When thinking about the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Content Writing, one may think, in the first instance, of placing the keywords in their content to achieve a certain keyword density. However, the algorithms used by search engines have improved over time to a point where they, now, look for more than just the frequency or positioning of specific phrases. These days, the search engines look for clues as to the quality and relevancy of the content. Ideally, your content should be strong enough for other sites to link to. These links work as a vote for your contents.
Today, keyword density is not an important factor anymore. Instead, you want to craft a search engine friendly contents that incorporates keywords at important places, something called the keyword prominence. The writer of the content must work to achieve the highest possible standards in terms of quality and the keyword prominence to satisfy both people and search engines bot. The following tips should help writers achieve this goal.
1. Keep a Theme
Your website should maintain a consistent theme throughout all of the pages. Each page should be a reflection of or somehow related to that theme. For example, you might choose to write about insurance as your theme then have different sections of your site dedicated to each major type of insurance. Just make sure the main theme of the site is explained clearly on your home page.
2. Know the Keywords First
Before you do any type of writing, you should have a firm grasp of which keywords you are going to use. These keywords can be selected using free tools on the Internet that can help you pinpoint good choices.
3. Write Relevant Content
When you’re trying to grab the attention of the search engines, you need to make sure your content is not only laced with keywords but is also going to provide relevant valuable information. Just throwing a bunch of keywords together won’t do the trick. The content should be about the title and theme of your site – this is something the search engines look for.
4. Use Title Tags
When you add a new page to your web site, make sure to provide it with an original title tag. Don’t just reuse the same ones for every page. And try to include your keyword in that tag. Search engines look at these tags when they are ranking your site so don’t miss out on an opportunity to impress them. Remember that the title tag should be keyword centric yet catchy.
5. Pick Prominent Spots for Keywords
The idea is not to put keywords on as many places as possible into the content but to strategically sprinkle the words in places where they are most likely to be seen by potential visitors. For example, you can use them in your titles, headers, image captions or ‘alt’, linking text, bulleted text and more. By having your keywords show up like this, search engines are going to be more likely to give you a top ranking.
6. Put Keywords in Important Parts
Another good reason to start choosing keywords early is that ideally your keyword is going to show up in the domain name, in the names of your pages, and even in the taglines for your company. The nice thing about taking this step is that when people link to your site they are also more likely to include your keywords in their links because of their placement in these areas. And that’s going to help your rank, too.
7. Use Keyword Synonyms
Another trick to boost your SEO results is to incorporate keyword synonyms into your content. These are words or phrases that could easily take the place of your keyword phrase. Throwing a couple of these into your content is always going to be useful in boosting your ranks. It’s called stemming.
8. Add Meta Tags
Adding both description and keywords meta tags is a good idea, too. Meta Description is often shown up in the search engine results. It provides valuable information for visitors and increases click through rate (CTR). Still some search engines take keywords meta tag into consideration so it worth adding that. But do not sped much of your time in writing meta keyword tag.
9. Use Text not Images
An important rule to remember is that search engines don’t read content in image formats so stick to plain text if you want that content to influence your ranking. Even, when you use an image, do not forget to add alt and title tags to it.
10. Keep Content Original
One thing search engines frown on is duplicated content. If you’re trying to convince search engines that you have a lot of content just by repeating the same couple of pages, it’s not going to work. You’ll probably even end up lower. Make sure each page has fresh, informative content. Also, keep your pages updated, too. New content regularly is a big plus in the eyes of search engines.
11. Optimize the Whole Site
Some people only use optimization techniques on the home page but don’t stop there. Almost any of your major pages could appear in the search engine results and by optimizing them you’re increasing your chances of landing a high spot with different keywords.
12. Use Linking
An important part of SEO is the use of internal and external links. With internal linking, you are able to spread the visitors to your site over many pages instead of having one page keep all of the traffic for itself. Plus, these links help guide readers to appropriate information on the site. External links show that your site is providing more resources for visitors which search engines also like.
13. Have the Right Number of Words
While 200 to 1,000 words may seem like a big range, that’s the word count you want to shoot for on every one of your web pages. Most people tend to shoot for the average – 500 words – when it comes to articles and a little lower than that for other pages.
14. Choose Relevant Keywords
Make sure that your choice of keywords is relevant to what you’re hoping to do with the site. If you’re going to be selling a product, avoid any keywords that might have a negative connotation towards your product. Just using words that have high search volume isn’t enough. Those words need to be connected to your site’s theme and purpose. Consider adding a few “long tail” words which are longer phrases that also include descriptive terms.
15. Create a Landing Page
The landing page’s purpose is to immediately provide visitors with a clear, attention-grabbing overview of your site. These are great for optimizing because they can help drive traffic to the rest of your web site easily.
16. Check Statistics
Your site’s analytics, provided by the hosting service, may provide clues as to what needs to be done on your site. Analyze those statistics and see what you can learn from them. Then make adjustment in your keywords and apply what you’ve learned to the site.
17. Submit Content to Link Back
Creating articles and other social media that will drive people back to your web site is a good idea. Just make sure to submit them to trustworthy sites.
See also: Top 10 Benefits of SEO for Businesses ; Top 10 Benefits of Social Media for Business ; SEO and Social Media Marketing Integration ; What is an SEO Specialist; SEO Specialist’s Website
