The Anatomy of Top-Performing Organic Content in 2022

SEO

By Chris Barnhart Last updated Mar 21, 2022

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Originality, relevance, and knowing your audience are core considerations for making engaging content, though myriad criteria such as length, visual elements, and technical factors play important roles in the formula for content marketing success.

That’s where our research comes in. Focusing solely on organic traffic, we analyzed the visits, backlinks, and Facebook shares of 500K high-performing blogs that had 30-500K monthly views in 2021 to uncover several revealing patterns and characteristics. In our State of Content Marketing 2022 Global Report, we share several key factors for content creators to consider when designing and producing their content in 2022. In particular:

• Headlines (types, H1 length, and specific word choice)
• Structure (heading depth, list presence, and overall complexity)
• Visual content (the presence of images and video in numbers) 
• Article quality and topic coverage (considerations for user intent, article length, and offering unique value)

Our research takes a generic approach to analyzing the data behind top-performing organic content. While our research cannot confirm that these findings are applicable and hold true for every industry, they serve as insightful guidelines that content marketers can apply to their strategy for 2022.

Headlines

What’s in a headline? Everything! The headline is the first opportunity you have to hook a reader, give them an idea of what to expect, and even give them a sense of your brand voice and tone in writing. 

Headline Types

Depending on the type of content you’re creating, the type of headline you use can make a big difference in the visibility and click-worthiness of your article. In our study, we found that several headline types such as guides and how-tos, tend to garner more organic traffic, as well as shares and backlinks.

Key takeaway: Readers love guides and structured articles that give them answers to their questions. Titles with the word “guide” attract three times more organic traffic, and how-tos outperform by 1.5 times. Try implementing these headline types into your content to provide value and visible answers to readers’ burning questions.

H1 Length

While your H1 is meant to hook and introduce your topic, it’s also critical to take the length into consideration. 

We compared H1 length against the average monthly organic traffic, the number of social shares (Facebook), and the number of backlinks the article had. Because we focused on organic traffic, note that headlines on the search engine page results (SERP) favor shorter lengths to avoid truncation. Headlines for blogs, however, can be differentiated from the meta titles appearing in search and can sometimes perform better at longer word lengths.

Key takeaways:

• Articles with seven or fewer words in their H1 receive 36% more average organic traffic than those with 14 words or more in search
• H1s with seven words or fewer receive more social shares
• Article H1s with 14 words or more get slightly fewer backlinks than shorter headlines

Of course, not all headlines can easily be explained in seven words or less. When writing a meta title for search, shorter works best because it avoids truncation on the SERP. On the other hand, writing a longer, more explanatory blog title can be more enticing to a person. In such cases, you might consider creating a shorter meta title for search, and a longer (and more descriptive) heading for a blog post page.

Always consider how thoroughly the topic needs to be explored in order to provide value to your readers. Not to mention, your title should always give your reader a sense of what and how your article will explore the topic in question. Other elements of creating a strong H1 include:

• Be descriptive: Try to provide your reader with some insight into what they can expect when they click on your headline and read your article. Does your content deliver the promise of that headline? 
• ​​Grab readers’ attention: At the same time, you should keep your headline intriguing, encouraging the reader to learn more. Showcase the value of opening your article and make sure to be clear and concise.

Consider user intent: What is your target audience looking for? Consider whether or not they’re looking to make a purchase, compare a product, or seek out specific information.

Article Structure

Building out your content with advanced structure, such as the presence of H2, H3, and H4 tags, is one of the best practices for creating content with enhanced readability and aesthetic appeal. Depending on how complex your topic is, it provides the reader with an in-depth exploration of a topic in more digestible, meaningful pieces. If you want to learn more about how to set up your heading tags correctly, head over to our blog where we cover the topic in greater detail.

With all that said, it’s not too surprising that our research found a correlation between high-performing organic articles and increased engagement and monthly traffic.