to trick Google bots. Spam is also known as ‘black-hat’ SEO and should be avoided at all costs.
So, we know spam is bad, but what makes good SEO content in 2021?
Well, understand that Google’s sole aim is to direct visitors to websites that are useful and fulfil their search intent. Your job is to articulate what your business does so that Google can direct relevant traffic to your website. The inclusion of keywords has therefore always been important, and continues to play a central role in any good SEO content strategy.
Content length has always been a hotly contested topic amongst SEO marketers. Opinions vary, but recent research from Hubspot suggests that the ideal SEO blog is 2,100 – 2,400 words in length. Keep in mind that this word count needs to satisfy both Google’s bots and real human customers. Creating lengthy fluff pieces in which few users make it to the bottom of your article may actually increase your bounce rate and can do more harm than good.
Finally, ensure that your content is unique and reflective of your company. Avoid generic headings and make sure that your blog posts and articles contain information that is actually useful to your audience.
In 2021, effective SEO content remains what it has always been — well researched, well written, and targeted directly at your customers. One last tip: if writing content isn’t your thing, perhaps consider outsourcing this component of your SEO campaign to an SEO company in Australia. Given the importance of content to the success of your overall SEO campaign, it’s certainly not an area that you want to be fooling around with.
Comments are closed.