Taking the Mystery Out of SEO-Friendly Content

Everyone wants the content that they present to the world to be as SEO-friendly and attractive to readers and search engines as possible. But until recently, maximizing the attraction of your content was thought to be the domain of web wizards with secret knowledge of how to outsmart Google’s algorithms and crawlers.

The one thing

While the dynamics of optimizing organic search are continuing to evolve, there’s one truth today that trumps the most elaborate SEO practices. Focusing on making your content interesting, easy-to-read, and informative will be more effective in attracting and engaging readers—and boosting search rankings—than stuffing it with keywords or over-obsessing over tags. By keeping things simple and genuine, you win.

Address real problems

If you are committed to publishing content that’s truly helpful and user-focused, you’re probably applying many SEO-friendly practices naturally.

Content that addresses real problems or issues of your audience is the most important building block. Of course, this also assumes that you have an in-depth understanding of your audience. Assuming you do, you should know what topics are of interest to them. Focus solely on providing content that helps them overcome challenges or expands their knowledge—and makes you look like an expert.

Make readability a priority

Another common-sense practice that boosts SEO is making your content as effortless as possible to read. Regardless of how compelling the content is, few people are willing to wade through posts of dense paragraphs stacked on top of each other without any visuals or breaks in the copy. Remember to:

  • Create short paragraphs
  • Use subheads
  • Insert bullets or lists when possible
  • Include relevant images

Look and sound professional

This seems painfully obvious, but spelling and grammar mistakes will quickly undermine any SEO efforts—as well as any perceptions of your authority and expertise.

Take the time and make the effort to edit and proof your work, or hire someone to do it.

Conclusion

This article from the Content Marketing Institute provides additional insight into these and other ways making content SEO-friendly isn’t as daunting as you might think. You’ll see that if you put yourself in your audience’s shoes and provide content that delivers real value and insight, in a form that’s easy to digest, the SEO work will be nearly done already.