14 Website Content Guidelines For Content That Ranks

Every business and content creator strives to rank higher on the search engine results pages to increase their visibility and attract more visitors and potential customers.

But there’s a science and art to writing for the web to ensure you’re successful and meet your online goals.

This guide answers your search for effective website content guidelines.

I share 14 essential tips to help you craft engaging, valuable, and optimized content that resonates with your audience and ranks well on the search engines.

1. Write people-first content

People-first content is helpful content. And above all, that's what will help you get discovered in search.

So, ensure your content helps your audience find what they want. In other words, your content must fulfill the user's search intent.

Is the search intent informational, navigational, transactional, or commercial? 

If someone is looking for the best dog food, their search intent is commercial. They want recommendations before they buy, and the search results illustrate that.

To rank for such a keyword, you can create “X best” high-quality content to fulfill their search intent. 

You can write people-first content yourself, hire a writer, or leverage AI content writing tools like SurferAI. 

With Surfer AI, you can have an article draft ready in less than 20 minutes.

Google won’t penalize you for using AI technology to write articles, but humanizing AI writing is essential to ensure it follows Google’s Helpful Content Guidelines.

Humanize your AI content by:

• Using first-person pronouns, such as "I"
• Writing in active voice
• Using real-life examples and sharing personal insights
• Avoiding industry jargon and overused AI terms
• Editing the content as a person would
• Leveraging AI Humanizer tools such as Surfer's Humanizer

2. Properly format your content

Effectively formatting your content increases engagement, readability, and SEO performance.

Follow these tips to format your blogs properly: 

• Use headings and subheadings to organize content 
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short to break up blocks of text 
• Use the correct font size and include white space to enhance readability 
• Include lists and bullet points to improve scannability 
• Bold or italicize important phrases or terms
• Include a clickable table of contents so the reader can quickly navigate to a specific section 

For example, this article by Spruce includes an infographic, short paragraphs, white space, images, headings, and bullet points, meeting high-quality web content guidelines.

3. Pay attention to on-page SEO

On-page search engine optimization (SEO) ensures your content is accessible to readers and search engines, enhancing its visibility and ranking potential. 

Here’s how to optimize critical on-page SEO elements: 

• URL: Use short, descriptive URLs that include your primary keyword.
• Meta title: Create compelling, keyword-rich page titles under 60 characters to improve click-through rates (CTR). 
• Meta description: Write concise descriptions of 150-160 characters that accurately summarize your content. Include a clear call-to-action to increase CTR. 
• Internal links: Use links to connect related content within your site internally. This helps distribute page authority and improve site navigation. 
• NLP optimization: Implement natural language processing (NLP) techniques to enhance your content’s relevance. This means naturally adding relevant keywords throughout your content.

Surfer's Content Editor makes NLP optimization a breeze. There, you can see which keywords to include in your content and at which frequency.

Inside the Content Editor, you can also find the option to automatically optimize your content for relevant keywords.

Click on Auto-Optimize and see your content score go up.

4. Use simple language

Use clear and concise language to create effective content. This will make your articles accessible to a broader audience and benefit your business.

Marketing experts agree that simple language improves communication and builds strong brands.

Here are some copywriting tips to help you simplify your writing: 

• Use short sentences, and limit adverbs and adjectives. 
• Avoid jargon and overly technical terms; instead, give simple alternatives. 
• Use real-world examples to clarify high-level statements and concepts. 
• Write in an active voice to boost engagement and clarity.
• Write in the first and second person, such as “you,” “we,” and “I,” to establish a conversational tone, making the content approachable and relevant. 
• If you’re writing content using AI, use an AI humanizer to simplify the content. 

Using simple language can help you connect with your audience.

For instance, while an article about the stock market often contains complex terminology, Nerdwallet's article uses simple language, short sentences, examples, active voice, and second-person references to introduce readers to the stock market and how to trade on it.

5. Incorporate visual elements

Visuals simplify complex data, making content more digestible.

Articles with visual information are viewed 94% more than those with only text.

Visual elements, such as images, graphs, videos, and infographics, enhance readability, break up text, and improve user experience.

This Quora post further outlines the importance of adding visuals to your content.

6. Regularly update content

Update old content when it contains outdated information to improve its relevance, accuracy, and SEO performance.

Regularly refreshing content also helps maintain engagement and can significantly boost organic traffic.

Addressing incorrect or outdated information and optimizing old posts can increase monthly organic traffic by 106%.

On Google Search Console, you can see which of your pages are losing traffic. This is where your most significant opportunities lie.

Surfer's Content Audit simplifies the process of identifying content update opportunities.

Navigate to the Best Opportunities tab to discover which pages can be optimized for the quickest results. Here, you can monitor their changes in ranking position, traffic, impressions, and clicks.

You can then click Optimize to update and refresh these pages following the guidelines in the Content Editor.

7. Enhance navigation

Focusing on user navigation is crucial for keeping readers engaged and guiding them through your content.

By adding internal links to related pages and resources, you can help readers explore more of your site, increasing the time they spend on your website and improving their overall experience.

Internal links enhance navigation, distribute page authority, and improve site structure.

For example, if you have an article about the benefits of SEO, you can include internal links to related topics such as on-page SEO, keyword research, and technical SEO. This approach helps readers dive deeper into subjects of interest and ensures they comprehensively understand the topic.

Inside Surfer's Content Editor, you can find the option to insert internal links into your content automatically.

