There is a slightly unflattering term for extremely engaging content. It’s been floating around SEO circles for quite some time now, and it is ‘link bait’. It sounds awful and the fact that SEO professionals felt the need to coin it is arguably a little disturbing as well. This is mainly because good SEO content shouldn’t need link bait. Not all content on a website can be link-worthy, but a lot of it should be. Many sites fail to see the potential of their own content, leading to a lot of extra effort to draw users to the site and attract inbound links. This is a waste, because your site’s content is one of your greatest assets.

A part of the difficulty with content is that many sites are simply not used to thinking of it as a moveable asset. In the real world, content is written for a specific purpose and stays there. Annual reports go toward business purposes. Marketing materials go off to persuade consumers. A place for everything and everything in its place is the seeming logic at work. On the internet, however, content has to be written to fit in with the general purpose of engaging the site’s users. What’s more, content that is part of your SEO plan needs to be interesting itself, because an optimised page is a potential landing page.

When designing and publishing your content, think about what else it can do for you. If you’ve got a particularly interesting video series, think about posting it to YouTube. If you’re discussing the results of research, send the story to a blog. Instead of puzzling over what to put in your press releases, consider using some of your existing content. Consider each of your pages for their news potential. Your product pages serve a certain purpose, but the information behind them can be used to invoke interest outside the site. Any information you have about the product can be used in this way, whether it’s an interview with the designer or a price comparison.

Your content pages have a great deal of obvious potential. The content you create as part of your search engine optimisation can be posted around the net as articles, which will generate links for themselves. It is important to avoid duplicate content issues when you post content from your site, but there are ways to avoid this. It’s a good idea to consider submitting content to article posting sites as a part of your search engine optimisation plan. Truly informative content can also be sent as an ice-breaker to industry bloggers.

The last is simply ‘About us’. The last will not travel far from the site, but it can act as a positive force within the site. A well-written ‘About us’ page can build a relationship with your readers and provide newsworthy information. Every website needs a variety of angles to set itself apart from its competitors. Your content is one superb way in which to achieve this. If you’re considering how to improve your site’s content, talk to our experts at SEO Consult.

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