Best-of-the-web content: Graphical Tips
-
This question is for EGOL (if he's willing) and anyone else who wants to partake.
EGOL is the best content writer I've ever run into, really. I'm wondering what his top 3 to 5 tips are on how to use graphical layout (font, images, graphics, organization, menu, etc) to make content irresistable.
A couple of assumptions: The content is written really well from a perspective of authority. Also, we're not including video on this one.
Again, anyone is welcome to answer this.
Thanks!
-
And the legend grows.......
-
Lots of my writing is done from a NordicTrack elliptical. I put a shelf in front of it, added a computer, two monitors... then put a keyboard on top of the display. Any post to Moz that I make between 7pm and midnight is from that elliptical.
-
For, long-tail traffic, definitely worth a try! Thanks
-
**you speak further on this? **
It's a personal opinion . I believe that when I have these on a page I get more long-tail traffic.
Add them to your pages and then you can have an opinion too.
-
And bank account deposits.
-
"on-page anchor text links, in my opinion, have on-page optimization value that is exceeded only by the title tag"
Pretty big statement can you speak further on this? or provide a link if you have addressed this before?
To the best of my knowledge its not included in the http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/services/ranking-factors-2013/ that's what I am referring to by a big statement...
How in search engines' eyes are these links unique to Headings that divide the content accordingly?
Thanks
-
Sorry to burst your bubble Bob, but EGOL is a hobbit.
He drums up his ideas for best of the web content while riding his unicorn across the shire.
A sighting of this hobbit is more rare than reports of run-ins with a sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster and ET in area 51.
It doesn't help that his avatar is actually a photoshopped headshot of George Will.
To make matters worse, the only footprints he leaves are pages of kickass content across the web.
-
Hi Vadim,
EGOL is very active here at the Q&A, and he simply responded to some of my questions early on in my content writing. He gave advice that was over the top in usefulness, and it stuck with me more than anything else anyone has told me about content - mostly how to write best-of-the-web articles. EGOL doesn't even do content marketing. He writes such absolutely fantastic content that lots of people come to and link to his content without him promote it
-
Thanks EGOL! I will contemplate and apply. Priceless advice as usual.
-
Thank you for the quick advice sir!
-
3 to 5 tips on how to use graphical layout (font, images, graphics, organization, menu, etc) to make content irresistable.
My first reaction to this is... Don't expect to put lipstick on a pig and have people line up to kiss him. If you don't have great content to begin with the graphical layout will probably not make much difference.
**Font... ** Use lots of subheadings. These break up the reading and allow marginally interested people an opportunity to scan your article for topics that are personally interesting
Organization... I use a two-column layout. Left column is text and the right column is photography, graphs, data tables, references, videos, related content menus. Sometimes I have way more right column stuff than text so I mix the images, data, etc in with the text column.
Images... I make it a point to have one really nice image at the top of each article. I really like spanning the page with a wide image but if I can't find a good one I find or create a kickass image for the top of the right column.
I often spend good money on images. A staff member here takes great photos and makes great line graphics. I often license photos or pay a graphic artist to make illustrations. We often spend a lot of money purchasing props for photos.
I have lots of articles that are accompanied by hundreds of dollars worth of photos, images, data, videos. A few that have over a thousand dollars worth of this media. I can also have a week or two spent on research and writing. Good content can cost a lot of money. Collecting the data needed to make one graph can require days of labor.
You need to be really careful because.... It is easy to lose money on this type of content. It is easy to lose money on this type of content. I said that twice for emphasis. I have spent a lot of money on content that has bombed.
If you are producing expensive content for low volume or low value audiences then you will probably lose money.
Photos, video, data, graphs, and art will not be successful if you don't present it well. They are not magic bullets. So before you spend a lot of money on lipstick be sure you have a princess instead of a pig.
**Menu... ** If you go to wikipedia you will see that most article of substantive length have multiple subheadings and near the top of the article there is a small box listing those subheadings as on-page anchor text links. Those on-page anchor text links, in my opinion, have on-page optimization value that is exceeded only by the title tag.. and that is the most important tip of this post - in my opinion.
-
I am just curious how you ran into EGOL, and two why you consider him the best content writer? Just curious, Thanks
-
Personally i am a big fan of EGOL so I would love to hear from him and some tips to craft an irresistible piece of content.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Search Causing Duplicate Content
I use Opencart and have found that a lot of my duplicate content (mainly from Products) which is caused by the Search function. Is there a simple way to tell Google to ignore the Search function pathway? Or is this particular action not recommended? Here are two examples: http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=product/search&tag=cloth http://thespacecollective.com/index.php?route=product/search
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Putting my content under domain.com/content, or under related categories: domain.com/bikes/content ?
