Content, content, and more content! That’s what SEO is all about nowadays, right? Compared to when I started working in SEO (2014), today, content is consistently one of the most popular topics covered at digital marketing conferences, there are way more tools that focus on content analysis and optimization, and overall it seems to dominate most of SEO news.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a nice Google Trends graph that may change your mind:
Google Trends screenshot for “content marketing” as a topic, set for worldwide interest.
But why is it that content is now dominating the SEO scene? How vital is content for your SEO strategy, actually? And most importantly: how can you be content with your site’s content? Puns aside, this post aims to help you figure out potential causes of your underperforming content and how to improve it.
Why content is key in SEO in 2020
Content is one of the most important factors in SEO. Just by paying close attention to what Google has been communicating to webmasters in the last few years, it’s clear that they’ve put a strong emphasis on “content” as a decisive ranking factor.
For instance, let’s have a look at this post[1], from August 2019, which talks about Google’s regular updates and what webmasters should focus on:
“Focus on content: pages that drop after a core update don’t have anything wrong to fix. We suggest focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can. That’s what our algorithms seek to reward.”
The article goes on, listing a series of questions that may help webmasters when self-assessing their own content (I strongly recommend reading the entire post).
That said, content alone cannot and should not be enough for a website to rank well, but it is a pretty