Dos & Don’ts For Well Ranking Content

No matter how well-written your content is, if it doesn’t rank well, then it doesn’t reach your in tended audience. But how can you make sure that your content will rank? How do other people manage to snag that top spot? There are some tips and tricks to create content that ranks and some things you want to avoid. The length of your article, contents, the topic, the layout, the writing style, and even the website it’s published on will impact how well it does. Here are the definite Dos & Don’ts for well-ranking content.

Do: For Well Ranking Content

Here are some of the golden rules of content and what you should do to ensure that your content ranks as high as possible. Consider it a checklist of sorts, and pay attention to every aspect separately. They are all equally important.

Evergreen content

One of the essential features of your content is for it to be evergreen. That means you should strive to create content that applies to a broad audience, is relevant, and stands the test of time.

What this does is ensure that your content will be searched for, read, and shared time and time again over the years. This helps build and solidify its success. Pieces that are highly topical or fad-ish will become irrelevant quickly.

Guides, How To posts, infographics, and industry trend pieces are all long-form content that stands the test of time and will always be in demand and searched for.

Relevant & valuable content

The most successful content that stands the test of time is the one that provides value for the reader. It’s not just about producing a quality piece of writing but about the content adding value and answering a need or question for the reader.

That’s where relevance comes in – the kiss of death for content is for it not to be relevant enough to the topic and what the reader is looking for. Gone are the days when every online article was meaningless and keyword stuffed. That doesn’t fly today.

Your content needs to address a specific need and provide relevant information. If you write an article titled “How to attract more followers,” your piece has to deliver the best and most relevant information on this topic to rank the highest. High-quality content also increases your chances of being considered a valuable resource. The better you are, the more other people will link to your content on their website.

Readable & shareable content

Readability and shareability go hand-in-hand these days, and they are both critical. Your content must be easy to read to keep the reader engaged. Make it easy for them with short sentences, short paragraphs, and clear writing without many embellishments. Don’t just think about the words you’re writing, but also the negative space around them.

That’s also what’s going to make it highly shareable. You want the reader to get the gist of the piece quickly, to read it quickly and easily, and to be prompted to share it with their audience or network quickly.

Content structured as a How-To piece, a guide, or a listicle is easy to read and digest while providing valuable content. You don’t need walls of text to make pertinent points

Authoritative content based on sources

You must have the authority to have the best content on the topic and rank highly. You add it by backing up your writing with sources and references. It’s not enough to make claims; you want to show where you got your information, hopefully linking to a high-authority site as a source.

That shows the reader that the information is thoroughly researched, verified, and trustworthy. That way, they have the proof of quality and will, in turn, link to your article as a source in their content, which adds authority to your domain and helps you rank higher.

Don’t: For Well Ranking Content

Equally important are the Don’ts. Here are the things you should not be doing, or that might be currently coming in between your content and the high ranking they deserve

Content that is too long or too short

Making your content the correct length is half the battle. What’s going to get more shares? Long-form content and short-form content are both valuable and necessary.

Neither of them is better, but they’re better suited for different types of content. If you’re writing a social media post, an email, or a news article, you want short-form content under 1000 words. If you write too much, you risk making it too long or too wordy, and the point gets easily lost.

Short-form content doesn’t allow you to go as in-depth as you need if you’re aiming for a longer article, a how-to post, or even a whitepaper. You end up with a simple piece of content that is too short to contain the quality information it should. In this instance, long-form content (1000-1200 words+) is the correct choice.

Out of date information

Do you have content that once ranked great but gets lost in a sea of better-performing content? It may be a matter of your content becoming outdated. You see, one of the ways you keep content “evergreen” is to take the time to update it from time to time and make sure it’s still relevant in 2022.

Especially if the content is time-specific (“i.e., Best Marketing Trends Of 2021”), it’s essential to get it up to date because that will help boost it back up again. Whenever someone searches for “marketing trends 2022”, your piece will pop up instead of remaining forgotten in the depths of outdated, 2021-specific content.

Bandwagon content

There is a difference between topical and relevant content and trendy content or part of a short-lived fad. Topical content posted promptly is essential to a successful content strategy, but fad content does not have the same long-term relevance.

So, while it may be tempting to jump on the bandwagon to get lots of clicks this week, by next week, people will have moved on, the topic will be forgotten about, and no one will ever search for or read this piece of content ever again. That means you can’t get the cumulative traffic you would on an evergreen piece on a topic that is not as highly specific.

Not optimizing your website for mobile

Your content may be well-written, valuable, relevant, high-quality, and super shareable – but is your website good enough to support it? You can write the best content on the market, but if your readers can’t navigate your website to read it, then it’s not getting read, shared, or linked to, which means you miss out.

A whopping 92.1% of users access the internet on their phones. There is no excuse for your website not to be optimized for mobile, so that should be your priority. You’ll also want to check your loading speed and image optimization. Any of these aspects may contribute to a higher bounce rate.

Final Thoughts

Creating content that ranks well is crucial to every successful SEO strategy, but it’s not as simple as creating and publishing any content. There are a million moving parts and aspects to think about – and some Dos and Don’ts can help you determine the best moves to ensure your content ranks well.

Creating evergreen content should be at the top of your priority list instead of following content fads and trends. They’re fun and bring traffic at the moment, but not long-term. You also always want to provide value for your reader – stay on topic, keep your content informational, and cite trustworthy sources. I hope that will determine others to use you as a reliable source.

Please always make sure to choose the best length for the type of content you are posting for maximum impact and shareability – these are the things that determine whether or not your article gets shared with huge audiences

About the Author

Thelma Wagner

Thelma Wagner is a blog writer for the Internet Advisor Blog. Besides her daily blog, she also enjoys writing content about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Link Building strategies, Digital Marketing and Keyword Optimization. Besides her passion for writing, she loves to travel, cook for her family and hike around the local trails in NH, where she lives
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