It is possible to have a polished, perfect website with poor content. Maybe you have come across one-or maybe not, since a lack of good content is not likely to show up in a search. If building traffic on your site is important to you, you will care about SEO (search engine optimization).

Victoria Edwards looks at SEO content like a cake, writing that Your links, paid search, and social media acts as the icing, but your content, information architecture, content management system, and infrastructure act as the sugar and makes the cake. Without it, your cake is tasteless, boring, and gets thrown in the trash”.

No one wants a tasteless cake. Can you imagine walking into a bakery, spying a beauty behind the counter, ordering a slice and biting into it only to find no flavor? But it looked so good, you think to yourself. The colors were vibrant, the design unique, and the decorations perfect. You not only just wasted your time ordering a slice, you also will not be likely to return to this bakery.

If SEO content is like a cake, are you adding enough sugar? Is the cake boring and tossed aside?If you want to attract traffic to your site, there are some things to understand about SEO.

What SEO Is

  • Helpful to your site in building traffic
  • Improves visibility
  • Focused around content

What SEO Isn’t

  • An excuse to “keyword stuff”
  • A promotional ploy
  • A magic wand

What Search Engines Look For

As search engines work hard to analyze 60 trillion web pages to find what searchers are looking for, the polished-yet-tasteless sites are going to be passed over in favor of fresh, new content with keywords, relevant titles, and headings which give words the weight they need to maximize results. If your site is not deemed as trustworthy and authoritative, there is no way it will make it to the top of a search results list. With billions of searches happening every hour, that is a lot of clicking not being done on your page.

When search engines are crawling a webpage, relevant information pertaining to the search is sought out. If your site is arranged in a way that draws readers in, not just because it’s well designed but due to quality content, you will attract readers and keep them coming back for more.

Here are a few questions to ask before you click “publish” on your site:

Why are you writing? What is the goal with your particular site?

Who is your audience? Who are you hoping to attract to your site?

What draws people to your site? Be sure your site is full of quality, not just quantity. A full site does not always equal a good site. Will others be drawn to it, and will they stay?

How is your use of social media? Not using social media in the year 2015 as a way to reach readers is foolishness.

Where do your keywords fall? It’s wise to do some research on keywords before you even begin writing. This will guide you toward the highest volume of keywords searched, and prompt a writing idea.

When will you add new content? Remember keep it fresh and relevant to maximize traffic flow.

However you use your site, you want it to be successful and productive. The key is all in the ingredients.