These days, one of SEO’s biggest trump card is unique, interesting content. A lot of people don’t like to hear this, because creating good, SEO friendly content takes time: interesting blog posts don’t write themselves, and valuable community information pages don’t pop into existence overnight.
Okay, so content is important. But a lot of people are still confused about what we mean when we say “unique, interesting content”. Doesn’t any old content do? As long as my keywords are there, then I’m golden, right? How does the search engine know what “good content” and “bad content” looks like?
Deep Content & Why It Matters
Think about your own searches. If you were in the market to buy a car and weren’t sure where to start — there are a lot of makes and models out there — you’d probably turn to a search engine. Maybe you like to get hands-on as quickly as possible, so you just want to know which local dealerships are reputable. Or perhaps you haven’t decided whether you want to buy new or used, so you want a better idea of the pros and cons. Or maybe you want to do some research on this year’s new makes and models before you even set foot in a dealership, so you can start to narrow your choices.
Imagine you did a search for “best compact cars of 2013” and the top results you clicked on had almost no content. Just a list of makes and models, with maybe average prices and some fuel economy stats. How useful is that to you? Does it answer your question? Probably not. You want to know more! Which model is most reliable? Which one is better for city driving versus highway driving? Which one is less expensive to repair? What options are available? Can you get heated seats? How about a heated steering wheel? (It’s Canada after all, gotta keep warm!)
Deep vs Shallow Content
In the last couple of years, Google has really focused on improving how its algorithms understand the difference between good quality content and poor quality content. We all know poor quality content when we read it: it’s almost always vague and over-generalized, relying on information everyone already knows, or information of no real value.
Here’s a practical example. First, a low quality piece of content about the community I live in here in Edmonton:
“The community of Oliver in Edmonton is a great place to live. You can find houses, condominiums, apartments, and townhouses in Oliver. There are a lot of cafes, restaurants, parks, and other amenities nearby. Communting times are short to downtown Edmonton.”
Well… yes. But couldn’t you say that about almost any community? The above copy doesn’t give you any information you wouldn’t have been able to figure out for yourself, even if you didn’t know anything about the community. The most specific piece of information you can get from the above paragraph is that Oliver is close to downtown.
In short, the above content is shallow. It has no depth, and because of it, has very little value.
So how do we do better? Let’s try again.
“Oliver is one of Edmonton’s most dense communities, with a mixture of low- and high-rise apartment and condo buildings dominating the local real estate market. New buildings are popping up along the river valley, which borders Oliver on the south, and with an influx of new residents over the last 10 years the area has also seen a rise in the number of trendy dinner and night spots. Here you’ll find Famoso Pizza, Elm Cafe, Wild Tangerine, Bistro India, and a ton of other great locally owned eateries. You can walk or bike to work from Oliver, which is only 15-20 minutes from downtown Edmonton, and outdoor enthusiasts love living along the river valley with its many trails and parks, including Victoria Park, the Victoria Golf Course, Emily Murphy Park, and the MacKinnon Ravine.”
The above content is a much better start. There’s specific information about Oliver and the amenities you’ll find there. If you didn’t know anything about Oliver, you can start to get a “feel” for the community here, that it’s a centre for revitalization in the city, that there are a lot of unique restaurants and cafes in the area, and that it’s located on the River Valley and has access to its interconnected trails.
Create Better Content: Get Specific
You can see how easy it would be to build out content when you start thinking specifically. If you’re writing about a community, imagine you had someone in your car and were giving them a tour: What would you show them? Why? What would they see as they drive with you on the streets?
If you’re writing about your services, think about what makes your approach different from other peoples. Everyone knows what a REALTOR® “does” – help people buy and sell homes – but what does that mean? What makes you really good at it? Why should people pick you over someone else? What makes you unique? What makes you more fun to work with? Or more efficient to work with?
What about if you’re writing a post about Home Staging? Again, get specific! Talk about one of your real-world experiences with staging and how it helped sell a home. Talk about what staging can’t do. Talk about the use of staging in a particular market: does staging help more with selling condos or houses? Is there a particular kind of real estate where staging is critical? Why do you think staging has been beneficial to your clients in the past?
Keywords Are Important, Users Are More Important
It’s important not to forget about keywords when it comes to creating content, but in our experience good quality content that users find interesting or helpful pretty much optimizes itself, you just can’t go wrong.
Here’s the best way to approach keywords and content:
First: Write something useful. Think about who’s reading it, not what search engine is spidering it, and impress that person. Answer a question, provide valuable information, or an opinion that will help someone make a decision. Don’t even think about search engines when you’re writing the first draft, think about the people reading it.
Second: Read it over and think: “If I was looking for this answer, what would I search for?” So if you’ve written a post about why someone would buy a condo over buying a townhouse, what would you search for? Probably something like “condo vs townhouse pros and cons” or “Edmonton condos vs Edmonton townhouses”.
Third: Make sure those keywords are somewhere in your content. They don’t have to be every second phrase, but if they appear 1- 3 times in the copy, that would be great. If you can work the phrase (or something similar) into the title of your post, even better!
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