Good content is arguably THE MOST important key to succeeding in all things online marketing. Good content will help you rank well in search engines such as Google (in fact they recently called it out as being one of the top three Google ranking factors) and is instrumental in helping you convert on your website’s goals.
Once you understand the importance of good content, the only question remaining is what makes for good content? Makes makes for the kind of good content which Google rewards with high rankings, the kind of great content which people want to read and which will keep them coming back time and time again.
Good content should meet the following four major criteria points: informative, unique, engaging, and succinct.
Informative – First and foremost, good content is informative. It more than adequately educates your audience on whatever it is which you’re writing about. It provides value in fully answering your audience’s questions. It makes them want to revisit the article again in the future, bookmarking it for reference.
It should be that good because that’s the kind of content which builds an audience which keeps coming back to your website. It’s the kind of content which transforms one off visitors into regular visitors. It’s the kind of content which builds a relationship and turns regular visitors into customers, so you can’t skimp when it comes to providing truly informative valuable information.
Unique – Unique content is that which is written in your own voice. If you make your writing too dry, it will read like something out of an encyclopedia. You stand a much better chance of actually impacting your readers if you deliver your informative content through your own voice.
Everyone has their own unique perspective on the world, and your perspective should shine through in your writing. Even if you don’t want to inject your own opinions or thoughts on the content you’re creating, it should still come through your voice.
It’s your voice which will connect with your readers and which will have them coming back and possibly even driving them to a conversion on your website at some point.
Engaging – Good content is not repetitive but engaging in how it is presented. It’s apparent that content which is presented in a combination of media formats will outrank the same content which is presented in basic text every time because it delivers a better user experience.
Users are Google and other search engines’ bottom lines, so ensuring that its the users who come first through writing for them on your site as opposed to Google is what will actually garner your better rankings.
This means going the extra mile and creating relevant images and even a video or audio clip in order to more effectively convey your message.
Images and video are much more dynamic ways to deliver your content alongside your search engine optimized text which your audience will appreciate, and consequently so will Google.
Succinct – While it’s been proven that longer articles perform better in search engines than their much shorter counterparts, succinct writing is still key. Remember that information can both be delivered thoroughly as well as succinctly.
One of the nice features of the SEO plugin from Yoast is that it delivers a real time readability score as you write your post and page articles, so that it reminds you as you write to keep your paragraphs and sentences short(er) in order to encourage a more user friendly reading experience.
You can also use the same SEO plugin to, well, optimize your content for search engines. Simply input your focus keyword which you’re targeting and the plugin will tell you how to optimize it accordingly. Still, a good rule of thumb is to sprinkle your keyword throughout your article whenever applicable, interchanging it with some synonyms from time to time.
Of course good content is also typo and grammar problem free and is directed toward its target audience without getting bogged down in the technical jargon of your industry. Assume anyone reading your content is reading about your topic for the first time. Writing for the greenest of your field is the key.