How Google qualifies your content

The time when you could trick search engines with systematic implementation of keywords is over. Google is now focusing on increasing the true quality of content.
For most of the marketers this is not big news. However, the way that Google assesses “content as good” changes on continuous basis. Recent reports show that the time spent on the website also influences the position in Google. That is why it is extremely important to bond the reader to your page.

Below you can find the most valuable tips that are necessary for the creation of “good content” for your website or web shop.

#1 Make it relevant and readable

An element that is still becoming more important is the number of words and the Flesh-Kincaid Readability score. You can have your text scored here. If you look at all the big players you will see that the length of the website texts have increased by 25% on average since 2014. This suggests that Google looks at the length of the text and appreciates the longer ones.

Naturally, it seems a logical concept, because if you create a short text you cannot go deep into a subject. A lot of people distribute similar content about a specific topic and that is the main reason why Google has found a way to distinguish the quality and depth of the texts on websites.

Readability is the second logical reason for that movement. No matter how spectacular the content you create is, if your text consists of complex linkages and contains meaningless jargon, you will lose the readers’ attention.

#2 Focus on User Experience

As it has been already mentioned in many of the SEO articles, it is a very important element and it is probably not a surprise that Google takes it into account for the website ranking.

If people can easily navigate through your content and if it is well structured, they will be less inclined to look somewhere else to find information they are looking for. When people spend more time on your website, Google receives a signal that your content is relevant and valuable.

The focus, however, lies not only on the desktop experience but also on the usability of the website on mobile devices. This trend will develop even more in the following years.

#3 Stop worrying about keywords

It was not so long time ago that the pages were completely filled with keywords that were related to the topic of the page. Sentences were fully modified to ensure sufficient keyword density.
Fortunately, this is in the past. This phenomenon certainly has influenced what we are still presented with when we are using the search engines. Nowadays, however, consumers benefit more from improved readability and marketers can express their creativity in other ways.

Thus, when you write a text for your website, no matter what the subject is, your main goal should be to provide the reader with high quality content. That means that you should aim at creation of interesting and well readable texts.

However, if the content you write is relevant for the keyword, you should, naturally, implement keywords that are relevant to the topic.

#4 Backlinks are becoming less important

The relation between backlinks and search engine positions have become less significant over the recent years. Instead of link building you can better spend your time on writing content that people want to read and share. This will result in more social media links. Backlinks with a keyword in the “anchor text” are becoming even less relevant. This implies that the unnatural backlinks will no longer be appreciated by Google.

#5 Social media?

It is a gray area, but many see the correlation between the number of social media posts, users and the position in Google. The more people share your link, the more visitors will end up on your website. This is not only essential for your brand awareness, but also for the number of visitors of your website.

In addition, the signals from social media are of relevance to marketers and help them find out whether the content appeals to the audience or not.

#6 What now?

Now it should be clear: the quality of the content is important. In conclusion, most of the former tricks to help keep your Google position high, do not (really) work anymore. Results from the past simply do not provide any guarantee for the future.

Would you like to read more about this research? Click here for the full study.