SEO Is Moving Away From Plain Text

If you’ve ever looked up informative Melbourne SEO articles on the internet, you would have heard the phrase (perhaps repeatedly) that content is king. While this is true, it may no longer be true in the way that you thought. Confused? Read on

Essentially, research indicates that users are looking for more creative methods of portraying information, other than just written text. And retrospectively, we can see that as soon as this user trend spikes, the algorithm changes accordingly. At the moment, it seems that Google does reward images and videos, although the emphasis is likely to grow with the next major update. Images in particular are essential. In times of shorter attention spans and quick decision making about what we want to consume, a first impression is important. We cannot deny the rise of vision centric platforms, such as Instagram and Pinterest. The former was recently acquired by Facebook for a ridiculous sum, while the latter has overtaken twitter to become the third most influential social media platform. It is clear that users are willing to share images they like, and so this opens up the possibilities for visual branding.

A well taken photograph or well-designed graphic has the potential to create a mood. Perhaps this obsession with the visual is due to the fact that now there is a camera on our phones and our tablets, and it is simply more accessible. Just about anyone can take a photo with minimal skill or talent, and in fact 10% of the photographs taken by humankind have been in the last year. So, now that just anyone can take a photo, it means that in order to get noticed, your images have to be of particular quality or interesting subject matter.

Images are important for all levels of your promotion, from directly on your website, to articles and blog posts. To put it in perspective, articles with a photo receive 94% more attention than those without an image. One little picture can make a huge difference. There are actually almost endless ways of presenting content, with a main limit being imagination. This article offers no exhaustive list, but aims to demonstrate how you could go about brainstorming. You don’t have to try everything, and some angles will lend themselves to certain businesses. Infographics, memes, how-to guides, videos, e-books, podcasts, interviews and top five or ten lists are fresh ways to grab attention. Notice how many of these examples are skewed towards presenting information concisely so that audiences don’t need to read a huge slab of text.

Most of the time, readers want to be entertained or learn something interesting, not to study. Back in school, you would have rather watched the film than watched the book, so work with this mentality in mind. Always ask if there is an easier or newer way of presenting this content. In the last few years there has been a surge in stop motion, hand drawn stories or infographics. The beauty of these is that they are so cost effective so long as you have someone who can draw decently and look rather effective. Videos generally take a little more time and money, as you will need a script, a camera man and decent graphics. Get creative with your format. Common are how-to videos, but you could do a virtual tour, a music video or simply a moving infographic.

If you would like a personal consultation about how your business could make the most of custom SEO graphics in Melbourne, you can have a chat to the Zib Media team at http://zibmedia.com.au/.

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