Creating High-Priority Content for Search Engines

Creating rank-worthy content for the web has jumped into the mainstream as a viable, cost-effective way to publicize your company and market your product or service. There are countless workshops, seminars, white papers, blogs and webinars devoted to explaining how to optimize your content to influence page rankings. But which strategies work and which don’t?

In order to understand why quality content on the web has become so critical to your firm’s web identity, brand and credibility, we must first understand how search engines work. When a user types a key word into a search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing, that search engine goes to work and comes up with a list of results that match the term you typed in. For example, if you type in the words “law firm,” 55,200,000 pages come up in Google, as of this writing. Once the search engine has this list, it sorts the list through algorithms so that the highest results appear at the top of the list and the lowest ones appear on the bottom.

To be considered part of the highest quality results, we must understand two things: relevance and authority. Relevance is how close a match the given web page is to the searched term. This is based on title, page content and links on the page. Authority is how important your web page is in the eyes of the search engine. If the page is just sitting there, for instance, and no one is linking to it or reading it, the search engines will notice the slow interest and will assign a low authority score. Powerful websites typically create an abundance of links, both going from the site and coming back to the site. This is called reciprocal linking.

So now that we know the basics of how search engines work, how do we link to as many high authority sites as possible (like your local newspaper, peer reviewed journals, industry forums, well known blogs, etc.)? By creating rank-worthy and news-worthy content, that’s how!

The first step in optimizing your electronic content is using keywords that will help increase your page rank. Here are some specific steps:

• Create a keyword hit list. This is a list of keywords for your business that you can constantly use. Think of it as content branding. The more you throw keywords out there, the more search engines recognize your brand and organize your information.
• Give your readers a snapshot. Provide readers with a preview of what they can expect to find in the article. Use subheadings to give more information so they can better determine if they want to read further.
• Keep headings short so the keywords really stand out. Earlier words carry more weight than later words so be very careful when selecting the order.
• Create new content. For instance, post on your blog once a week. If you do so for a couple of weeks and then you take three months off, you will likely lose your readers and their interest. Remember, fresh content equals more qualified traffic.
• Follow the latest news trends. Then create content related to them. For instance, if there is a highly publicized case and your firm has expertise on this subject matter, have the experts write about it. This may increase your likelihood of appearing at the top of search results and increase your reputation.
• Create content that can spread online. When someone reads something they like or have an interest in, chances are they are going to mention it to someone else or even forward it. Be sure your content provides value and the reader can get something out of it.  
• Use tags. With the abundance of information on-line, creating metadata to better categorize your content will help search engines find you and will help your visitors narrow content to that which interests them most.
• Diversify where you publish your work. Don’t create content for the same platform. Let other readers and search engines get to know you by contributing your content in blogs, websites, white papers, videos, webinars, podcasts, webcasts, tweets, LinkedIn groups…the list goes on.
• Be active. Don’t just sit on the sidelines and wait for others to approach you. Start writing. Build your digital reputation. And, lastly, have fun!

Ioana Good manages communications at Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A., the largest law firm in Central Florida according to the Orlando Business Journal. She is also currently teaching a course titled New Communication Practices in Public Relations at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.