We’ve got another helpful article to send your way! The SEO industry is full of changes, and what worked 5 years ago doesn’t necessarily work today. Heck, 2015’s best practices have even changed in 2016, just take a look at the recent Possum, & Penguin updates. Greg Gifford, our Director of Search and Social, has some more tips and best practices for you when it comes to your content: focus on being local, not just unique.
As Google’s search engine & algorithm have gotten smarter and smarter, the SEO industry has had to adjust accordingly. When Google said that link signals mattered, everyone scrambled to get as many paid links as possible pointing back to their sites as possible.
But they sang a different tune when Google started penalizing for that kind of thing and, instead, promoted legitimate links from organic relationships your business was developing.
Now it’s all about content. Everyone knows that content is king, and has been for some time in the world of SEO. But there’s been a slight shift.
Even though unique content is still a good thing, it’s not the only thing that’s going to shoot your site straight to Google’s first page of search results. In other words, being unique is not the only differentiator. By this point, nearly everyone knows that writing unique copy is the best practice — and that copying & pasting content from another site is a quick way to get sidelined.
Plus, writing unique content is tough on a long timeline, because there are only so many things you can say about plumbing, for example, or whatever your industry is.
Over at Search Engine Land, Greg has written a very helpful article explaining why having local content will help you stand out if your content is already unique.
