Content is the key to SEO success

Content always comes first, SEO comes second. SEO helps great websites gain the attention they deserve, it doesn’t work when the website starts off without good content. Unique, relevant and interesting content attracts back links and visitors to your website like bees to honey. It is common for a website owner to contact a SEO expert to conduct a SEO analysis on their website to determine if they have employed the wrong SEO strategy. The SEO expert typically discovers that the lack of organic rankings is due to poor content, not the SEO strategy.

The following list outlines some guidelines for creating good content:

1. Content is viewed by humans, not by a search engine. If you find yourself writing content with keywords and search engines in mind, turn around and start again.
2. Spelling and grammar is often overlooked and can lead to detrimental SEO results. Always run a spell check before adding content to a site and check the spelling based on region. For example, check UK and US English standards.
3. Work to provide your users with useful information that benefits them. Simply throwing up content that nobody wants will not lead to SEO success. Have a content plan and stick to it.
4. Write your content based on your target audience. If your website is aimed at a technical audience then you are free to use jargon and shorthand that a technical audience will understand. A generic audience will require you to write content in easy to understand language.
5. Great articles are often not viewed because the title is boring. If you want to attract attention it’s important to think long and hard about a catchy title.
6. Nobody likes to read giant paragraphs. Humans naturally turn away from long paragraphs, so it’s best to break up your content into small manageable paragraphs that are spaced out over a few pages.
7. Formatting your content helps users to easily read your content. Using the appropriate font type or even spacing points out in bullet form can do a world of difference. A cleanly formatted piece of content has a better change of spreading across the Internet and will get you a lot of back links.