Hello This questions plays on what Joe Hall talked about during this years' MozCon: Rethinking Information Architecture for SEO and Content Marketing. My Case:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
So.. we're working out guidelines and templates for a costumer (sporting goods store) on how to publish content (articles, videos, guides) on their category pages, product pages, and other pages. At this moment I have 2 choices:
1. Use a url-structure/information architecture where all the content is placed in one subfolder, for example domain.com/content. Although it's placed here, there's gonna be extensive internal linking from /content to the related category pages, so the content about bikes (even if it's placed under domain.com/bikes) will be just as visible on the pages related to bikes. 2. Place the content about bikes on a subdirectory under the bike category, **for example domain.com/bikes/content. ** The UX/interface for these two scenarios will be identical, but the directories/folder-hierarchy/url structure will be different. According to Joe Hall, the latter scenario will build up more topical authority and relevance towards the category/topic, and should be the overall most ideal setup. Any thoughts on which of the two solutions is the most ideal? PS: There is one critical caveat her: my costumer uses many url-slugs subdirectories for their categories, for example domain.com/activity/summer/bikes/, which means the content in the first scenario will be 4 steps away from the home page. Is this gonna be a problem? Looking forward to your thoughts 🙂 Sigurd, INEVO0 -
Robots.txt Blocking - Best Practices
Hi All, We have a web provider who's not willing to remove the wildcard line of code blocking all agents from crawling our client's site (user-agent: *, Disallow: /). They have other lines allowing certain bots to crawl the site but we're wondering if they're missing out on organic traffic by having this main blocking line. It's also a pain because we're unable to set up Moz Pro, potentially because of this first line. We've researched and haven't found a ton of best practices regarding blocking all bots, then allowing certain ones. What do you think is a best practice for these files? Thanks! User-agent: * Disallow: / User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: Crawl-delay: 5 User-agent: Yahoo-slurp Disallow: User-agent: bingbot Disallow: User-agent: rogerbot Disallow: User-agent: * Crawl-delay: 5 Disallow: /new_vehicle_detail.asp Disallow: /new_vehicle_compare.asp Disallow: /news_article.asp Disallow: /new_model_detail_print.asp Disallow: /used_bikes/ Disallow: /default.asp?page=xCompareModels Disallow: /fiche_section_detail.asp
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ReunionMarketing0 -
Help FORUM ( User generated content ) SEO best practices
Hello Moz folks ! For the very first time im dealing with a massive community who rely on UGC ( user generated content ). Their forum is finding a great deal of duplicate content/broken link/ duplicate title and on-site issue. I have Advance SEO knowledge related to ecommerce or blogging but new to forum and UGC. I would really love to learn or get ressources links that would allow me to see/understand the best practices in term of SEO. Any help is greatly appreciated. Best, Yan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ydesjardins2000 -
Is This Considered Duplicate Content?
My site has entered SEO hell and I am not sure how to fix it. Up until 18 months ago I had tremendous success on Google and Bing and now my website appears below my Facebook page for the term "Direct Mail Raleigh." What makes it even more frustrating is my competitors have done no SEO and they are dominating this keyword. I thought that the issue was due to harmful inbound links and two months ago I disavowed ones that were clearly spam. Somehow my site has actually gone down! I have a blog that I have updated infrequently and I do not know if it I am getting punished for duplicate content. On Google Webmaster Tools it says I have 279 crawled and indexed pages. Yesterday when I ran the MOZ crawl check I was amazed to find 1150 different webpages on my site. Despite the fact that it does not appear on the webmaster tools I have three different webpages due to the format that the Wordpress blog was created: "http://www.marketplace-solutions.com/report/part2leadershi/", "http://www.marketplace-solutions.com/report/page/91/" and "http://www.marketplace-solutions.com/report/category/competent-leadership/page/3/" What does not make sense to me is why Google only indexed 279 webpages AND why MOZ did not identify these three webpages as duplicate content with the Crawl Test Tool. Does anyone have any ideas? Would it be as easy as creating a massive robot.txt file and just putting 2 of the 3 URLs in that file? Thank you for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DR700950 -
New Web Page Not Indexed
Quick question with probably a straightforward answer... We created a new page on our site 4 days ago, it was in fact a mini-site page though I don't think that makes a difference... To date, the page is not indexed and when I use 'Fetch as Google' in WT I get a 'Not Found' fetch status... I have also used the'Submit URL' in WT which seemed to work ok... We have even resorted to 'pinging' using Pinglar and Ping-O-Matic though we have done this cautiously! I know social media is probably the answer but we have been trying to hold back on that tactic as the page relates to a product that hasn't quite launched yet and we do not want to cause any issues with the vendor! That said, I think we might have to look at sharing the page socially unless anyone has any other ideas? Many thanks Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomKing0 -
List of Best SEO forums
Could I please get some input on a list of the best SEO forums out there besides SEOmoz? (Both mainstream and non mainstream)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Luia0 -
Geo-Targeting Content
I'm to get some ideas on restructuring existing content for geo-targeting. Example: Botox Page Tis is a hypothetical situation -- laser cosmetics clinic in Atlanta trying to rank for Atlanta Botox. The existing content is general information about botox procedures. The problem is editing the content to add Atlanta to the H1 tag and page copy. I'm wondering if there are some techniques to make the edits flow better? My idea is to add a geo-page for each procedure, but I'm wondering if this might interrupt or confuse users in the navigation funnel. Your thoughts? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 190west0