How to Craft SEO-friendly content that people read
SEO friendly content writing and making your website more visible in search engines has become a huge part of online marketing. In fact, SEO can be the difference between success or failure of a new site. Making sure that you have SEO friendly content is important when starting an SEO campaign.
How do you make sure to have SEO friendly content? The following list should help you make your next article more SEO friendly
1) Use Keywords Often
Make sure to use the keyword phrase often throughout all of your content, but also be diverse with the other words that you place around it. For example, if I was writing an article about a new model of car, I would not just say 2010 Ford Mustang GT five times in my article. Instead, I would say something like “the new 2010 Ford Mustang GT has an illustrious 4-valve 5.4 L V8 engine that will give drivers whiplash as it roars down their favorite stretch of highway.” The first sentence has the keyword and two related words while the second sentence places those same keywords randomly within for better readability.
2) Metatags
In your HTML code, you should see metatags like Title and Description toward the top of the code. These are important to have but they shouldn’t take up much space as search engine spiders typically ignore them when crawling a site. It is also recommended that these be around seventy characters or shorter in length so keep it short and sweet!
3) Images (if relevant)
For images, most SEO experts recommend having “alt” tags for each image on your page. This tag basically tells the search engines what the picture is if it cannot be loaded properly or if someone disabled pictures from being shown on their browser for whatever reason. You should always use related keywords here because many people will get your images from your URL and not the original source. Make sure that you optimize all of your content for search engines!
4) Links
This is an important part of SEO friendly content because it tells search engine spiders what else to crawl on your site. Try and make links have related keywords whenever possible so spiders know where to go next after crawling this link. For example, if I was writing a review about NASCAR racing, I might have a “related articles” section at the bottom with links to other articles about NASCAR cars or race tracks.
5) Internal Linking
Once you start gaining traffic, internal linking can be very beneficial since it will point more search engine spiders toward other pages on your site. The way to do this is to link similar articles and pages together so that users always know where to go after reading one page or article.
6) Optimize your content for mobile
With the explosion of mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, it is very important that all of your content has a proper meta tag to let search engines know how this content should be displayed on mobile devices. This is very important because if you do not have a meta tag set, some pages might be cut off or even not show up at all for mobile users!
7) Optimize your content for social media
If you want people to share your articles or tell their friends about them, make sure that they are easy to share with others since many times when people get new sites via social media, they will only read the headline but not the entire article. Try using buttons like “Like” or “Tweet” near the top of your content to get more exposure.
8) Use the optimal content length
Many times, a user will only read a couple of sentences on your page before moving on, so make sure you have the most important information close to the top. If you have an entire article or more about something, be sure to break it up into sub-headings and paragraphs so that users can scan through quickly to find what they want instead of having to scroll all over the place just to get one piece of information!
9) Use small paragraphs
When writing content, try to avoid articles that are one solid paragraph from top to bottom because it is harder for people to read and they will probably move on pretty quickly. Instead, break your article up into sub-headings and paragraphs so that users can scan through more easily.
10) Rely on large pictures
Whenever possible, use an accompanying picture or video where appropriate as images tend to get a lot more clicks than regular text does. If you can’t find an image to go with your article, consider using a YouTube video instead!
11) Use large lists
Users tend to like short and simple lists (like top ten) so whenever possible, use those as opposed to writing entire paragraphs. This is one of the easier things to do on this list as well since many times when people make lists, they put a lot of effort into them and want other people to read it. If you can’t find a good list to be featured in your content, consider doing it yourself!
12) Headings tags
Headings tags are a way to break up large chunks of text into smaller segments so that users can easily scan through your site. There are six levels of headings (from <h1> being the biggest to <h6>) and you should always use them where appropriate, or even make your own if they are not present in your content!
The SEO tactics outlined above should help you create a more search engine friendly article. When it comes to SEO, the key is in making your content easily scannable by search engine crawlers. The more keywords you use, the better for your site’s ranking and visibility online. Make sure that your meta tag includes a concise description of what the page contains, so people can quickly scan thru pages on their own time.
Have any tips or tricks for writing high-quality SEO friendly articles? Let us know!
