The Essentials: What is SEO content?
To start answering the question, “What is SEO content?” we need to begin with the most basic and simple answer – anything that can go on a web page – and then start unpacking that answer.
Think of what you have seen on the thousands of web pages you’ve viewed over the years. Your list would probably be something like this:
- Articles,
- Products,
- Videos,
- Graphics,
- Photos,
- Contact information,
- Audios, and
- Lists.
We could break down many of those bigger categories into subcategories, but you get the idea. Anything that appears on a web page will play some role in the search engine optimization of your website. After all, Google and Bing are likely to “index” virtually every page of your site, therefore all the pages of your website have the potential to be found in a search.
The question then becomes: Are your pages “optimized” so they will be found when people are conducting searches relevant to the purpose of your website?
The elements of SEO
The topics you focus on, the language you use, the titles you write, and the way you “code” the content on your web pages will all have a huge impact on their ability to be found in searches. Further, each of those areas or attributes contributes to how powerful your SEO content is.
Google algorithms are getting better in their ability to understand the subjects and purposes of web pages, but search engines aren’t Einstein. For example, I was recently reviewing some political articles by a writer who was new to writing for the Internet. What he wrote was interesting and offered some insights, but most of his writing discussed arcane historical background. He seldom identified his core ideas in direct, straightforward language. His reasoning was mostly done via clever comparisons. Search engines would never be able to properly index his writing.
If I had the assignment to write 1,000 words on President Trump’s environmental policy, but spent most of those words talking about the original formation of the EPA and laying down other historical context, Google probably wouldn’t index the article properly.
So when we ask the question “What is SEO content?” I think an important way to begin defining it is through what graphic artists call “negative space”: Your content is not SEO content if it is not optimized.
The creation of SEO
The process of defining what is SEO content and then creating it for your website begins with a deep understanding of what you want to accomplish and how prospects relate to what you want to accomplish. You need to think of all the different online searches people would conduct in their efforts to find the product, service, or information that you hope to provide then with.
Without that understanding, it is impossible to create SEO content. And, those who understand those things the best have a far greater likelihood of online success.
To get a better grip on what is SEO content, let’s do some more defining by negative space:
- Content is not SEO content if it does not include relevant keywords. Therefore, spend more time up front researching keywords than creating content.
- Content is not SEO content if your content is not properly organized. Therefore, use headings, subheadings, bullet points and occasionally include your keywords in these text “organizers.”
- Content is not SEO content if it is not coded correctly. Therefore, use meta tags and HTML code such as “h2” and “h3” for headings.
- Content is not SEO content if relevant content on your site isn’t connected via links. Therefore, make a point to link from one article to another to provide your readers with a better experience.
- Content is not SEO content if your photos and graphics do not have Alt tags. (That is what is displayed in the place of an image.)
- Content is not SEO content if you don’t have anyone else linking to pages on your site. Try to earn “backlinks” from good websites.
Finally, understanding what SEO content is and creating it is a continual process. It takes patience and persistence to begin to see measurable results from your SEO efforts. And, if you need proof of that, check out this article where I track the SEO organic traffic effectiveness of some articles I’ve published.