When it comes to creating content for your website in terms of landing pages, blogs and all the other snippets of content you may have across your website, times have changed. They aren’t exactly new changes, but how we create this content is so very different from how we did several years ago.
What Creating Content For SEO Used To Mean
Although writing for SEO is still absolutely relevant, it’s not what it used to be. Writing for SEO purposes used to mean something very different, it consisted of various practices that are most certainly out of the window now. When those working in SEO had content to write, it was very common practice to ‘keyword stuff’. This is the notion of putting your keyword on that page as many times as possible. Very little attention was paid to how well the content read, but rather if every other sentence had your keyword in there somewhere.
It didn’t even have to be visible either! There was a phase where SEO marketers would pop their keyword in the text several times but make it ‘invisible’ to the customer. Although this didn’t affect the customer’s experience most of the time, it was essentially a way to ‘cheat’ your way to the top of those SERPs.
This along with buying all sorts of backlinks would be what would get you ranked on Google and well, how times have changed.
Creating For Your User’s Experience
Nowadays, the user is God and Good Content is King. So having these two in mind in your SEO efforts will ensure that you’re on your way up that ranking ladder.
It’s no surprise that the shift to favouring user experience happened, with the technologies that search engines now have, they were bound to click on to the above ‘tricks’ sooner rather than later. User experience means nothing more than making sure your website is as user-friendly as possible and focuses on their experience, rather than our own needs. But how exactly do we do that?
Navigation
Your user knows what exactly what they’re looking for, but sometimes poor site navigation stops them from finding it. Our first tip is to not overcomplicate your navigation. Have clear, clean looking menus that are easy to use. Don’t make things hard to find.
Headings
Label things exactly as they are! Although creative headings can make you stand out, your user being on your website means they want something from you. Headings are your opportunity to make the content of the following page clear.
Bounce Rate
When it comes to your website’s bounce rate, we want the lowest possible percentage. By checking this on your Google Analytics for your website and specific pages, you can hone into where users are dropping off and can, in turn, change your SEO efforts to ensure this happens less.
Calls To Action
Let your users know where they need to go next. Whether this is showing how to get to the next page of an e-commerce category, or how they can get in contact with you to make an enquiry for your service. Create clear call-to-action buttons that stand out from the rest of your website.
Site Speed
Users, now more than ever, have a short attention span and low patience when it comes to browsing websites. Check your website using Google’s Page Speed Insights tool to see how you can improve. Remember, this is also an important factor that affects your rankings!
There are some starter building blocks to help you on your way to creating content and pages that will keep users on your website for longer and find exactly what they are looking for. If you need any further assistance, get in touch with us and see how we can help improve your website for your users!
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