There’s a lot of confusion and lies out there about Search Engine Optimization. In truth, there are really only 3 factors of SEO that really make a difference to your rankings. The good news is that two of them are totally in your control at all times and the third is quite easily achieved if you do a good job on the first two.
That being said I think everyone who reads this is going to be interested in jumping right in to the three factors so I won’t waste any more time with a lengthy introduction.
Quality Content
Quality content isn’t something you hear a lot of SEO companies talk about. Some people over the years have even said that content doesn’t matter at all and have advocated using cheap outsourced writers or spun content (which is an article written with a bunch of synonyms as alternatives for certain words that can then be used to create multiple articles). People have SLOWLY started to realize that the quality of your content matters but it’s still not completely catching on.
The latest things SEO experts are hopefuls are talking about is word count. You’ll find people saying that each blog post on your blog should be at least 300 words long while others claim it should 1,800 words long if you really want to beat out your competition. The truth is that word count isn’t nearly as important as the quality of your content.
Getting people back and getting them to stick around
Quality content not only grows a real audience of engaged users that will come back to your website again and again, it also increases their engagement time on your site. One of the latest ranking factors that Google has been scrutinizing in their ranking results is time on site. Time on site simply calculates how long a visitor, on average, stays on a website after getting there. If your article is total, unreadable junk 99% of people will simply close the window.
Even if your article is short but packs a powerful punch, there’s a very high likelihood that the user will click around to other articles or blogs on your site or even click on one of your other pages.
You’ve done this yourself
How often have you searched for a good resource on a topic online and when you finally get to a great one you bookmarked it? People want reliable sources of great information. If you focus on becoming that for your audience they’ll stay on your site longer and Google will reward you handsomely as you’re providing real value instead of trying to trick the search engines.
They key to any business, in our opinion, is providing great value to your clients or customers. If your product is the best out there you don’t have to market nearly as hard as when you do when you’re selling junk. The same holds true for great information. If you’re on the internet looking to improve the lives of other people by offering great information, you’ll instantly be seen as a trust-worthy figure in your industry and that trust is something that only comes through caring about your audience enough to provide quality content.