In the market of search engine optimization, every leading company will tell you, content is king. Take away pay per click (PPC) campaigns or targeted ads, deter your focus from user experience and bounce rates, what are you left with? The bare bones content of your web page. This very important structure to your website is something Google looks for, reads, and rates. It is respected and it is something that needs to be primed and articulated well if you want your organic search rankings to grow.

Where history is concerned…


For years SEO companies tried many, “black hat,” methods when it came to page content. From inserting as much content as they could regardless of relevancy to a page, to having backlinks on irrelevant blogs and webpages. To say they didn’t succeed would be a false claim, they did, and these websites soared to the top of the rankings with ease. One thing though that was not taken into account was how adaptable search engines could be and the steps they would take to weed out these poor practices.

Relevancy

Search Engines eventually learned to read content on a webpage, and determine if that content was relevant to the user or not. Many businesses who utilized black hat methods saw their websites plunge quickly, and some even banned from the search engine giants altogether. It is in the best interest of search engines to serve their users with the content they are actually looking for, and to do it quickly. It became evident, the only way to make it big in their eyes, is to build the right content for their users, without the need to spam. You need to become an authority for content on the product or services you sell, become a library of information and resources that improve your click through rates and conversions.

When building out content for your website ask yourself four questions:

• What are the questions my customers are continually asking me? Chances are, if your customers are asking you, they are also asking search engines.
• How can I answer these questions, and incorporate my products or services?
• Does my content link to my products and services that are related?
• Does my content reference my meta keywords?

User Experience

Content should be your main driving force for click-through rates on your webpage. When it comes to navigating a website, your customer is looking for a guide and that guide comes in the form of smart, strategic and simple to understand content. If your customer can easily and quickly navigate to the pages of your website that they need, search giants record this as a positive user experience. Your content should be built to give them the answer they need quickly, with as much information possible at their fingertips. It is important that eCommerce companies take a similar approach, but also within this content sell the user their product as the answer.  Never put content on your website that is so irrelevant to your products or services that you have no way to make a conversion.

Formatting

As most know, search engines have the ability to read not only simple content, but the formatting within this content. They take into account header tags, hyperlinks, tables, and lists. They evaluate these structures to determine what it is in your content that is most important, what should be highlighted to their users and what essentially it is that you want from that user. Main header tags should be worded as an answer to question, which is what your content aims to do. Sub-headers should be used to organize the information for that answer. 

Hyperlinks are another essential tool with content building, and you should consider in any piece of content on your website including links to the following:

• Contact pages where your customers can connect with you.
• Your product pages or services that are discussed within the content.
• Additional resource pages on your site that may further help the customer.
• Necessary cited sources, although you should aim to keep your work as original as possible.

Tables can be a great way to list out product or service specifications in a way that is easy for the user to read. Search engines understand this and it has become increasingly obvious that search engines are favoring websites that have clean table formatting with plenty of specifications laid out.

Content Pages vs. Blogs

Many confuse content on a website with only being blog posts. While blog posts are also an essential for search engine optimization, they are not the only place for content on your website and they should not be used as a resource location for important information your customer may need. Blogs are a great tool for communication between sellers and their customers. Essentially a blog should be a place the seller goes to ask their customer base a question, or to provide a possible solution to questions within the seller’s industry and they should be open for discussion. Blogs give search engines the ability to see that your website is constantly updating with new information and it is being used to dynamically talk with your customers or industry.

While blogs may be a great place to start, you should consider these other aspects of your website that should have strong content.

• Home Page
• About Page
• Product Pages
• Category Pages
• Resource Pages

Organization

Now that you have content, it needs to be organized. Make sure the flow of your content and website work well together and don’t forget about user experience.  Your website should be designed to lay out the content and information you have put together in a way that is appealing to the customer to read.  Additionally, if you have several content pages built, organizing them and linking to them within a header menu would be a good idea so they are always accessible to your customer no matter what page they land on.

Depending on your platform or web development capabilities, it may also be good practice to be sure that your website search feature will also give your customer the ability browse through web content.

Meta Tag Content

I’m sure you’ve heard about meta tags many times before. Not only is the content that is visible to your customer base important but so is the content you are feeding the search engines. Meta tags are basically the hidden descriptions to your web pages within your code that google will specifically look for when scanning your website and show to the user on their platform or socially.

Meta Titles

Meta titles are the page names you want the customer to see when browsing through search engine or social platforms. They should be laid out as:

• 50-60 characters or less
• Include your company name
• Include page name
• Include something to catch the customer’s attention relevant to that product or page, I.E. “Free Shipping” Or “Stock Ships Same Day.”

Meta Keywords

When coming up with meta keywords for your page, consider what your customer might be typing into the search bar that would deem your page relevant to them. If you’re selling a variety of shoes and example might be, “Sneakers,” “Tennis Shoes,” “Sandals,” “Affordable shoes,” “New Shoes,” and so forth. 

Meta Descriptions

These summaries should be less the 155 characters but no less than 90 and include a brief description of what this page is about. It should remain completely relevant to this page so as not to mislead users. It should also include as many of the meta keywords you chose as relating to your page as possible. It should be noted key word density is extremely important within not just the meta description of your page but within the page content as well. 

Off Page SEO Content

Building SEO content outside of your own website that links directly to yours, is an additional way to gain standing with search engines, of course with one important thing in mind: Never put a backlink on a website that is irrelevant to your industry, product, service or page. Consider building content for well rated forums and blogs, or other websites with great standing. You should always research the other websites ranking before considering backlinks, because having a poor ranked website linking to you does no good in the end.

Always Consult a Search Engine Expert

It’s crucial you always consult with an expert for search engine optimization such as NJ SEO Bizmap LLC.  Only an expert can effectively increase search engine rankings and organic traffic in competitive industries.

Attempting to build your SEO webpages on your own can be not only time-consuming but confusing, and without the proper SEO tools at your fingertips you have no way to track whether or not your website is improving. An expert will analyze your current website’s organic standing and build a strategy that works for you.

About the Author:

Liz Roncevic is the founder and owner of Bizmap LLC, a digital marketing and SEO agency located in Northern NJ.  Bizmap was founded in October, 2017, and has had enormous success since its inception.  Liz and her company is committed to grow businesses by putting them on the online map through the power of effective online marketing.  Please feel free to connect with Liz on social media: