SEO is easy!

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things that contribute to good SEO. Here at Adept we take care of the small things that you don’t need to worry about. But there is one metric that absolutely crushes all other SEO optimizations, and it’s the one you have 100% control over.

#1: Content

Let’s say your web developer does everything right (if it’s us, we will). Great UX, fantastic site structure, snappy site performance, proper tagging and all that. Then let’s say that your competition does it all wrong. You will still be losing in SEO rankings if your content is subpar. There is no magic tech or secret sauce, it’s purely the quality of your content.

Then the question is: “how do I create good content”? Well, you could hire a team to do a bunch of research for you, they might give you a bunch of keywords to use, phrases to inject into your writing, and probably more services to pay for. That will get you somewhere… but I have a far more time and cost-efficient strategy for you: write about what’s important.

You know what’s important, because it’s your industry. You understand the biggest issues, the most important topics, the answers to the questions that your customers have. List those things out on a napkin and write about them. Answer the questions, tell the people what you know. Fill your site with this sort of content, share it, and update consistently. That’s it – that’s all you need to do.

Was that anticlimactic? Great! It was supposed to be. But I guess we can go into the other stuff.

#2: Backlinks

Some people hear “backlink” and immediately tune out. “What’s a backlink!? That sounds technical!”. But it’s not scary at all. A backlink is simply a link to your site that’s posted somewhere else on the web. Here’s how it works.

Google is constantly looking at websites and collecting information about them. Google then uses that information to index the site and will serve it to people who are looking for that information. But when Google looks at a site, it’s also looking at the links on that site which are pointing to other sites. Here’s a quick example. Let’s say Google is looking at an article posted on The New York Times, if that article has a link to your site, your site essentially gains credibility. It’s like a voucher system – if a reputable site has a link to yours, Google will interpret that as an indication that your site is trustworthy.

So then, what’s the best way to get people to link to your site? It’s simple! Great content!

#3: User time spent on your site

If a user searches Google and they click on to your site, Google essentially starts a timer. If the user leaves your site right away and makes another search or clicks on a different link, it’s a signal to Google that they didn’t find what they were looking for. If they don’t return to search for a long time, Google can guess that they did find what they were looking for.

I’ll give you one guess. What might make a user stay on your site when they click a link? Yup. Content.

At this point I’m starting to feel like a broken record. Sure, there are lots of other, more technical aspects that play a part in SEO, but at this point you know 90% of it. Being an expert in the field inherently makes you an expert on SEO.

So go now, create some good content and claim victory. With great power and all that.