Whether you realize it or not, the Internet is constantly evolving. Now, sometimes it doesn’t seem like that. You log on, check your email, visit a few social media profiles, you might even read the news.
Chances are you have a few favorite websites built into your morning routine. The overall view of your favorite websites rarely change (just look at Facebook. Outside of one or two “face”lifts, the social media platform’s overall design has changed very little in its 15 years of activity).
The thing is, even if the visual aspects of your favorite websites aren’t changing, everything behind the scenes are. And if you’re not careful, your own website, will be left behind, buried in the dust of faster, more progressive business owners and their designs.
The fact of the matter is the Internet is evolving. So should your content.
Formatting Is More Important Than Ever
If you head over to a major news website such as The New York Times or Forbes you’ll still see articles written in traditional formats, with large blocks of text and paragraphs lasting for a half-dozen sentences.
But for everything else? Most paragraphs are no longer than three sentences. And if you’re writing a blog post a paragraph might be a single sentence.
Why? Because content needs to be easily scannable. Most readers will not actually read your content word for word. They will skim through and pick out what they want to read.
If you don’t format your content to include more white space you’ll likely end up losing some readers. So gone are the day of using the same formatting styles you learned in high school writing class.
That’s not all though. You need to format your content to be mobile friendly.
According to Statisa (2019), over 48% of all Internet traffic is mobile. While this is down from its high point of nearly 53 percent for Q3 of 2017 (thanks in part to the increase in cheap Chromebooks and laptops), you can still expect roughly half of your viewers to arrive by mobile.
If it doesn’t read well on mobile you’ll instantly miss out on half of all possible traffic.
This makes formatting your content more important now than ever before.
SEO Isn’t What It Used To Be
When search engines first hit the big time you’d see websites cram certain keywords dozens of times into the footer of the site.
Some very ill-advised websites still use this tactic (and what they don’t realize is search engines are likely docking the site than boosting SEO).
Then, Google started to release different updates (such as Panda and Penguin) that squashed most content farms. The search engine wanted to focus on quality over short blurbs offering bland content.
And now, more than ever, keyword stuffing is less helpful than ever before.
This is because search engines use A.I. (artificial intelligence) to crawl sites. This means you don’t need to fill your website with 2% keywords. In fact, you really only need to have the keyword appear once.
Anything more is now overkill and, if it doesn’t read properly, might end up causing more harm than good.
Video Is Everything
If you’re not using video in your content you’re missing the boat.
Facebook now highlights its own video content. So does Instagram. So does Twitter. So does nearly every single social platform.
If you post content to YouTube it will appear in Google searches.
It’s also easier to watch a 2-minute video than read a 20-minute blog post.
So you better get comfortable in front of a camera, because if you are not using video, there’s a good chance your competition is, and with every video post they make you’re falling just another step behind.
Need Help Evolving? We’re Here To Help
Sometimes knowing what to do and how to do it can be tricky. You want to do it right and yet that can sometimes lead to being overly cautious.
Instead, you need a term of experts who can help craft exceptional content for you that will both evolve with the changing Internet while also work with the kind of business you run and the copy you like.
So, if you want to learn more about what WriterAccess can do for you, now is the time to contact the team at WA. From answering questions to setting you up with the perfect writer(s) and editor(s), you’re one step closer to ensuring your online footprint’s continued sustainability.
Greyson F. has been writing online content for over eight years and has extensive experience writing in a variety of formats. These formats range from travel reviews and how-to instructional essays to professional journals and academic papers. Major publications such as USA Today, Yahoo!, IBM, Google and others have all produced his work. Additionally, Greyson works as an online video producer and travel photographer. He has worked extensively with the New York Times as well as had video work appear on ESPN and NBC Universal. His travel photography is regularly features by Yahoo!
