A few years ago, an SEO firm contacted me to write nutrition, business, and law related articles for its clients. The owner knew I was a Registered Dietitian and an attorney and he needed help. This opened a new door and I realized that one of the most important areas of expertise that SEO firms handle, is not just the behind the scene software pieces, but even more important is the content.
And ladies and gentlemen, as writers, content is what we do best.
It used to be that if you wanted people to find you and your business, you picked names for your business that would place you at the front of the phone book rather than toward the back. The days of the phone book are gone. What matters most is whether your name or business comes up in the first pages of a key word search. Instead of your fingers doing the walking, Google does the hunting.
Google/Yahoo, is like a battery operated toy — it is programed to find certain things, to like certain things, and to reject other things. The more it likes, the higher your ranking which increases the chance that your web presence will appear at the top of people’s search results — the top 10 is best.
Let’s take a look at some of those things:
Unique. If your content is unique, Google likes it. But how does Google define unique? The information itself doesn’t have to be new, but the way it’s expressed does. You can say the same thing many different ways and it can still be considered unique by Google. This is because search engines like Google use mathematical equations (algorithms) that take words literally. The rule of thumb is 3 words. Don’t use more than 3 of the same words in a row from something else that’s been published whether it was your own, or something you have permission to use. One of the SEO’s clients was an orthodontist who had different pages for 15 different locations. Each of the pages expressed the same type of content, who he was, the services he offered, and the outcome his patients could expect. I took his one page that expressed the information he wanted to present to the public and rewrote it 15 different ways. Google saw each page as unique and his ranking rose.
Hits. The number of visitors who visit your site and stay awhile. It’s not just how many visit, because if they visit and immediately bounce off, Google registers that they must not have liked what they saw since they made a quick exit. This decreases your ranking. Next, we’ll look at what draws people to your site and how do you increase those hits in a positive way.
Any suggestions?
(c) 2019 Karen Van Den Heuvel