How to Make Content Relevant with SEO – 4 Step Guide

One of the most important goals of SEO these days is to remain relevant. Having content that is always updated and answers questions is now vital to Google. This is due to Google’s current goal for usability and overall user experience. As such, the search engine is using algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to find relevant content for topics. Content matters to users, and the right content could make or break a site.

How to Make Content Relevant with SEO

Creating Relevant Website Content

Sites without content will not rank. We all know this. However, that content will also need to be relevant to search queries. To remain relevant and retain rankings, just writing about a topic is not enough. Thanks to a relevance algorithm, AI and smarter bots, content creators will need to do a lot more.

Still, you will need to have content to be able to make it relevant. Of course, you’ll also need the basic technical SEO factors to start ranking. Now, relevant content may or may not use these measures, but it will also depend on what the user is looking for. To keep audience relevance (and clicks) it’s vital to understand what users search for. SEO relevance depends on the usefulness of information, as opposed to the fact that it’s there.

1. Finding an Audience

One of the best ways to cater for an audience and become relevant is to analyze an audience through Google Analytics. This will identify the audience, how they behave, and where they search from. So, that you can begin to optimize your content relevance from the largest audience. Then, you can start reviewing your content and make the right changes.

Starting with Google relevance, the search engine has been aiming for a different type of search. They want users to approach the engine as if it’s a person. So, search queries will be aimed at this type of use more often than not. But how can you be sure that you’re writing for the right user? To start, you will need to consider the following:

  • User persona
  • User intent
  • User-friendly keywords
  • Relevant content structure

Finding an Audience for Content Relevance

Relevant Content for a User Persona

This is where it gets tricky, because most blogs and sites will go for the beginner. Also known as the person who knows nothing about a topic. However, this is not going to help you retain users or have quality web content for a broad audience. So, you’ll probably need to create at least three ‘general users’.

  • One beginner
  • One intermediate
  • One professional

User Intent Relevance

Once you have your users, it’s time to consider what their intent is when they search for a topic. According to experts, any user will search for one of these three:

  • Doing something – e.g. ‘how to write a blog’
  • Knowing something – e.g. ‘how do blogs work’
  • Going someplace – e.g. ‘best blog sites for me’

User-Friendly Keywords

With those searches in mind, it’s pretty simple to get the right keywords to cater for your users. Keyword relevance is quite important for usability. Keyword research can be divided into two categories:

  • Describing your product/business for commercial & navigational purposes
  • Providing solutions to a user for what they want for information queries

With those in mind, you’ll need to have broad keywords and long-tail keywords to answer these searches. Keep in mind that long-tail keywords will work better for businesses smaller than Amazon or Wikipedia. Although these can be combined with broad keywords to bring up relevance. You will need to update these regularly to maintain search engine relevance.

Long-tail keywords can also form questions within content. These answers can also become featured snippets if your answer is relevant to the query. Best practice for long-tail keywords will be to put them in your meta-title and meta-description. Depending on your page and brand, broad keywords should be featured in the description twice.

Relevant Content Structure

When all the research is done, structuring your content is vital to the success of a page. Good website content will help you to achieve better Google search relevance. Think of an upside down pyramid and put your important information at the top. This will be relevant to the topic of your page and keywords. Working down, keep your relevance and start explaining further. Always consider the user while structuring relevant content to keep it appropriate.

2. How to Make Content Relevant

According to Search Metrics, these should be the main focus of your content:

  • Content Language – your content should answer questions that match your hreflang tag.
  • Body Text – your main text should match the meaning of text matches to the search.
  • Page Title – this should indicate the topic of your page.
  • Images & Graphics – visuals should support the content and increase relevance. This includes titles, alt tags and image names.
  • Local Aspect – use terms that will match up to your locality. Slang or commonly understood words might work best.

Relevant Content is Readable

3. Reviewing Content for Website Relevance

If you have identified your users, you will then need to consider how they will use the content. Two important questions at this stage are:

What does the audience look like, feel, do, etc.?

Ideally, your audience should be able to get what they need without having to focus too much on the nitty gritty. This means that your sentences should be short and to the point. Giving a user relevant search results to their search means writing for them.

Why are they reading the content?

  • Did they search for a work problem or for leisure?
  • Would they share it?
  • Where would they be?
  • Would more text or images work?
  • Will smaller, ‘bite-sized’ information work better?
  • What device will they use?

Reviewing Content for Website Relevance

4. Google Relevance Content Review

You don’t have to start over with all-new content, in fact, you can tear apart what you have and build it back up. Moz.com recommends reviewing grammar errors and spelling while counting the errors. If your content has more than five concerns, it’s best to rewrite. However, you should always keep the keywords and track them. When you’re happy with the edits, Moz suggests reviewing them again and asking these questions:

  1. Is the audience still catered for?
  2. Are the keywords inserted properly?
  3. Are you using the right tone of voice and language?
  4. Does the content have the right structure?

Relevant Content Conclusion

In summary, to gain Google keyword relevance, copy writers and SEO specialists need to consider the user. Especially as keywords for problem and solution could push up the trustworthiness of your site. By considering the end-user, a relevant blog or page could just push up rankings. This mind-set of answering search queries could also improve chances of a featured snippet.

Of course, that’s just the beginning. You could well become an established brand and get more pages recognized for a search. What’s more, better content relevance could just push your brand to notoriety. Comment below if you’ve found a faster way to use the relevance algorithm to boost rankings!

Content Relevance