Search engines have two primary functions: crawling and building an index, and providing search users with a ranked list of the websites they’ve determined are the most relevant. Great Content encourages people to link to your pages and shows Google your pages are exciting and reliable. This leads to a successful SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION because Google wants to show interesting and authoritative pages in its search results.
Having ranked higher in SEO helps you to gain organic traffic on your website, and the majority of search engines users are more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions in the results pages (SERPS).
Here is the type of content that works best for SEO:
1. Blog posts: Blog posts that are updated regularly with quality content and links directing to the relevant information.
e.g. Four roads we call customer service ranks for seth.blog
2. Short-form content and articles: Short, quick and easy read that is well structured.
e.g. Jim Collin’s Piece on Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals ranks for BHAG
3. Long-form articles: Articles that are interesting, informative and well written.
e.g. Nudged: How Brands Can Create a Difference by Using Behavioural Economics (Via souravraina.com)
4. Photo and visual galleries: Visualisation is easily understood by the brain without making many efforts. Also, recent developments in the technology of reading data from pictures make it irreplaceable content for SEOs.
e.g. Right Hairstyle’s 100 Cool Short Hairstyles for Men/ (ranks for men’s hairstyles)
5. Detailed and information-rich lists of information: There are 1.2 trillion searches on Google every year and many of them are for informational purposes.
e.g. Wearable’s Best Fitness Trackers of 2016 (ranks for Fitness Trackers)
6. Interactive tools and content got some good examples of those.
e.g. Zoopla’s House Prices Tool (ranks for property prices)
7. Comprehensive category landers: This would be like if you search for kitchen designs, how you might land on Houzz’s page of various kitchen designs and that’s really a lander to get you into more content, so it’s not technically a content marketing piece by itself, but it leads you into content pieces or could.
e.g. HGTV’s Kitchen Ideas (ranks for kitchen remodelling ideas)
8. Multi-page guides: things like Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO.
e.g. Bates University’s “Painless Guide to Statistics” (ranks for statistics guide)
9. Data or complex information that is visualized
e.g. CNN’s Election Results (ranks for election results 2016)
10. Video: YouTube or embedded video on a particular page, Whiteboard Friday itself is an example of that.
e.g. Whiteboard Friday itself (ranks for Unique Content)