Even if your business is small, chances are you have some big competition. And in the digital age, you and your competitors are both vying for visibility, traffic, credibility, and authority online. When you want your business to stand out from your competitors, creating rankable content for SEO that positions you at the top of search engines’ rankings is key.
But when it comes to creating content that ranks, providing helpful information for humans simply isn’t enough. There’s also a great deal of search engine optimization (SEO) strategy involved in the creation of any high-ranking content piece. And if you don’t get the strategy right, chances are you won’t get the results you’re after either.
So what exactly is rankable content and how do you create it? Read on to find out.
Rankable content is easily readable, search-engine-optimized content that’s created to rank for a target keyword or keyword phrase. This type of high-quality content also targets a user’s search intent for specific keywords. That means it’s relevant to the user’s “what and why” behind a specific search query and provides valuable and accurate information.
Aside from having target keywords and providing value, rankable content must also be competitive with other content that ranks highly for the same search terms and search intent.
Do you know what your industry’s top-converting keywords are? Do you know your target audience’s search intent for specific keywords? Do you understand how to organize your content so search engines know how to index your site and identify your area of authority?
If you’re unsure of any of these things, you’ll have a tough time creating content that ranks highly in search engines. That’s where a custom SEO strategy comes in.
There are more than 200 factors that determine where a piece of content ranks in search engine results for a specific keyword. Custom SEO planning analyzes what your business is trying to achieve with your content and maps out a strategic plan to help you attain those results.
A custom strategy not only includes on-page SEO, which focuses on on-site content and structure but also off-page and technical SEO. When you get all three elements right, your content starts to move up in search engines’ rankings.
If you’re currently creating the content you think people are looking for, you’re missing the mark. A custom SEO strategy will allow you to craft content that you know users are definitely searching for, which will ensure your content becomes more rankable over time.
Long-form content also tends to earn a great deal of backlinks and shares, both of which influence search engine rankings. When crafting rankable content, your overarching goal is to provide the reader with valuable information that’s relevant to a specific search query. Make sure you’re writing content that aligns with the length of content that is currently ranking for your targeted term.
But to create in-depth content that targets a user’s search intent, you must first understand the type of content you’re creating and how that affects its ideal word count. A “how-to” post will naturally require more content than a simple “what is X?” post. The amount of research required to support the content will also determine an optimal length.
When creating valuable content, you must also consider the content your competitors are publishing. Does your content provide more value? Does it deliver more accurate information? Does it cover subtopics that your competitors’ content doesn’t cover? If you can provide more value related to specific keywords and search queries, you stand an excellent chance of outranking your competition.
Attention spans are short these days. People get scared off by huge blocks of text. Readers want information that’s not only easy to find but also easy to digest and retain. According to studies, over 75% of digital users don’t read online text in its entirety. That means your content must be scannable if you want it to rank.
What’s scannable content? It’s content that’s formatted in a way that allows readers to quickly grasp the major points of your message. Scannable content includes:
When you’re trying to rank for target keywords, you must consider how competitive those keywords are. Only going after high-competition keywords can make ranking tough, especially if you’re competing with very high-authority sites that already have super-strong SEO. That’s where finding high-volume, low-competition keywords that you can also target can be helpful.
Your competitors may not be targeting those keywords, but your target audience is searching for them. So if you target a mix of high- and low-competition keywords and phrases, your content ultimately stands a better chance of moving up through search engine rankings.
Creating rankable content isn’t difficult, but it does require strategy. If you’re unsure how to create an SEO and content marketing strategy that’ll get you the results you’re looking for, Relevance can help.
