Who is more important to please on your website – Google or humans?
The latest Google algorithm puts great store on engaging content. Long-form content. Content that answers questions, in depth.
It’s great news for all copywriters like me who have been banging that drum for months and years. Too often, clients and the public have this general view that to climb Google page rankings, you need to address keywords, gather some backlinks, add H1 titles, craft a tasty metadescription and Bob’s your uncle, page one is cemented.
If only.
If SEO were that simple, I’d charge you a day rate to sort it all. But it’s not. A website has to satisfy two entities – Google and humans and the assumption has always been that if Google is sated, rankings will follow. The new algorithm, released on Google Developers, last week, scotches this fallacy.
Searchengineland sums up the update eloquently:
Google has started to roll out the new helpful content update that it pre-announced last week.
As a reminder, Google’s helpful content update is a sitewide signal. It targets websites that have a relatively high amount of unsatisfying or unhelpful content, where the content is written for search engines first. Here’s a good example of helpful content on Exit Plans, by Liam Chester, of Cala Associates, a Glasgow accountancy firm.
In short, did you write that piece of content to rank on Google or did you write it to help users?
Horse’s mouth right there. It is likely that sites that have ranked highly before may seem ranks slip. The key here from Google itself is making content that helps users.
I’m expecting that many of the businesses who retain me to blog will see page ranking improvements. My mantra, as an English teacher of 27 years standing, web designer, copywriter, has been to help users: students. clients and the public.
You can read the full summary here too.
So the title’s question is answered emphatically. People first, search second.
Now what this doesn’t mean is that a website providing helpful content will suddenly be catapulted into the big time of page one spotlight on Google. No. Helpful content is a major ranking factor, but there are others, many others – around 200 factors I once read.
I’m not a human encyclopaedia – I do have a sharp memory for a man of my years, but I can’t rattle off the other 199 factors. And you wouldn’t want me to.
Instead, let’s pick 10 others that I think are significant – not from me second guessing the algorithm but from me writing copy and designing websites since 1st November 2015, when I was forcefully ejected from education, deciding a new door had to be opened for fulfilment: Get Pro Copy Ltd was born.
SITE SPEED.
You can have the most helpful content ever online but if that video introduction is throttling your site load speed, or your hosting company has never mentioned a CDN, you’re on a loser. A CDN is a speed boost and it should be your first action to improve SEO. Content Delivery Network, if you’re puzzled.
A CDN (content delivery network), also called a content distribution network, is a group of geographically distributed and interconnected servers. They provide cached internet content from a network location closest to a user to speed up its delivery.
If your website is not using a CDN, drop me a message and Gareth and I can arrange for the site to be moved to us, to give it turbo power.
IMAGE SIZES.
Stock images or photos you’ve had taken professionally are great – we all love a visual experience. The problem, I’ve learned though, is that uncompressed images are massive in size. Your images need to be 1280 x 854, if landscape, 72 pixels per inch and under 300kb. Head to Pixabay, Unsplash, Shutterstock and marvel at the copyright-free photography, but hitting download of the biggest one is a folly.
They need adjusting in size and professionally compressing – I used a Premium browser tool called TinyPng, which looks like some shoddy 80s package, but is actually great. You can see it here. The issue though is that this software will get throttled if you add a 10MB photo to it. You have to do some manual cutting before upload and then let that panda do its magic. You can then have other plugins installed in your WordPress site (WP Optimise is great) to shave more off the size.
A LEAN HOME PAGE.
I’ll hold my hands up and admit this epiphany only came to me recently. The bounce rate on this website was getting worse and being a nerd, I researched why. It was the Home page, which read (before) like War and Peace. I’ve now put a gastric band on the Home page and, wondrously, the bounce rate has dropped massively.
Bounce Rate is defined as the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking an action, such as clicking on a link, filling out a form, or making a purchase. Bounce Rate is important for three main reasons: Someone that bounces from your site (obviously) didn’t convert.
If your website is found on Google, it is likely that the Home page is where curious searchers will land first. If it is slow to load, irrelevant, has too much information, no clear User Experience and Calls to Action, many will spend seconds on the Home page and close it. Mine has gone from nineteenth century novel expansiveness to Hemingway terseness. It tells you what I do, what I charge, what clients say, and shows examples. If interest is generated, they will click to About, Portfolio, News and Contact. Many now do. They linger longer, because the user experience of the Home page is tons better.
BIN THE SLIDERS.
I used to love nothing better than adding 5 compelling slideshow images that sat above a website fold. Hypnotic watching images and words spool. Until. Until I realised they were slowing down loading, increasing bounce rate and doing nothing for sales. They went. I advised clients to bin them too as they have a very negative impact. Sliders and socks, or slides and socks, may be on trend on the streets, along with Crocs and socks, but on a website, they need to be removed. Immediately too.
GREAT CONTENT.
I’ve been a fledgling writer since primary school, taught English Language and Literature from 1987 to 2015, have a degree in English and have built this successful business from a £5.99 domain name purchase. This website alone has around 350 blog posts. Early days, I’d blog almost daily. Now it’s more infrequent, as business is brisk and I write for many SMEs across the country.
This website, and its content, has propelled me to page one for many search terms and I get plenty of organic work from it. This is not the Big I Am. Far from it. The great content that I moulded from November 2015 to October 2016 yielded gross earnings of £6900 in that 12 months: rubbish really but I had the motivation and stamina to believe in the business, and despite a few wrong turns with partnerships and other hare-brained business ventures, revenue exceeds the VAT threshold every year now.
Great content and design needs to be the cornerstone of your business, whether new or established. I write for many companies and individuals who have seen similar trajectories of success as Get Pro Copy. Don’t get me wrong – if you provide poor value, poor service and have little motivation, no amount of great content will solve that.
But.
If you have a business that is only getting word of mouth referrals, and you have ambitions to grow revenue, you need to invest in great content on a great website that is fast to load.
SOCIAL MEDIA.
I’ll come clean, I’m a social media whore. No sandwich, no meal, no bike ride, no walk, swim or achievement is ever quietly and privately celebrated. I personally manage my own Facebook, LinkedIn profile and company page, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest accounts. All are pretty active and all add to the realisation that I walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Social media is a brilliant, measurable and targeted way of driving actions – compelling visitors to follow your brand, visit your website and when they make a purchasing decision, they PICK YOU. I manage social media channels for my own business and other people’s and all are successful. My most loyal customer ranks highly on Google and has been with me for 5 years now. Social media sends signals too to search engines that you’re providing helpful content that engages and stimulates.
You need to invest in social media.
PRICES.
I wince when I see agencies asking for £2000 a month to manage social media, SEO and/or copywriting. By all means, do due diligence and decide if it’s worth that much to you. Or commit to £300 to £1000 a month to me and get a monthly allocation of hours. If your budget is £200, that’s fine, I’ll spend 5 hours per month on growing your business. If you have £1000, you’ll get 25 hours from me – three full days of expert work from someone who knows what he’s doing without the smoke and mirrors of technical BS to baffle you.
£200 to £1000 a month is a worthwhile investment to see medium to long term results?
I think so. Google wants content that helps people. Who better to do that than me, a successful teacher, copywriter and web designer, who’s done it here and for so many other businesses.
07462923476 will lead to me directly – or email: info@getprocopy.com if you’re a bit shy!
