Google Penguin Archives - Credible Content Writing & SEO Copywriting Blog

Organic SEO through quality content writing

Organic search engine optimization means improving your rankings on Google and other search engines through the strength and relevance of your content.

The ideal way of improving your search engine rankings is through quality content writing.

The entire Helpful Content algorithm update by Google rests on the premise that your content must solve problems for your visitors.

It must be of high quality. It must be authoritative. It must be relevant.

Content writing can be the most sustainable way to search engine optimizations because it organically improves your search engine rankings rather than artificially pushing them upward just to plummet due to smallest ranking algorithm changes.

The primary purpose of all mainstream search engines is to find the best content for their users and in order to achieve that they are constantly improving their indexing and ranking criteria.

A good example of increasing search engine rankings by constantly publishing highly useful content is Steve’s website TripInsuranceStore.com. I have been working with him since 2002 and ironically, I don’t write content for him – I manage the back-end of the website.

When most of the websites were reeling under the impact of the Google Penguin update Steve was feeling quite smug. The update hadn’t just left him unscathed, it had benefited him.

What does he do?

I have observed that instead of focusing on keywords, he focuses on the questions that his prospective customers may have.

He represents various travel insurance companies so most of the questions concern travel insurance.

His website and his blog are literally the treasure trove of travel insurance related information.

This is what Google and other search engines love. They love information. They rank high webpages and blog posts containing useful and relevant information.

Organically improving search engine rankings with quality content writing

Quality content writing improves your SEO organically

Through your content writing you must provide solutions to your visitors rather than simply creating junk content.

Whether they purchase from you or not is another issue but when they come to your website they shouldn’t feel as if they have wasted their time.

They must take back something valuable.

This is the sort of content that gets higher rankings on Google and other search engines.

Organic search engine rankings are not fickle.

You don’t lose these rankings when their algorithms change because they change their algorithms in order to find more quality content and if you have quality content, you are going to benefit rather than get into trouble.

Here are a few things you can do to improve your search engine rankings organically with content writing

Focus on your readers

For organic SEO write content to deliver value

This is not a holistic thought, it actually benefits you.

When you focus on your readers you create content that is useful to them.

Help them, instead of pushing your offers and forcing them to buy your products or services.

Provide them useful information convincingly and then let them decide.

Of course you should use call to action phrases and words but they should be used as extra promptings.

Focus on the language your readers use

Organic SEO-write in the language your readers use

This can also be covered in the above point.

Use the language that is used by your readers and this way you will use the keywords people actually use rather than the ones you think they are using.

Organic SEO is all about reaching out and making people stay longer on your blog posts and web pages.

You may be writing and publishing valuable information but if people don’t read what you are writing, it doesn’t benefit your organic search engine rankings.

One of the most important attributes of quality content writing is that it is easier to read.

Writing in the language of your readers not only increases your search engine rankings for the actual, working keywords, it also improves your conversion rate.

Make your content problem-centric rather than keyword centric

Organic SEO-solve problems with your content writing

This is what Steve does on his website.

He creates articles and blog posts that provide answers to people’s concerns.

He uses queries left by his visitors as well as his own common sense to create questions and then create webpages and blog posts to answer.

This automatically takes care of the phrases his prospective customers use in order to find such information.

Focus more on quality and less on SEO

The search engine optimizations problem begins to manifest when people get bogged down by too much SEO-oriented activities.

Just focus on creating quality content and the rest of the pieces fall in place on their own.

This is not to say that content writing is the panacea for all your search engine optimization concerns.

Your rankings depend on lots of internal as well as external factors and that’s why such engine marketing and optimization services charge a premium.

But valuable content is the most essential part of a viable SEO strategy.

What is organic search engine optimization?

SEO marketing can be done in two ways:

Through paid advertising on Google and other search engines.
By naturally increasing your visibility through publishing lots of high-quality content.

You can read more on What is organic SEO.

Organic SEO is when you don’t use advertising to improve your search visibility but your rankings naturally improve over the time.

You routinely publish content using your specific keywords or phrases.

The goal of organic SEO is to attain higher search engine rankings “naturally” in the search engine results pages (SERPS).

What are the advantages of improving your search engine rankings organically?

Organic search engine rankings don’t lose their spots when Google changes its algorithm.

Remember that the sole reason why Google exists is that it finds information for you.

For example, if you’re looking for a reliable content writer who can help you improve your search engine rankings, and if you search for a “content writer to improve my SEO”, you should be able to find content writers who can actually help you rather than those who have spammed their way into top rankings.

Despite all the algorithm updates, can people still trick Google?

Google is after all an algorithm (I’m talking about the ranking mechanism and not the company).

Your organic search engine rankings through quality content writing are sustainable

Organic search engine rankings are sustainable

Algorithm, no matter how advanced it gets, can always be tricked, or there is always scope for confusion and exceptions.

Even now, after more than two decades, you find search results that are of no use.

But Google is constantly trying to downgrade content that does not deliver value and highlight content that does.

It means, if you are writing valuable content, Google wants your content highlighted in front of its users.

Quality content leads to organic search engine optimization which is sustainable over a long period of time.

Of course, your rankings are going to go up and down because of your competitors constantly publishing content.

Even if you improve your search engine rankings through high quality content, sooner or later, other people who are publishing similar content on the same topics, and provided they can match your quality, are going to overtake you.

This is bound to happen if you have people competing with you.

