Content relevance may be a buzzword that you hear when it comes to your content & digital marketing strategy. But what exactly is it? Today, we’re sharing details on what content relevance is and why you should care about it!
What is Content Relevance?
Content relevance is a combination of two things: customer relations and SEO ranking. On one hand, it is how relevant the content is to your reader – and ideally, your reader is a current or potential customer. On the other hand, it also happens to be a top ranker for SEO because it is used to indicate how relevant a website is in relation to a particular search term or topic. For now, we’re going to focus on content relevance and its relationship to SEO.
Content Relevance and Search Engines
Every time someone enters a query into a search engine, the search engine algorithms perform a crawl of websites based on the search terms used. The search engine crawls look at a variety of factors including: load time, link structure, and content relevance. This crawl generates the results that the end user sees.
Relevant content is extremely important for search engines. Why? Because the search results are supposed to match users’ search queries as exactly and quickly as possible. The goal of the search engines is customer satisfaction. As SearchMetrics states, “The closer the results match a search, the more trust users will have in the results, and by extension in the search engine itself.”
Possible Criteria for Ranking Content Relevance
There are a variety of criteria that are considered to rank pages for content relevance.
- Content Language: Is the language on the page/website in the same language as the search terms/query? For instance, does it answer a specific, defined question?
- Body Text: How well does the meaning of the text relate to the search? Have you done keyword research and used those keywords strategically throughout your body text? As Search Engine Land states, “If you want your pages to be found for particular words, it’s a good idea to actually use those words in your copy.”
- Page Title: Does the page title provide topical relevance? Your title tag is often what displays as your title in search engine results, so it is a potential visitor’s first experience with your site. A good title can make or break whether someone clicks your link.
- Images/Videos/Graphics: Is there any visual material that can support the relevance of the content? There are a variety of ways to optimize your visual elements through meta tags and alt text, but don’t forget how it may apply to vertical search. Never heard of vertical search? Vertical search is the niched-down version of a search engine. For example, it would be Google Images versus Google. Vertical search focuses on one segment of search, rather than sharing all possible results.
- Locality (In some cases): Is the content relevant to a certain region? Today, nearly ⅓ of all mobile searches are related to location. So, if you’re a local business, it’s important that your content is relevant to your region. (Bonus Tip: Be sure to have your Google My Business Page up and running!)
As you are creating content, keep these content relevance tips in mind. But, don’t focus so much on the search engines that you lose focus of serving your customer! Not sure how to strike the right balance? Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. Stay tuned for a blog post full of tips and in the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out!
