Why badly written content and SEO don't mix

When it comes to improving the rankings on your website, search engine optimisation is key. But, what happens when you haven't got a lot of content to add keywords to? Or, if the content you do have is poorly written? Even some web design companies don't provide copywriting as an aspect of a website package. Writing your website yourself, or going to companies that give a bad service, can really harm your search engine optimisation (SEO). If you're starting with low quality text, then any improvements to get better rankings will only be as good as the original article. That's why badly written content and SEO don't mix.

In this case: pretty awful and totally useless.

So, the big question is: what does content actually do for your base SEO? And, why does adding to poor content not affect your organic rankings as much?

Why is badly written content is so bad?

When content on a website is good, it informs and serves the user the way it is supposed to. Good content educates potential customers, gives them the information they've come to you for and, at the highest tier, does a lot more than competitors' text. Well written content should inspire a user to actually want to buy whatever you're selling.

Bad content won't do that.

With little to no text on a page, the user can't tell what you do. They won't know your services, or how much anything costs, or what areas you work in. Adding keywords to a page without a lot of text won't actually change that. It may increase visits to your website, but the result will be identical. The people who are coming onto your website will see that there's nothing there and go to a competitor's site instead.

Obviously 'good' content is subjective. What one person thinks is great and informative, another might think is too difficult to read, or too 'sales-y'. But when content is poorly written, or short, or doesn't have any calls to action, you can definitely tell it's bad.

Why can't SEO change that?

Part of SEO the improvement of your content to align better with certain keywords that are related to your business. Something that a user would search for will usually have certain words in that search. For example, someone who has a burst water pipe would search for 'plumber in Kent', but someone who just wants a spare part for their boiler, or their boiler replaced would search for something different. It may be that one company does both of these things. So, the company needs to have mentions of plumbers as well as boiler replacements and repairs in their content.

If the company's website doesn't have a lot of text, or the text is poorly written, there isn't a whole lot to work with. Keywords will be few and far between and won't really do a lot to improve the website's results. Remember, badly written content and SEO don't produce great results. You need pages and articles which answer queries that your potential customers are asking.

SEO isn't a miracle worker. If what you have on your website isn't up to scratch, adding a couple of pages of the same standard or some additional keywords isn't going to do a lot. At Smart Domain Group, we always make sure that our copywriting on every website we create is informative and well written, so that when our customers have SEO with us, there is a great foundation to work from.

So, what can you do about badly written content and SEO?

When it comes to SEO, you can't magic up great search engine results from thin air. It doesn't work like that. The same can be said for adding that SEO to badly written content. Take a look at sites on the fourth, fifth, sixth pages of Google, and so on. What do they have in common? Of course, there may be other issues that websites have that means their SEO isn't working, but you'll see that there's a few few with little to no text. Or, that the text has no calls to action. Or, no points for the reader to follow.

Bad content, but good SEO will not make a website rank well. That's why badly written content and SEO don't mix.

To change this, hire a professional. Employ a copywriter, just like the copywriters at Smart Domain Group, to write your website for you. They understand how to write content that sells both to the customer and the search engines. On top of that, hire a professional to do additional, monthly SEO. This way, you'll know that your website text content is professionally written and the SEO you have on top of that will help you rank.

It's simple, really!