When it comes to SEO, content that ranks is essential. If you want your website to be good, then your content needs to be good too. Writing for SEO may seem difficult at first, as there are a few key factors you need to familiar with. However, once you’ve gotten the hang of it, writing content that ranks is simple and a great way to help improve your online visibility and increase traffic to your website.
Planning Your Content
Before you even begin writing your content, whether it be a landing page, blog post, or item description, you need to plan your content out. Quarterly calendars are a great place to start, as they allow you to map what you’ll emphasize, and how. Here are a few items to consider when planning your content.
Topics
Your topic needs to be relevant to your audience. After all, content is a part of digital marketing, so you should be focused on a target audience. Identify topics that are relevant to the group you’re trying to reach.
For example, a company that sells coffee beans may write an article about how to properly use an espresso machine, or how to froth milk perfectly every time. Topics that are relevant to your target audience are a great way to draw traffic to your site.
Keywords
Once you’ve selected relevant topics, you need to write them in a way that helps them rank. After all, an article is no good if no one can find it. Using a keyword research tool, identify strong keywords that correspond with your topics. What are people searching for? It’s important to use the same terms that consumers use.
For example, an article about the “TI-83 Plus Graphing Calculator” probably isn’t going to get much traffic from that term itself. However, including terms like “The best calculator for high school” or “most commonly used calculator” are both great and relevant keywords to include in that article.
Writing For SEO
Once you’ve chosen your topics and researched corresponding keywords, you need to write for SEO. Search engine optimization requires that articles are formatted in a certain way and include specific aspects. Here are the common factors of content that ranks that you should include when writing for SEO.
Headings
While headings can come in different sizes, they are important as they allow Google search bots to quickly scan and identify:
- The major points of an article
- Whether headings and subheadings contain relevant keywords
- Whether the paragraphs reflect the headings
Well-written headings will point to your information, making it easier for Google to index your content so that it can be accessed later for relevant searches.
Keywords
As was already mentioned, keywords are necessary to rank well. Google selects websites to display on the SERP according to which keywords your article contains. That’s why you never get articles about bowling balls when you search “dog food”. Keywords must be relevant.
Alt Tags
Alt tags, or Alt text, are little bits of information attached to any images your content features. Search engines like Google can’t understand images, only text. Alt text allows you to give the picture a “description”. This helps Google categorize it and store it for later.
External Links
External links are when you have a hyperlink in your content that takes the consumer to another domain. External links help to improve SEO ranking. Whenever you link to another website, the link in your content is known as “anchor text”, and you’ll be awarded points the more relevant your link is to your base content.
Internal Links
Internal links are similar to external links, but instead of linking to another domain, you’re linking to another part of your website. For example, an article typically includes a call to action. So if you wrote an article on the fluffiest towels, (and your company actually sells towels) you could link to your product page by saying “purchase a fluffy towel today!”
Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile phones are becoming more and more common. So common in fact that Google now indexes the mobile version of a website rather than the desktop version. In order to rank well you need to optimize your website for mobile use.
Page Speed
Page speed is an essential part of ranking well. When your website takes too long to load, it increases your bounce rate, which hurts your rankings.
While there are many aspects of content that ranks and writing for SEO, you can easily make changes today that will help improve your rankings. If you need help editing or creating content for your website, reach out to an SEO expert today for help!
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