Time and time again, I hear clients and prospects say, “I need more SEO content.” Heck, maybe you’ve heard an SEO say it.

The truth: It’s not “SEO content” a brand or website needs.

So, what do we need?

Rich, informative, compelling high quality content brings users to a website and keeps users responding. It also provides the search engines with value when that content is SEO-friendly. Rather than needing SEO content, we really need quality content that engages users but we cannot forget about what the search engines want, how the engines view content, and the techniques plus finesse required to optimize content.

How Quality Content Can Make an SEO Difference

Look at the New York Times. The publication, known as one of the best newspapers in the world, once turned down the opportunity to buy Google for $1 million because it didn’t consider the internet a part of its business. In 2005, the paper acknowledged the importance of the web, hired a team of SEO experts, trained editorial staff and marketing teams in SEO and started to optimize its entire website for better search engine performance.

Since the inception of the SEO program, the NYT’s referral traffic from the search engines has grown 300%. The site has experienced an average of 60% traffic growth per year and a significant increase in user engagement and time spent on the site.

Want some of that? Keep reading for some how-to tips. [Read more...]