We use cookies to personalise content and ads to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.
Is Written Content Still as Valuable as Other Digital Mediums?
Is Written Content Still as Valuable as Other Digital Mediums?
For any company looking to find any level of success online, it has long since been a universal truth that creating and regularly posting unique, valuable and compelling content is an integral part of all effective link building packages.
Whether you post it onto your own site, onto social media, or via guest posts on external sites, this content represents the best opportunity for your brand to reach beyond the static homepage and product pages that comprise your website – to interact with topical themes, appeal to the mood or interests of a particular audience at a particular time, and, of course, to repeatedly augment your authority in the eyes of Google’s ubiquitous algorithm.
In essence, content creation is about keeping on top of the shifting interests of internet users that exist within your brand’s target market, and is there to complement all other elements housed within SEO packages. Just like keyword usage, it requires continued monitoring in order to ensure that you are keeping pace with your current and prospective customers.
By now, however, it is clear that the realm of digital content is saturated with image and video, and that written content – particularly long-form – is garnering far less attention than other forms of media.
Video-based content sharing platform TikTok has seen massive growth in recent years, and long-standing industry leaders like Instagram and YouTube have adapted their approach to capture the current popularity of short-form content – but what does this mean for written content? If SEO and link building strategies continue to place an emphasis on written content, are they still valuable and relevant on the internet today?
Text Targets Specific Queries
When we have a specific question or want to find a specific product, the general rule of thumb is that we turn to Google – or any other search engine – and put our faith in the top handful of results. These targeted searches are incredibly valuable to any site that contains content, products or services that are relevant to the searcher. They offer you the opportunity to align your page with user intent – arguably the most valuable string to a marketer’s bow – which reduces the risk of a high bounce rate.
In the case of other digital media – for instance, a YouTube video – is a little harder to target specific user intent. While written content can utilise longtail keywords that narrow their scope to a very specific goal, a video is largely limited to what it can include within its own metadata, such as the title and video description.
That’s not to say that video content is not valuable to digital marketing – it offers an excellent complement to a comprehensive strategy, and an effective way of generating engagement among prospective and returning customers. Written content, however, speaks for itself when it comes to Google’s algorithm, which is why any strong link agency will continue to utilise it across a wide range of platforms.
Written Content is Time- and Resource-Efficient
To produce a single, high quality video, you need a considerable investment. It takes time, a gamut of technical equipment, and a team of writers, operators and editors to ensure that the final product is polished, professional and worth viewers’ time.
Amateur video quality almost invariably correlates with low engagement. While it may have been less conspicuous in the early days of video sharing, recent years have set an incredibly high standard for video creation.
Of course, thoughtful, original and engaging content takes time and skill, but it can be completed relatively quickly – it needn’t pass through the same stages of planning, preparation, setup, filming and editing before it begins to benefit your site’s SEO. To that effect, written content is cheaper, and is better prepared to appeal to trending topics as and when they are trending.
As such, written content offers a strong ROI – one that can be taken advantage of on a regular basis, without a significant downtime between order and delivery.
SEO Packages Can Use it in Conjunction with Other Media
We mentioned above how video-based content offers an excellent complement to other content creation, and the same goes for other forms of digital media.
Infographics, for instance, suffer from a similar limitation to video – their metadata (in this instance, the Alt Text) can be crawled by search engines, whereas the text housed within the image cannot.
That’s not to say that the contents of an infographic or image is wasted – but that, in order to see a strong ROI, it needs to be presented to readers strategically, alongside indexable and authoritative written content. Not only does presenting a combination of digital mediums complement any SEO strategy, but it will help you to increase your rate of engagement among viewers and readers.