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SEO–Five Traits of Relevant Content

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Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Five Traits of Relevant Content

Relevant is the keyword. Content without “relevant” is less than content. Who would want to post something irrelevant? Here are five traits of relevant content.

Relevant content is text.
Search Engines love quality relevant content. They love quality content because readers do. Content here means text, not graphics or photos. That’s where search engines and readers see pages differently. Readers “read” photos and graphics; search engine spiders crawl right past them. So under that photo or graphic include a caption explaining what’s in it.

Relevant content is fresh and free-flowing.
Search engine spiders are demanding creatures. They want original, relevant content to list for their readers–and lots of it. Provide original content with accuracy and frequency about topics readers search for, and your posts will be born relevant.

Relevant content is formatted.
When your document follows a structured format, a search engine can follow how topics relate. Relationships between topics establish that keywords aren’t just mentioned–they are connected and relevant.

  • title
  • h1–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)
  • h2–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)

Relevant content is linked–Links in, links out, and links to yourself are relevant.
Spiders crawl the web by following links. Links draw spiders to related pages from blog to blog and within your blog. Connections in content are inherently relevant.

Relevant content is error free and accessible.
Open HTML tags, gross errors in spelling, and unnecessary plugins trip spiders. Enough said.

Relevant content is what readers are searching for, what spiders are crawling for, what bloggers are blogging for–right?

I’d rather not blog than be irrelevant.

I think there’s a t-shirt in that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Comments

  2. Liz: Love the redesign, BTW – I wondered where I was when I clicked through from the RSS feed!

    As far as images go, the accepted way to assign text to them is to add an alt="description of image" tag to the image. This gives the search engine something to chew on, but more importantly it provides valuable information for blind users who rely on screen reader software.

    Reply

  3. Gerard: That is a great tip with the image tag. I want to start using that at my blog, to help along the image searches.

    Liz: How can search engines and spider web crawlers know what is relevant and quality content. They cannot tell quality content from non-quality content?

    Reply

  4. P.S. I love your new design. And let me give an example to my point above. One of my stories, which I think is not as good as the rest, gets the most search engine hits because it has the words “strip poker” in it. If the search engines were clever they would find my best stories.

    Reply

  5. Yeah Martin,
    But then you wouldn’t have had time to finish your coffee, and I wanted to try a new take on the definition of content. I thought you’d be proud of me. Did my brothers tell you it was tease Liz day? 🙂 Darn them.
    Liz

    Reply

  6. Hi Gerard,
    Thanks for your design feedback. I think the response is running abou 50/50 from those who’ve said something. I like it better than the old one . . . I think it has a western feel.

    As far as images go, the accepted way to assign text to them is to add an alt=”description of image” tag to the image. This gives the search engine something to chew on, but more importantly it provides valuable information for blind users who rely on screen reader software.

    Thanks for that and knowing that I can’t know everying. After the past couple of days I really appreciate that. 🙂

    Changing my name again, this time to Learning Liz

    Reply

  7. Hi Indie,
    Thanks for the design comments and for the question that I can answer with some confidence.

    The following is a vwry huge genralization, but you can extrapolate the idea from this:
    It has to do with how search engines define relevant I

    • If a term such as strip poker is searched for often it must be relevant.
    • If your post is linked with other posts about the same topic, i.e. having the same key words, it is considered relevant.
    • If your post is structured as I showed, which I know your stories cannot be, the spiders can crawl the heirarchy and see important idea in the header with keyword and important idea in the content that follows which implies that keywords are not just mentioned, but are actually relevant to the discussion. (This sophisitcation of software most likely evolved because webmasters were hiding keywords everywhere for ranking purposes.)
    • If your post is linked to other posts in your own blog or other blogs that are on the same topic, the relevance of your post goes up.

    So in those respects, yes a search engine can tell whether your content is relevant. When you add the human factor, as in the partnerships between search engines/directories in which for example Google uses DMOZ to supplement their work. People going over what the search engines find kicks it up a notch furthers.

