You create content for your users and visitors, and not for search engines, and this is a good strategy. But it does you no harm, if Google likes your content too. This blog post on Copyblogger talks in detail how Google these days gives more importance to the quality of content rather than its quantity or the number of websites and blogs linking to it.
Despite scores of updates by the end of the day Google wants to present high-quality content to its users. What makes your content high-quality? If you are able to create and publish such content it not only pleases your visitors it also pleases search engines like Google.
The primary attributes of high-quality content are:
- It is informative
- It is topical
- It is useful
- It is relevant
- It is well-written and well-formatted
- It is engaging
How do you achieve these attributes? To be frank I never like to put content writing within various boxes, but according to tried and tested observations, the following types of content can get you good Google rankings aside from pleasing your audience.
Compilation of useful resources
There is a ton of useful information on the Internet but people either don’t have enough time to scour the web or don’t have the right tool to reach the right content. Why don’t you provide quality resources within one single blog post or article? Something like “50 Killer Tips On Content Writing From Best Writers On the Web”, or “15 SEO Resources You Cannot Live without”. These types of articles and blog posts rank well on Google because they pack lots of information at a single place and this information can actually help its users.
A list of things
The year 2012 was often called the year of lists in the circle of content writers because practically everybody was creating them and almost every list was going viral on social networking websites. This also fetched them higher search engine rankings. Lists still do great because, again, they provide lots of useful information at a single place. An example of a useful list would be “25 Ways to Lose Weight Without Eating Less”.
Product or service reviews
Well-balanced useful reviews help your reader decide what they should purchase and how they should spend their money. Therefore, this sort of content is highly useful and relevant. Often it is also vertically focused and hence easier for Google to rank.
Interviews with industry leaders
Interviewing industry leaders not only provides highly valuable insight to your readers, it also increases your search engine rankings naturally. Most of the industry leaders these days publish their own blogs. They already enjoy high rankings on Google. They have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook. When you publish an interview of one of them he or she will surely mention it on Twitter and Facebook and if you’re very lucky he or she might also create a small blog post linking back to your interview. This will give you an immediate boost over Google.
Content that goes viral on social media and social networking websites
All types of content, including the ones mentioned above, can go viral on social media and social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus, and there is no set formula. Again, the key is, creating highly useful content that people would like to share. You can also create attractively presented infographics.
News
Industry-specific news is quickly picked up by Google because millions of people are constantly looking for such information.
This is just a broad representation of the sort of content you can create for your website or blog in order to improve your Google rankings that are immune to the various algorithmic updates the search engine keeps on introducing every few months.