Hey there – Molly here with your weekly Content & Coffee. It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that 40 percent of marketers cited Google’s ever-changing algorithms as their biggest SEO challenge in a recent Ascend2 study.
This research comes on the verge of an impending Panda update – the first refresh since May 2014. The Panda algorithm rewards “quality” and penalizes sites with thin content.
If “creating quality content” is starting to feel like a broken record, here are 3 concrete ways to improve engagement and avoid penalties:
First, visual appeal. This applies to your entire site’s UX, not just your blog. But when it comes to your blog posts – 95% of people say visuals are more appealing than plain text. For our staffing client, adding custom illustrations and infostats resulted in 225% longer visits and a 53% lower bounce rate.
Next, video blogs. Videos help spark viewers’ interest and get people to dig deeper into a company’s site. After a human resources client started producing video blogs, we saw visitors looking at 3 times as many pages and spending 4 times longer on the site.
Finally, consider long-form content – which is actually more likely to rank at the top of results pages than short pieces. Our client in the foodservice industry gave us an opportunity to delve into topics that we knew would appeal to the business’ target audience – chefs and culinary experts. Longer articles had a conversion rate 122 percent higher than average and generated tens of thousands of dollars in ecommerce.
By giving your readers a better on-site experience with appealing visuals, easy navigation and topics that answer their questions, you’re naturally creating quality content.
If you have questions about Panda or interested in learning more about these client success stories, check out the links below or contact us for more details:
