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Why Content Is Important for SEO (Plus 10 Content Writing Tips to Improve SEO Keyword Rankings)
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Dec 9, 2022
If you've ever wondered why content is important for SEO, then this video can help. I also share 10 content writing tips to improve SEO keyword rankings and user experience on your site. By understanding the relationship between content and SEO, including how content affects SEO, and ways to improve your SEO content, you can generate more organic exposure for your business through search engines like Google. š READ THE BLOG POST https://seochatter.com/why-content-is-important-for-seo/ š TRY THE BEST SEO TOOLS Mangools (Cheap with free trial) https://seochatter.com/mangools Includes 5 tools: Keyword Finder, SERP Tracker, SERP Watcher, Link Miner & Site Profiler. SEMRush (Best tool with free trial) https://seochatter.com/semrush Includes 50+ tools: Keyword Finder, On-Page SEO Auditor, Rank Tracking, Link Building, Competitor Analysis & more. Disclosure: As an affiliate for these SEO tools, I get a commission if you do sign up for a paid account. Thanks for the support! ā ASK QUESTIONS If you have any questions about the topics I mention in this video about why content is important for SEO or the SEO content writing tips, then leave a comment and I'll try to help. If you found any part of this video useful, click the thumbs up button and subscribe!
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey, it's Steven with SEO Chatter, and today I'm going to talk about a blog post I wrote called
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Why Content is Important for SEO. And I wanted to cover this topic because there's a lot of misinformation out there
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Some people say, just focus on writing good quality content and you'll naturally get the rankings you want for keywords in Google
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But then other people say, no, no, no, you have to do good SEO. Only focus on SEO because it doesn't matter what you write on the page or what words are there, etc
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You're still going to rank no matter how poor or how good that quality content is
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So I want to talk about this and actually give you some actionable tips on how you can blend the two, content and SEO, to get the best rankings for your site
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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through the highlights of this blog post. I'm going to leave a link in the description below so that you can read it at your leisure because it goes more in depth on all these different things
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I can't go over everything in full depth or we would probably be here for an hour or more. So I'm just going to give you the highlights so you can walk away with some actionable tips on how you can actually improve your website to get more rankings and traffic
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So first off, let's define what is SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization
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And what that means is there's different ways that you can adjust the pages on your site
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and through off-site signals to basically get Google and other search engines to rank you for specific keywords
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You're basically altering different areas of the page and on other websites that link to your page
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that put your keywords in certain spots so that they say, hey, Google, this is what the content is about. You should rank me for these keywords
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What is content? If you look at the blog post, all the different words that I put on the page
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and any images or videos, etc. that are inside the page, that is considered the content
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So content is not SEO and SEO is not content. They're two separate things
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Now, what is SEO content? Well, SEO content is content that has been properly SEO optimized
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So if you look at this page, I have a lot of information on it and a lot of words
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but I've put keywords in certain spots because I know that those spots will help me rank higher
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in Google for the keywords that I'm targeting. The same thing is true with off-page signals
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If you go over to some other websites and you put your keywords in certain places
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and they point back to your website, that is basically SEO-optimized content
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on another person's site, which can help send those signals to Google
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that that's what your page should be ranked for. So how does content affect SEO
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Well, it affects it in a number of ways. First off, it affects the on-page optimization
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And the way it does that is if you have short-form content
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that doesn't have a lot of information on it or headings, etc., you're going to be limited on where you can optimize that content
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for the keywords you want to rank for. Shorter content is just harder to optimize for a search engine
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The same thing is true with off-site optimization. If you have a short piece of content that doesn't go too in-depth about a topic
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it's going to be hard to get natural backlinks from another site to that piece of content
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because they won't consider it to be a valuable resource. So content is going to affect every aspect of your SEO
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It's going to affect where you can put your keywords, how many times you can do that, and it's going to affect how you get those external signals pointing back to your site
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to show the trust and authority to help Google rank it. So you really want to focus on both of those things
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You want to focus on good quality content that's in-depth, and you also want to focus on doing SEO right, both on-page and off-page
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So now what I want to do is I want to go into the 10 tips that I put on the blog post
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on how you can improve your SEO content. So the first thing you can do is you need to focus on the right SEO keywords
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So every webpage has a certain user intent. So for example, I put in here
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if you're trying to write a piece of commercial content for the 10 best microwaves
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let's say it's an affiliate guide and you want to sell microwaves. Well, you're going to want to focus on keywords
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that pertain to just best microwaves. So you want to use keywords like best microwaves
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best rated microwaves, best microwave brands, top rated microwaves, et cetera. You don't want to put or focus on keywords on the page like how to clean a microwave
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How do you install a microwave? What microwave was the worst this year, etc.
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Those have a different search intent. The person that's looking to buy the best microwaves only cares about the best ones, the top rated ones
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And that's the content you should deliver. Deliver a list of the best microwaves and give your opinion on them
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versus talking about how to clean a microwave or how to adjust the door on a microwave
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That type of content doesn't match the intent. So you want to focus on the right SEO keywords for that particular page
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Now the next thing you want to do is you want to improve your on-page SEO
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And so I'm only going to cover three things here. There's a lot more. I actually have another video and I have content on my blog
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that talks about 20 ways that you can actually optimize your website and web page for target keywords to help it rank better But a lot of experts in the SEO industry consider three things to be the three kings on SEO So if you don do any other SEO right on your website or web pages
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if you do these three things at least, you'll have a better chance at ranking for your keywords
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And what those are, are the title tag, the URL, and the H1 tag
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So you can improve your title tag by simply taking your target keyword you want to rank for
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and putting it in the title tag, which is also considered the meta title
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They go by that name too. So for example, I want this webpage to rank for the term
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why content is important for SEO. So if you look at my title tag, that's the title tag
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why content is important for SEO. And you want to put that keyword as close to the beginning as possible
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because that gives it more weight. Same thing is true with the URL
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In the URL, if you look at the URL for this page, The URL is y-content-is-important-for-seo
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It has my exact match keyword in there. And so that's another place where you can send a signal to Google that, hey, this is what I want to rank for
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It's in my title. It's also in my URL. And then the other place is the H1 tag
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So the H1 tag is generally the page title when you look at the page
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And it's usually at the very top. And there should only be one on the page
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And so that H1 tag should have your keyword as well. And you can also put secondary keywords in that location too
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but make sure that your target keyword for the page is the first thing that shows up in that position
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And oftentimes what I do is I will just copy my title tag
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meta title, into the H1, and I may adjust it just slightly depending on what it is
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And I talk more about that in the blog post, and I actually link to another article on my site
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where I talk about the SEO H1 best practices that you should use
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Another thing you can do is you can go deeper with your content. So I kind of mentioned this earlier
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but if you have a short 500 word article, that's not gonna be very in depth on a topic
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What you wanna do is you wanna write longer form articles. My suggestion is anything you put out
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should be at least 1,500 words. You can go down to 1,000. It just depends on what the keyword is
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Because the more content you write and the deeper you go, the more authoritative it seems
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You know, the more topics you can cover, et cetera, makes your piece of content just seem more worthy
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And, for example, when I was looking at other websites that were competing for this keyword for this page I wrote, you know, I saw that the average was about 1,500 to 2,000 words on the page
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So I knew that on page one of Google, that's the length of content that they were ranking for this keyword
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So I couldn't write a 500-word piece of content and hope to rank
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I had to write something similar, if not longer. And so that's what I did. And I also went more in-depth than my competitors
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And the way I did that is I answered additional questions that people had about content and SEO and why it's important
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And an easy way that you can do that for your own content is you can do a search on Google for your target keyword
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And then Google will give you this thing called a people also ask box. And if you start clicking on those questions, you're going to find relevant questions that apply to the keyword that you're targeting
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And if you take those questions and put them in your content and answer them, then essentially you're making your content more in depth and you're going deeper on that subject to help answer people's questions that they have
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And so if you look at any blog post on my site, I do that exact process
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You'll see the main content on what I'm answering for the query
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And at the bottom, I have a lot of questions. And those questions are coming directly from that people also ask box because I know that that's the type of stuff people want to know in relation to that keyword
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And so I'm essentially just going as deep as possible with my content. Now the next thing you can do is format your SEO content well
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And what I mean by that is just use the H1s, H2s, H3s, and H4s, et cetera, in the proper structure
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So only have one H1 on your website, webpage, and then have an H2
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And the H2 is going to be the subtopics of your main topic. And then under H2s should be H3s
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You shouldn't have a bunch of H2s and that's all if some of those topics are actually subtopics of the H2
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So, for example, on this blog post, you know, my H2 is why content
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Actually, let me get back up. one of my H2s is how do I improve my SEO content? And then the H3 under that is one
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focus on the right SEO keywords. Two, improve on-page SEO, et cetera. And I list 10
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I didn't do all those as H2s because the numbered items are subsections of that H2
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How do I improve my SEO content? So you just want to make sure that that structure is correct
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so that it's A, better for the user, and B, just better for Google
