If you think about it, the best and most unique content on your site should be search engine optimized (SEO). The reason for this is pretty simple: the more optimized your content is, the higher chance you’ll show up in search engine results. This can help drive traffic to your website, generate leads and get conversions.
After all, search engine traffic is best. It’s highly targeted and has a low bounce rate. Visitors from search engines are usually actively interested in your product or service, since they already made the effort to find you.
So how can you make your content more SEO-friendly? Here are 11 tips that will help you do just that:
1) Title Tags
<h1> VS. <h6> tags
Search engines give your titles a lot of weight in how they rank you, so it’s important to have an effective, descriptive title tag for every page on your site. It will also help you gain visitors from search engine results by showing them what each specific page is about without them needing to click through and read anything.
For example: Let’s say you’re writing an article about organic gardening tips. Your site’s navigation has a few pages, including one for ‘fertilizer’ and another for ‘compost’. You want to create titles that will help people find the content they are looking for, so it’s easy for them to decide whether they should check out your page or go back and look for other resources.
In the example below, you can see how a title tag will change depending on what type of content is being optimized:
<h1> Organic Gardening Tips </h1>
→ <h2> The Best Organic Gardening Tips You’ll Find Online </h2>
→ <h3> 10 Easy Steps to Start an Organic Garden Today </h3>
<br /> ↓ 10 More Easy Steps to Start an Organic Garden Today
You can also see that the <h3> tag isn’t as descriptive as it could be: 10 Easy Steps to Start an Organic Garden. It would be better if you used a more relevant number, such as 11 or 12.
<br /> ↓ What Not To Do When Starting an Organic Garden
As you can see, the <h1> tag is more descriptive than the <h2>. The <h2> tag looks suspiciously like a sub-header even though it’s not. That’s because many bloggers decide to implement them into their website design very early on. It just makes sense to have the most important information on top, right?
Well, if you’re looking for SEO value, it doesn’t make much sense to place the title tag in an <h2> or <h3> tag. If there were no tags at all (like in the example above) search engines would only see the first few words of your post’s content and use that in the title tag.
Since <h1> tags are reserved for your page or post titles, using them will allow you to better describe what your content is about – which in turn can help drive more traffic. Remember: Google uses click-through rate as a ranking factor. If people find your post interesting based on the title, they’re more likely to click through.
2) Content Length
Search engines put a lot of weight on the content that you provide to users. That’s why they rank long-form content highly. In fact, Google recently stated that over 2000 words is preferable for a single page. This might come as a surprise to some bloggers who are used to writing in a more conversational tone, but it shows that the search engine’s goal is to provide searchers with exactly what they’re looking for.
A lot of content marketers struggle with this concept because ” 2000 words is too much! Blog posts should only be around 300 words!” If you think that way, then that’s exactly how search engines see your blog posts.
What is important to remember though, is that you can’t just strategically add words in order to rank better. It’s not “Gee, I need to have 2000+ words on this page so it ranks higher.” Instead, think of content length as the byproduct of providing amazing value.
If you have 2000 words on a post, but only 10% is useful and well-written, then that’s not going to impress Google. It’ll just frustrate your readers because hopefully they came to the blog looking for something specific and they won’t find it buried within all of those words.
On the other hand, if you identify a specific problem, solve it in a unique way and fluff it up with a ton of information that solves the readers’ problems, then you’ll naturally have more words.
Another great example can be found on Quick Sprout . Neil provides his readers with an insane amount of value (he’s one of the best at this).
However, that length is intentional. He knows that in order to provide great value for his readers, there needs to be a ton of information.
3) Internal Linking
Internal linking gets a lot of flack. People think that it’s just another useless ranking factor like its big brother, keyword density. However, if you do it right, internal links can really provide value for your readers and help them navigate through your blog posts.
Instead of placing a link to your contact page every time you mention “contact,” place it in the sidebar. Then, each time you write a blog post, link to it from within the post once and only once. This internal linking tells Google that this new page is related to what you’re already talking about.
Internal link building becomes something that you can use later to diversify your anchor text. Don’t try to control your links too much by only linking to pages with exact match keywords in the anchor text.
Your readers may appreciate it, but Google doesn’t like it when you do this because it makes them think that you’re trying to manipulate them. Just be natural and you’ll be okay.
4) Formatting your posts
If you look at some of the highest ranking pages on Google, you’ll find that they’re often aesthetically pleasing. It’s no accident that these posts show up so high in the search results.
What is an accident, though, is how many low-quality blogs don’t follow this concept. Remember, Google wants to bring value to its users. If they’re finding useless garbage, then they’re probably going to stop using the search engine which means that their revenue will go down.
One of the best things that you can do for your blog is make sure that your posts look good and are easy on the eyes.
Now, I’m not saying that you need to become a graphic designer. Just make sure that there isn’t too much clutter on the page and everything is easy to read. Use subheadings so people can scan your posts more efficiently.
