If you go your entire life not seeing “Field of Dreams” then you’ve wasted your life.
Harsh, but accurate.
“Field of Dreams” was a pop culture phenomenon that still holds some resonance today thanks to its meme-tastic quote: “If you build it, they will come.” That quote is a good streamlined metaphor for how some SEO agencies treat their online presence. If you build good content, then people will come to your website.
That’s unfortunately become an oversimplification of what’s needed to help build your SEO potential, especially if you’re looking for your brand to reach beyond the nearest borders in your surrounding Utah neighborhood. Good content is vital, but so are a few other factors.
First, Let’s Define, “Good”
We can get all philosophical and existential on you, but we’ll keep to the basics of “good” content. It needs to be unique, useful, entertaining, and relevant. That’s just the bare bones of what good content is, and you need a lot more than just those factors in order to make any dent in a search engine’s rankings. But before we jump into the more technical stuff, it is important to emphasize that good content is essential to SEO potential, it’s just not the only factor.
Getting Your Content Shared
In a perfect world, only the best content online would get shared, and you’d be known as the SEO Guru because your content is just so good that people are dying to share your next inspired thought. Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect world. We live in the world of Buzzfeed lists and Grumpy Cat movies, and it’s hard to get any other kind of content shared.
It’s hard, but it’s crucial. If Google’s algorithm sees your content is being shared, then it will place you higher in a search engine’s rankings. There’s a lot of different strategies on how to get your content shared on social media and on other sites, and it’s a good idea to see which one best suits your brand. A relatively common strategy though is to simply ask people to share your content. That strategy can work, but it’s important that your shares and links are always organic.
The Tech Behind Content
Template sites like WordPress give you a good foundation for spreading your content, but you need to make sure that your site has an extensive and updated sitemap, created metadata and title tags, intricate site security and exceptional site speed. Google and other search engines take these factors into consideration when they figure out where your content should rank. Your good content won’t do anything for your SEO potential if your website is riddled with toxic links, slow load times and convoluted site navigation.
Look Out Into The Future
It’s going to take you a while to become a notable presence on SEO. While you’re waiting for that to happen though, you need to ask yourself important questions about your content. You need to figure out who your audience is, what keywords you want to rank in, and how your content can be integrated in other parts of your brand’s campaign.
Think of good content as dirt. Dirt’s essential. Kevin Costner needed dirt to build his baseball field in “Field of Dreams.” He needed the proper tools though to turn that dirt into something more than just dirt. That’s what your content needs also: tools to turn it into something more.