Hence, it goes without saying that you need to continuously publish relevant content on your website or blog.

Other than this, the best advantage of improving your search engine rankings organically is that the respective search engine algorithms are not going to upstage your links.

Even when your rankings go down for certain keywords, they will immediately improve when you update your website.

The best thing about improving your search engine rankings organically is that you are never going to be penalized by Google.

Even if your rankings go down – this is bound to happen if you cannot keep up with your competitors (and there are going to be many competitors) – you can quickly bounce back by adding more content to your website.

When you organically improve your search engine rankings through quality content writing you don’t pay for every click (as it happens with paid advertising).

The problem with paid advertising (for example Google AdWords) is that as you get more traffic, you spend more money.

For example, if you are paying $0.10 per click, for 100 clicks you will pay $10 and for 1000 clicks you will pay $100.

Clicks for some keywords cost more than $10 per click.

When you organically improve your search engine rankings, the only money that you spend is on content writing.

Once your content is written and published, whether you get 10 visitors or 100,000 visitors, you don’t pay anything to Google.

Has your search traffic been hit by the latest Google Penguin update? Many websites have taken a hit and according to the various search engine forums, people are even considering layoffs.

That’s pretty serious.

Are these businesses asking for it? Why depend solely on a search engine for your business?

Anyway, that’s not the main problem. There ARE some businesses that invest heavily into getting targeted search engine traffic and there is nothing wrong in that. So if your website depends on Google traffic, how do you make it Google-updates-proof?

What exactly are Google updates?

On and often Google changes its ranking algorithm to, according to its decision-makers and search engineers at least, provide better results to its users. Fair enough. Google is a company and it constantly has to strive to improve its user experience. So they are better judges of how they want to do it. If businesses depend on their algorithms, that’s that.

The recent Google update is called Penguin and I’m too lazy to figure out why it is called so but the main gist is many websites and blogs have lost their good Google rankings and consequently their traffic has nosedived.

Why does it happen? If all Google wants to do is index better content for its users, why some websites lose traffic?

There might be some genuine cases of grief as there is always some collateral damage when a change takes place for good or for bad, but in most of the cases the websites that lose traffic do so because they are solely generating content for that purpose.

When you generate your content to improve your search engine rankings without paying scant regard to its relevance and quality you are bound to create content according to the current algorithm. This is how it works:

You figure out how some websites are getting better rankings by following certain practices
You try to replicate those practices and experience good results
You apply those practices throughout your business and feel very happy

This mostly happens by producing search engine optimized content. I myself have been providing search engine optimized content to my various clients. People also improve their search engine rankings by getting scores of inbound links but right now they are not the focus of my discussion. Since I provide content, my main focus is talking about Google updates vis-a-vis your content.

So when you produce and publish content just to improve your search engine rankings you are bound to be hit whenever Google changes its algorithm. This is because you and Google both are trying to outsmart each other all the time and since Google is a bigger player in this game, you are the one who is hit the most.

Here are a few things you can do to make your blog or website Google-updates-proof:

Publish good quality content for the sake of publishing good quality content: The content that you publish on your website or blog should be targeted towards your visitors. It should provide value to your visitors. It should be well written. Even if you are using keywords important to your business, use them when you really need to use them. Don’t just cram your keywords into every page or blog post you publish.
Most of the websites that are hit by Google updates have inferior quality content (with a few exceptions that are termed as “collateral damage”). Since when you produce and publish content just to please search engines, consciously or unconsciously you customize your content according to their current algorithms. So naturally when these algorithms change, you lose your advantage.

On the other hand from the beginning itself if you focus on your readers and if your content is ranked well for its quality it is never going to lose its position (again, with a few exceptions). Producing and publishing quality content takes time and a little bit of money (if you hire a content writer or a blog writer), but it is a lot better than completely going off the search engines radar due to a few algorithm changes.
Don’t just depend on Google and other search engines: There are many ways these days you can generate quality traffic to your website. It’s just a matter of changing your mindset. For instance, have you built a noticeable presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube? In fact there are many businesses that have bypassed the search engines and are still doing better than those depending on search engine traffic.
Aside from social media and social networking websites you can also get inbound links from quality websites. Of course, you should also go for paid links if you are not worried about losing your rankings on Google. But a better way would be to write guest articles and guest blog posts on trusted and quality blogs and websites to not only expand your presence but also get quality inbound links.
Build a mailing list: E-mail marketing still rocks no matter how much it is maligned by spammers. Build a double opt in e-mail list for yourself so that you can send routing updates to your subscribers. In fact it can be one of the most potent tools in your kitty once you have spent ample amount of time building your list. There are many ways you can build your list but this deserves a different blog post.
Have a business blog: It is surprising to know that there are still many businesses who don’t have a blog. A blog doesn’t just attract quality traffic from search engines it is also a good source for repeat traffic. It builds your brand. It helps to establish yourself as an authority. As a brand you can create a vibrant community using its comments section. Simply by becoming an important part of various blogging networks and communities you can get an uninterrupted stream of traffic without having to worry about Google and other search engines.

The main point is, don’t just depend on Google for sustainable business especially these days when multiple tools are available to you. It just doesn’t make sense.

Looking for insightful blog posts on content writing, and SEO copywriting? You will find them on Credible Content Blog. Updated almost daily. Fresh, unique perspective.

Tag Archives: Google Penguin

Organic search engine optimization with content writing