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because it can actually see the way your content should be structured, and it sees that you're using subtopics of topics
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and that's showing that you're going more in-depth. You also want to improve your content readability
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You know the easier it is for people to read and Google to read the better You know your whole goal on writing content even though you doing SEO at the same time is you want to meet the user intent You want to make it readable You want to make it easily digestible
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You want people to read it and actually keep reading. You don't want them to get frustrated
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You know, I see a lot of times where people are focusing on like the affiliate marketing niche
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And, you know, for example, like the 10 best microwaves example, you know, the very first paragraph
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talks about what a microwave is and how a microwave works. and you're going to lose a lot of readers that way because a person that's looking for a microwave
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already knows how it works. They know they want one. So why do you need to give them a background
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about when microwaves were invented, how they work, and what you can expect to get out of them
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You know, that just is a disconnect. And so people may bounce from the page because they're like
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hey, this is just talking about microwaves. It's not giving me the best ones. So you just want to
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make it readable. You want to make sure that it's clear and you want to answer all the different
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questions that people are having about your topic. The next thing you can do is, and this is an
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important one, is you want to try to target featured snippets with every piece of content
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you write. And I give a video on here by Income School, who has a great guide on how to do this
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But essentially, what you do is you really just want to go to Google, search for your target
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keyword, and see if a featured snippet box pops up. And if it does, then you know, hey, I might be
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able to rank for that. And so what I do, and the video talks about is, you just take that current
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featured snippet text, put it on your webpage, and then just rewrite it. But you want to make sure to
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include all the bolded keywords that Google's showing you, because those are very important
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and Google wants to see those in that snippet. So take that snippet, copy it, rewrite it, and make
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it a little bit better, and try to keep it around 50 words or less if it's a paragraph, because that's
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the sweet spot that Google right now wants to use for those featured snippet spots. And another
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thing you want to do is, is you want to put an H2 tag right above that paragraph. And that H2 tag
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should be the exact match keyword that you're trying to rank the featured snippet for. And that's
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the way it works. So then if you want to go more in depth on what that information is, after your
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50 word block, you then just start writing more and more and more about that. And so if you look
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at any blog post on my site, I use this exact trick just the way I explained it to you. I'll
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give you a 50-word synopsis of what that thing is about, and then I go more in-depth about it
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Now, there's some other featured snippets that actually will give you a list. So, you'll go
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and it'll say, this happens a lot for like, you know, roundup best products, like the microwaves
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The featured snippet may say, you know, 10 best microwaves, and then it has a list
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avoided list and so where does google get that from well the it gets it from that h2 which will
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say 10 best microwaves and then the h3s are actually the product names and each product has
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a review and so the person that made that web page put the product name in each h3 so that google
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could grab it it goes okay h2 is 10 best microwaves and here's the different brands and i'm going to
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list that as a featured snippet and then there's other snippets like tables etc that you can
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try to grab as well with similar tricks. So check out the blog post, look at this video
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and I also have a link to another article by Steve Toth that helps you get those featured
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snippets by using Google Docs, which can help you write that content for you
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Now, the next thing I want to talk about is do original research. It's not good enough to just
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go to Google, copy the content from the top 10 ranking pages, and think that you're going to rank
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as well. You know, sometimes that can work, but sometimes it can't. So what you want to do instead
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is you want to go and use that information as like a guideline, but then you want to go even deeper
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by doing your own research so that you become the authority in that area. So for example
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what I did for this blog post is I went and saw who was ranking for this keyword
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and I made sure to include the same types of information through my headings and explain them
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but then I went one step further. So I think one of the articles might've had maybe six tips you
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could use, you know, to improve your SEO content. Well, I went and did 10. So I added four more
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things with my own research and with my own background and SEO saying what you could do
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to do better. So I expanded on it. I did my own research. I didn't just copy what everyone else
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was doing. I went above and beyond. So that's what you should always do. And if you can include like
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fresh statistics and other studies, be sure to do that too. And that kind of goes into the next one
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which is you want to be more credible. So, you know, you can easily just go and just write content
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and hope to rank for it just based on what you say with your opinions, et cetera. But, you know
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these days people want to know that what you're saying is true and it's credible and can be backed
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up. So an easy way to do that is you can just cite other sources. So if you look at any blog
