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
-
IFrames and Thin Content Worries
Hi everyone, I've read a lot about the impact of iFrames on SEO lately -- articles like http://www.visibilitymagazine.com/how-do-iframes-affect-your-seo/ for example. I understand that iFrames don't cause duplicate content or cloaked content issues, but what about thin content concerns? Here's my scenario: Our partner marketing team would like to use an iframe to pull content detailing how Partner A and my company collaborate from a portal the partners have access to. This would allow the partners to help manage their presence on our site directly. The end result would be that Partner A's portal content would be added to Partner A's page on our website via an iFrame. This would happen about across at least 100 URLs. Currently we have traditional partner pages, with unique HTML content. There's a little standalone value for queries involving the bigger partners' names + use case terms, but only in less than 10% of cases. So I'm concerned about those pages, but I'm more worried about the domain overall. My main concern is that in the eyes of Google I'd be stripping a lot of content off the domain all at once, and then replacing it with these shell pages containing nothing (in terms of SEO) but meta, a headline, navigation links, and an iFrame. If that's the case, would Google view those URLs as having thin content? And could that potentially impact the whole domain negatively? Or would Google understand that the page doesn't have content because of the iFrames and give us a pass? Thoughts? Thanks, Andrew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SafeNet_Interactive_Marketing0 -
Product Syndication and duplicate content
Hi, It's a duplicate content question. We sell products (vacation rental homes) on a number of websites as well as our own. Generally, these affiliate sites have a higher domain authority and much more traffic than our site. The product content (text, images, and often availability and rates) is pulled by our affiliates into their websites daily and is exactly the same as the content on our site, not including their page structure. We receive enquiries by email and any links from their domains to ours are nofollow. For example, all of the listing text on mysite.com/listing_id is identical to my-first-affiliate-site.com/listing_id and my-second-affiliate-site.com/listing_id. Does this count as duplicate content and, if so, can anyone suggest a strategy to make the best of the situation? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McCaldin0 -
Where to learn how best to promote content?
So now I created some really good content (with help of Egol and Peter here on moz.com) and now I need to promote it. To get it in front of authoritative sites so they hopefully will write about and link to it. I erroneously figured it would be fairly easy. I contacted two writers of a high level industry blog/magazine that previously had mentioned us in press, sent them an email with an invitation to check it out and please let me know what they thought. NO response. They probably get deluged. Anyway, I can't afford to pay a marketing company to promote it. Where can I learn how to best do this myself? The content isn't going to help anyone if no one sees it.... Thanks for any leads! Ron
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yatesandcojewelers1 -
Duplicate Page Content - Shopify
Moz reports that there are 1,600+ pages on my site (Sportiqe.com) that qualify as Duplicate Page Content. The website sells licensed apparel, causing shirts to go into multiple categories (ie - LA Lakers shirts would be categorized in three areas: Men's Shirts, LA Lakers Shirts and NBA Shirts)It looks like "tags" are the primary cause behind the duplicate content issues: // Collection Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts (Preferred URL): http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag): http://sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag, w/o the www.): http://sportiqe.com/collections/all-products/clippers (Different collection, w/ tag and same content)// Blog Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/7902801-dispatch-is-back: http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/tagged/elias-fundWould it make sense to do 301 redirects for the collection tags and use the Parameter Tool in Webmaster Tools to exclude blog post tags from their crawl? Or, is there a possible solution with the rel=cannonical tag?Appreciate any insight from fellow Shopify users and the Moz community.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | farmiloe0 -
What is the best practice to optimize page content with strong tags?
For example, if I have a sub page dedicated to the keyword "Houston Leather Furniture" is it best practice to bold ONLY the exact match keyword? Or should ONLY the words from the keyword (so 'Houston' 'Leather' and 'Furniture') Is there a rule to how many times it should be done before its over-optimization? I appreciate any information as I want to do the BEST possible practice when it comes to this topic. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
How should i best structure my internal links?
I am new to SEO and looking to employ a logical but effective internal link strategy. Any easy ways to keep track of what page links to what page? I am a little confused regarding anchor text in as much as how I should use this. e.g. for a category page "Towels", I was going to link this to another page we want to build PA for such as "Bath Sheets". What should I put in for anchor text? keep it simple and just put "Bath Sheets" or make it more direct like "Buy Bath Sheets". Should I also vary anchor text if i have another 10 pages internally linking to this or keep it the same. Any advise would be really helpful. Thanks Craig
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Having Content be the First thing the bots see
If you have all of your homepage content in a tab set at the bottom of the page, but really would want that to be the first thing Google reads when it crawls your site, is there something you can implement where Google reads your content first before it reads the rest of your site? Does this cause any violations or are there any red flags that get raised from doing this? The goal here would just be to get Google to read the content first, not hide any content
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
How to manage duplicate content?
I have a real estate site that contains a large amount of duplicate content. The site contains listings that appear both on my clients website and on my competitors websites(who have better domain authority). It is critical that the content is there because buyers need to be able to find these listings to make enquiries. The result is that I have a large number pages that contain duplicate content in some way, shape or form. My search results pages are really the most important ones because these are the ones targeting my keywords. I can differentiate these to some degree but the actual listings themselves are duplicate. What strategies exist to ensure that I'm not suffereing as a result of this content? Should I : Make the duplicate content noindex. Yes my results pages will have some degree of duplicate content but each result only displays a 200 character summary of the advert text so not sure if that counts. Would reducing the amount of visible duplicate content improve my rankings as a whole? Link back to the clients site to indicate that they are the original source Any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mulith0