To thrive as a content writer, it’s crucial to grasp the fundamentals of SEO and harness its power to expand the reach and readership of your content. While a multitude of SEO strategies exist, their effectiveness varies greatly.
This article aims to delve into five influential SEO best practices that content authors can employ to enhance visibility and improve search rankings.
1. Search Intent
SEO used to be a piece of cake. You just had to target some keywords, include them in your content, and bingo, you were done. But nowadays, Google is a lot better at knowing what the searcher’s intent was from their search query.
Search intent can be defined as the motive or reason behind why people search for a specific term or phrase. It can be grouped into four main groups.
Informational Intent
The majority of internet searches are done by people looking for information. Examples include;
Who is the prime minister of Great Britain
Weather in Glasgow
Navigational Intent
A person with this intent wants to visit a specific website. Examples include;
Facebook login
Google analytics sign-up
Transactional Intent
People buy stuff online and browse the web to find the best deal. Examples include;
Buy MacBook Air
Adidas gazelles size 7
Commercial Intent
When people have the intention to buy in the (near) future, they use the web to research their options. Examples include;
Mailchimp vs Convertkit
Best Bluetooth headphones
When people conduct a search for the phrase “buy books,” their main objective typically revolves around making a purchase. Google comprehends this user intent and prioritises pages that cater to transactional or commercial purposes, providing individuals with the option to directly purchase products from those pages.
Searching for “how to write a book” on the other hand. This is an informational search. As a result, you’ll find a completely different set of search results.
2. Quality Content
You’ll only get more traffic, conversions, and earnings when you’ve taken the time to create quality content.
- Produce original, helpful content, and make sure the data you use is up to date. Google recently released a Helpful Content Update to its algorithm.
- Make sentences easy-to-read, break up long paragraphs, and don't forget to use subheadings, lists, and images or videos
- Make sure that distractions from pop-up signup forms etc are kept to a minimum
- Ensure that your content answers search questions thoroughly and fulfils search intent
- Determine the user intent of the content, then see what type of content will work best
- Check out the content of your competitors
- Make sure the URL, Titles, Images and meta tags are optimised for the chosen keyword/s
In general, providing well-researched and relevant content will help you make a positive impact.
3. Catchy Titles and Descriptions
Title
The Meta Title tag serves as a clickable headline in search results and holds significant importance in terms of SEO.
Ensuring that titles effectively summarise the content of the result and convey its relevance to the searcher’s query is crucial. The title of your webpage often plays a pivotal role in influencing searchers’ decision to click on a specific result, underscoring the importance of selecting top-notch titles.
Most search engines display the first 50-60 characters of a title. Google will only display the full title of your page if your title tag is under 60 characters.
- Make sure each page has a unique meta title
- Add a keyword to the meta title, whenever you can
- Keep it under 60 characters
- Make it descriptive
Description
Meta descriptions are brief summaries that appear below the title tag on search engine results pages (SERPs). While they do not directly impact search rankings, they can influence click-through rates.
Google typically truncates meta descriptions to around 155-160 characters, so it’s crucial to provide a concise overview within this limit.
Ensure each page has a unique meta description, incorporating relevant keywords. Keywords in the description may be highlighted in bold on the search results page.
Limit the meta description to 150 – 160 characters or less.
It’s worth noting that Google may sometimes disregard your meta descriptions and generate its own. In such cases, there’s little you can do, but consider revising your meta description if it is consistently ignored by Google.
4. Optimise Images
Images must have a descriptive Title and alt tag (include keywords when you can but must describe the image).
You should write alt texts that describe the specific contents of the image rather than repeating the page’s main target keyword or the alt tags of other images.
The best practice for images, if possible, would be to also have an easily readable file name (images straight from cameras can be called IMG_012347651.jpg, rename this to describe the image and use the keyword in the name if possible)
Image files should be compressed so they load quickly. If you don’t own or know how to use something like Photoshop you can use an online service to shrink images to the smallest file size possible for fast loading. For this, you could try the website
https://bulkresizephotos.com/en
jpg files are generally the best file type to use unless the image has a transparent background, then use a png file.
Also, where possible, try to resize images so they are the correct size for the placement on the page. If an image is going to be 400 pixels wide and 300 pixels high on the site, don’t use an image that is 800 pixels by 600 pixels.
Making sure images are compressed and the correct size on a site will make a huge improvement in the website’s speed.
5. Internal Links & Backlinks
Internal Links
Internal links help to establish an information hierarchy for your website and also give Google a better understanding of the content on your page. When used correctly, internal links can improve your rankings.
Example:
This blog post is about SEO best practices, and we published a post in August about the opposite, SEO Myths.
That is a good use of internal linking, this post is linking to another very relevant post, and Google will now understand more about both post’s content and that they have related content. We can now add a link to that post linking back to this one to show Google, and site visitors, that the link relationship is reciprocal.
Backlinks
Backlinks are they really that important? In a word, yes. You can think of backlinks as “votes of confidence” you receive from credible websites.
Google tends to rank your content higher when it receives more “votes of confidence” from users because it deems your website to be valuable. Backlinks can be gained in many ways, each with different levels of success.
The more authoritative your website is, the better it will do on the search engine results pages.
You should be focusing on building high-quality backlinks that can improve your chances for a higher ranking for your chosen key phrases.
Replicating your competitor’s link-building strategies is one of the most effective ways to get authoritative backlinks.
In conclusion, following these five effective SEO best practices for content writers will help you to create higher-quality content that ranks well in search engines.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Yes, SEO remains highly relevant. With the increasing number of websites and online content, SEO is more crucial than ever for standing out in search engine rankings and reaching your target audience.
- Visibility: SEO helps improve your website’s visibility in search engines, leading to more organic traffic.
- Credibility: Ranking high in search results establishes credibility and trust among users.
- ROI: Compared to paid advertising, SEO provides a long-term, cost-effective strategy for gaining customers.
The four pillars of SEO are Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, and Local SEO.
- Technical SEO: Focuses on website architecture, ensuring that search engines can crawl and index your site effectively.
- On-Page SEO: Involves optimising individual web pages, including content and meta tags.
- Off-Page SEO: Primarily concerned with backlinks and other external signals.
- Local SEO: Focuses on optimising your website for local search results.
- Conduct Keyword Research
- Analyse Competitor Websites
- Optimise Meta Tags
- Create High-Quality Content
- Optimise for Mobile
- Improve Site Speed
- Implement Schema Markup
- Build Quality Backlinks
- Utilise Social Media
- Monitor Analytics
- Conduct Regular SEO Audits
- Keyword Research: Understand the keywords that are relevant to your business and incorporate them naturally into your content.
- On-Page Optimisation: Make sure that your meta titles and descriptions are well-crafted and include your target keywords.
- Quality Backlinks: Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry.
- User Experience: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and easy to navigate.
- Content Updates: Regularly update your content to keep it fresh and relevant.
