Is writing good content the best SEO?
-
Hi,
After reading Mr. Shepard's amazing article on the 7 concepts of advanced on-page SEO (https://moz.com/blog/7-advanced-seo-concepts), I decided to share my own experience in hopes of helping others.
I started doing legal SEO back in 2013. At the time I really didn't know much about SEO. My first client (my brother) had recently left the D.A.'s office to become a criminal defense attorney. I told him to write content for the following areas: domestic violence, sex crimes, and homicide.
He finished his first content piece on domestic violence and I was not impressed. It seemed too unique, individualized, and lacked the "generic" feel that many of the currently ranking pages had. Please note that I don't mean "generic" in a negative way. I just mean that his content regarding domestic violence felt too personalized. Granted, his "personalized" approach came from a Deputy D.A. with over 13 years handling domestic violence, sex crimes, and murder cases.
I was inclined to re-write his content, but lacking any experience in criminal law I really had no choice but to use it.
IMPORTANT: Please note that I barely knew any SEO at the time (I hadn't even yet discovered MOZ), and my brother knew, and continues to know, absolutely nothing about SEO. He simply wrote the content from the perspective of an attorney who had spent the better part of 13 years handling these types of cases.
The result? Google: "Los Angeles domestic violence lawyer/attorney", "Los Angeles sex crimes lawyer/attorney", and "Los Angeles homicide attorney." They have held those spots consistently since being published.
I know that MANY other factors contribute to the success of content, but at the time I published them we had few links and very little "technical SEO."
Unfortunately, I started learning "SEO" and applied standard SEO techniques to future content. The result? Never as good as the articles that were written with no SEO in mind.
My purpose in writing this is to help anyone about to tackle a new project or revamp an existing site. Before getting too caught up in the keywords, H tags, and all the other stuff I seem to worry too much about, simply ask yourself - "is this great content?"
Thanks again to the MOZ team for the great advice they have shared over the years. Honestly, I think I sometimes become overly reliant on SEO b/c it seems easier than taking the time to write a great piece of content.
P.s. Any "SEO" stuff you see on the above-mentioned pages was done by me after the pages ranked well.
P.p.s. I don't mean to imply that the above-mentioned pages are perfect, because they are not. My point is that content can rank well even without any emphasis on SEO, as long as the person writing it knows about the subject and takes the time to write something that readers find useful.
-
Thanks for sharing.
This is an interesting case for me. On one hand by writing technical no keyword content he likely drew a lot of technical links to the site due to depth. Links from high authoritative sites like Colleges and Government sites.
On the other hand it may have limited appeal to the general population due to the technical nitty gritty, where they just want to know if "X" firm handle said type of cases and what kind of cost is associated with it. But I could also see how more important high profile clients may find the technical stuff more important as cost is less of an issue.
All and all this was a good read.
Thank you,
Don
-
Thanks for sharing this great story. I am glad that your brother's website is doing so well. His website is ranking well in some very competitive SERPs.
I spend most of my time writing content. I spend almost no time on the "standard jobs of SEO" other than a small amount of keyword research and writing good <title>and <meta description> tags. I believe that the quality of the content (interest level, ease of reading) and how it is presented (interesting images, lots of subheadings to punctuate and facilitate scanning) are very important.</p> <p>Keep up the great work. You made some very valuable observations and thanks again for sharing them here. </p></title>
-
Loved every word of it and yes content is playing the backbone these days when it comes to ethical SEO. Ideally, Google should consider content as an important ranking factor because this is one thing that users will read and based on it a user will make their buying decisions.
I mean obviously if you are in a competitive niche, just content might not help you win the game but saying that minus content just with titles, meta descriptions, page speed and other ranking factors you can rank well, might be true few years back but defiantly not today!
In the Modern day SEO its safe today that Content is the Trump Card!
-
Good point. It's definitely a "niche" area. Then again, the CPC for "Los Angeles domestic violence attorney" is typically around $50 - $70 per click, which may or may not help assess its competitiveness.
