While there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of advice out there about how to improve a website’s rankings or how to squeeze every little drop out of authority or juice out of every written word. What often is too overlooked is the need to actually write for your readers. This might seem obvious or trite, but it actually is an important part of a true long-term SEO strategy for good reason. Read on and check out these four important reasons on why you should write for your readers.
Do You Write for Your Readers or Just For Yourself?
#1: Google Has Always Insisted Content Is King
This is an important point that should rank above all others. Google has always wanted search results where high quality content rises to the top and the rest sinks. In fact, Google mentions high quality content as one of the most important factors in ranking a website. While there are many definitions of high quality, there’s no question that the overall style, flow, and reader accessibility are all taken into account when judging content. If you write for your readers, you are far more likely to create content that will be seen as high quality by both the search engines and readers.
#2: Bounce Rates & Average Time On Page Are Important SEO Stats
Two important stats for SEO purposes are your website’s bounce rate and the average amount of time a visitor stays on your website. These two stats are related, and should show why writing for your reader is so important. This should also show why good writing is important and low quality English as a second language content simply won’t work. Which of these two lines are you more likely to keep on reading and which will get you bouncing off the website to see what the other results have to offer?
– Many people know how important good contents are to building a website online, but acquiring said content can be difficult.
– You know how important great content is for creating a successful website, but how are you going to produce awesome viral-ready content (or find a reliable professional to do it for you)?
How about these two?
– Search engine optimization (commonly abbreviated as SEO) is the process of applying certain criteria to a website in order to theoretically increase their visibility and rank among online search engines.
– You might have the best website in the world, but what’s the point if no one can find it? Learning some basic SEO tips can help you share that masterpiece of yours with the world!
In both examples it’s really obvious how much better the second sentence is. This is going to lead to more visitors reading your posts and spending more time on the page. Both great SEO positives.
#3: A good tone might help with building authority
This is a possible indirect benefit, and it is one that has a bit of controversy over it. Figuring out exactly what is meant by authority isn’t the easiest task, but everyone in the SEO world understands that authority matters. This includes providing high quality original content, can provide excellent information that answers the question, and maybe even the tone and ease of how you speak about a topic can matter.
At the very least, writing for your audience will result in more followers, more shares, and that leads to more reads. Tone matters – don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
#4: You’ll end up with a larger following
Writing for your readers has an obvious benefit that is even completely outside of SEO: you’ll end up with a larger following. This can turn into a larger social media footprint, more people signing up to receive updates via e-mail, and that’s a larger tribe of people who are also going to recommend you to other people, share your posts, and help others find you. A larger following is never going to hurt and can do some amazing things to help expand your business.
In Conclusion
There are many different ways to tackle SEO and getting attention online for your blog or business, one thing you should never forget is to write for your readers. It is a sure-fire way to see better results in all that you do! Follow these tips and Google will certainly notice!
