There are a lot of theories going around on how to rank websites after everything that Google has done to ensure the quality of their search results.
In this blog post series I’m going to share with you a system for building and ranking websites that has been working for me and that I think will work from here on end.
The first and most important component of this system is quality and engaging content.
This ranking model is built around quality and engaging content, for it to work your website must provide relevant, actionable and engaging information, this is the base of everything.
And it’s what causes visitors to engage with your website and with your products, here’s a screen shot that shows the engagement level of one of my niche sites.
Google bots are giving a lot of ranking weight to user engagement and the above image shows the parameters they are looking at; Page Views, Time on Site and Bounce Rate.
So here’s how to make your content engaging:
The first step is to do keyword research and find out what people in your niche are searching for, what issues they need help with, what are the most common questions, etc.
Try to identify at least 10 (but the more the better) long tail keywords with nice search volume in your niche to build your site around.
Why long tail keywords?
It’s much easier to build engaging content for long tail keywords.
For which of these 2 keywords could you create more engaging content?
“Dog food”
Or
“Best Dog food for German Shepard”
The long tail keyword gives you a better idea of what people want and so it’s easier to create targeted content for it.
OK, so now that you have your 10 (or more) long tail keywords selected write or outsource the creation of one high quality article for each. The articles should be around 500 words long. Whether you are creating the articles or outsourcing them make sure they are well research, well written and engaging.
But just having a great article it’s not enough, you need to also have some images and a relevant video to keep your visitors engaged with the page.
What I do is I turn the articles into videos by creating power point presentations based on them and then turning those power points presentations into videos. These videos must be high quality, with narration and background music. Remember, you want to engage your visitors and an ugly video just doesn’t cut it anymore.
And at the end of each video I always put a call to action (sign up, check out the link below, etc.)
Here’s a blog post series on how to create high quality videos:
- www.stealthkca.com/a-proven-formula-to-create-money-making-videos-part-1
- www.stealthkca.com/a-proven-formula-to-create-money-making-videos-part-2
- www.stealthkca.com/a-proven-formula-to-create-money-making-videos-part-3
You also have the option of looking for a relevant video on YouTube and using that instead, but I prefer to create my own videos.
Creating engaging content is the first and most important component of the evergreen ranking formula and the best part is that quality content not only helps your website rank on the first page and stay there but it also builds trust with your websites visitors because they will see you as someone that provides value and they’ll be more inclined to reciprocate.
In the upcoming blog posts of this series I will share with you:
- How to choose your domain name
- How to structure your site
- On page SEO
- The one thing you should do before building backlinks
- And the safest and most efficient backlink method
I’ll be posting part 2 next week.
In the meantime please share your thoughts or opinions on this first component of the ranking formula by leaving a comment below.
Thanks.
Comments 10
Creation of content is, of course, important. But, equally important, is finding quality sites to publish the content on.
Just publishing content to ariticle/ezine sites doesn’t seem to work anymore. Google seems to give much greater relevance to the content if it is published to a site focused on your niche, quality control their content, and are reviewed/approved by human editors. And, the same content shouldn’t be published to more than a few sites.
The Google algorithms also seem to not like writing for keyword phrases. Instead, use the long tail keywords as a focus for the article theme. Splattering the article with keywords for the sake of keywords will probably hurt Google’s view of the article’s authority.
The real problem I face is where to find the quality sites — content creation/keyword theming I can take care of.
Author
Hi Nick,
This blog post series will outline the method I’m using to create authority blog type sites that attract a lot of traffic.
Your site will be the quality site
Next week I’ll share with you where I place my keywords (on page SEO)
Hi Alex,
I have enjoyed your post and look forward to receiving the series. I will find it very helpful as I need a lot of assistance in this area. I have a real difficulty driving traffic to my site and would appreciate all the help that I can get.
Thanks
Vinton
Author
Hi Vinton,
The coming posts in this series will really help you a lot then.
In the meantime if you want to get almost instant traffic to your site check out this blog post: http://www.stealthkca.com/how-to-get-0-03-likes-in-competitive-niches-and-turn-them-into-customers
Thanks for the info, Alex. Looking forward to the series. I’m also having big fun with G font. 🙂
Author
Hi Kriss,
Happy to hear you are enjoying G-Font
Alex thanks for the updated keywords research info. When can we expect the next series of blog posts
Author
You are welcome AB
You’ll get Part 2 next week
Hi.
Thanks for a great blog post, and a great reminder of basic SEO.
Those videos you are referring to in your blog post, where do you host them to make sure that the Google spider is giving the credit to your website? Do you host it on your own server or can you host it on YouTube and embed it into the blog post?
Author
Thank you Oddvar,
I usually host them on YouTube