If you want to do an experiment with this, just take some of your posts and strip out all of the formatting and styling and see if you notice a difference. Chances are, your blog posts will start to look like everyone else’s and people will stop trusting you because you’re just another unknown blogger.
Your content marketing strategy should be laid out before you even touch a keyboard. Are these high-value pieces that provide real value? Do they solve a specific problem?
Remember, content marketing isn’t about you. It’s not even about your product or service. Your blog should be all about providing value to other people who care enough to read your blog.
5) Formatting your titles
When you’re writing a post, it’s easy to get caught up in the middle and forget about the beginning and ending.
However, starting and finishing your post with strong titles is crucial because it not only makes the writing process easier, but it puts you in good standing to rank high in Google.
A lot has been written already on this subject so I don’t want to go too much into detail, but what you need to remember is that you should always try to do one of two things:
a) Make the title as long as possible while still including your main keyword.
b) Make sure that your blog post has at least one subheading with the same term because this will make it much easier for Google (and users if they’re savvy enough) to understand what the content is about.
6) Using keywords in your titles and subtitles
This is another common SEO strategy, but it’s one that a lot of people forget about. If you’re blogging about “online marketing,” then make sure that you include “online marketing” in your title or subtitle somewhere.
It takes seconds to do this and it can make your title or subhead into a keyword that you didn’t even think about using.
You don’t want to go overboard with this, though, because Google doesn’t like it when the same word appears too many times in one article (or for multiple terms). Just make sure that you include your main term at least once or twice.
7) Using images on your site
This one seems obvious, but there’s two things that I need to touch on:
a) Appropriateness – Does it fit with your blog? Will it help or hinder the message of your post?
b) Size – Not so much size as the dimensions, but you need to make sure that your images are cropped properly because this makes it a lot easier for Google (and humans if they’re savvy enough) to know what’s going on.
8) Using videos and other multimedia content
This one is huge, guys. Video is the future of online content.
It’s not just about using YouTube videos, either – but original multimedia content that you create yourself on your blog. Video is one of the most popular forms of media content today and there are some huge advantages to using it for your blog:
- Video helps with rankings in Google because search engines love content that is mostly visual.
- People love video content, which means that more people will share it on social media (and you get the benefits of getting more traffic).
- Video can be very engaging, helping to keep people on your site for longer periods of time. This is great if you’re trying to get them back later to buy something or subscribe to your newsletter.
d) Video makes you look more professional – if you’re selling a product, this is extremely important because consumers respect video content more than text-based articles. Search engines think the same way about blog posts that contain mostly images and videos (in their own unique ways).
9) LSI keywords and synonyms
You need to make sure that your main keyword is the most important part of every blog post that you create – but there are some other things you can do as well that will help with rankings.
a) Using LSI keywords
LSI keywords, which stands for Latent Semantic Indexing, are words that have a connection to your main keyword. It’s not competing with your main keyword – but it still adds some value by way of increasing the number of things that people can search for. For example: If you’re writing a blog post about online marketing, then you might want to include words like “social media” or “SEO.”
b) Using synonyms
This is the same thing as using LSI keywords, but instead of using words that are related to your main keyword, you’re looking for ways to replace them with something else.
For example: If your keyword was “online marketing,” you might want to look for synonyms like “marketing” or “website.”
10) Schema markup
Schema markup makes it easier for search engines to understand what your content is about because they can use this tool to show certain things in search results. For example, images are often shown in the search engine results pages (SERPs) now – but if you use this schema markup, Google will be able to highlight your photos even more.
11) Backlinks
The more backlinks you have coming into a page on your site, the better that page is going to rank in search results – and it’s definitely something that you want to look for.
While getting backlinks is definitely important, it’s important to remember that Google uses something called link equity. This means that it doesn’t matter if you have a ton of incoming links on one page – but none of the other pages on your site have any. The ratio needs to be balanced in some way, shape or form.
How is content writing related to SEO?
A: Because the whole point of ranking higher in search results is to get more visitors, you need find ways to write blog posts that are engaging. Search engines look for unique content that people will love – so you need to have this same mentality if you want your site to be successful.
What are some SEO writing and content creation tips?
Some of the best ones include using LSI keywords, finding synonyms for your main keyword, making sure that images are being shown on search result pages, creating fantastic pieces of content that people will want to share with their friends, backlinks and schema markup. These are just a few of the many SEO writing and content creation tips that you should consider.
How can I get more blog posts to show up in search results?
There are a few things you can do – but one of the biggest ones is creating content that people will want to share with their friends and family. Because social sharing has become such an important part of SEO, it’s something that you definitely need to consider if you want to improve the number of people who are seeing your content.
By And Large
I hope these 11 SEO writing and content creation tips have helped you to create high-quality, engaging content that connects with your readers. To make the most of this post, think about how it applies to what you are working on now or plan for in the future. If any of these ideas seem interesting but not applicable right away, save them for later! You never know when they will come in handy down the line. Overall, don’t forget to focus on creating great bits of information that help people connect with each other online – which is one way we can all make money together 🙂