How Great Writing Leads to High Rankings: There are 4 Specific Reasons
Andy Crestodina
Co-Founder and CMO at Orbit Media | SEO, Analytics, AI, Content Strategy and Website Optimization
How can I rank high? How can I get more traffic from Google? Why don’t I rank for this phrase?
Hundreds of people have asked me these questions. But they often lose patience as I begin to answer. They’re hoping for a simple response. A quick fix. Some secret trick to ranking high.
When I get to the part about writing, eyes glaze.
There are really just two steps to creating a search-optimized article:
- Step 1: Pick a keyphrase that meets two criteria: Your audience searches for it, and you have a chance of ranking for it.
- Step 2: Make the best page on the internet for the topic.
It’s that second step that people find difficult.
But writing affects rankings. Quality is the ultimate factor that determines which page ranks high. It’s not a mystery. But a lot of people don’t understand the specific connections. There are at least four.
Let’s connect the dots between great writing and high rankings.
1. Great writing is detailed and complete
And Google loves detailed articles. Here’s how the dots connect from great writing to high rankings when great writing means highly detailed articles.
- Great writing is…
- Detailed, thorough and complete. So it tends to be…
- Longer and more likely to include great answers to the visitors’ questions, so it tends to…
- Attract more links, which means it tends to…
- Rank higher in search results
Here’s the data showing the correlation between length and links (and shares) based on a dataset pulled by Steve Rayson of Buzzsumo.
Steve has done more research on content marketing data than anyone you’ll ever meet. He’s an expert at finding correlations within statistical data and connecting content types with results. He’s an advocate for detailed content that answers questions.
“Select your question carefully. Find questions where there is an opportunity for you to be the best answer, and then create the most authoritative and comprehensive answer you can. This typically means long-form content. The data shows that on average long-form content performs better.” – Steve Rayson, Director, Buzzsumo
According to another study, the average high-ranking page is 1,500-2,000 words long.
source: CoSchedule
Action: How to write more detailed, complete articles
Use research tools to find all of the questions that are related to your topic. Read the full article here to see what we recommend.
Director of Content Strategy and Assessment, University of Rochester | Author | International Keynote Speaker | Consultant | Content Marketer | AI Enthusiast | Web3 Educator | Board member HighEdWeb | Ed3 DAO
4 年Great article Andy! Always get new nuggets anytime I consume your content. Thanks for being a great source of the latest knowledge for SEO. Looking forward to hearing your take on potential new uses for GA4!
President at Rank Fuse Digital Marketing
4 年Love data supporting your article claims, as always. ??
WordPress developer and blogger, accessibility advocate
4 年I can also think of another factor: write for a high authority site (which might not be your own). That makes a HUGE difference.
NO cold pitching in DM | TALK your connections into paying clients using content and conversation | 350+ motivated service providers & coaches helped | Social media marketing strategist | Business Coach | Speaker
4 年When peeps stop writing for the machine and get back to writing for their audience Andy Crestodina, they definitely connect better and rank better. Personally, I like to write first for my peeps, then I go back and take the machine into consideration because we do still need it to keep our visibility up and why not use such a valuable tool to help us. Thanks for the awesome advice as always.
Manager
4 年Andy, love this but I also had a bit of a chuckle with "Make the best page on the internet for the topic", sure easy peasy, no problemo! ?? But yes, making the *best* of anything on the planet should net good results!