    Whew!
    Liz

    Reply

  8. Liz, this is rubbish, get someone better 🙂 What’s going on!

    I’ve just been lurking at performancing.com and have noticed that Nick at his ‘Why Link Swaps for Blogs Are Stupid’ post has a go at you and Eric.

    I’m not standing up for anyone here, but such attacks gives me the you know whats…

    While performancing.com has some decent content I don’t like some of their “know-all” attitude – they seem to be preaching to their readers rather than engaging them (they should take a close look at someone like Darren from ProBlogger.net and how he talks to his readers and not down at them)

    Sorry, but I couldn’t help myself – I left a comment there.

    Reply

  9. Hi Martin,
    I heard you thinking that before you even knew it happened. 🙂

    We have a help each other out here kind of place and that “Stupid” title hit me the same way as it hit you.

    I appreciate your encouragement and have from the minute I got here. Sorry my contents all junk. I’ll try to do better. 🙂
    Liz

    Reply

  10. Aha … after finishing the previous comment I have checked back at Performacing.com and guess what … you wouldn’t believe it: my comment has been removed!!!

    Unbelieveable. And he says that you guys are sensitive!!! My comment wasn’t insulting or had foul words, it simply carried on what he had started.

    It was there one minute and taken down within 5 minutes – blogging censorship at its worst.

    Any repects I had for them it now zero and I will post about this at my blog.

    Reply

  11. Martin,
    I’m sorry that happened Martin for all involved. It was an opportunity missed for a relationship that could have been a sharing of ideas. Now it’s not.

    Go figure. I think we’re back on an even keel here.
    I have to go. I’ll stop by your place when I get back.
    Liz

    Reply

  12. Hi Liz, I’d like to re-emphasize your point of having original content. Neither search engines or readers like websites that have mostly regurgitated content. Readers won’t want to come back, and search engines will penalize you.

    The rest of the points are very good, too.

    Reply

  13. Hi Jennifer,
    Thank you. I’m ready to take all of the support I can get.:)

    I was thinking of you last night when I saw the new design for the first time. My thoughts went to, but I wasn’t able to give them Jennifer’s comment suggestion. The group who did the design is the next interview. I’m trying to figure out how we can get questions from you to them. Have any ideas?

    Reply

  14. Liz: Thanks for your detailed answer to my questions/observations. I understand how they are using the word relevance, but I think it is misleading, because the relevance is based on purely superficial qualities. Just now I got another hit to my strip poker story 😉

    Reply

  16. This daily tutorial leads me to believe that my blog practices the traits of favorable and relevant content without prior understanding of SEO. At least that’s the way I see it.

    I’ll bribe my more SEO-knowledgeable cyberbuddies for a confirmation.

    I appreciate this education.

    Reply

  17. Hi Shirley,
    I think that you probably do. What I know of you, Shirley is that you care about quality and really that’s what all of those points are about. If you are about quality you will get linked, format well, see to good HMTL etc.

    Just now you know it.

    Let’s just call it sharing. You’re teaching me too you know.
    smiles,
    Liz

    Reply

  18. I think you’re spot on Shirely – I believe that without knowing it we are all doing fairly right by seo standards.

    Liz: Who’d have thought that this litte tutorial on seo whould have caused this much of a ripple – if you hang around seo-type forums like I do on the rare occassion – you’d know anyting seo-related is hotly debated, flames, shout downs are quite common.

    I guess it’s a highly competitive arena being in the seo game and not having definitive rules to play with.

    Reply

  19. Hi Martin,
    You beat me. I’m just finishing a long boring post with a toy at the end. 🙂

    I’m no worse for the wear. I’m really grareful to you, Mark, and Scrivs for standing up for me each in your own gentlemanly manner.

    I think a lot was learned from this. And that’s a good thing–right?

    Liz

    Reply

  24. As a graphic web designer , I’m glad to see that someone brought up this topic.

    All too many people out there just don’t grasp the concept of what all is required in our industry, and I think also we are all too often underrated
    or taken for granted. Never the less I’m immensely glad to see that you feel the same way I do , thanks so much for your blog!

    Reply

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