User Interaction Signals
Content that is easy to scan will hold visitors’ attention longer, increasing “dwell time” (time on page from organic search), a search ranking factor. The idea is to keep the scan reader flowing through the content by avoiding long blocky paragraphs and adding strong visuals at every scroll depth. Highly structured, visual content keeps visitors engaged for longer.
Relevance
More formatting means more opportunities for the inclusion of the target keyphrase and related phrases. These are all places where you can indicate relevance: subheads, bolding, bullet lists, alt text, and summary statements. These types of formatting can also help you win the featured snippet.
Authority
Internal links are another opportunity to use keyword-focused anchor text and to pass authority between pages. And great visuals (especially charts and diagrams) are opportunities to do “image source link building.” Whenever you have the opportunity to contribute content to another site, add an image and an image source link. It’s easier to build links to articles with great visuals.
