by Chris Hoole
If you only have 30 seconds with an SEO expert and they only had enough time to share with you one piece of advice which would improve your search engine rankings, what would it be?
There are many important SEO concepts and the industry is constantly changing and evolving. There are dozens of SEO techniques and important details to remember and more are being added all the time. However, is there one most important tip that everyone should know about SEO?
The Most Important SEO Tip To Remember Is…
You must have good quality content.
It is as simple as that. I’m sure you thought that I was going to tell you some magic trick or some sneaky technique which would instantly bring visitors to your website, but that does not exist.
Think about it this way, how many times have you made a search for a particular keyword and clicked on one of the front page links only to find a website that offered you poorly written information which was hard to understand or was stuffed full of keywords to the point that it was painful to read? Most often, you will click off this website and go back to the search results to find a website that offers what you were looking for. Although the first website technically got a “hit” from you, it is not likely that the hit will convert into a sale.
The best and most reliable way to improve your popularity on the web is to write content which is well written, entertaining, informative and enjoyable to read. If you don’t feel like you can write web copy or blogs of this standard, there is likely someone out there who can help you. When your website is filled with good content, you will grab the attention of your readers and hold it for long enough to turn them into customers.
Why Good Content Improves Your SEO
There are many reasons why having high quality content on your website will be beneficial for your SEO and will improve your rankings:
- When visitors read well-written quality content they are more likely to share it with their friends, which Google takes into consideration favorably for your rankings.
- Good quality content is original, so that it will not be punished by duplicate content penalties.
- If your website is well written and interesting, people will stay on it longer and click through to more pages which also improves your rankings.
- If you establish yourself as an expert in your topic with your interesting and informative content, other people in your niche will link to you and this will also increase your rankings.
As you can see, good quality content is the best and most effective way to build positive SEO over the long term and draw many people towards your website. You can try using sneaky SEO tricks like keyword stuffing or link baiting but they will not work very well in the long term and without well written content any visitors that you do receive will quickly click away.
Narrow Your Niche
Once you have a website with quality content, all of the other SEO techniques will be icing on the cake which will draw even more people to you. You can direct your traffic even more by narrowing down your website to a specific topic or niche. The more you concentrate on your area of expertise the more you will be seen as an expert and the less competition you will have. This content will be good quality because it provides very helpful and specific information to the reader.
There you have it, the one important thing which underlies all of SEO: good quality content. Use it to build a solid foundation and your website is well on its way to success.
Stock photos via Shutterstock
This article was written by Chris Hoole from Zeno SEO, an SEO reseller.