SEO, short for Search Engine Optimisation, is a strategy that makes it easy for your target audience to find your brand online.
SEO content writing is achieved by combining a keyword strategy, unique content, meta content, and internal and external links helps place your content above all others on search engines. For example, say you have an online store that sells handmade dog collars. When people type 'handmade vegan dog collars' into Google, or another search engine, they can see your website listed in the search results.
Practising relevant and successful SEO processes helps your website stand out from the competition. Below is all you need to know about writing for SEO and how you can make the most of it yourself.
How does SEO work?
One of the many phases of SEO involves optimising your website's written content. This includes adding search terms (keywords), which are specific to the topic of your webpage/blog post and broader to your industry. These words are included in each page’s title and the main text for the best results.
Using relevant long tail keywords when writing a page content helps search engines understand that your business is relevant to your target audience and that you are a reliable source of the information they want. However, SEO is an art. It’s not as simple as stuffing as many keywords throughout your content.
SEO experts avoid ‘Keyword stuffing’ at all costs. Adding too many keywords to your text, especially in places where it’s not relevant, can make it more difficult for customers to find your website. This is because smart search engines such as Google recognise this tactic and penalise websites by decreasing a keyword-stuffed website’s rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
How do you use SEO to your advantage?
The best way to create SEO-friendly websites is through high-quality writing and targeted keyword research. Finding the right keywords is typically completed after launching a campaign and before you start your writing and optimisation. The SEO expert will research and find specific keywords targeting your audience.
They can even target them by region to home in on your potential customers in a
geographic area. For example, if you sell handmade vegan dog collars in Dubai, your SEO keywords could be 'handmade vegan dog collars in Dubai.'
SEO best practices
Whenever you want to optimise your web content for search engines, there are some critical components you should consider when copywriting for SEO.
- Meta content
Meta content or metadata is a unique piece of expertly crafted text embedded in every web page that’s written during optimisation. Meta content text includes information about your website that isn’t visible on your website but appears on the pages of search results. This data is commonly presented in two forms: meta description and meta title. The latter is also referred to as the meta tag or SEO title.
- Meta Description
The meta description is the short, approximately 160-character strip of text that shows up on the search results page and summarises a website's content or purpose. While meta descriptions don't much impact search engine rankings, they help convert searches into visits to your website. If you don't write a meta description, the search engine selects a string of text from your website to display. This text is not explicitly formatted as a meta description; it might be a partial or cut-off phrase, which could negatively influence how searchers crawl your page.
- Meta Title
The meta title is the most important way to tell search engines about your page. It should be no more than 58 characters, including spaces, and be unique for every page. Your meta title should contain your primary keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible.
- Long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are unique phrases instead of just one or two words. These keywords are precise, and while they have a lower search volume, they are likely to rank your website well when using them. For example, 'dog collars'' is a common search term with a high volume; you'll be competing with many websites for that keyword. However, 'Where can I find handmade dog collars?' is a much more specific, long-tail keyword that will help your customers find you immediately.
- Internal and external links
Internal and external links, also known as backlinks, are hyperlinks embedded throughout your website or blog post. An internal link will take the audience to another page on the same website, while an external link will go to another website altogether.
These links provide a large amount of relevant information for your potential customers, which is extremely valuable for search engines. In return, the search engines give you a better ranking on their results pages.
- User experience
User experience (UX) refers to the functionality of your website's design. You need to ensure it flows intuitively and make it easy for all visitors to find what they're looking for. If your website’s text is badly structured, visitors will have difficulty navigating through your pages and likely leave and look elsewhere. You should have a clear and organised structure using the H1, H2, and H3 headers to separate and divide topics and blocks of text when you create SEO-friendly websites.
- Domain Authority
Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score developed by software developer Moz. The program measures the authority of your page, or the level of your reputation in the eyes of Google, on a scale of 1 to 100. The higher the score, the better. Google gives this rating to the websites that publish the highest-quality content about specific subjects. If you have good domain authority, Google will rank your content higher. To ensure those top spots, quality and informative content is a must.
- Target audience
Your target audience is the people you are writing for. Your content should answer all of their questions, solve their pain points and get to the point quickly.
Key copywriting for SEO tips
Basic SEO writing tips and best practices for increasing traffic and lowering the bounce rate on your page:
1- Keep your paragraphs short, between 150 and 170 words, ideally.
2- Keep your writing simple; don't use complicated jargon.
3- Break your text up with images.
4- Provide answers to the questions your audience is looking for.
Optimise your content today
Well-written, SEO-friendly content is an essential part of successful website marketing. It involves a high level of technical SEO knowledge, creativity, and excellent writing skills. Quality content that's engaging and informative is far more important than the number of keywords you can stuff into your web pages.
If you are focused on running your business, you probably don't have much time for blog writing, but it is an essential marketing tool for building your online presence. At Contese Agency, we know how to write blog posts and websites for SEO, so let our writers and SEO experts help you boost your rankings and create a seamless user experience.