SEO
Why Content Is Important for SEO
At their best, they form a bond that can catapult any website to the top of search engine rankings.
But that’s only when they’re at their best. Because, when they’re at their worst, they can cause Google penalties that are near impossible to recover from.
The purpose of this chapter is simple; to provide you with an understanding of why content is important for SEO and show you what you can do to make sure they work together in harmony.
As we dive in, we’ll gain a better understanding of what content means, what its SEO value is, and how to go about creating optimized content that lands you on the search engine radar.
Let’s get started.
What ‘Content’ Means
Providing an exact definition for content, and one that is agreed upon by all marketers would be near impossible.
But, while it is a challenge, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden gathered some definitions of content from marketers around the world that give us a solid starting point.
Actionable marketer Heidi Cohen describes content as:
“High quality, useful information that conveys a story presented in a contextually relevant manner with the goal of soliciting an emotion or engagement. Delivered live or asynchronously, content can be expressed using a variety of formats including text, images, video, audio, and/or presentations.”
While Cohen’s description is right on point, it’s important to understand that content found online isn’t always high quality and useful.
There’s a lot of bad content out there that doesn’t come close to providing any type of relevancy or usefulness to the reader.
In a more simplified but similar definition, Social Triggers founder Derek Halpern says:
“Content comes in any form (audio, text, video), and it informs, entertains, enlightens, or teaches the people who consume it.”
Once again, Halpern is describing content that is, at the very least, relevant and useful to its intended audience.
If we avoid a description of “quality” content, we can take a more direct approach by looking at the dozens of different types of digital content.
At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what content is while also understanding some of the different formats where it can be presented.
But what exactly is its value to SEO, and why is it so important that the two work together?
What Is the SEO Value of Content?
Google, the king of search engines, processes over 6.7 billion searches per day.
And since we’re talking about search engine optimization, that means they’re pretty well suited to answer this question.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin co-founded Google in 1998 with a mission:
That mission remains the same today. The way in which they organize that information, however, has changed quite a bit over the years.
Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving in an effort to deliver, as they say, “…useful and relevant results in a fraction of a second.”
The “useful and relevant results” that Google is attempting to deliver are the pieces of content that are available throughout the web.
These pieces of content are ranked by their order of usefulness and relevancy to the user performing the search.
And that means, in order for your content to have any SEO value at all, it needs to be beneficial to searchers.
How do you make sure it’s beneficial? Google helps us with that answer too.
Their recommendation is that, as you begin creating content, make sure it’s:
When these elements are in place, you maximize the potential of the SEO value of your content. Without them, however, your content will have very little value.
But, creating great content isn’t the only piece of the puzzle. There’s a technical side that you need to be aware of as well.
While we’ll talk about that later in this chapter, Maddy Osman put together a comprehensive resource on How to Evaluate the SEO Value of a Piece of Content that further elaborates on the topic.
For now, we can conclude that the SEO value of content depends on how useful, informative, valuable, credible, and engaging it is.
The Importance of Optimizing Content
The reason optimized content is important is simple… you won’t rank in search engines without it.
But, as we’ve already touched on briefly, it’s important to understand that there are multiple factors at play here.
On one side, you have content creation.
Optimizing content during creation is done by ensuring that your content is audience-centric and follows the recommendations laid out in the previous section.
But what does audience-centric mean, and how does it differ from other types of content?
Audience-centric simply means that you’re focusing on what audiences want to hear rather than what you want to talk about.
And, as we’ve identified, producing useful and relevant content is the name of the game if you’re looking to rank in search engines.
On the other side of the optimization equation is the technical stuff.
This involves factors like keywords, meta titles, meta descriptions, and URLs.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about next as we dive into how to actually create optimized content.
How to Create Optimized Content
When attempting to create optimized content, there are a few steps that we need to follow.
They include:
1. Perform Keyword Research & Determine Your Topic
While we’ve already identified that your main goal should be to create audience-centric content, keyword research is necessary to ensure that the resulting content can be found through search engines.
