Awesome Content is the Best Outfitter SEO

Write for the Hunters and Anglers

In our blog, we often talk about the benefits of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how it helps Google recognize that your content is worth recommending.  You may recall how we have described one of the outcomes of SEO as making it blindingly obvious to Google what your content is about.  One thing we have probably haven't emphasized enough is that it's important to understand that while we want Google to recognize that your content is awesome, Google is not your audience.  Google is not a big game hunter looking for a Canadian outfitter to contact. Google is not a travelling angler looking for their next fishing lodge. The audience you need to be writing for is your market, the hunting market and the fishing market, the population of real people that would benefit the most from your information. So, SEO should have your audience front and center.  Trying too hard to construct your text for what you think Google wants is a mistake. 

Google Ranking Algorithm

What Google wants is defined by the 200+ ranking signals in their secret ranking algorithm.  Think you can actually guess what that is?  Unlikely.  Google is also constantly tweaking, experimenting, and releasing massive updates to their algorithm, so it's a moving target. What you can effectively target is the people that you already know and the topics that you know they find of interest, hunting and fishing.

Content is the Value

Your value to your customers is something much more stable that the Google ranking algorithm.  Write about that, write content that is useful to them, that provides meaningful information to them, and don't worry about the tweak to Google's algorithm that the twitter-verse is buzzing about.  Awesome content always wins. When developing content, begin with a topic area that you can produce at least 300 words of useful information.  Less than that and it's not likely enough for you audience to find significant and Google needs enough copy to find out what your page is about. You can’t expect to gain status as an expert on a certain topic when you have only written two sentences about it.  Being able to generate a significant enough amount of content also indicates to Google that your page might be the best result to match to a related search query.

Avoid Trying to Stuff Your Content

Be careful not to just stuff a bunch of keywords into your content. That was a tactic that was successful near the turn of the century.  Google has become much smarter in the 21 years since then. Beyond the value to your audience of writing great content, there is another potential side benefit, that is bit hit with Google.  You can't start every sentence with "Saskatchewan whitetail ..." or "Fishing for Pike in Saskatchewan ...".  Write your content as naturally as if you are speaking to someone in your living room. If others find your content awesome, others are more likely to link from their own site to your content.  This is a vote for your site.  Google does use these links as one of their most important ranking signals in it's ranking algorithm, so the benefit is an all around good result. The easiest way to convince yourself to focus on your audience, is to think of it this way, "If your audience loves your content, Google is likely to follow".