Written by Sarah Gaddy and Corrie Gustman
Search is the core of the digital ecosystem, given that 93% of online experiences start with a search engine. Search is the number-one driver of traffic to sites, with the top three results receiving 70% of the clicks. We attended an SEO workshop, called “The Future of SEO: 5 Ways to Adapt Your Content in 2017” hosted by Digital Megaphone and General Assembly. The workshop primarily focused on strategies for bloggers or content marketers, but we’re here to share the top five tips and tricks we heard with a lens towards website content creation.
Target the topic, not the key phrase
There are two types of key phrases a user will search for – 1) informational and 2) transactional. Create a list of keywords and phrases that are semantically connected to your topic. Then use this list to write your content and meta data, crossing off each keyword as you use it.
Use SEMRush to look at a competitor’s top ranking website for key phrases
SEMRush allows you to look at the phrases a specific website ranks for that you may want to include on your semantic list.
Create content in the form of a complete question and a complete answer, when appropriate, to help inform your search results
Emerging SEO factors now trend towards the importance of featured snippets, which includes an answer summary from a Google search question, and the Knowledge Graph, a compilation of information that appears on the right rail of a Google search results page, both of which benefit from writing content in the form of complete questions and answers. This format can also aid your rankings in Voice Search; it is expected that by 2025 all search will be done without a keyboard.
Follow this easy to use format for a blog post or website page headline to enhance SEO ranking potential – Keyword or Key phrase: #
For example, the headline of this post – SEO Friendly Content: 5 Tips and Tricks for Creating Search Engine Optimised Websites.
Create the long click
While it is imperative to optimize your website and content for search, it is also extremely important to keep your visitors on the page once they landed there from search. Time spent on page directly correlates with higher rankings. Your goal should always be to create the long click. Format your page for scanners, create short paragraphs, include multiple images (ensure there is no scroll depth at which point you can’t see one image) and videos, provide a clear CTA and always be sure to interlink.
And because we wanted to keep this list to 5, we will leave you with one last Bonus Trick: Use buzzsumo.com to type in any URL to see who has shared it. But be careful, there’s a daily limit of searches until you decide to create an account and pay for services.