TJ Vasquez
SEO writing is everywhere. If you’re familiar with the internet as a consumer, you’re probably aware of how search engine results display. One link takes the top position on a page and others fill in the spaces below, forming a list of sorts. Usually, the results closest to the top of the page have the highest likelihood of providing the information you’re searching for.
How do search engines determine which results to prioritize, though? Why is it that some business owners and content creators receive thousands of visitors to their pages while others seem to exist in a void?
Simple. Some business owners and content creators have perfected the way they use SEO. If you’d like to achieve the same success, you need an effective SEO strategy.
What is SEO?
By definition, SEO means “search engine optimization” but for beginners, this explanation doesn’t say a lot. While it assigns words to the abbreviation, business leaders who want their content to be seen need to understand how SEO works and how to use it.
“Optimizing” refers to the techniques that creators adopt to ensure that their content is easy to find through search engines like Google. Most online content can be optimized so that it will attract relevant traffic, and thus, receive higher search engine rankings.
The main goal of search engine optimization is to provide content that matches a user’s intent when they type a phrase or question into a search engine. Convincing internet users to click on links to your website is important. But, it’s more important to present relevant solutions so that users stay on your page and absorb your content.
Developing and maintaining an effective SEO strategy requires a lot of work. For now, let’s cover beginner-level elements of SEO that affect content optimization.
Where to Apply SEO
Search Engine Optimization techniques can be applied to most elements of a webpage. This includes headings, subheadings, the body of the content on a page, meta descriptions, title tags, images, and internal links.
Depending on the specific elements, optimizing content requires a few unique approaches. For example, the body of text on the page can be optimized by ensuring that it uses keywords correctly, displays accurate information, and is formatted for readability. Furthermore, individual pages and pieces of content need to be relevant and authoritative. They must also contain appropriate headings and subheadings, and have title tags and meta descriptions that draw traffic to the page’s URL.
In general, websites can be optimized when pages are designed to load quickly (including photo and/or video content). Pieces of content also need to be well-organized and easy to find, with site features that are accessible to mobile users.
We’ll delve more deeply into how to optimize each content element in a later article.
Structuring Your SEO Strategy
Structuring an effective SEO strategy can be complicated, especially for individuals who are new to SEO practices. To perfect your SEO strategy, you’ll first need to become familiar with SEO practices and experiment with different techniques. One method a lot of beginners prefer involves starting a blog.
By creating a space to write, publish, and share your own content, you can learn about the dos and don’ts of SEO in real-time.
Starting a Blog
One of the most crucial factors that play a role in a site’s SEO ranking is its ability to present relevant content in response to search engine queries. Google (and other search engines) place value on websites that have the answers that users are looking for. To achieve high search engine rankings, content that’s both relevant and accurate is a must.
Think about the future when you’re planning to create a blog. To continuously attract your target audience, it’s important to consistently publish content related to the niche you choose. Focus on a field you’re familiar with and passionate about. Choose a field that won’t have you running out of content any time soon.
Topics
Decide on a broad topic you can see yourself covering indefinitely. At the same time, make sure the topics you write about will interest your audience. For example, the topic of “animals” in general might be too broad, while “the behaviors of Abyssinian cats” might be too narrow.
Focus on a topic you’re knowledgeable about so that you can create a regular schedule of on-topic content. Give yourself enough room to branch out on occasion so that you can cover similar topics without jarring your audience.
Let’s say you’ve been working as a pet groomer or veterinary assistant for a couple of years and you want to create educational content for pet owners. The field of pet care and domestic pet behavior would be an ideal field for your content.
Formatting for SEO
Formatting your blog content for SEO purposes involves a couple of steps. One of the most important steps to follow is organizing your content with your audience in mind. We’ve all come across blog posts that resembled a “wall of text,” which made the content incredibly hard to read.
To make reading your content easier and more enjoyable for your audience, break up your text appropriately. Use headings, subheadings, and paragraphs to section your work. Most long-form content will have H1, H2, and H3 headings to improve readability.
On top of organizing your sections, try to use shorter sentences and paragraphs. Keep the vocabulary you use appropriate for your audience’s general reading level, and try to keep your writing tone consistent.
You might also choose to incorporate numbered lists, bulleted lists, or bolded sections to highlight important information.
Keywords for Beginners
Using keywords correctly is another crucial element of an effective SEO strategy, as these specific words make it to where search engine algorithms “notice” your pages.
To use the right keywords for the content you’re creating, keyword research comes in handy. We’ll cover how to conduct keyword research in a later article, but once you’ve determined which keywords you’re going to use, knowing how to use them is the next step to focus on.
Using your keywords naturally and evenly throughout your body of content is crucial, as is using appropriate variations of your keywords. A good rule of thumb is to ensure that your keywords make up about 1.5% of your content. This way, you’ll have enough keyword usage to notify search engine algorithms, but you won’t be “stuffing” keywords into your writing.
