Content is a very important part of online marketing, particularly SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and we find that most small business owners wildly underestimate how much content is ‘enough.’
Website content has two main purposes within SEO;
- Search Query Relevancy – To add more keywords to the website which makes it relevant for a greater number of search queries
- Link Attraction – To add value to the website so it can attract inbound links (links pointing from another website to your website)
Before we go any further we should define our terms. When we talk about ‘content’ we generally mean information in any form such as articles, slide decks, videos, audio, images etc. However, for the first purpose above we need to focus on content that Google can understand. They’re getting better but still have trouble with images, video and audio so the focus needs to be on textual content. The other mediums work well for the second purpose though because they have a high perceived value and therefore help to attract links.
Search Query Relevancy
It only takes a few keywords on a page for Google to get a basic understanding of what that page is about but the more related keywords you add increases Google’s understanding of the topic and helps them more accurately match it with relevant search queries. We generally recommend keeping each page dedicated to one topic so to cover more topics you need to add more pages. Ideally you want Google to be able to associate your website with every relevant search query that could potentially lead to a sale.
I know that’s fairy opened ended so here’s a list of content types that we create for clients and think you should have on your website too;
- A detailed information page for each of your services (300+ words per page)
- A case study or hypothetical case study for each major customer type that you are trying to target. The case studies should include information unique to that customer type or job e.g. location, their specific problem, the specific solution you can/did provide etc. (think in the range of 10-20 case studies, each with its own page)
- A FAQ page answering every question you could possibly receive from potential customers, not just the top ten most frequent ones. Put a brief answer on the FAQ page then expand any that could do with expanding by giving it a separate page or blog post as well. Record the questions you get from customers in person, on the phone and by email and update your FAQs to answer any new questions you receive (think in the vicinity of 20+ pages dedicated to customer questions plus the central ‘FAQ’ page with the summaries
Link Attraction
The number and quality of inbound links is one of the primary metrics Google uses to decide who should rank where in their search results. Therefore its very important to get as many links from high quality websites as possible. The best way to do this is to create high quality content on your website and promote it to attract links. There’s definitely a quality vs quantity issue here. A high volume of low quality content probably won’t be very successful at attracting links where as a low volume of high quality content will have a much better chance of producing results. So focus on high quality but remember your job of content creation for generating links is never finished.
Can you ever have too much Content?
Despite my general thesis so far – ‘the more content the better’ – I think there are some situations where adding more content can have a negative effect on results. Those include;
- When you have so much content that website visitors can’t find the information they are looking for easily – this can be overcome by having a good website structure
- When the drive for volume impacts the quality of the content. If you have too much low quality content you will be at risk of the ‘Panda’ algorithm
- When your resources could be better spent elsewhere – the opportunity cost problem, more on that below
Opportunity Cost
At some point your resources will be better spent on activities other than content creation. Its a bit hard to make a direct comparison here because it really depends on what results these other activities can produce but its definitely something to keep in mind. As a guide, you should definitely be spending the same amount of time or more promoting your content as you are creating it.
Keep an eye on your analytics and if you start to see your results drop off even as you continue to create more content, then it might be worth shifting your resources to other activities.
Conclusion
Content is a very important part of your white hat SEO strategy. You want to create content which covers search queries related to your products and services and that attracts inbound links. If you achieve both of these things with the same content then that’s great but generally you’ll find it easier to create separate content for each objective.
Most small business websites have no where near enough content so its time to start creating.
P.S. We know that most business owners are not great writers and that they are already VERY busy. That’s why we’ve made content creation a central part of all of our SEO Packages. Check them out if you’d like to get started today.