A few things to keep in mind when choosing your keywords and topic:
- Focus on Long-Tail Keywords
- Avoid Highly Competitive Keywords With Massive Search Numbers
- Use a Proven Keyword Research Tool
- Match Your Topic to Your Keyword
2. Develop Your Outline & Format for Optimal Readability
As you’re creating your outline, be sure that you’re formatting your core content so that it’s broken down into small chunks.
Online readers have incredibly short attention spans. And they’re not going to stick around if your article is just one ginormous paragraph.
It’s best to stick with paragraphs that are 1-2 sentences in length, although it’s all right if they stretch to 3-4 shorter sentences.
You’ll also want to be sure that you’re inserting sub-headers and/or visuals every 150-300 words to break up the content even further.
As you can see from the graph below, website engagement impacts organic rankings.
And, if you want to increase engagement, readability is crucial.
Example of Properly Formatted Content
Here’s an example of a page that is formatted for optimal readability:
As you can see, most of the paragraphs are only a sentence or two long.
The text is also broken up using subheadings every 100-200 words.
Example of Poorly Formatted Content
On the other end of the spectrum, here’s an example of a post that’s likely to send readers away directly:
In this post, the content itself is fine. The problem is the extremely long sentences and paragraphs.
With better formatting, the author could easily increase visitors’ average time on site.
3. Stick to Your Topic & Target Keyword
As you begin writing your content, keep in mind the importance of sticking to the topic, and target keyword that you’ve chosen.
Don’t try to write about everything and anything within a single piece of content. And don’t try to target dozens of keywords.
Doing so is not only a huge waste of time, but it also prevents you from creating the most “useful and relevant” content on your topic.
Focus on what you’ve chosen as your topic and stay hyper-relevant to that topic and the keyword that supports it.
Brian Harnish’s Local SEO Guide for Beginners is a great example of an author staying hyper-relevant to a specific topic and keyword.
Just by looking at his title, the topic and target keyword are immediately clear.
And, due to this focus, Harnish’s guide ranks on the first page of Google for the phrase ‘local SEO guide.’
4. Include Backlinks Throughout Your Content
If you read the local SEO guide, you’ll notice that Harnish includes several links to external sites.
Since Google has made it clear that credibility is an important SEO factor, linking to relevant, trustworthy, and authoritative sites can help ensure that search engines see your content as credible.
Be sure, however, that the words you’re using for the link are actually relevant to the site the user will be sent to.
For example, take a look at this sentence:
“You need to understand how to create a compelling headline for your content.”
If you were to link to a resource showing the reader how to create compelling headlines, you’d want to link the bolded portion shown below:
“You need to understand how to create a compelling headline for your content.”
In most cases, it’s recommended that you keep your links to six words or fewer.
How to Optimize Your Content Once It’s Created
Now onto the “technical” part of content optimization.
The most important steps include optimizing the following:
- Title Tag
- Meta Description
- URL
Let’s take a look at how to complete each step.
1. How to Optimize Your Title Tag
When a user performs a search, the title tag is the clickable headline that they see at the top of each result.
For reference, it’s the highlighted portion in the image below:
Title tags are important for a few reasons. First and foremost, they help search engines understand what your page is about.
In addition, they can be a determining factor for which search result a user chooses.
To optimize your title tag, you’ll want to be sure of the following:
- Keep it under 60 characters.
- Don’t stuff multiple keywords into the title.
- Be specific about what the content is about.
- Place target keywords at the beginning.
The example above is a good one.
Here’s an example of a tag that fails to follow these guidelines:
The difference between the two is clear, and it shows the importance of optimizing your title tags.
2. How to Optimize Your Meta Description
Your meta description is the small snippet of text that appears under the title tag and URL.
When performing a search, it’s the section that’s circled below:
While Google has said that meta descriptions don’t have a direct impact on rankings, they do affect whether a user clicks on your page.
And click-through rate can have an indirect impact on rankings as well.
As far as meta description best practices, you should:
- Keep it under 160 characters.
- Provide a short, specific overview of what the content is about.
- Include relevant keywords (they will be highlighted when a user sees search results).
