Good Vs. Bad SEO Content - Semalt Tips


While researching this content, we all had a great feeling that it is going to be one of our best so far. The reason behind that statement is loved. While Semalt impacts several areas of your website, our content developers are simply the best. So it's no surprise that we will use this as an excuse to brag about just how good we are. 

But we trust that you'd love that, especially because this is going to be a very interesting experience. 

Understanding content and SEO

Every day, we have to fight to be the best. Because the world of SEO is constantly changing, we have little or no room to take breaks. In order to deliver the absolute best, we have to stay up to date with the best SEO practices while avoiding any and everything that can damage SEO. 

Do you consider us good or bad SEO professionals? We believe that in this article, we will either convince you that we are good SEO content creators or give you more points to support your opinion about us being great content creators. 

Being a good SEO pro goes beyond avoiding the obvious pitfall you see on other regular SEO content. In this industry, there are many possible missteps people take, and they don't realize that they've made a mistake. And the reason for this is Google. 

With so many major updates on Google's algorithm, with several adjustments here and there, these pitfalls keep on shifting locations. Because Google is dedicated to creating a more unified high quality, and accessible user experience for its users, they keep on making these changes. And for SEO experts like us, we must work with these changes and ensure that whichever content we publish goes in line with that mission. 

If content doesn't support Google's mission, its SERP ranking will continue to decline. By staying up to date on the latest news about Core Web Vitals, and any other algorithm changes by Google or any other search engine, we can help your rank climb rather than decline. You also won't be left in the dark wondering why your website's ranking keeps on declining. 

In this guide, we will let you in on one of the internet's most guarded secrets on how to stay ahead of your competition through your content. 

Bad SEO mistakes you may have in your content

Your content plays a significant role in every SEO campaign. With Google, the larger majority of your optimization rests in your ability to deliver quality content on the topics you hope to build authority on. We help people create content that is easy and enjoyable for their audience. 

With as many as 1.2 trillion searches per year, according to Google, they've gotten more adept at ranking and sorting through all the websites that need to be indexed. 

So having bad SEO practices really pisses off Google. This is why we avoid things like: 

Poor quality citations

Citing the sources of our information is fundamental, but we must be careful with how we go about our citations. Linking to other sites is considered a big deal to Google. They consider this as a vote of confidence from one site to another regarding that content. When a link is provided as a reference, it tells Google that the content is factual, relevant, and beneficial to your site and other users. This is why quality backlinks are considered a treasure to SEO experts.

Linking one website to another is normally a good thing, but when the website you're linking to has a smudge on its reputation, Google flags such an action. Think of the vote of confidence as a two-way street. When you link to a malicious site, Google will assume you are a malicious site as well (in a nutshell). 

When crafting content, we look for certain red flags on the site to ensure our clients' sites are kept safe. 

We look us for:
  • If a site has a reputation of misinforming its audience.
  • Citations for YMYL content in cases where there is no clear mention of the author's name and credentials. 

Articles that are too long

We remember discussing how long an article should be (this should be linked to the article discussing "how long an article should be"). Still, in that article, we were focused on how short an article can be without paying attention to how long it should be. 

Creating complete and comprehensive content is our objective, but it is important to never write more than is required. Many times, clients write too long articles just so they can brag about their contents being longer than their competition's. What they fail to understand is that writing a word more than required causes far more harm than good. 

Why?

Contents that are unnecessarily long have equally damaging consequences as thin content. 

A study by the Nielson Norman group tracked people's line of sight while scrolling through web pages. After tracking their eye movement, they discovered that people tend to read less the further down the content goes. This translates to a negative user experience. 

This doesn't mean that long contents are bad; it just tells us that we should keep the content relevant all the way. Once we've covered all that needs to be covered in an article, we bring it to a close. There is no point in adding irrelevant words to make an article longer. 

Lack of headings

Using headings is one of the most effective ways to use keywords and attractively break down your content into several parts. Using H2 and H3 tags guides your readers through the different stages of an article. It is important to break content in bits so users can take quick mental breaks and help prevent the reader's eyes from getting lost.  Web visitors also do not have to get scared about facing long walls of text. 

Headings are also important for SEO. They give us an excuse to use our primary keywords in a natural and beneficial way. Finally, headings give a page its structure and serve as a powerful indicator of what a page is about. 

Keyword abuse

At this point, you should know that keyword stuffing is bad. If you have a 300-word article with your keywords appearing more than 20 times, Google and your readers will consider your article to be inappropriate. 

However, keyword stuffing isn't the only way keywords can be abused. Here are other ways you may be abusing keywords without even knowing:
  • Optimizing for too many keywords
Since using one keyword too many times is bad, you may decide to use a variety of keywords to trick the system. We hate to break it to you but having too many focus keywords is also bad. Content should have one focus keyword with a handful of secondary keywords. 
  • Using keywords incorrectly relative to the search intent:
Google hopes to be able to figure out what a user intends to see even when the search input is incomplete. So using your keywords incorrectly will make your content show up in irrelevant search results, which makes your content look bad. 

What does good content look like?

If you're looking for what good content is, we would like you to read this content or any other content written on the Semalt website. Our content avoids all the pitfalls we've mentioned above while following careful instructions; listen to our article on how to write great content (this should be hyperlinked). 

Here are some basic points on how we can create excellent SEO oriented content:
  • Perform keyword research 
  • Optimize the content for local SEO
  • Created for featured snippets 
  • Using topic clusters 
  • Updating outdated content
  • Pay attention to EAT and YMYL
  • User-oriented mindset

Conclusion

It is now time to take your content to the next level. SEO is constantly evolving, and the only way you can improve and stay on top of your game is by delivering good SEO content. The good news is that staying in Google's graces isn't difficult, especially with Semalt by your side. 

With our ability to create good content consistently with excellent user experience, we can help you gain Google's attention and show its algorithm that you provide useful quality and relevant information / services on your site.