We all know that from an SEO stand point, you want to make sure that when you are writing, you want to make sure that what you put down into words is technically sounds. Not everybody is a terrific copywriter, regardless of how much they love blogging. This is why having editors and friends who can check over my work before going live is a wonderful thing to have. It’s a good idea to spend some time talking about the technical side of SEO writing, when compared to how to write good content.
I’m sure that by now, you have heard that, as stated in previous blog posts that I’ve written, you should “forget about search engines and focus on the users who read your content.” This isn’t always going to get you an increase your organic search performance. How you should really think about that statement is, “write content for users and structure it for search engines.”
There are some sites that you may be trying to get to Page 1 of the search engines, but the thing that could be holding you back is a lack of a few important terms that your site just isn’t visible for. After some minor content tweaks and technical SEO adjustments, you can make it to Page 1 in no time. This doesn’t always mean keyword stuffing. This could be legitimate old-school keyword optimization. Regardless of how many new things that search engines have come up with over the years, the basics are still the same, and they continue to work.
You want some tips for optimizing your content without looking spammy? Try these on for size:
- Optimize Your Page Titles <title></title>: It’s a good idea to include important keywords that are as close to the beginning of the title tags as possible. This means that you should still write as naturally as possible, but the mission critical keywords should be a front row seat to your content.
- Headlines and Sub Headlines <h1-h2>: It’s important to make sure that these particular tags exist in your page templates. Including targeted keywords in the headlines and subheadlines can do wonders for your SEO ranking. Just as with before, try getting your keywords as close to the beginning of these tags as possible, but just be sure you don’t stuff or spam. Natural writing is the key.
- Body Content: It’s important to have body content where targeted keywords can be included naturally.
- Images: ALT attributes appended to images are a must. Make sure that keywords are included as necessary.
- URL: Include targeted keywords in URLs.
- Navigation: Navigation is important, so make certain that the links that you’ve included in your content point to targeted pages from a navigational element. Ensure the included link contains the targeted keyword.
- Use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): By utilizing LSI, you can make a good number of keywords fit in a readable fashion if you do it correctly. In case you’re not familiar with LSI, read up on it.
- Schema Mark-Up: Google and BingHoo have made it easy for you to give them more information about your content. Make sure that you’ve semantically marked up your content using Schema.org constructs.
As a final tip, here’s one that should help. Print out your content, and read it out loud. If it sounds unnatural at all, go back and tweak it until it sounds smooth when you read it. Once that’s done, you can pass it on to a copywriter to make sure everything looks good before the content goes live.
Finally, it is possible to write content that is highly optimized, and doesn’t sound spammy.