Connect to your Google Search Console account, and Surfer will scan your website for relevant pages to add to your articles.

8. Follow accessibility guidelines

Accessibility in web content connects users to the information they seek, regardless of their abilities.

Google emphasizes the importance of ensuring web pages are accessible and follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 

Some essential accessibility practices include: 

• Adding descriptive and accurate alt text to all images. 
• Structuring your content with appropriate HTML tags, such as < h1 > for the main heading and < p > for paragraphs, ensuring logical document flow. 
• Using a good contrast ratio between the text and background to improve readability for readers with visual impairment.

9. Leverage the “inverted pyramid” structure

The inverted pyramid structure in journalism is effective for a reason.

Starting with the most crucial information and using main keywords can capture your reader's attention and improve SEO.

A clear information hierarchy guides readers logically through the page's content, from most to least important details.

Let's look at this in practice.

This Healthline article on the difference between panic and anxiety attacks prioritizes the most relevant content. It starts with a quick comparison, followed by definitions of both terms, before discussing symptoms and causes.

10. Encourage action

Effective calls-to-action (CTAs) help convert readers into customers.

For example, a button-based CTA can increase click-through rates by more than 30%, while an anchor text CTA can improve your conversion rate by 121%. 

Use actionable language, such as “join,” “sign up,” and “get a call,” and place the CTAs prominently so your audience can’t miss them.

Adding social proof, like testimonials or reviews, near your CTAs can increase trust and motivate users to click. 

Zendesk effectively uses call-to-action (CTA) buttons on its website.

They use pop-ups with CTA buttons like “Try the Suite.” Additionally, CTAs prompting visitors to “Start a free trial” and “Watch a demo" are displayed prominently at the top of the web page.

11. Match your audience’s language

Understanding and using your audience’s language and tone is essential for connection and engagement. It also makes your content more trustworthy, relatable, and credible. 

A fintech website, like Investopedia, should use industry-specific terms and a professional tone.

For instance, an article about financial risk management can use terms like “mitigating uncertainty,” “risk tolerance,” and “currency derivatives” to cater to the audience’s expertise.

In contrast, a website geared toward beginners should use simple language to connect to their audience.

12. Pay attention to technical SEO

Technical SEO optimizes your website’s infrastructure to improve search engine visibility and ensure it runs smoothly. 

Key elements of technical SEO include: 

• Site speed: A fast-loading site improves user experience and search rankings. Over 50% of mobile users abandon sites that take more than 3 seconds to load. 
• Mobile friendliness: Ensure your site is mobile-friendly to cater to growing mobile users. Google’s mobile-first indexing prioritizes websites optimized for mobile devices. 
• Canonical tags and duplicate content: Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues and help search engines understand the preferred version of a page.
• XML sitemaps: To help search engines index your site efficiently, submit an XML sitemap via Google Search Console (GSC).

13. Set high editorial standards

Maintaining high editorial standards ensures consistency and professionalism in your content. Follow a style guide for all web writing to ensure tone, language, and structure uniformity.

Create and share a standardized editorial document outlining formatting, writing standards, and editorial processes with all content creators.

Many companies and content agencies have style guides.

For example, Microsoft’s Writing Style Guide includes tips for mastering the company’s style and voice, bias-free communication, and specifics like capitalization and punctuation.

14. Follow ethical standards

With the rise of AI, upholding copyright laws and ethical standards is essential.

This starts with being transparent about AI use in content creation to build trust with your audience.

Many companies these days use AI technology to create content.

For instance, Bankrate openly uses AI content creation software. It includes a note stating it was "generated using automation technology and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff." 

So, if you're using AI technology, display it on your site. Also, never publish AI content without editing first.

Key takeaways

• Prioritize user intent by creating helpful, people-first content that fulfills the audience's needs.
• Properly format your content with headings, subheadings, short paragraphs, and bullet points to enhance readability and engagement.
• Optimize on-page SEO elements like URLs, meta titles, meta descriptions, and internal links to improve visibility and ranking potential.
• Use simple and clear language to make your content accessible to a broader audience.
• Incorporate visual elements such as images, graphs, and infographics to make your content more engaging and digestible.
• Regularly update and refresh old content to maintain relevance, accuracy, and SEO performance.
• Enhance navigation by adding internal links to related content, improving user experience and site structure.
• Follow accessibility guidelines to ensure your content is usable by everyone, regardless of their abilities.
• Employ the inverted pyramid structure to present the most important information first, capturing the reader's attention.
• Encourage action with effective calls-to-action (CTAs) to convert readers into customers.
• Match your audience's language and tone to build trust and relatability.
• Pay attention to technical SEO to ensure your website runs smoothly and is optimized for search engines.
• Set high editorial standards to maintain consistency and professionalism in your content.
• Follow ethical standards, including transparency about AI use in content creation and adherence to copyright laws.

Conclusion

Creating effective content is a delicate balance between addressing your audience's needs and adhering to SEO best practices.

By following these guidelines, you can produce content that ranks well on search engines, resonates with your readers, and keeps them engaged.

Remember, the key to successful content is prioritizing user intent, maintaining high editorial and ethical standards, and continuously updating your material to stay relevant. Incorporate visual elements, use simple language, and ensure your content is accessible and easy to navigate.

By implementing these strategies, you can create valuable, optimized content that attracts and retains your audience, ultimately driving more traffic and achieving your online goals.

What other tips can you share to create great content while following the best web content guidelines?

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