How Rich Content Can Increase Your Site’s Visibility

Rich content can be a great tool for increasing the visibility of your website across search engines, social media websites, and the web as a whole. But before we start benefiting from it, we need to understand what rich content is. Essentially, rich content is content which is valuable to your target audience. When writing content, you should always keep your audience in mind and write the content you think they are looking for.

Content comes in many forms, and the type of content that works best will differ from one website to the next. Generally, the most valuable content is that which is unique, and that which is updated regularly to ensure it remains relevant. Rich content may include industry or company news, product reviews, articles, knowledge bases or FAQs, blog posts, or user-generated content such as forums.

So what are the benefits of having rich content?

Well, search engines will rank your site higher if your pages are content-rich. Studies have shown that Google favours long-form copy, so more in-depth articles may reap better results than those that simply scratch the surface of your chosen topic. However, a short copy will sometimes give you more conversions, and this will depend on your business – what works best for one company may not work so well for another.

Either way, the more words you have on each page, the more likely you are to rank higher for long tail keywords, and this is a benefit anyone can enjoy. With the advent of Google Suggest and users, in general, getting better at searching, there has been an increase in searches which use four or more words. For example, a user looking for advice on plumbing may have in the past searched for “plumbing help”, but would now perhaps use a search term such as “how to change a stopcock”.

Google Suggest lends a helping hand with this, attempting to guess what a user is searching for as they type. These searches are more specific and lead to more relevant results, which is good news for businesses, too – phrases such as “how to change a stopcock” are easier to naturally place in your copy than phrases such as “plumbing help”.

Visibility can be provided by a range of different websites, as well as search engines. Businesses will link to your page on their website or blog if your content is deemed to be of value, and consumers and peers will share your content on social networking sites if they think their friends or colleagues will be interested in it. This all leads to more eyeballs on your website, and potentially an increased chance of a conversion.

In fact, Google will favour your website if other sites are linking to it. So if people link to your great content, you may get a higher ranking, leading to increased visibility on search engines and more clicks, and potentially even more visitors who like what they see and share your content. What a great cycle of clicking, sharing and ranking!

Of course, to keep the cycle going you need to keep adding relevant and unique content your visitors will be interested in. Consider whether content such as articles, videos or user-created content would suit your website, and keep your business objectives in mind – do you want people to make a purchase, sign up to receive information from you, or something else?

Great content can really help improve the visibility of your site and increase your chances of getting a conversion once you have people’s attention.