The example above shows a well put together description. Here’s an example of one that could use some work:
3. How to Optimize Your URL
Your URL structure is another component of SEO that has an indirect impact on rankings, as it can be a factor that determines whether a user clicks on your content.
Readability is most important here, as it ensures that search users aren’t scared off by long and mysterious URLs.
The image below provides a great example of how URL readability can affect the way a user sees results.
So, Why is Content Important for SEO?
The answer?
Because when content is optimized, it drastically improves your visibility.
And without visibility and exposure, your content is just another one of the millions of articles that are posted every day on the web.
Nobody sees it.
Nobody shares it.
Nobody does anything with it.
But it’s actually easy to get visible when you know what to do.
Sometimes, it can be the difference of something as small as writing optimized, unique meta descriptions for all your pages to send a huge visibility boost to Google.
If you want visibility and exposure, you have to commit yourself to the grind of consistently creating optimized content.
Featured Image Credit: Paulo Bobita
SEO
Mediavine Bans Publisher For Overuse Of AI-Generated Content
According to details surfacing online, ad management firm Mediavine is terminating publishers’ accounts for overusing AI.
Mediavine is a leading ad management company providing products and services to help website publishers monetize their content.
The company holds elite status as a Google Certified Publishing Partner, which indicates that it meets Google’s highest standards and requirements for ad networks and exchanges.
AI Content Triggers Account Terminations
The terminations came to light in a post on the Reddit forum r/Blogging, where a user shared an email they received from Mediavine citing “overuse of artificially created content.”
Trista Jensen, Mediavine’s Director of Ad Operations & Market Quality, states in the email:
“Our third party content quality tools have flagged your sites for overuse of artificially created content. Further internal investigation has confirmed those findings.”
Jensen stated that due to the overuse of AI content, “our top partners will stop spending on your sites, which will negatively affect future monetization efforts.”
Consequently, Mediavine terminated the publisher’s account “effective immediately.”
The Risks Of Low-Quality AI Content
This strict enforcement aligns with Mediavine’s publicly stated policy prohibiting websites from using “low-quality, mass-produced, unedited or undisclosed AI content that is scraped from other websites.”
In a March 7 blog post titled “AI and Our Commitment to a Creator-First Future,” the company declared opposition to low-value AI content that could “devalue the contributions of legitimate content creators.”
Mediavine warned in the post:
“Without publishers, there is no open web. There is no content to train the models that power AI. There is no internet.”
The company says it’s using its platform to “advocate for publishers” and uphold quality standards in the face of AI’s disruptive potential.
Mediavine states:
“We’re also developing faster, automated tools to help us identify low-quality, mass-produced AI content across the web.”
Targeting ‘AI Clickbait Kingpin’ Tactics
While the Reddit user’s identity wasn’t disclosed, the incident has drawn connections to the tactics of Nebojša Vujinović Vujo, who was dubbed an “AI Clickbait Kingpin” in a recent Wired exposé.
According to Wired, Vujo acquired over 2,000 dormant domains and populated them with AI-generated, search-optimized content designed purely to capture ad revenue.
His strategies represent the low-quality, artificial content Mediavine has vowed to prohibit.
Potential Implications
Lost Revenue
Mediavine’s terminations highlight potential implications for publishers that rely on artificial intelligence to generate website content at scale.
Perhaps the most immediate and tangible implication is the risk of losing ad revenue.
For publishers that depend heavily on programmatic advertising or sponsored content deals as key revenue drivers, being blocked from major ad networks could devastate their business models.
Devalued Domains
Another potential impact is the devaluation of domains and websites built primarily on AI-generated content.
If this pattern of AI content overuse triggers account terminations from companies like Mediavine, it could drastically diminish the value proposition of scooping up these domains.
Damaged Reputations & Brands
Beyond the lost monetization opportunities, publishers leaning too heavily into automated AI content also risk permanent reputational damage to their brands.
Once a determining authority flags a website for AI overuse, it could impact how that site is perceived by readers, other industry partners, and search engines.
In Summary
AI has value as an assistive tool for publishers, but relying heavily on automated content creation poses significant risks.
