Good SEO Content Should Be Scannable

You may know that good SEO content needs to be long. Longer content provides you with greater chances of ranking higher in search results with certain phrases, and that can mean higher conversions. But good SEO content doesn’t just need to be long, it needs to be scannable.

Why Does Content Need to Be Scannable?

The problem with content is that no one reads it. If you have an article that is 1,500 words long on limos in Asheville, no one is going to read it. That’s why you need to create content that allows people to scan it. Readers need to see what information is contained in the article, at-a-glance, before they are going to commit to reading the whole thing. Most people will scan the post or article to see if there is anything in the content that is relevant to them. If they find something that looks intriguing, then they might scroll down and actually read the relevant content.

Most people make the decision of whether they are going to read content in just a few seconds. If they aren’t able to see the benefit of reading on, they will leave your website, without reading, without commenting, and without sharing. And they may never come back to your site. That’s why scannable content is so important.

How Do You Make Content Scannable?

There are a number of ways that you can make your content scannable. You can divide it into sub headlines, use bulleted lists, insert relevant unique images into it.

• Sub headlines – When content is broken down into smaller sections with subheadlines that make it clear what the section is about, readers can quickly find the information they are looking for.
• Bullet list – Lists let your readers know that the content is broken down for them and it’s easy to read.
• Images – The eye is drawn to images. Using relevant images can encourage your viewers to read the corresponding content.

Pro Tip: If you’ve done a search on Google, then you’ve seen the featured snippet questions people are asking. When you use an h3 tag or an h2 tag that’s a question that you answer underneath that h-tag, you might earn a featured snippet yourself. So, then, when someone searches for one of these questions and you get the featured snippet, you’re getting what they call the position zero. The top of the page results, where your question and answer are in the Google search results.

Yes- Google loves long content, when it comes to SEO. Long content, however, shouldn’t be just a bunch of words. Help people get the gist of your content by making it scannable.