8 SEO Writing Tips You Need to Rank Higher
With more businesses entering the digital space than ever, SEO has once again become a hot topic among marketers and business owners. Everyone wants to be seen, but there are only that many spots on the first page. And that's why you need these SEO Writing Tips to help you rank higher before putting any advertising dollars down.
Why Learn SEO Writing
Do you know what the three major misunderstandings with SEO writing are?
- It is easy and fast to learn
- It is less important than copywriting skills
- It doesn't work for small businesses with a humble budget
While the ability to tell your story is vital to a business' success, SEO writing is just as important and complicated a skill as copywriting. And if you are limited by budget and cannot hire an SEO agency... Well, isn't that just another reason for you to learn the basics yourself?
Learning SEO writing comes with many benefits:
- It reduces your startup marketing cost
- It helps you understand how search engine works and what consumers are looking for
- When it's time to outsource your content, you have a better idea what to look for
Follow Google's Algorithm Updates
One of the best SEO writing tips anyone can give you is to stay informed with search engine's algorithm updates, mainly Google. Thankfully, since Google is at the heart of SEM, you won't have any issue finding trustworthy resoruce.
Great places to look for algorithm updates include:
You can also follow podcasters and industry leaders on deeper insights regarding the latest Google updates.
Define SEO Title and Meta Description Separately
A common beginner's mistake is use the same title and excerpt from a blog post for search engine.
However, this naturally brings up an issue: while search engines are here to serve human users, the crawler does have a differenet way of reading — known as algorithm.
Have you ever wondered why so many articles seem to be top 5, top 8 (hey, talking about ourselves here too)? That's because these titles are formatted for SEO purposes.
While you can use SEO title and meta description as your actual article title and excerpt, it doesn't work as effectively the other way. Therefore, if you have a unique article title, such as a creative piece, it's best to define your SEO title and description separately for the crawler.
Introduction and Conclusion
Having an intro and conclusion paragraph is not only a writing best practice, but could also help search engine understand what your post is about. Per best practices, you should also include your primary keyword in the first and last 100 words.
Nonetheless,this doesn't mean forcefulyl plug a keyword in. If you really can't find a good way to "go back to the theme," then just leave it be.
Today, Google is smart enough to pick up the cues of someone rigorously following SEO rules without regard to their audience, and that would result in a penalty.
Image Credit: Moz.com
Sprinkle your Keywords Evenly
If you're a Wordpress + Yoast user, then chances are you have seen a warning called "uneven keywords." This means large portion of your article either lacks relevant keywords, or is over-optimized with too many. And both cases can be harmful to your ranking.
The best way to ensure an even spread of your keywords is simply write naturally. Think about how we present ourselves in public. You can even refr back to your sales process. Usually, we circle back to our core topic twice or three times throughout our presentation to refresh our audience's memory.
Do that, and you will have an even spread of your keyword.
One Keyword at a Time
This is one of the most underrated SEO writing tips.
Often, we receive inquiries from busienss owners, and they'd say something like "we've done SEO. You just include all the keywords in your webpage, right?"
And it's outrageous how prevailing this misunderstanding is, even among so-called digital marketers sometimes.
The truh is, you have to focus on one keyword at a time. This means one primary keyword per article, while avoiding optimizing a previously-used keyword unless there is a good reason for it.
But this seems so ineffective, you might say.
Quite the opposite. With the right global keyword structure, this one keyword at a time method will bring you results much faster than aimlessly stuffing your pages with the same group of keywords over and over again.
Readability Matters
News flash: you do need to be a decent writer to get good at SEO writing. That's because the Internet now contains an astronomical amount of content.
If you have a topic in mind, chances are there are a million other pieces on the similar topic already. And if you have a new website, similr articles from other more authoritarian sites would easily overrank you.
So can you even survive? Yes, you can. And that is with quality content.
The latest update made Google more human-centric, but also gave newer, "weaker" sites more hope to rank. If an audience determines your content is helpful, that is, if they stay on your page and actually read what's published (or even better, shared), that positive feedback will give a nice boost to your ranking.
Meanwhile, even if you have a solid domain, if people always seem to bounce off your content, that penalty would drag your ranking down way faster than you could get up with basic optimization.
Describe Your Images
Images and videos are being used more frequently in today's content. But don't forget that the search engine crawler cannot "see" images, or "hear" audios.
So, the only way you can communciate with the crawler is by writing out what's known as the "alt attirbute," which describes what the image/media is about. Writing the alt attributes is a step often neglected by many unfamiliar with SEO writing, but it is indeed a vital piece of onsite SEO.
The Magic of Linking
Finally, let's talk a little bit about linking. There are two types of link you deal with in the SEO world:
- internal linking
- backlink (3rd party links directed to your content)
A good SEO strategy will cover both aspects. Internal linking works like a highway system and directs crawler to go from one content to another, indicating what each piece is about with the anchor text.
Meanwhile, backlinking is what adds up to your domain authority. The more high-quality backlinks you get from credible sources, the more easily your content will rank.
Write For Your Audience
Finally, as we talked aobut in our contet creation process, you should alwasy write for your audience. Honestly, you can learn all the SEO writing tips you want, but if you cannot connect with your community, you're wasting your time chasing vanity numbers.
Therefore, always remember you're writing for humans. Show your voice. Share your feelings. And stand by what you belive to be true.