SEO is not about ‘good’ writing
Over the years, I’ve heard that dozens of search engine optimization (SEO)Â have claimed that the “quality” of an article is by far the most important factor in whether content climbs to the desired three positions.
This attitude is, at best, a set of time, effort, strategy, money, skills and teamwork that decides who wins the search contest. Unfortunately, this officer is arrogant, dismissive and shameful. If only the first three results are the most written, it means that the quality of the writing is poor in every other article.
Quality vs. written correction
When you enter a keyword in a search engine, click on a result and start reading, and you ask yourself these questions and guess the page:
ØŸ Does the content give me the information I’m looking for?
the Is the content easy to read and understand?
- • Does this material look accurate and reliable?
- • Is the content interesting?
These elements are part of what we think of as writing quality, and they affect our experience in a way that search engines can measure. When articles are engaging, we read longer, click more, and scroll deeper than we write on boring content. Then Google knows exactly how long you’ve been on this page, where you clicked it, and whether you’ve made it to the bottom.
However, customization is only for robots, not for readers.
When you browse for an article, are you counting how often a particular word is repeated or mentioned? If someone has added some keyword lines to this article, do you feel as if their quality has increased dramatically?
Absolutely not. Probably. You won’t even notice these tweets.
Think of quality and optimization as a van diagram. In the overlap section, there are administrative components that affect the human reading experience and optimization for search engines. On the left are technical matters that only Google cares about, and on the right are quality measures that only a reader can appreciate.
Another difference is that the quality is almost completely subjective. You think the viral article your co-workers are talking about is actually extinct and overwhelming.
Machines, on the other hand, make the decision to reform, and they are much more objective than we are. Every search engine company has its priorities and preferences, but their bots do like every page.
What SEO is really about
I’ve found that there are seven factors that determine the success of SEO, and we’ve covered two of them: writing quality and optimization. Here are the others:
Link building: The more people link to an article, the more likely it is to increase rankings and drive tons of traffic. Even if someone barely clicks on these links, they are gold for search engines. A quality link has the ability to bump from page three to page one.
Content Source: When a website has a top domain option, it has a great start to the SEO race. Google will rely on the New York Times article for example, a niche blog with over a thousand users.
Time: SEO is all about the long game. With so many keywords, I’ve spent all season just slowly building up, improving, promoting and testing. It’s so satisfying that, after trying so hard, you see your blog post claiming it as a top place. Whether you spend so much time depends on this next factor.
Money / Teams: More money means better SEO tools and a larger team of people working on all of the above. In one company I worked for, I was part of a team of 10 full-time people and dozens of freelancers who mainly focused on SEO content. No tenÃa acceso a nuestro presupuesto, pero supuse que gastamos al menos $ 50,000 al mes, que es mucho para el marketing de contenidos. Aunque los resultados no fueron concluyentes. En solo dos años, aprobamos un millón de visitas al mes. Intenta apuntar esos números con un equipo número uno.
Fortunately: I’ve written dozens of articles that have come up with these three positions despite the lack of optimization or SEO strategies. If I didn’t attribute these results to fate, I’d give myself too much credit.
How much does the quality matter?
I would enjoy SEO so much if it were as simple as putting your heart and energy into writing the best articles. Because of my love of writing skills, I plan to go that high anyway, and I believe you should too.
However, the fact is that quality is only one component, and it is no more important than other factors. There are thousands of informative and uncontrollable blog posts that rank well for keywords as their owners spend time and money on link building and optimization.
SEO is a strategy and perseverance, and that’s fine. We must stick to this idealistic view