So here at the beginning of the year, there are many who are sitting and filing on their content plan for 2021. What type of content will catch the readers’ attention and how do you improve an article’s search engine optimization ? SEMrush recently published an interesting article about content that stands out from the crowd. With data from over 700,000 articles online, I can state that they are probably justified in their claims.
1. Write long articles
There is a clear connection between the length of an article and how much traffic it receives. SEMrush compared long articles (over 3,000 words) with articles of average length (901 to 1,200 words). Roughly speaking, long articles get 3 times as much traffic, 4 times as many shares on social media and 3.5 times as many links.
So, how do you do it?
If you are going to create new content, it will be to do a detailed keyword analysis and plan the layout carefully. Create added value for readers. Think about their intention.
If you already have a number of short articles on your site, it may be time to expand them. There may be an effect in the ranking already after a few weeks. This technology can also be used to create content that beats the competition. Find an article that ranks well in Google and try to create something that is both longer and better. It should be added that it may not be the length itself that is a ranking factor. But a long article that gives the reader more meat on the bone is also seen as a better resource by Google. So: do not create empty and repetitive content just to make the article long.
2. Use long H1s
It is an art to write good headlines that make visitors want to read your article. The main headline in the form of H1 has a greater significance than many people think.
A long H1 generates on average twice as much traffic from Google and twice as many shares on social media. Perhaps even more exciting was that it leads to around five times as many links! How long should H1s be? According to statistics, it is best to have at least 14 words in H1. If you have “only” 10-13 words in the main title, the chances decrease, but they are still pretty good.
How is it that?
The most likely explanation is that long titles stand out better from the crowd. You can poke more benefits into the title . Last but not least, the click area in the search results also increases and it can not hurt. The result is a higher CTR in the SERP.
3. Feel free to suggest a list already in H1
There are several ways to get traffic by designing the H1 correctly. You have the greatest chance of attracting visitors if you suggest that the article contains a list. It can generate twice as much traffic as a randomly selected H1. The number of shares on social media also tends to be twice as large.
For example, it can look like this: “7 things that everyone feels good about”.
At the same time, it’s not all about lists. To get traffic, it works almost as well to suggest that the article is a guide or a step-by-step instruction. To get shares on social media, lists are completely superior but step-by-step also works well. To maximize the chance of getting links, step-by-step guides or questions in H1 are actually best.
Tip: There are several tools online to find common issues.
4. Use H2 and H3
A page without paragraphs and subheadings at least makes us press the back button fairly quickly. It’s not readable. Search engines are increasingly rewarding readability. Many and clear subheadings make it easier to get through the content and scroll. Therefore, it is not so surprising to see that articles that have sub-headings in several levels tend to perform better.
SEMrush showed that the articles that perform best online in 36 percent of cases use both H2 and H3 as subheadings. Articles with only H2 accounted for 29 percent. The articles that lacked subheadings completely accounted for 24 percent of the best-performing articles. The relationship was reversed in the articles that performed poorly – here it was unusual with H2 and H3. However, believing that it will be better to add another level, H4, is a mistake. Too many headline levels showed no effect on the results.
Bonus tips: Questions in subheadings
Enter some H2s and H3s as questions and answer them in the paragraph below. This usually leads to extra traffic from Google. You can dig up relevant questions in tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs and keywordtool.io. The free Answer the Public tool can also be helpful.
5. Lists in the article give better results
Lists seem to be popular – not only as a hint in H1 but also in the text itself. By adding bulleted lists of different kinds a little here and there in the text, the chances of getting more traffic to the page increase. Perhaps a little surprising was the number of lists. For best results, apply five lists per 500 words. That’s quite a lot. At the same time, a single list is still better than no list at all – at least to increase the number of page views. If you want to increase the chances of getting many shares on social media and get many links to the page, it also turned out to be positive with many lists.
If you want the help of a Local SEO Expert to improve your current content and your ongoing production, get in touch.
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