Are you looking for SEO friendly content writing tips? Although Google – the most popular search engine, is now cleverer than even, and writing only for the search engine is a big no, no, (more on this later), you can still target your content to give yourself more chance of being found. Search engine optimization is still something to use even though Google use technology to determine the quality of your site such as its bounce rate  – a more human measure of whether your blog is any good or not! The bounce rate lets Google know how long people are staying on your website before leaving in disgust! If the bounce rate is too high, it tells Google that your content is either not very good or is not matching the search query for which it was found.
What this means is that although SEO isn’t completely dead, content is most definitely king. SEO however, shouldn’t be the first thing you are writing for. Your articles will look ‘spammy’ and unnatural and be difficult to read if they are written for search engines alone.
Writing to be found
You can still make the most of your writing by targeting long tail keywords within your niche. Long tail keywords are just that. Keyword chains which have over 3 words in them like the title of this article. Using three or less keywords in your title will probably mean not getting found in the organic search results on Google, simply due to the incredible amount of competing websites on the internet. If you are in a niche where you can rank such keywords, congratulations, you are very lucky or have chosen a great niche. Have a look at this short video which explains how to find long tail keywords to include in your blog. Also you can see my article on finding long tail keywords.
By spending some time before you begin an article on finding the most likely titles to be found, you can get a lot more traffic over the long term to your website.
Content Writing Tip
Don’t make the mistake of trying to target the shorter tail keywords which get a lot more searches. There will be a tonne of competition for these terms. Instead, go for the ‘low hanging fruit‘ – the long tail keyword combinations which get only a few searches a month, but have much fewer competing pages in the search results. By doing this, over and over again, you will get some free searches a month for each article you write. Over time this can have the effect of building multiple streams of traffic to your website.
Write For People Not Search Engines
Write naturally and don’t try and squeeze your titles and keywords into your text where they don’t fit. People can spot unnecessary keyword stuffing or people un-friendly content writing when they see it! 🙂 Although you want to write for people, you can use a great free plugin called WordPress SEO by Yoast. This will help you to get your main keywords in the title and content and in the url. Make sure your title goes in the url – you can adjust this in your settings. If using wordpress simply go to settings/permalinks and adjust to “post name”. This will bring your keywords into your url and help you to rank for those keywords – particularly if they are less competitive.
Content Writing Tip
If you have chosen a long tail keyword which you can title your article on, have a quick search on Google using that exact phrase – without “quotes”. Read a couple of the top articles which rank highly for that keyword combination. These are the article which Google thinks are the best. Simply do a better job than them. Go into more detail, cover more topics and write more content than them. If your articles are better than the competition then Google will have to reward you for them. Of course there are other factors at play such as a website’s authority and general standing with Google. Competing with large authority sites like bbc.co.uk or Theguardian.com/uk isn’t easy but if you have more comprehensive content and go for longer tail keywords then at least you have a better chance from the start.
Your content must be original of course and provide value. A poor article won’t rank simply because all the other SEO boxes were ticked. Have a look at how long your competition’s articles are and write a better and longer article.
SEO Friendly Content Writing Tips
Stay on point in your articles and don’t stray far from the title of your article. Search engines will look through your content for similar keywords and repetition of your title throughout your articles. Use other titles within your article which appear in the Keyword planner alongside your own title. This will help Google to see that you are covering a number of valid issues within your topic area. If you are struggling for ideas simply ‘plug’ your original keyword back into the planner for more long tail keywords which you can use as sub headings and tags.
Good Content Writing Tips
Here’s a quick summary of the SEO friendly writing tips I have included in this article and a couple more:
- Use an SEO Plugin like WordPress SEO By Yoast – free plugin
- Target long tail keywords with the keyword planner – see video
- Use the keyword in your url – adjust settings/permalinks if neccessary
- Write naturally and don’t keyword stuff
- Get your keyword in title, content and tags.
- Get your keyword in any images you use – Â image alt description
- Use related keywords in subheadings and tags
- Find competing articles for your keywords and write better content than the competition!
- Use deep linking to link to your other content – here’s an example: see my basic SEO tips for beginners article. This tells Google exactly what the content is and helps to rank for these keywords.
- Use link building from other related sites in your niche. You can do this yourself or get someone on fiver.com to do it for you to improve your ranking.