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post on my site, I try to link out as much as possible to other experts in the field who back
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up the claims that I'm saying. Because I don't just want to say, hey, this is true, but I'm the
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only one that thinks it This is true and here another site that actually did a case study on it Or this is true and here three other SEO experts that actually agree with me So you wanna be more credible And a lot of times people think oh I don wanna link off to these other sites
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they're my competitors. I'm linking off to other SEOs in the industry
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That's essentially a competitor for me. But when it comes to writing good quality content
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you want to source other people in your area. And to be honest
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most people usually don't click on those things. They won't click on the article to go off your site
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You know, they will trust what you're saying because it's just like, oh, he's linking to it
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It must be true. So oftentimes you won't even lose those clicks. You know, so my advice to you is always link out
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Try to back up every claim you make on the website, you know, so that you can be credible in your area
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Another thing you can do is add more visuals. According to Jeff Bullis, I'm linking out
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articles with images get 94% more total views and Inviso reports that video on a landing page
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can increase conversions by 80% or more so when you're creating your content think of ways you
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can add additional images and videos into the page to make it more attractive for the reader
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and that's a good thing to do also with SEO because with images you can actually optimize
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different aspects of that image to help increase your keyword rankings and you can do that through
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the alt tag so this is the alternative text that is displayed where the image is if for some reason
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the image fails to load it's also used by screen readers to understand that image so i could have
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an image on the page at the very bottom actually on the very bottom of this page i have a big image
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for Pinterest, and that image has an alt text that says why content is important for SEO
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And you can also put it in the file name of the image. Just put that in there. That's another
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signal. And there's also a way to manipulate the metadata information on an image through like
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Photoshop or some other photo editing software where you can actually put that meta information
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with the keywords in it, which can help you rank. So you want to make sure that you're using images
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and videos, just different things to make that content richer and deeper. And then you can use
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SEO around it to make it rank higher in Google. And the last thing I want to talk about for the
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tips is you can improve your page speed. This is important because page speed has now become a
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ranking factor in Google and the future is just faster loading pages. You know, most people are
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on their phones now. They're surfing the web and they want quick loading pages. I think there's
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been some studies done that say if a page doesn't load in under three seconds, people bounce
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You know, so you want to make sure that your pages are loading within one to three seconds. And so there's this thing called Google Core Web Vitals. That's very, very important
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That's now going to be baked into the algorithm. And if you're not passing certain scores on the
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speed of your site or the way it looks on a mobile device, essentially, you know, you could
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suffer a ranking drop. That's just one of the many ranking factors in Google. So that's something
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that people are focusing on and you should always focus on. You should try to make your web pages as
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fast as possible because that's going to be better for the user. And if it's better for the user
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it's going to make your content something that Google is going to want to serve up
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Because Google essentially wants to serve the best content to its users and its search engine
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and page experience is an important factor in that decision. So you always want to improve your page speed
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Now, one question that I get asked a lot is, and this is an example of how I'm trying to target a featured snippet
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if you want to look at it. A top question is, is more content better for SEO
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And here's my 50-word answer. More content is better for SEO. Having more pages indexed in the search engines
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equals more opportunities to gain more traffic from SEO. Also, longer content is much better for SEO
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because it can rank for more keywords. Plus, content length correlates to higher search engine rankings
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So yes, more content is better for SEO in a variety of ways
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It allows you to put your keywords in more spots, it improves the user experience
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and it even gets you better backlinks and more backlinks from other sources. So you don't just want to focus on content or SEO
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You actually want to focus on both of them and use them together so that you can improve your content as a whole so you can get higher rankings in Google
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So that basically sums up what this is about. If there's any questions you have about this topic or anything I mentioned in the video or on the blog, I encourage you to leave a comment down below and I'll try to help you as best as possible
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I also have additional videos on the channel that you should check out that just help you in different areas on how to
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Optimize your website and get more traffic to it through just different ways
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So be sure to check out those videos and if you haven't subscribed yet
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I encourage you to do that as well that way you can get alerted to whenever my new videos come out
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I hope all of this made sense Give this video a thumbs up if you liked it at any point and I look forward to seeing you on the next video
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