Getting started with quality content and SEO best practice
Often when we think about driving traffic to our website, Squarespace or otherwise, we think about social media, Facebook ads, google ads, email campaigns, and more. All of these are excellent options, but a great place to start is by getting clear on your website offerings, the kind of content that readers are looking for, and how to position your website in search engines for potential clients to find you.
It is always important to remember that you are optimizing your website for PEOPLE, you are not trying to simply appease search engines. The goal here is to create a great experience for real people, while also showing Google, “Hey, this is important, please display this information.”
Substance & Style: Quality Content and Intuitive Design
Google looks at over 200 ranking signals when indexing your website. Gone are the days that you can stuff your website with keywords or use other black hat marketing techniques to rank well. What’s more, how user-friendly your website is, plays a big role in SEO.
Google doesn’t hand out the exact criteria but we do know there are a few key things that will help a landing page rank well in SERPS and therefore gain more traffic.
At the end of the day, you want your website to surface in search engines. More importantly, once your website surfaces, you want people to find your content useful and easy to access.
That means, you want quality content, that is presented in a clean format without a distracting or unorganized layout and Google will want evidence that people stick around and read your content (indicated by a low bounce rate).
How do I know what to write about?
Deciding on content topics can be challenging, but it's crucial for attracting and engaging your target audience. The key is to find the sweet spot between what your audience wants to know and what you're qualified to share. This process involves a mix of personal insight, strategic research, and understanding your brand's core themes. Here are several effective methods to help you determine what to write about:
Leverage Your Experience: Start with common questions you receive about your business or industry.
Use SEO Tools:
Ahrefs: Conduct keyword research and analyze competitors.
SparkToro: Discover what your audience reads, watches, and listens to.
Google Trends: Identify popular topics and search queries.
Develop Content Pillars: Create core themes that represent your expertise and audience interests.
Long-tail Keywords: Focus on specific, detailed phrases to target niche audiences.
Competition and long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases that visitors are likely to use when they're closer to a point of purchase or when using voice search. Focusing on these keywords can be a highly effective strategy for several reasons:
Less Competition: Long-tail keywords are typically less competitive than shorter, more general keywords. This means it's easier to rank higher in search results for these terms.
Higher Conversion Rates: Because long-tail keywords are more specific, they often attract visitors who are further along in the buying cycle and more likely to convert.
Better Quality Traffic: Users searching with long-tail keywords usually have a clearer idea of what they're looking for, resulting in more targeted and relevant traffic to your site.
Voice Search Optimization: As voice search becomes more prevalent, long-tail keywords align more closely with how people naturally speak and ask questions.
Cost-Effective for PPC: If you're using pay-per-click advertising, long-tail keywords often have lower costs per click due to less competition.
Opportunity for Featured Snippets: Long-tail keywords, especially in question format, have a higher chance of appearing as featured snippets in search results.
To implement this strategy, use tools like Google's Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to identify relevant long-tail keywords in your niche. Then, create high-quality, in-depth content that thoroughly addresses these specific queries. This approach not only helps you attract more targeted traffic but also positions your website as a valuable resource for your audience.
On-page-SEO for Squarespace Websites
Google doesn’t see a website the same way or I do. When you create a website, Google spiders crawl your page looking for information as to what it is they should prioritize. This is where on-page SEO becomes valuable. You or I may see a larger bold font, and think “oh that is a heading” but unless we used an H1 or H2, google spiders don’t know that content is extra important. We need to follow some best practice so Google knows we deem these things important and want this content to surface for people. So what content should you prioritize?
Google spiders don’t see a website the same way you or I do.
What we see:
What google spiders see:
Google needs you to give it some direction.
Google is pretty brilliant, but it needs some helpful hints. The best way to provide those hints is to utilize your on site SEO. When it comes to telling google what information is important you’ll also want to consider meta descriptions, meta titles, alt tags, URL structure and more. If you are looking to get a better handle on page SEO, I highly recommend the beginners guide to SEO from Moz.
One key example that I see often is when people pair pictures with a clever tagline. When you use an image it is always important to provide an “alt tag” and “alt text” to help provide context to visually impaired readers, and also to tell google what the image is. You and I may see a picture of a beautiful condo with a fresh coat of paint, but unless labelled properly, google doesn’t know what the image is.
Now pair that image of a beautiful condo with a tagline like “you’ll love it here." You may be a realtor, or a interior design company, or a paint supplier, but Google doesn’t know that. What’s more, even though it is tempting to use clever slogans paired with bold imagery, people landing on your site might not know what they have landed on either.
The Blink Test
If someone is trying to find an answer to a question or looking for a service, and you are fortunate enough to show up in their search results, you have a very limited amount of time to show them your value. They want to know they have arrived in the right destination almost immediately. The majority fo people will read the headline on a page but very few will go on to read the first paragraph.
You only have a few seconds (hence blink tests) to communicate your value prop to your potential customer and tell your reader how you can solve their problem or stand out above the competition.