SEO For Beginners Writing Tips
One of the biggest mistakes that content creators make when they’re new to writing for SEO is becoming too focused on writing FOR search engines. This might be a confusing statement, but it will make sense in a moment.
To achieve high search engine rankings, content creators need to produce content that will convince search engine algorithms to direct traffic to their pages. However, writing content with the sole purpose of appealing to the algorithm isn’t the way to succeed. Content should be primarily written to serve your human audience. The topics you cover and the style you follow should appeal to people first and foremost.
Think of SEO as a map. When you follow a set of directions correctly, you make it from Point A to Point B as easily as possible. When you don’t follow the directions correctly, who knows where you might end up? Either way, you’re not following the directions because you want to make the map happy. You’re following the directions because you have somewhere you need to reach. Figuratively speaking, the Point B you arrive at is the audience you want to reach.
Bad SEO Blog Writing
Let’s go over a few examples of practices you should avoid when writing SEO-friendly content. These examples equate to throwing your map out the window and refusing to ask for directions despite knowing you’re lost.
- Poor Keyword Usage: We’ve mentioned keyword stuffing earlier, but the term might not effectively convey its meaning. If the keyword you’re using is “software development,” then stuffing the phrase into your content might look like this:
“Our company specializes in software development so if you’re looking for a software development company, call our software development pros.”
In addition to stuffing keywords into your content and creating clunky, low-quality work, it’s also important to use words and phrases that align with your topic.
For example, you might want your electronics store to attract an audience. You may notice that the above-mentioned “software development” keyword ranks high in search engines. If your content has nothing to do with software development, using this keyword to draw people to your website is going to irritate visitors and increase your bounce rates.
- Plagiarism: Copying content from a page that has a decent search engine ranking is essentially stealing someone else’s property. Even if you change the wording to put your own spin on the piece of writing, you’re basically copying someone else’s homework.
Reading high-ranking blog posts to gather information and inspiration is acceptable, but the content you write should be entirely yours. - Clickbait: Most of us are aware of how annoying clickbait can be. As such, it should be easy to understand why using misleading titles, descriptions, or images to trick your audience is not a smart practice. Internet users look for something specific when they type a query into a search engine. So, unless you can provide that “something specific” through your content, users won’t respond positively to your website.
Good Content Writing for SEO
Here are a couple of basic guidelines to follow if you want to improve your content writing for SEO.
- Paragraphs: Sentence length in a paragraph can vary. To ensure that your content remains SEO-friendly, your paragraphs should contain fewer than ten sentences. Usually, 4-5 sentences are enough to warrant a line break. Remember, when creating a new paragraph, try to keep your ideas organized.
- Sentence Structure: Keeping your sentences relatively short is a smart move for SEO. Of course, you don’t need to make all of your sentences short and choppy, because that would be jarring to the reader. Instead, even out your sentence length so that, on average, you have fewer than 20 words in each sentence.
- SEO-Friendly Writing: Before you even start writing a draft, create an outline that includes your main ideas and the keywords you plan to use. Have an introductory paragraph before the body of your work. Then, wrap your post up with a conclusion at the end.
Using transitional wording (such as however, furthermore, and additionally) is also a good idea when you’re moving from one point to the next. Transitional words help lead your reader into the next section instead of hitting them with point after point in rapid succession.
If you have already published content that closely relates to the new post you’re writing, linking to it within the body of your text helps point your readers to other work they might be interested in. - Quality Focus: Producing high-quality writing is essential to secure good SEO rankings. As you write and edit, make sure that your content is closely related to the keywords you’re using. Be sure to check for grammar and spelling errors, and fact-check before you publish. Search engines prioritize content that presents accurate information, aims to provide readers with the answers they seek, and showcases the writer’s authority on the topic.
Practice Your SEO Strategy
Planning and maintaining a well-rounded SEO strategy that works for your business takes a great deal of effort. With so many intricacies involved and the regular changes search engine policies undergo, mastering SEO isn’t easy. However, finding the right starting point for your experience level can help you get more informed about SEO. From there, you can experiment with SEO practices and build the skills you need over time.
Stay tuned for more on SEO strategies and how to use SEO to reach your target audience.
As an SEO beginner, you might be feeling overwhelmed by all the information you’ll need to put into practice for adequate search engine rankings. You’re in luck, though, because tools like Juno were designed for this exact reason. Juno’s SEO Strategy Builder can provide you with ten blog topics, meta descriptions, outlines, and drafts you’re free to use in just a few minutes.
Explore Juno’s recommendations, edit your blog drafts, and use the material generated to further enhance your understanding of SEO practices.
SOURCES
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-for-seo
https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-create-seo-friendly-content-with-semrush/
