A guide to website content

What is “fresh” content and why is it important?

Fresh content refers to the new or updated pages on your website. There are a number of ways in which you can introduce a regular stream of new content. The most obvious is through blog posts, articles or news pages. However, you might also want to consider case studies. For the right type of company they can be an effective way of convincing clients you can do the type of work they need, as well as providing a valid reason to add new pages to your website.

By uploading new content regularly you are encouraging Google to come back and index your website more often.

Indexing simply refers to the process of assessing the quality of your webpage and making it discoverable on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). The more content you have on your website on a variety of topics, the wider the pool of keywords you can rank for.

Well-written content will also encourage domains to link to yours and over time your website will be seen as more trustworthy by search engines and users alike.

What should I write about?

Is there a question you are asked over and over again by clients?

Chances are there will be an audience for a blog post on that topic. There are also lots of free tools out there that will give you an insight into the questions users are asking Google related to your niche. One of the easiest to use is  Answer The Public. Simply enter your keywords into the search bar and you now have a list of prompt questions.

You can also respond to industry issues and publications through an article. It is important that your content is original, so insert a link to the article followed by your comments rather than pasting the whole article onto your page.

Over time this will help you to gain authority and establish yourself as a thought leader. If you’re short on time or lack knowledge on a particular hot topic, invite an expert to write a guest post for you. We recently worked with a local solicitors to produce a piece about GDPR, which was beneficial for both of us.

How do I write content that search engines will like?

There are a number of boxes to tick to give your content the best chance of ranking well. While including relevant keywords throughout is important, you should avoid stuffing your copy with them. Google are increasingly penalising websites for doing this as they want to recommend quality results that read well.

Other factors you will need to consider include your meta tags, content length and readability. There are a number of tools that will rate your content against these factors as you are writing. SEMrush have just released a Google Docs add-on and if you write directly from your CMS you can use a plugin like Yoast SEO.

Once your new piece is live you can tell Google it needs to be indexed from Webmaster Tools.

The most important thing is to provide quality content.

You should always put the user first and consider what will be of value to your particular audience.

If you’re providing truly useful resources this will eventually earn you authority in the field and more links to your website. Links are one of the most important ranking factors and you’ll have a hard time earning these from trusted domains without the quality to back you up.

Thanks for reading,

Kat