-
Hi mrodriguez1440,
That's a very valid concern. Well, I think the primary reason behind this whole change is google's algorithm updates. Google has become very very smart these days and just pushing content might not get you good ranking these days.
And, may be when you published that content which is not a very common topic for the bloggers, there might have not enough decent quality content on the web (I'm not sure, just thinking aloud).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I need help on how best to do a complicated site migration. Replacing certain pages with all new content and tools, and keeping the same URL's. The rest just need to disappear safely. Somehow.
I'm completely rebranding a website but keeping the same domain. All content will be replaced and it will use a different theme and mostly new plugins. I've been building the new site as a different site in Dev mode on WPEngine. This means it currently has a made-up domain that needs to replace the current site. I know I need to somehow redirect the content from the old version of the site. But I'm never going to use that content again. (I could transfer it to be a Dev site for the current domain and automatically replace it with the click of a button - just as another option.) What's the best way to replace blahblah.com with a completely new blahblah.com if I'm not using any of the old content? There are only about 4 URL'st, such as blahblah.com/contact hat will remain the same - with all content replaced. There are about 100 URL's that will no longer be in use or have any part of them ever used again. Can this be done safely?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brickbatmove1 -
Change of content
Hello, When you do a major change of content on a page I know it takes time to start seeing some results in terms of ranking. Let's say I make a change today expecting to see the first results of that change 2 months from now. Let's say in a month I decide to add some content and make again some minor changes. Do I have to wait another 2 months starting on the date I made my 2 nd changes to see some results or will I see the results of the 1 change as originally planned 2 months after my major content change ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Wordpress.com content feeding into site's subdomain, who gets SEO credit?
I have a client who had created a Wordpress.com (not Wordpress.org) blog, and feeds blog posts into a subdomain blog.client-site.com. My understanding was that in terms of SEO, Wordpress.com would still get the credit for these posts, and not the client, but I'm seeing conflicting information. All of the posts are set with permalinks on the client's site, such as blog.client-site.com/name-of-post, and when I run a Google site:search query, all of those individual posts appear in the Google search listings for the client's domain. Also, I've run a marketing.grader.com report, and these same results are seen. Looking at the source code on the page, however, I see this information which leads me to believe the content is being credited to, and fed in from, Wordpress.com ('client name' altered for privacy): href="http://client-name.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster.jpeg">class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2050" title="Could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster" src="http://client-name.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster.jpeg?w=150&h=143" I'm looking to provide a recommendation to the client on whether they are ok to continue moving forward with this current setup, or whether we should port the blog posts over to a subfolder on their primary domain www.client-site.com/blog and use Wordpress.org functionality, for proper SEO. Any advice?? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grapevinemktg0 -
What is the best route SEO wise for implementing a Wordpress blog that has a domain under go daddy and hosting under a third party like Kalio Commerce?
I am currently trying to implement a Blog on a Ecommerce site that has its domain set up under Go Daddy, but it is hosted under a platform called Kalio Commerce. I am trying to implement a Wordpress blog because I am most familiar with it and believe it offers more strength SEO wise but the Ecommmerce platform by Kalio does not offer the ability to install Wordpress or any CMS platform other than its own. I am stuck wondering if I could find a way to either implement a blog through a sub-folder (mydomain.com/blog) while using wordpress on hosting added to the go daddy server under their domain. If Kalio Commerce doesn't have any way of adding a blog to its own hosting is this hindering my clients ability to be fully optimized for fresh content? Now I am not too familiar with adding sub-domains with hosting under a different platform. I am more in tune with building a wordpress ecommerce site and implementing blogs under the wordpress structure. This is a leap for me and it is getting to be a little overwhelming so if any one has prior experience with this please let me know if I can find a way through this without putting my SEO consulting at risk. So far I have gotten to the conclusion that I can set up hosting for the companies site under Go Daddy even though they have their hosting under Kalio. If I am to set up hosting under Go Daddy would this cause the DNS routing to be compromised. If this is so must I set up hosting under a separate domain (myotherdomian.com) and have Kalio set up a Sub-Folder like so (mydomain.com/blog) and just have the DNS of the blog installed on (myotherdomain.com) point to the folder in Kalio hosting for mydomain.com? So now that I explained my situation, what is the best route SEO wise for implementing a Wordpress blog that has a domain under go daddy and hosting under a third party like Kalio Commerce?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cscoville0 -
Do you think Link:Content Ratio counts in SEO?