These include monetization challenges, potential reputation damage, and increasing regulatory scrutiny. Mediavine’s strict policy illustrates the possible consequences for publishers.
It’s important to note that Mediavine’s move to terminate publisher accounts over AI content overuse represents an independent policy stance taken by the ad management firm itself.
The action doesn’t directly reflect the content policies or enforcement positions of Google, whose publishing partner program Mediavine is certified under.
We have reached out to Mediavine requesting a comment on this story. We’ll update this article with more information when it’s provided.
Featured Image: Simple Line/Shutterstock
SEO
Google’s Guidance About The Recent Ranking Update
Google’s Danny Sullivan explained the recent update, addressing site recoveries and cautioning against making radical changes to improve rankings. He also offered advice for publishes whose rankings didn’t improve after the last update.
Google’s Still Improving The Algorithm
Danny said that Google is still working on their ranking algorithm, indicating that more changes (for the positive) are likely on the way. The main idea he was getting across is that they’re still trying to fill the gaps in surfacing high quality content from independent sites. Which is good because big brand sites don’t necessarily have the best answers.
He wrote:
“…the work to connect people with “a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content” is not done with this latest update. We’re continuing to look at this area and how to improve further with future updates.”
A Message To Those Who Were Left Behind
There was a message to those publishers whose work failed to recover with the latest update, to let them know that Google is still working to surface more of the independent content and that there may be relief on the next go.
Danny advised:
“…if you’re feeling confused about what to do in terms of rankings…if you know you’re producing great content for your readers…If you know you’re producing it, keep doing that…it’s to us to keep working on our systems to better reward it.”
Google Cautions Against “Improving” Sites
Something really interesting that he mentioned was a caution against trying to improve rankings of something that’s already on page one in order to rank even higher. Tweaking a site to get from position six or whatever to something higher has always been a risky thing to do for many reasons I won’t elaborate on here. But Danny’s warning increases the pressure to not just think twice before trying to optimize a page for search engines but to think three times and then some more.
Danny cautioned that sites that make it to the top of the SERPs should consider that a win and to let it ride instead of making changes right now in order to improve their rankings. The reason for that caution is that the search results continue to change and the implication is that changing a site now may negatively impact the rankings in a newly updated search index.
He wrote:
“If you’re showing in the top results for queries, that’s generally a sign that we really view your content well. Sometimes people then wonder how to move up a place or two. Rankings can and do change naturally over time. We recommend against making radical changes to try and move up a spot or two”
How Google Handled Feedback
There was also some light shed on what Google did with all the feedback they received from publishers who lost rankings. Danny wrote that the feedback and site examples he received was summarized, with examples, and sent to the search engineers for review. They continue to use that feedback for the next round of improvements.
He explained:
“I went through it all, by hand, to ensure all the sites who submitted were indeed heard. You were, and you continue to be. …I summarized all that feedback, pulling out some of the compelling examples of where our systems could do a better job, especially in terms of rewarding open web creators. Our search engineers have reviewed it and continue to review it, along with other feedback we receive, to see how we can make search better for everyone, including creators.”
Feedback Itself Didn’t Lead To Recovery
Danny also pointed out that sites that recovered their rankings did not do so because of they submitted feedback to Google. Danny wasn’t specific about this point but it conforms with previous statements about Google’s algorithms that they implement fixes at scale. So instead of saying, “Hey let’s fix the rankings of this one site” it’s more about figuring out if the problem is symptomatic of something widescale and how to change things for everybody with the same problem.
Danny wrote:
“No one who submitted, by the way, got some type of recovery in Search because they submitted. Our systems don’t work that way.”
That feedback didn’t lead to recovery but was used as data shouldn’t be surprising. Even as far back as the 2004 Florida Update Matt Cutts collected feedback from people, including myself, and I didn’t see a recovery for a false positive until everyone else also got back their rankings.
Takeaways
Google’s work on their algorithm is ongoing:
Google is continuing to tune its algorithms to improve its ability to rank high quality content, especially from smaller publishers. Danny Sullivan emphasized that this is an ongoing process.
