SEO or search engine optimization is considered the bread and butter of the modern marketing world. It’s responsible for making many businesses a success by increasing their visibility in search results. Primarily, SEO is often linked with Google, but it can work wonders with lesser known search engines such as Bing or Yahoo!.
The key to SEO may sound simple enough, but it requires patience and careful planning to achieve the desired results. Content creation is the basic foundation for SEO and unfortunately, this is the area where very few business owners succeed. Written content isn’t just a means to an end— it’s the place where strategically placed keywords and phrases are hyperlinked to attract viewers. An article written for the purposes of search engine optimization needs to be engaging and informative while maintaining the integrity of the linked phrases. Writing such content may be hard, but it is very much possible with the aid of the six step process below.
The first step to writing virtually any type of content is to create an outline that encompasses the overall ideas presented in the piece. A well-written article is engaging, informative, and infused with little-known but well-researched facts. A presented topic should be written with a different angle than what is readily available online, and more importantly, a literary hook should be the very first thing that people read to maintain interest.
Key points content writers need to keep in mind for this section include:
Once a solid outline of ideas has been created, the step following the outline calls for the careful and clever placement of keywords and related phrases. The phrases along with the keywords should be shared with publishers as they can ensure the proper inclusion in the metadata portion of the site’s HTML coding. In a nutshell, that’s the main point of keywords, but they need to be brainstormed before they can be included.
Finding keywords for any business is possible with a bit of time and ingenuity. The idea is to think like a customer looking for a certain product or service. Still thinking like a customer, a list of common phrases or keywords can be written down that relate to the business. Good content has keywords along with phrases that seamlessly blend into the text so that search engine “spiders” can easily register them. (Content creators should make it a point to avoid the “overuse” of certain phrases as doing so can negatively impact search engine placement.)
When content is written with a certain audience in mind, it’s important to break up the content into paragraphs along with subheadings that feature occasional keywords simply because readers have short attention spans. Everyone wishes to skim read on a mobile device and subheadings allow anyone to do so.
Once an outline is created and a list of keywords as well as phrases have been written down, the next step is to create the heart of the content. It’s best to use the main keyword or phrases in the first paragraph of the article and as the content is written, it is broken down into different sub-headings. Ideal keyword density is viewed as anywhere from 1-3%, and if a keyword is used in the first sentence, likewise, it should also be used in the last sentence.
It’s always advisable that written content is re-read several times to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes easily pointed out by the readership.
The definition of hyperlinks is quite simple: they are other websites that are linked throughout the content as they relate to the topic. When adding any hyperlinks to articles, it’s important to consider the actual quality of the website getting linked. It should be on a similar level to the originating website or it could negatively impact SEO.
It isn’t enough to write great content— the world needs to become aware of its existence. Twitter and Facebook are great social media platforms for sharing newly created content. The likelihood of the article getting shared by others increases with the help of social media.
The keywords found throughout the shared content should have clickable phrases and keywords. By making the text stand out, Google places even more emphasis on the words!
Content is meant to be shared online, and sometimes, the best way improve exposure is to allow others to share articles quickly and effectively. Content creators should include social media links next to all of their articles as it allows readers to quickly react if they see something that they wish to let friends and family know about. Not only is this publicity well received, it’s free!
Though the Internet is home to millions of different articles, the need for quality content will continue to be on the rise. Business owners can stand apart from the crowd and show the ingenuity behind their businesses by writing carefully constructed educational content pieces that contain properly linked phrases and keywords. The longer the content, the better perceived an article is by search engines, and of course, the more people that will be exposed to the information.