Let’s be honest, we all want to rank higher in search engines and get visitors for relevant queries as well. And what better way of doing that than by ranking on Google, the biggest search engine in the world.
And unlike the people you find on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, these people are actually interested in what they are searching for. Their intent is to find more information about the subject, and that is the reason why they use a particular set of keywords. And when it comes to how much you can benefit from that, you are only limited by your own imagination.
But let’s just consider for a moment that you are creating the highest quality content that you can ever create. And you are also sharing it on all the major social networking websites, and visitors are coming in and enjoying all that amazing content.
How does Google recognizes that and rewards you for it?
Well, since you asked, here’s how they do it.
How Google Rewards High-Quality Content
Do keep in mind that Google wants people to create high-quality content. That way, they can present the visitors with the highest quality content they can, thus improving their user experience.
So the better your content is, the higher your chances will be of ranking higher in the search engines.
Which brings me to the first way Google rewards high-quality content:
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Increased Organic Traffic
The obvious way Google would reward high-quality traffic is by increasing the organic traffic that website gets. And to be honest, they are right in doing so. Because most companies would only need enough traffic to get off the ground or increase their quarterly revenue.
And if you do not currently have high search rankings for the products/services you are offering, you should continue writing high-quality content and check out my link building article.
Remember, you want to cover all your bases: have high-quality content, good link building strategies and better on-page optimization than your competitors.
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Improved Brand Image
Imagine that you are on top of the 1st page for your target keyword
Would that improve your brand image?
Definitely. Because people will know that you are the best source for the thing that they were searching for. And Google has always said that their primary focus is on improving user experience at all times. Whether that means they are designing a new browser or updating the algorithm.
User experience is the primary reason why they do it.
And quite honestly, it makes things simpler for you as well. Once you know exactly what they are looking for, you can align with those goals and reap the benefits.
And now that you know that Google is always looking to improving the user experience, you should also focus on the same thing on your website. Improve the design, make it easier for them to read content and check out other areas of your website.
You will be surprised by how far it can take you.
Those are the 2 ways Google rewards high-quality content. But now you might be thinking: how do I know that I’m creating high-quality content? Are there any pointers that would help me recognize?
Yes, there are always pointers that would help you recognize that you are on the right path.
And for that, you will need to start thinking like Google. Especially when they openly started updating the algorithm and focusing on improving the user experience.
The pointers are content curation, guest blogging and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).
Don’t worry, I will be going through each one of them in detail explaining what they mean and how you should do it.
What is Content Curation?
I’m sure you have heard of content marketing. But you have never heard of content curation.
Content curation means that you are gathering high-quality information from authoritative websites and then presenting that information to your audience in a coherent fashion. This way, it makes it easier for your audience to consume the content and connect the necessary dots in order to achieve their goals.
This is very similar to what a museum curator or a music website does. They categorize all the information in an orderly fashion that makes it easier for everyone to consume the information.
Do note that content curation is not stealing content from other websites. Is a general rule that if you are curating content, you ought to give credit to the original source in the form of hyperlinks. This tells Google that not only are you an ethical internet user, but you also have useful information on your website.
Content curation is a great tool to have in your arsenal. Just ask any content marketing specialist and they will tell you that churning out high-quality content on a consistent basis is no easy task. It takes a ton of research and time. Time that could be spent in gathering and organizing the high-quality information that is already out there.
A side benefit of content curation is that you can consistently update your website with fresh information. Sending even more signals to Google that your website only offers very high-quality content to its audience. And other industry influencers would find your website and may link to you as well as a trusted source, which will further help your website rank higher in search engines.
What are Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords
In the old days, the only way search engines would recognize a high-quality website was through the number of backlinks it was receiving, and by the density of keywords that were relevant to the web page.
To give you a perspective on how things were, let’s say that you have a blog post about the movie icon Robert Downey Jr. And you see that the #1 result on Google for the term uses the keyword “Robert Downey Jr” 25 times in their content. And you decide to use that keyword 30 times in your content.
That’s it. You would now rank higher than the other person.
It was the wild west during those times. And there were a ton of websites outranking other websites with high-quality information. And it wasn’t fair.
Obviously, if you did the same thing now, you would get penalized by Google in just a matter of days because it does not offer a better user experience. No one wants to see a page filled with keywords and do not get the information they were searching for.
As soon as Google started penalizing websites that were stuffing keywords on their pages, LSI keywords were born.
Latent Semantic Indexing is just a fancy of saying synonyms. You would use synonyms that are related to your target keyword in order to NOT appear as someone trying to stuff keywords.
This became extremely important because, with the help of LSI keywords, people could rank their websites for a lot more keywords than they previously could.
Let’s take an example from one my clients who is a chiropractor. Instead of including the keyword “best chiropractor” throughout the website, I found out a couple of LSI keywords that I could use like best chiropractor near me, chiropractic adjustment, chiropractor for back pain, etc.
It is incredibly important to use these keywords because not only do they sound natural when someone is reading the content, it also leads to a better user experience and eventually leading to increased search engine rankings.
And if you are doing content curation the right way, by default you would include LSI keywords.
How is that possible?
Well, the process that you will go through in gathering and curating content from authoritative and trustworthy sources will naturally end up with you using LSI keywords in your copy.
This is the reason why content curation combined with LSI is so powerful. There are tons of websites that do just this and sit on top of page one.
Guest Blogging for High-Quality Backlinks
Guest blogging is very different than LSI and content curation. The above 2 methods that I covered above are primarily focused on on-page optimization. Guest blogging is more about off-page optimization, link building to be precise.
It is true that if given enough time to curate content from trustworthy sources, you will eventually start getting backlinks from other high-quality websites. But guest blogging still remains the best way to rank a website higher in search engines through external links.
The meaning of guest blogging by definition is that you send a high-quality blog post to an external website (a website that you do not own) in the hopes that it would get featured on their website.
You will find a ton of websites that offer guest posting opportunities and they have created sort of a checklist that you have to follow to get your posts accepted. Things like the word count, topics, linking, etc.
My suggestion would be to write up an amazing blog post that adheres to their policies and then include a backlink to an inner page of your website instead of the homepage. This will let search engines know that you have a very relevant page on your website as well.
Let’s say that I was guest posting an article about back pain for my chiropractor client on a health website. I would include an inner link on my clients’ website that talks more about back pain. And as is always the case with LSI keywords, you should always go for variety over repetition. Backlinks with different anchor texts look a lot more natural to Google.
And it makes sense because it is statistically not probable for a website to receive 50 links with the same anchor text.
Matt Cutts, the former head of Google’s Webspam and Quality Control Team had stated that guest blogging for backlinks is definitely a great way to get backlinks and rank higher on Google as long as everyone adheres to two important things.
First, the content should be unique, engaging to the reader and should be of high quality. If it’s not high-quality content, then there’s no use for guest posting that article. And this also means that article spinning or article rewriting should be avoided.
Second, the posted content should be more than the minimum 300 words. This makes sense because it is very hard to write a high-quality blog post in just 300 words. Some people just use 300 words just as an introduction to the article.
Keeping those two things in mind, you should see guest blogging as an opportunity for you to show the world and to Google that you are an expert in your niche.
There are a ton of people who try to fool Google by buying links and posting low-quality articles. And there is a good reason why you cannot find those websites on page 1.
In conclusion, if you just focus on content curation combined with LSI keywords and sprinkling in guest blogging with backlinks, you will be all set to cover all the bases of your website. And before you know it, you will be sitting on top of page one.
