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Content by humans, for humans: how to write good content for SEO

filed under: Digital Marketing, Website Optimization

High-quality content has long been a mainstay of good SEO strategy. But what does that even mean these days, especially with all of the buzz about AI and AI-generated content? Read on to find out.

What Google has been doing (and other algorithm news)

There’s been a lot of change this year.

The first thing to note is that in May, portions of Google’s search algorithm were leaked to the public. The leaked data is dense - big kudos to the folks who have analyzed it and shared some general learnings with us. From our reading of the learnings, there were no fireworks in terms of SEO revelations. Instead it was more confirmation of some things we already knew. As Michelle Hawley shares in her State of SEO article, the leaked info confirmed that things like the following still matter:

Domain and site authority
Backlinks
E-E-A-T
Article publish dates

In other search algorithm news, Google rolled out an update to curtail spam content in March, as well as a core algorithm update that same month. The spam update aimed to significantly reduce spam content in search results (by 45%), while the core update integrated the “helpful content system” into Google’s core ranking system. Translation: what constitutes “helpful content” to Google now has multiple indicators, instead of just a single, standalone ranking signal.

So what does it all mean?

Assuming you’ve been writing useful content, there’s not necessarily much you need to change. As Google’s Chris Nelson said earlier this year: there’s nothing new or special that creators need to do for this [latest SEO] update as long as they’ve been making satisfying content meant for people.

Write useful content for people, not search engines

The long and short of it is: be a real person and write content for other real people to help them do whatever they’re trying to do online. Okay, so you can use AI to write some of your content too, but your content still has to be useful and should follow Google’s E-E-A-T content guidelines.

Wait what? (Too many acronyms!) What is E-E-A-T?

A quick overview in case you aren’t familiar with E-E-A-T - it’s a set of search quality guidelines that Google uses to evaluate the quality of content. Though it’s not technically an SEO ranking factor, it’s still very important to the SEO success of your content and one that Google places high value on. Paying attention to E-E-A-T in content helps Google serve up better search results.

So what do the letters stand for and how do you do it well?

E = Experience: questions to ask: do you have first-hand experience with the topic that you’re writing about? Are you sharing those first-hand experiences in your content?
E = Expertise: this refers to topical expertise, or the unique qualifications that you have that give you expertise in the topic that you’re writing about.
A = Authoritativeness: questions to ask: what is your reputation in your industry? Are you known as a leader in your field? Do people know you, know your background, and look to you as a leader in your industry? Do they accept you as a good source of information? Are other authorities in your industry linking back to your content?
T = Trustworthiness: this covers the creator, content and the website itself. Make sure your content is accurate and is citing sources that are legitimate.

So what’s next?

The SEO field is changing fast and it requires agility to stay on top of current best practices. That said, writing high-quality content that helps your users out is the refrain that SEOs have returned to over the years. You definitely want to keep it in your toolkit.

And if you need help with this or other SEO topics, let us know!