As a website owner, you know that making sure people can find you online is essential for driving traffic to your site, demonstrating the value you can provide for your clients, and encouraging people to reach out to you for help. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy, and because of this, you need to be aware of changes that may affect how your site will show up in search results on Google or other search engines. Recently, Google made a major update to its search algorithm that focuses on ensuring that sites provide helpful content for their users.

Issues Addressed by Google's Helpful Content Update

Your website's content is one of the primary factors that is used to determine your site's search engine rankings. To Google and other search engines, high-quality content is content that is informative, well-written, and relevant to the topic at hand. On the other hand, low-quality content is content that is poorly written, inaccurate, or irrelevant. 

Every website needs content that provides value to its users. This content may describe the products or services a company offers, share information about a firm, or otherwise provide people with a reason to visit and interact with the site. The quality of content is a key aspect of search engine optimization (SEO), since Google or other search engines use the information on a site to determine whether it will be helpful for people who are searching for specific terms or looking for answers to their questions. However, while website owners may understand that they need to include helpful, informative content, they may be unsure about how long each page should be, how content should be formatted, or what they can do to make sure their site ranks well in search results.

Finding the Right Content-Length

Unfortunately, there are no specific rules about the best length for content. In fact, Google has stated that content length is not a factor considered when determining a site’s search rankings. Instead, it looks at whether content answers people’s questions and provides the information they are looking for. This means that the ideal length of content will vary depending on how well the topic covered on a certain page is explained, as well as the overall experience that users have when visiting a site.

To ensure that a website provides sufficient information, SEO experts generally recommend that website pages include at least 300 words of content, although content of around 200 words may be appropriate for product descriptions. However, longer content may provide more benefits, since it will more fully explain a topic and answer people’s questions. It will also offer the opportunity to include more variations on the keywords that people may be searching for, including “long tail” keywords that may show up when people perform more specific searches for less-common topics.

As more and more people spend a great deal of their time online, any attorney or law firm that wants to connect with clients should remember the often-repeated advice that “content is king.” Providing helpful, informative, up-to-date content on your website and other marketing channels will ensure that people can find you in online searches, and well-written content will increase the likelihood that potential clients will reach out to you to learn about your services. The best way to make sure you are offering the right information in the right way is to work with a content writing team that is experienced in creating and publishing content such as websites, blogs, and social media posts for attorneys.

Why Do I Need a Content Writer?

As an experienced lawyer, you may feel that it is unnecessary to work with outside writers when creating website pages or publishing blogs. After all, you understand the law, and you regularly explain legal issues to your clients, so you should be able to put together descriptions of your services and practice areas. However, when it comes to online content, there are a variety of issues and concerns that you may not know about. A content writing team can make sure your content is tailored to your needs while also providing the information that people are looking for.

Some benefits that a professional content writer can provide include:

It has happened to the best of us. You put all of your time, resources, and creative energy into creating an amazing piece of content, hit “publish,” and then...*crickets.* If you struggle to gain traction on your content, you may need to reevaluate your content distribution and marketing strategy. Here are eight ways you can distribute your content for maximum reach:

1. First things first: create valuable content.

Your content distribution and marketing efforts will be in vain if the content is of low quality and is not engaging. Provide your target audience with content that is interesting and of value to them, and you will see a high return on investment (ROI) for your content marketing. 

When you read a newspaper or a magazine, discussing what you have just read requires you to find another person who is interested in the topic covered by the particular article or op-ed. When you read an article or news piece on the internet, in most cases, there is an opportunity for discussion available right on the very page you are reading. The conversation usually centers around the topic in question, and you do not usually need to wonder about the interests of those participating in the discussion since they have clearly clicked the link to read the article as well. In some situations, however, certain comments and commenters may actually distract from the constructive dialogue, with some comments even including hate-filled invectives and accusations. To combat this problem, Google is launching a new technology to help web publishers manage their content and keep it safe from harmful comments and internet trolls.

What Are Trolls?