There’s no question that good quality content is good for business. It contributes to brand building, paves the way for lead generation, and improves your website’s search ranking. But is it really going to get your site on to page 1 of Google? Probably not.
Why? Well, it’s not terribly difficult to produce good content. The rise of content marketing has seen plenty of brands out there regularly push out quality material. A quick glance at your search results will turn up dozens of articles beginning with titles like “How to”, “Tips for”, and “Examples of”. Our personal favourite is the Question as a Headline, as you can see in this post.
This, of course, creates more competition, sets the bar much higher than it was 5 or even 3 years ago, and makes it much tougher to rank on page 1 or even page 2.
So how do you get to page 1 of Google?
There are numerous factors in search engine algorithms affecting website rank – just look at the infographic for search engine optimisation above. In this instance we’ll focus primarily on content.
Quality
With armies of marketing teams churning out articles for brands, you need to up your content game. What fresh perspectives can you add to the sea of conformity flooding the Internet? Find the content gaps and fill them.
One way to view this is to imagine if you were in a room full of experts, and a customer posed a question. What would make your answer stand out for the customer to pay any attention to you? In other words, what would make your content unique and relevant enough to rank competitively?
User experience
On the subject of user experience, things like load speed and a site’s mobile-friendliness usually come to mind. But in terms of content, we should also consider the layout, design and copy (text).
How does your article look and read to site visitors? Long-form posts without visuals can be difficult to read and digest; try breaking up chunks of text with images and sub-headlines, preferably ones you’ve created that are unique to the brand. Are your links well placed? Would your reader have trouble finding the information they’re searching for?
Writing
Then, of course, there’s the quality of the writing, and we don’t mean perfect grammar. People are more inclined to read and engage with well-structured content that resonates with them. Simply having points strung together isn’t enough to entice readers. Great content is easy to read and understand, plus it’s interesting regardless of whether your business deals with fashion or fertiliser.
This is where professional support comes in. Digital agencies can offer guidance with content marketing, and experienced copywriters are able to highlight the best of your product or service.
Remember: if the majority of content out there falls under the category of ‘average’, your business will have to produce much better content to stand out on Google organically.
