Content
While there are many types of content out on the web for SEO and other SEM purposes, having other Internet users link to your content is one of the most reputable ways to build your reputation. Friend referrals and word of mouth are the best marketing techniques. They cost nothing to the company, and have the greatest impact on consumer’s actions. Giving and receiving links is a very similar concept, and it’s free.
While there are many ways to go about gaining links for your content, one of the best and most efficient ways is to post high-quality, informative content to your site. This type of content is more likely to attract links from a variety of sources, rather than people you are already in contact with from blog posts, or previous link exchanges.
1) Have a Clear Point
No matter what you are writing about, no matter how good your writing is, and no matter who reads your content, you will not get links without a good point. While all these other factors are important, just like your papers in college, having a clear point, or answering a specified question is more important. There is nothing more annoying than realizing that the title has absolutely nothing to do with the content when the article does not stick to the point.
2) Pay Attention to Length
While there are some blog sites such as SEOmoz that do best with lengthy, detailed articles, most other sites prefer concise content. Depending on your industry and your content topic, you should figure out which length is best for you. If you are creating a blog post on your site, you should probably keep it relatively short, less than 500 words. If however, you are posting a detailed or introductory article on a third party site, it may benefit from being 1000+ words. Always check out the length of other articles on the site, see if there is a minimum or maximum for word length, and even see how long your competitor’s articles and blogs are.
3) Make it Visually Appealing
Whether you choose images, videos, or a simple page setup, you want to make sure people like the look of your post. Do not include too many distractions, but also try to avoid having one large blob of text. You can make your post more manageable by having clear headers over each topic, and including bulleted points or numbered lists throughout. This provides a little more direction for readers, and makes it much easier for them to scan the article before deciding if they are interesting in reading it.
4) Find a Good Topic
It is important to check out other posts in the blog community to see what people are talking about when creating titles. You never want to write the exact same type of article unless you are certain that you can do it much better. Otherwise, get an idea of what people are discussing, and give your own twist on the matter. Try to create something original within the interest of the blogging community.
5) Update Often
It is important to remember that the more pages you have on your site, the greater your chances of pulling more traffic from search engine results. It may seem like a pain to constantly update your site, but content management systems (CMS) are designed to make updating and expanding your site easy. You can have a web development company with SEM services configure your site to use a CMS like a WordPress blog or Drupal framework.
