Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means.
Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site’s reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.
Interesting sites will increase their recognition on their own
- A blogger finds a piece of your content, likes it, and then references it in a blog post.
- The Google AdWords Keyword Tool can help you find relevant keywords on your site and the volume of those keywords.
Anticipate differences in users’ understanding of your topic and offer unique,exclusive content
Think about the words that a user might search for to find a piece of your content. Users who know a lot about the topic might use different keywords in their search queries than someone who is new to the topic. For example, a person looking for SEO Info might search for Search Engine Optimization while another person might use a more general query like [SEO]. Anticipating these differences in search behavior and accounting for them while writing your content (using a good mix of keyword phrases) could produce positive results. Google AdWords provides a handy Keyword Tool that helps you discover new keyword variations and see the approximate search volume for each keyword (2). Also, Google Webmaster Tools provides you with the top search queries your site appears for and the ones that led the most users to your site.
Consider creating a new, useful service that no other site offers. You could also write an original piece of research, break an exciting news story, or leverage your unique user base. Other sites may lack the resources or expertise to do these things.
Write easy-to-read text
Users enjoy content that is well written and easy to follow.
Avoid:
- Writing sloppy text with many spelling and grammatical mistakes
- Embedding text in images for textual content as users may want to copy and paste the text and search engines can’t read it
Stay organized around the topic
It’s always beneficial to organize your content so that visitors have a good sense of where one content topic begins and another ends. Breaking your content up into logical chunks or divisions helps users find the content they want faster.
Avoid:
- Dumping large amounts of text on varying topics onto a page without paragraph, subheading, or layout separation
Create fresh, unique content
New content will not only keep your existing visitor base coming back, but also bring in new visitors.
Avoid:
- Rehashing (or even copying) existing content that will bring little extra value to users
- Having duplicate or near-duplicate versions of your content across your site – more on duplicate content
Create content primarily for your users, not search engines
Designing your site around your visitors’ needs while making sure your site is easily accessible to search engines usually produces positive results.
Avoid:
- Inserting numerous unnecessary keywords aimed at search engines but are annoying or nonsensical to users
- Having blocks of text like “frequent misspellings used to reach this page” that add little value for users
- Deceptively hiding text from users, but displaying it to search engines
Write better anchor text
Suitable anchor text makes it easy to convey the contents linked
Anchor text is the clickable text that users will see as a result of a link, and is placed within the anchor tag <a href=”…”></a>.
This text tells users and Google something about the page you’re linking to. Links on your page maybe internal i.e. pointing to other pages on your site or external leading to content on other sites. In either of these cases, the better your anchor text is, the easier it is for users to navigate and for Google to understand what the page you’re linking to is about.
Suitable anchor text makes it easy to convey the contents linked
Choose descriptive text
The anchor text you use for a link should provide at least a basic idea of what the page linked to is about
Avoid:
- Writing generic anchor text like “page”, “article”, or “click here”
- Using text that is off-topic or has no relation to the content of the page linked to
- Using the page’s URL as the anchor text in most cases – although there are certainly legitimate uses of this, such as promoting or referencing a new website’s address
Write concise text
Aim for short but descriptive text-usually a few words or a short phrase.
Avoid:
- Writing long anchor text, such as a lengthy sentence or short paragraph of text
Format links so they’re easy to spot
Make it easy for users to distinguish between regular text and the anchor text of your links. Your content becomes less useful if users miss the links or accidentally click them.
Avoid:
- Using CSS or text styling that make links look just like regular text
Think about anchor text for internal links too
You may usually think about linking in terms of pointing to outside websites, but paying more attention to the anchor text used for internal links can help users and Google navigate your site better.
Avoid:
- Using excessively keyword-filled or lengthy anchor text just for search engines
- Creating unnecessary links that don’t help with the user’s navigation of the site
