Nigel Wilkinson
Managing Director of Daneswood. Nigel has been in sales and marketing since the 1980's and run digital marketing agencies since 2000.
Writing great content is one of the best ways to get Google to push your website up the rankings – why else do you think I regularly sit down to write a blog? So, how do you write Google-friendly killer content for your website?
You start by asking yourself what Google wants from your content. It wants your content to be interesting, useful content, that your audience wants to read. If Google pushes people to read content that is irrelevant, boring, or outdated, people will cease to use Google as their search engine, simple as that. Then they lose all that lovely revenue from Google Ads. So, it’s in Google’s best interest to direct traffic to only the best, most relevant, and up to date information.
Once you understand what Google wants, which is content that your audience wants, life is much easier. You can stop worrying so much about writing content for Google rankings and write great content that your target audience wants to read.
Now a little research before you start typing away is a good idea. Including the keywords your audience is searching for will enable Google to rank your website for the words and phrases you want to be found for. But please don’t get carried away, if every third word is your target keyword, the audience will soon get bored, and Google will punish you for spamming.
Make sure your keywords are included a few times, ideally with variations around the theme, but write as naturally as you can, in the tone of voice that suits your brand position.
“How long should the content be?” After 24 years in digital marketing, I can honestly say this is the question I get asked most! “No one reads long content!” is often the follow-up statement. This, of course, is nonsense. “No one reads boring content!” is far more accurate. If your content is interesting and relevant, people will read an article as long as War & Peace, if it’s boring, no one will read the second paragraph!
Ideally, for Google, you do want more than 300 words, much less than that, and Google will discard the content for ranking purposes, but beyond that, write as much as you need for someone to make a buying decision.
Typically, the more expensive and more complex a purchase is, the more information people require to decide. For example, if you want me to spend £30,000 on a new car and you are only giving me 250 words of information about it, you may well find I’ve gone elsewhere. Vice versa, I’m not going to read a 400-page volume on a £1 pen.
And a final point that I’ve raised in previous blogs; Don’t use AI to write your content, Google will detect it and de-list you. Use AI to suggest blog titles, help with keyword research, get useful stats to back up your argument and proofread, but the key content must come from you. AI won’t have your experience, insight, viewpoint, or tone of voice.
Hopefully, that gives you a starting point for creating Google-friendly content. If you need more help or, indeed, want someone else to do the whole thing for you, please do get in touch.