One of the best ways to improve your online search rankings is through quality content. Great blogs can help you rank for new keywords and keep visitors returning to your site.
A key requirement for content that moves the needle for SEO is to ensure it is easily readable. This should apply both to your readers and to Google, as they are both important when it comes to increasing your SEO.
What is Readable Content?
An easily readable blog is well structured and clearly written. If your main message is clear to your readers, it will be clear to Google as well.
Sentence length should be manageable, as well as your paragraphs. If you’re using blogs written by non-English speakers or were created by bots, they are likely not going to be easily readable.
Why Is It Important?
Nobody likes to read something that’s incomprehensible, boring or stuffed with keywords. This counts for your readers, and for Google.
When someone is able to easily get the information they’re looking for from their blog, a few things might happen:
- First, they’ll be more likely to read the entire piece, thus staying on your page longer.
- They’ll realize that your site is a good source for quality, reliable content, and they may search your site again or even bookmark it.
- If this is a topic they consult regularly or are passionate about, they may share your article to their network via email or social media, or even link it from their blog or website.
These are all important steps toward improving your SEO. The more people who visit your site, the more Google will recognize that you’re providing valuable content that they should be promoting higher. When you take the time to write great SEO content writing, your site will be rewarded.
Why Doesn’t Keyword Stuffing Work Anymore?
It used to be you could write a few hundred words, stuff it with the keyword you were trying to rank for and call it a day. But Google caught on that these blogs weren’t providing a great user experience to readers. These blogs were tough to read and often didn’t offer much value, other thank including one keyword dozens of times. When it comes to SEO content writing for small businesses today, Google is smart enough to look for articles that are using keywords responsibly and intelligently.
According to Yoast, “after the Hummingbird update, Google started recognizing synonyms. It also understands which words, entities, and content are related to each other. In addition to that, search engines became better at predicting what people want to read: from the keywords in your query they can make an estimated guess on your search intent.”
Now, Google is so advanced that it’s able to read your blogs just like a human. It can tell when you’re trying to trick it with a bunch of keywords, and aren’t actually writing something people will want to read.
If you’re struggling with writing great content that improves your SEO, just remember to always write for your reader first. As long as you create smart, valuable blogs and articles that use relevant keywords naturally, Google won’t punish you, and will hopefully begin to push your articles up toward the top of the pages.