As a business owner, you’ve probably heard of search engine optimization and you may even think you know exactly what you’re doing when it comes to optimizing your site and writing for SEO.
However, it’s surprising how many entrepreneurs miss out because they’re making simple SEO mistakes. Here’s what SEO writers don’t want you to know about writing for SEO impact.
Your site has to be indexed
You can optimize your content as much as you like, but if your site isn’t indexed it won’t make a blind bit of difference. Anybody writing for SEO needs to know how Google searches sites and hands out link authority. They also know that blogs need to be full of SEO rich content, not just a few posts here and there. Once your posts are written, they all need to be indexed too.
Word count counts when writing for SEO
The most important thing when it comes to writing for SEO is fresh content. However, if the only content your posting is only long enough for a tweet, it isn’t adding much value to your site. Each of your posts when writing for SEO should be a balance between long enough to be interesting and engaging but not so long that it turns into a boring essay.
The SEO services a writer provides includes researching and putting together posts that specifically target and interest your audience, but are the optimal length as well. Research your audience response to see how they are reacting to different article lengths on your site.
Your content can tell you a lot
There’s no point in writing for SEO, then just publishing your articles and forgetting about them. Your content can tell you a lot about your audience. Using Google Analytics can help you figure out what your audience is most interested in.
This not only allows you to post content that you know will intrigue your customers, but it will also help you to make choices about stocking new products and where to take your business in the future. If your visitors are looking at your content but not staying for long, you may not be writing the kind of content your audience is looking for.
Writing for SEO — but for readers
Writing for SEO isn’t just about writing down information that you think your audience will want to read. You also have to think about what the reader wants to see. A writer knows that long sentences and paragraphs can be off-putting. You’ll also need to think about the font and font size. Simple mistakes can make a website look unprofessional, and an unprofessional first impression often leads to the permanent loss of a customer.
SEO and PR
It isn’t just about getting your SEO on point. Many business owners think they can write a post, index the site and just wait for things to happen. However, just like every other aspect of business, a blog post should be advertised. Tweet about it, create a Facebook link, and make sure your audience are sharing it too. Google may guide searchers to your site because of your SEO but the more visitors and backlinks you create, the more credibility your site will gain.
The golden rules of writing for SEO
Before we start, we want to uncover a myth: There are no pure SEO texts when writing for SEO. Of course, the goal is to rank with the texts on Google and Co. in order to reach as many users as possible and to generate more traffic on your own website. But in the end, it is the users who want to buy the potential products or inform themselves online and not Google.
We therefore know that in writing for SEO, we are primarily writing for the readers. Nevertheless, the text can be beautifully written and provide helpful information – but if it ranks on the back pages, it will not be found.
In order to be played out on the top ranking places, any writing for SEO should also be optimized for search engines such as Google. This includes, among other things, the placement of relevant keywords in the text or the maintenance of metadata and alt tags.
In the online marketing world, people talk about it every day, but what exactly are SEO texts? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO texts are content that has been optimized for the search engine. The trick here, however, is that the focus when writing for SEO is always on the reader and provides added value for them.
Google evaluates more than 200 factors to decide which URL appears at which point in the search result. Although the “rules” listed by us here are confirmed again and again in practice, a concrete guide is not published by Google. And this is exactly where the challenge lies: In order to always rank well, the changes in Google’s algorithm and new ranking factors must be adapted again and again when writing for SEO.
You want to know how to write really good SEO articles and what you have to consider when optimizing search engines? We have summarized the most important points for you.
Writing for SEO: 1. Determine the target group
First things first: If you don’t know who you’re writing for, you don’t even need to start. So before the first words land on paper, the question of the target group should be clarified. The following checklist can help you:
- Who is my target group?
- What interests my target group?
- Where is my target group on the web?
- What do my competitors do to reach the target group?
Writing for SEO: 2. Each text must be unique
A good text should be as unique as possible. An SEO text too! However, this is not about reinventing the wheel, but about clearly highlighting your own USP and preparing the associated information as comprehensively as no one else has ever done. In terms of content, as many questions as possible that could arise for readers or potential customers during the decision-making or purchase process should be answered.
Please never proceed according to the “copy & paste” method: duplicate content is neither beautiful nor effective. Instead, authenticity is required when writing SEO articles – even in the use of language.
The tone of the SEO-optimized text should reflect the target group, but still be open enough to pick up new readers.
Writing for SEO: 3. Keywords as the key to success
Keywords, i.e. the terms that users enter into Google search, are the alpha and omega for an SEO text. They form the basis of the text and decide for which search terms the text is played. The use of an individual focus keyword as well as synonyms and semantically related words not only ensures a varied text structure, but also helps to be found under different search terms. You can determine the search volume of your defined keywords using Google’s keyword planner. Ideally, the term has a high search volume and low competition.
