We've received lots of questions this week from builders returning from IBS on the concept of website content, and it's important to set something straight from an SEO perspective: Content is not the most important piece of your SEO. The user is. That being said, content is one of the more important pieces of your site as it relates to the user. The same can be said of the design/layout of your site on both desktop and mobile. Anything you do in an effort to improve your SEO should be done with the end user in mind. These days, SEO and the user go hand in hand. So thinking about your website content, it does not matter how many words are on the page as long as it answers the user's search query. It does not matter how many pages are on your site as long as the user spends time on all of the pages. It does not matter if the page contains photos, videos, interactive floor plans, copy, or all of the above as long as the user understands the purpose of the page and finds it useful during their home search. We can see why people argue that content is king, because it does play a huge role in your SEO success. A huge one. However, it is incorrect to say that you can manipulate SEO ranking just by adding more content, more pages. The truth is that sometimes when you take away pages that users are not visiting or are quickly exiting out of, your SEO will improve. The "SEO value" of your website content is 100% dependent on the value of your content to the user. Now that we've established that, let's talk about how you can actually improve the content on your website in a way that will benefit your SEO. Probably the simplest and easiest thing to start with is to assess your photos. We all know these are the crown jewels of homebuilder websites. This is what every homebuyer is looking for and expects to see. There's no reason you shouldn't have some sort of visual on every single page. Homebuyers gravitate toward homes with lots of natural light. Photograph your homes during the day to showcase this. DO NOT rely on artificial lighting. When you're looking at your site's photos, try to do so from an outside perspective. Or ask friends and family for their honest opinions. Once again, simply having a piece of content (like a photo) is not enough--it has to be good content. So look at the number of photos--is it enough? Look at the size of the photo--is it too small? Look at the quality--is it crisp and clear when you view it at maximum size? Look at the composition of the photo--does it look like something people fantasize about on Pinterest or does it look like you shot it on your iPhone after work as the sun was setting? Invest in your website photography, and invest in it often. Users will spend more time on your site, and as a result your site will start to appear more in search. Something advanced you can do to improve your website content is to hire an SEO specialist to conduct a full-site content audit. This goes beyond looking at surface-level pieces like photos and keywords to really dig deep into your search data and find areas for improvement. An SEO specialist can figure out which pages of the site are showing up in search but failing to get clicks or much time on site. Those pages can be isolated and analyzed to determine if they have the right information for the search results they are appearing in. Essentially, your SEO specialist can look at each page of the site and tell you how the content should be improved so that your whole website performs better in search. No guessing about keywords, word count, or number of pages. Just cold, hard data. If you're underperforming in search and you feel your site content might be to blame, you can request a site audit from our SEO specialists at Builder Designs by emailing abby@builderdesigns.com.