When it comes to SEO, the value of your site’s content is paramount. A site can actually be penalized if it copies content, duplicates it over multiple pages or aggregates too much. What kind of content should you be creating and posting to your blog?
Originality is Rewarded
This doesn’t mean you have to do a ton of research and create a new law or theory about your topic or niche, although that would be the epidome of originality. Originality in web content means presenting it in your voice. Look, there’s nothing new in the world. Everything has been written, even the topic of this post, but it is a new retelling. It is different from all the others in the way it presents the information. So don’t try to reinvent the wheel. When writing for your blog just find some topics that you know about and inject your own insights.
Meta Data: Keywords, Title, Alt
Search engines don’t actually know what you are writing about. They make educated guesses based on the content, the placement of keywords and repetition of those keywords. If an web page is about a band’s album release, then it stands to reason the keywords “Album release” should be either in the title, and if not, then most definitely in the first sentence of the first paragraph and should be used more than once in the article.
A picture is words a thousand words, except on the internet. Search engines can’t see! To let them know what an image is about it should have a file name, title attribute and alt attribute that describe the image. A search engine will read the attributes and add SEO value to the post.
Duplicate Content Hurts
Its easy to find content on the internet, copy it, and use it as your own. Not only is this copyright infringement, but your site will most likely be penalized for not having unique content. That’s not to say quoting another site is bad, search engines, believe-it-or-not are able to tell the difference between copied and quoted material. So, go back and reread the paragraph about originality and prosper.
Take these tid-bits of advice and use keywords research tools, proper page structure and attributes, and create unique content that will help boost your SEO value.
