Creating content for SEO purposes is often associated with keyword-stuffed articles that lack quality and voice. But, as Google continues to push search marketers towards optimizing for humans instead of algorithms, that kind of content is rapidly losing visibility in the search results.
High-quality content, that’s designed to address the user’s needs as efficiently and effectively as possible, is now the standard. At SMX Create, Alli Berry, SEO director at The Motley Fool, provided an overview of the principles and tactics she uses to create content that not only ranks well and drives traffic, but also speaks to searchers.
Structure for scanability
Even the most comprehensive content will fail audiences if it’s not presented in a digestible format. And, the narrow aspect ratio of mobile devices adds another factor to consider as it influences how much content a user can view at one time. This is why it is so important to organize your content so that users can find the exact information they’re looking for.
“Whenever I’m training new writers, the first thing I explain is the inverted pyramid of journalism,” Berry said, adding, “Nobody does this better than journalists . . . Their formula for writing content is really aligned with what search engines are looking for.”
The inverted pyramid is a way to organize content by leading with the most relevant, impactful information — in other words, the information the user is presumably seeking — at the very beginning.
The most important information typically includes answering the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where and why). After that, content creators should address the other important details and supplement with background information. Search Engine Land’s article “Meet Google Analytics 4: Google’s vision for the future of analytics,” is one example of how the inverted pyramid can be applied to content.
It’s important to consider the structure of your content as well. Walls of text can obstruct scanability; “I would consider things like bullet points and a lot of headers [as] a way to break up pages,” Berry said. Engaging visuals serve two purposes here as well: improving scanability by breaking up walls of text while facilitating written content (with additional context or by visualizing data, for example).
Understand E-A-T
Over the last few years, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (known collectively as E-A-T) have become a well-known concept in the search industry, but for audiences, these concepts have always existed.
“[E-A-T is] super important to incorporate into your content, because . . . from the user perspective, showing off your expertise and your authoritativeness in your space is hugely important,” she said, adding that creating trust signals, for both users and search engines, is also critical.