Focusing Your Site on People Instead of Keywords

Over the past year, the numerous updates to Google’s search engine algorithm has made it clear that Google wants users to put together better content instead of focusing only on rankings. The focus was mainly on eliminating the practice of writing SEO content which in many cases turned out to be low quality content that was written just to achieve higher rankings in the search engines.

So how can companies start writing for people?
The first and obvious way would be to have writers write about your site that are actually knowledgeable in the subject area of your site. In addition, you can also assist by giving your input on the content so that you can provide topics to discuss that you know are relevant to your company’s target audience in place of general interest content that is only based on keywords.

Google has also demonstrated that they want users to focus more on high quality content by moving away from the association between keywords and rankings. They have done that in 2013 with the introduction of authorship and also by making changes to its keyword tools that give less information about keyword relevance. Therefore the writing is soon to be on the wall for companies hoping to beat out the competition simply by ranking for specific keyword phrases.

Stop writing redundant content
Website visitors can be better served by focusing on topics rather than specific keywords. While specific keywords can be incorporated into articles, there is no reason to have dozens of articles about “orange sneakers”versus “green sneakers”for example just so you can attempt to rank for all of the variations of a keyword phrase. These articles are not helping the visitors that really want to engage with your content. Also if they see the repetitive content on your site, they will likely be turned off at the fact that your website is not offering any new insight into things that they want to know about.

This also means that website owners should be publishing new content when it is appropriate and not just for the sake of writing. Website owners can figure out when is the best time to publish new content by paying attention to market signals in the news and on social media. The traffic to the website can also help to provide signals for publishing content by paying attention to questions that are frequently asked by site visitors and also what competitors are doing in terms of content.

Reach out to your target audience to find out what is important
You can revamp your content strategy by figuring out what is important to your target audience. This comes from analyzing your marketing data and from surveying your target audience. You can also review the popular pages on your site and write additional content that explores those areas of interest further. The bottom line is that you want to keep your target audience captivated and seeingyour website as the top go to site for information on a particular topic. This is how you can beat out your competition in terms of content.

Do you need help with redefining your site’s content? Infintech Designs can offer you a full website review to help your site get its content back on track. Give us a call or send us an email today. We are also available via live chat.