Blogs Must Optimize for Users, Not Search Engines

“No longer should SEOs optimize web content just for search engines,” cautions The 2016 Enterprise Buyer’s Guide to SEO, “They must focus on optimizing for consumers. SEO success is achieved when consumers find a brand’s content to be relevant, top quality, and valuable.”

Thinking of search only around traditional search engines, the Guide author Relevance adds, is too limiting, because nowadays, social platforms are being used to answer questions, solve problems, and entertain.

In fact, a true content contribution solves customer problems in three ways:

• by educating
• by informing
• by entertaining

I agree, and, as a blog content writer and trainer, I have something to say about each one of these elements.

Educating
One big goal of the writing we do for our business owner and professional practitioner clients is positioning them as experts in the eyes of their clients and of online searchers. But, in order to be positioned as an expert, you can never stop educating yourself in your area. Only after you’ve done that will you be equipped to, in your blog, discuss topics of interest and newsworthy developments in your industry, showing your level of knowledge on each topic while remaining relevant and current.

Informing
There’s one big difference about presenting material in blog posts versus other media. Once I’ve posted content on this Say It For You blog, for example, it can remain on the Internet forever.  Past blog posts don’t disappear; the content remains on the site in reverse chronological order. And what that means is that blog content writers need to include material that is evergreen, information that can continue to have relevance even months and years later.

Entertaining
Ideal blog content includes material that makes people laugh and then makes them think. While good blog posts can and should be entertaining, most online searchers are not pursuing a recreational activity, but instead are on a fact-finding mission. You can hook them with humor, but the material you serve up in your posts needs to be not only valuable, but actionable.

SEO, Relevance concludes, was once all about building off-page links.  Today, brands need to first create valuable content to contribute to their industry space. Blogs, simply put, must optimize for users, not search engines!