Common Sense Is Good SEO Too
Social Media or website, the most frequent questions that people always ask is, to get listed in SERPS or to get a good google ranking, what is the ideal length of things online. As things vary from URLs to blog posts, podcasts to videos the only answer is quite simply everything online should be long enough to convey the message and no longer.
The problem with maximum permitted length of text, is that people feel they need to use the full amount of text to explain their point. Social media posts are awash with way too much information and websites go overboard with cramming too much in, making for poor SEO and bad experiences, therefore not converting. Too much and it looks cheap. Too little and it doesn’t raise interest.
Good SEO is all based on relevance and pertinence. If the information contained in the post, description or meta data is accurate then the internet search engines crawlers will record all the relevant data and align it with what they expect the site to be promoting. What is that? It is the pertinence of whatever you put in the description section plus they benchmark you against the peer group you are operating in.
Apart from the SEO side of things, there is also the usability of the content itself. This could be made a lot better by reducing the amount of information specifically detailed, providing them with a call to action or invitation to learn more (from other areas of your website) and make it a whole lot clearer. Try reducing the characters per line and put it in a larger font. Use bullet points and make your points short and sharp. The title should also be concise and intriguing or if it is an email subject line, keep it to within 28-39 characters, these get over 10% more opens and 4% greater click-throughs than long meandering ones.
If your content is audio or visual, then think about the platform it will be displayed on. Audio should be accompanied by as large a description allowed with the relevant points clearly demonstrated as well as the overall benefits. If it is visual, then include a full transcript. This includes YouTube, Slideshare or Ted Talks as when these are positioned on the appropriate website they will be swept by the search bots and the relevance and pertinence of the description (they can’t see videos or hear audio) will launch your content high up in the rankings. A confused and unclear transcript will not do you any favours. Additionally, some sites (like YouTube) are offering translation of the transcript – giving you even more relevance if you have an international appeal.
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