If you want to start writing right now, you should rather work specifically rather than according to the motto “More is more”, because the text should remain reader-friendly. While the keywords in SEO text should be used fluently, there are a few places where you should think of keywords:
- At the beginning of the text
- In the H1 heading and at least one other H2
- In the image description (alt tags)
- In the meta description
There is no exact value from Google for optimal keyword density. We recommend a keyword density of about 2%. Anything (far) above that runs the risk of being considered spam by Google.
Much more important than keyword density, however, is the WDF*IDF formula today. This allows you to analyze the ratio of certain keywords in a text. The tools for the calculation look at the competition for the defined keyword and give suggestions beyond this, which words can be used more often in the text and which may still be missing completely.
This holistic view of a text is becoming increasingly important as Google looks not only at the individual keyword, but at the context and wealth of information.
Writing for SEO: 4. Structure and flow
Now this is a big one: Keyword text structure. Even if SEO texts should be found by search engines, they are primarily written for the target group. Clarity and reading flow should therefore be in the foreground when creating texts. It starts with the heading structure: All headings should be formatted as HTML headings of the levels H1-H6 so that the document structure is recognizable to Google.
By the way, you can easily check the H-structure of a page with the Google Chrome extension Webdeveloper.
A short teaser text as well as a crisp conclusion with a call-to-action form the framework of the article. Subheadings and short paragraphs facilitate the overview and with boldly marked keywords, the content should become clear even when skiming over SEO texts. With images and graphics, the text also looks visually appealing, and it also creates the possibility to lure users of the Google image search to the post. Especially for more complex issues, the creation of a diagram is a good thing.
With regard to text length, there is no ideal text length for SEO texts. This simply depends on which format it is and how much “material” the topic provides. Basically, the following applies: As little as possible, as much as necessary. Although the text length of competitors, for example, can be an orientation aid, it is crucial that readers find all the relevant information.
Writing for SEO: 5. Meta description, tags and links
Writing a good SEO text does not only involve writing alone, but also maintaining the metadata. The metadata, i.e. title tag, meta description and alt tag, are not directly visible to the users, but are read out by the search engines and used for the search result:
The title is displayed in the snippets of the search results and is one of the most important ranking factors. For this reason, the focus keyword should be included in it at the beginning if possible. Caution: The title must not exceed a length of about 55 characters or 512 pixels, otherwise it will be “truncated” in the search result.
The meta description is located directly below the title. Here 155 characters are the measure of things. With the Serp Snippet Generator you can roughly guess what the finished snippet looks like and whether it has the optimal length. In the meta description, short, concise sentences should be used to make a short teaser of what the text is about. It is particularly effective if a call-to-action in the sense of a “Buy!” is installed.
Depending on the search query of the users, the snippet can be adapted by Google, so do not be surprised if something else is displayed in the Google results than stored in the CMS. If you do your job well, but the various search queries should be covered and you get many users on your website through a click-attractive snippet. The title tag and meta description of the SEO text should be as unique as possible and can be provided with some special characters as an eye-catcher.
Alt tags are descriptions that are stored in images and graphics and describe the respective motif or main feature of the image. This is necessary if images cannot be loaded automatically. In addition, it serves Google as a clue as to what can be seen in the image. As text-based software, Google can only “read” the images using the alt tags, which is why it is also advisable to include the main keyword in at least one alt tag.
Ideally, the text module, which is used to link from your own text to other pages and content, is also descriptive. The link text or “anchor text” should contain a concise, meaningful choice of words. Typical mistake: “You can find the instructions for building a shelf here” – it would be better to link the words “Instructions for building a shelf”. In principle, internal links, i.e. links within the website, should always be set if thematically appropriate.
These can be product pages or other blog posts. Internal links are extremely important for Google. They help the search engine crawler to navigate through the website, to understand the structure and the thematic contexts. If a page is linked particularly frequently, Google recognizes a higher relevance here.
Links to other domains can also be set in exceptional cases. Here you should keep in mind, however, that the users then leave your website and may not come back.
Writing for SEO: 6. Avoid keyword cannibalism
You have determined your target group, found suitable keywords and designed a clear structure for the SEO article. Can the text now be easily uploaded? At this point, we should take another step back. It is essential that the SEO article is not only considered as an individual, but the website as a whole. Ideally, a focus keyword is assigned at the beginning of each page.
Anyone who diligently starts writing for SEO and optimizes them without structure and a plan runs the risk of keyword cannibalism, i.e. a so-called SEO over-optimization. If many subpages of a website are optimized for the same keyword, Google faces the “relevance problem”. So the search engine does not know which page to play.
Will my rankings be negatively affected if several pages rank for the same keyword? That can happen. However, it is much more important to know the search intention of the readers. It is possible that two pages are targeted to the same keyword, provided they deal with different objectives. In order not to encounter this problem in the first place, you should regularly subject your website to a content inventory and check which pages can be summarized or expanded and which are irrelevant.
Conclusion
SEO can be a minefield when you aren’t sure what you’re doing, but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying.
