SEO Content Creation: 4 Qualities of Highly Effective Articles and Blog Posts

One of the biggest challenges of running a blog is creating the content you’ll provide to your audience. In particular, there is no single recipe for creating highly useful and engaging articles. Also, since you cannot automate the writing process, you must find the time for this vital, yet often challenging SEO and content marketing task.

Despite these challenges, various studies have shown that several content characteristics have an impact on the performance of your blog posts. Read on and discover the qualities of top-performing articles. 

What Makes a Top-Performing Blog Post?

Having highly relevant and valuable written content is crucial to SEO success. When it comes to content creation, you have to make sure they possess the following characteristics to maximise your results: 

1. Long and comprehensive

A recent study showed that when it comes to content, longer is better. Blog posts that are longer than 3000 words receive three times more traffic and 3.5 times more backlinks than shorter articles. Also, they receive four times the number of social shares. Therefore, when creating content, you should strive to write in-depth and well-researched articles about topics that will interest or help your target audience.

Writing longer articles also help protect you from zero-click searches. Zero or no-click searches occur when a user didn’t proceed to your site because Google has already provided your answer or information on the search result page.

However, keep in mind that while it is better to write longer content, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should completely abandon short-form articles. They still have their benefits, after all. When deciding on the length of your content, you should always consider your target audience’s search intention. You should also think about the type of content you’re trying to create because there are content types, such as infographics and listicles, that work better with fewer words.

2. Utilise long headlines

Aside from the length of your article, how long your headlines are can also affect content performance. While we are often taught at school that we should keep our headlines short and straightforward, doing the exact opposite is much better, as far as SEO is concerned.  Articles with headlines composed of 14 words or more receive twice the amount of traffic and social shares than those with shorter headlines. They also receive five times more backlinks.

Longer headlines also lead to higher engagement. A longer headline contains more context words, or words that have a considerable impact on our emotion than a shorter headline. By using longer headlines, you can better pique the attention and interest of your target audience.

When it comes to content creation, you should also carefully choose the type of headline you’re going to use. Articles with lists in their title receive twice the amount of traffic compared to other headline types. They also get shared more on social media. One of the main reasons for this is that these blog posts give the impression that they are easier to digest.

Headlines with the words “how to” also receive two times more traffic than other headline types. Therefore, when planning your content, you should consider adding guides and “how-to” articles to your content plan. Not only can they help you attract more traffic, but they also enable you to provide your audience with valuable information. 

3. Use subheadings

Some 36% of articles that are broken down with H2 and H3 tags receive more traffic and backlinks. They are also shared more on social media. To get better results, therefore, you should structure your articles properly.

Instead of posting an article that features enormous blocks of text, take a moment to arrange its format and break it down into smaller paragraphs and sections. Then, create a subheading for each section. Besides helping improve your content’s performance, using subheadings also makes it more readable and user-friendly. It makes your text more coherent and easy to follow, too. 

4. Include lists

As mentioned earlier, articles with list headlines perform well. It turns out that the same is true for those with lists in their main body. Written blog posts with five lists per 500 words receive four times more traffic than those with no lists at all. People are also two times more likely to share them on social media.

Increasing the number of lists you use in your content can help you generate more traffic for your website. As such, consider choosing content topics that encourage the use of lists in your articles to get better results with content creation. 

Creating Well-Crafted SEO Content is Important

Creating well-researched and well-structured blog posts can give your online marketing efforts a significant boost. Not only does it help you generate traffic, but it also allows you to engage your audience better and establish yourself as an expert in your field.

If you need help creating top-performing content, we are more than happy to lend you our expertise. At Springhill Marketing, we have highly experienced SEO and content marketing experts who can provide you with the solutions you need. Contact us today.