We posted the same question in Quora. But hope to get responses or test results from SEOMOzers. This might help Google for identifying: High Link:Content Ratio = Parked Domain
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | arousta
Moderate Link:Content Ratio = Directory Site
Relatively High Link:Content Ratio = Normal Website
Very High Link:Content Ratio = Article page or Blog Do you think Google is using it, especially during Panda Update? I am trying to find a reasonable cause of many situations like the PR of deep links or category pages in Directory sites has vanished. And if that has something to do with it.0 -
Mobile SEO vs. normal SEO?
Hi everyone, I wanted to ask you abour your opinon on mobile SEO. Do we already have two different Indices, one for mobile, one for desktop? Except a few mobile listings I don't see a difference yet. If yes, do I need to do special mobile SEO for my site or is it enough to have e.g. a responsive webdesign which detects the device and shows a different page? Are there any other extra Mobile SEO measures that should be considered? I know of the Mobile Sitemap and directories but is there anything else? Best regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CrazySEO0 -
SEO vs 301
I have a website about "Download of games" and im planning open one about "games online" i know that "games online" its super hard to get good ranks, soo im thinking and do a 301 from my website of "download games" to my new website, do you think that is a good strategy ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nafera21 -
"Original Content" Dynamic Hurting SEO? -- Strategies for Differentiating Template Websites for a Nationwide Local Business Segment?
The Problem I have a stable of clients spread around the U.S. in the maid service/cleaning industry -- each client is a franchisee, however their business is truly 'local' with a local service area, local phone/address, unique business name, and virtually complete control over their web presence (URL, site design, content; apart from a few branding guidelines). Over time I've developed a website template with a high lead conversion rate, and I've rolled this website out to 3 or 4 dozen clients. Each client has exclusivity in their region/metro area. Lately my white hat back linking strategies have not been yielding the results they were one year ago, including legitimate directories, customer blogging (as compelling as maid service/cleaning blogs can really be!), and some article writing. This is expected, or at least reflected in articles on SEO trends and directory/article strategies. I am writing this question because I see sites with seemingly much weaker back link profiles outranking my clients (using SEOMoz toolbar and Site Explorer stats, and factoring in general quality vs. quantity dynamics). Questions Assuming general on-page optimization and linking factors are equal: Might my clients be suffering because they're using my oft-repeated template website (albeit with some unique 'content' variables)? If I choose to differentiate each client's website, how much differentiation makes sense? Specifically: Even if primary content (copy, essentially) is differentiated, will Google still interpret the matching code structure as 'the same website'? Are images as important as copy in differentiating content? From an 'machine' or algorithm perspective evaluating unique content, I wonder if strategies will be effective such as saving the images in a different format, or altering them slightly in Photoshop, or using unique CSS selectors or slightly different table structures for each site (differentiating the code)? Considerations My understanding of Google's "duplicate content " dynamics is that they mainly apply to de-duping search results at a query specific level, and choosing which result to show from a pool of duplicate results. My clients' search terms most often contain client-specific city and state names. Despite the "original content" mantra, I believe my clients being local businesses who have opted to use a template website (an economical choice), still represent legitimate and relevant matches for their target user searches -- it is in this spirit I ask these questions, not to 'game' Google with malicious intent. In an ideal world my clients would all have their own unique website developed, but these are Main St business owners balancing solutions with economics and I'm trying to provide them with scalable solutions. Thank You! I am new to this community, thank you for any thoughts, discussion and comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localizedseo0