What content creators should focus on:
Danny’s statement encouraged publishers to focus on consistently creating high quality content and not to focus on optimizing for algorithms. Focusing on quality should be the priority.
What should publishers do if their high-quality content isn’t yet rewarded with better rankings?
Publishers who are certain of the quality of their content are encouraged to hold steady and keep it coming because Google’s algorithms are still being refined.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands
SEO
Plot Up To Five Metrics At Once
Google has rolled out changes to Analytics, adding features to help you make more sense of your data.
The update brings several key improvements:
- You can now compare up to five different metrics side by side.
- A new tool automatically spots unusual trends in your data.
- A more detailed report on transactions gives a closer look at revenue.
- The acquisition reports now separate user and session data more clearly.
- It’s easier to understand what each report does with new descriptions.
Here’s an overview of these new features, why they matter, and how they might help improve your data analysis and decision-making.
▶ ️We’ve introduced plot rows in detailed reports. You can now visualize up to 5 rows of data directly within your detailed reports to measure their changes over time.
We’ve also launched these new report features:
🔎: Anomaly detection to flag unusual data fluctuations
📊:… pic.twitter.com/VDPXe2Q9wQ— Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) September 5, 2024
Plot Rows: Enhanced Data Visualization
The most prominent addition is the “Plot Rows” feature.
You can now visualize up to five rows of data simultaneously within your reports, allowing for quick comparisons and trend analysis.
This feature is accessible by selecting the desired rows and clicking the “Plot Rows” option.
Anomaly Detection: Spotting Unusual Patterns
Google Analytics has implemented an anomaly detection system to help you identify potential issues or opportunities.
This new tool automatically flags unusual data fluctuations, making it easier to spot unexpected traffic spikes, sudden drops, or other noteworthy trends.
Improved Report Navigation & Understanding
Google Analytics has added hover-over descriptions for report titles.
These brief explanations provide context and include links to more detailed information about each report’s purpose and metrics.
Key Event Marking In Events Report
The Events report allows you to mark significant events for easy reference.
This feature, accessed through a three-dot menu at the end of each event row, helps you prioritize and track important data points.
New Transactions Report For Revenue Insights
For ecommerce businesses, the new Transactions report offers granular insights into revenue streams.
This feature provides information about each transaction, utilizing the transaction_id parameter to give you a comprehensive view of sales data.
Scope Changes In Acquisition Reports
Google has refined its acquisition reports to offer more targeted metrics.
The User Acquisition report now includes user-related metrics such as Total Users, New Users, and Returning Users.
Meanwhile, the Traffic Acquisition report focuses on session-related metrics like Sessions, Engaged Sessions, and Sessions per Event.
What To Do Next
As you explore these new features, keep in mind:
- Familiarize yourself with the new Plot Rows function to make the most of comparative data analysis.
- Pay attention to the anomaly detection alerts, but always investigate the context behind flagged data points.
- Take advantage of the more detailed Transactions report to understand your revenue patterns better.
- Experiment with the refined acquisition reports to see which metrics are most valuable for your needs.
As with any new tool, there will likely be a learning curve as you incorporate these features into your workflow.
FAQ
What is the “Plot Rows” feature in Google Analytics?
The “Plot Rows” feature allows you to visualize up to five rows of data at the same time. This makes it easier to compare different metrics side by side within your reports, facilitating quick comparisons and trend analysis. To use this feature, select the desired rows and click the “Plot Rows” option.
How does the new anomaly detection system work in Google Analytics?
Google Analytics’ new anomaly detection system automatically flags unusual data patterns. This tool helps identify potential issues or opportunities by spotting unexpected traffic spikes, sudden drops, or other notable trends, making it easier for users to focus on significant data fluctuations.
What improvements have been made to the Transactions report in Google Analytics?
The enhanced Transactions report provides detailed insights into revenue for ecommerce businesses. It utilizes the transaction_id parameter to offer granular information about each transaction, helping businesses get a better understanding of their revenue streams.
Featured Image: Vladimka production/Shutterstock
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