SEO friendly writing is the art of creating content that’s optimized for search engines but also appeals to people. It’s a skill that many writers struggle with, but it can pay off big time if you do it right.
While traditional SEO guidelines emphasized keyword stuffing, modern practices prioritize user experience and content that’s helpful to readers. Write to those standards, and your writing will be more humanistic — and more SEO-friendly.
Keywords
Search engines use keywords to understand your content and rank it for relevant searches. This helps increase your visibility on the internet and increases organic traffic to your website.
But it also means that you need to know how to select the right keywords. This is a delicate process that involves trial and error. But there are a few tips that can help you come up with the right keywords for your SEO friendly writing.
First, you need to determine your target audience and what they’re looking for. This will help you come up with the right keywords for the blog posts you’ll write.
Ideally, your main keyword should be in the title tag of every blog post you publish. This will make it easier for Google to find your blog post and display it in search results.
You should also place your primary keyword in the first 200 words of each post if possible. However, don’t overdo it.
Another thing you should keep in mind is that it’s important to avoid keyword stuffing. This is a black-hat SEO strategy that was used years ago to boost site rankings. Today, Google has algorithms that are designed to detect this and penalize sites that do it.
In short, keyword stuffing can negatively impact your search engine ranking and may also affect user experience. So be sure to choose the right keywords and use them in an ethical way.
Once you’ve determined the right keywords for your SEO writing, it’s time to start working on your content. This will help you create content that’s not only keyword-friendly but helpful to your readers. It’ll also improve your chances of getting your content ranked on the first page of search results.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are snippets of copy that appear under a web page’s title in search engine results pages (SERPs). They provide a summary of the page and are used by search engines to determine whether or not it should be ranked for specific keywords.
They also play an important role in user engagement and conversions, if done correctly. They help raise clickthrough rates from three main sources — search engine results, social media shares, and social bookmarks.
When creating a meta description for your website, make sure it is a good match with the content on your page. This will improve your clickthrough rate (CTR), which can be a major influencer on search rankings, and increase your organic traffic overall.
Use keyword-focused language in your meta description to draw attention to the right result and pique a reader’s interest. This will improve your CTR and give you a leg up over your competitors, who might not be using keywords in their descriptions.
Including price and benefits in your meta description can increase your CTR as well. This will encourage people to click through to your web page and learn more about the product or service.
It’s also a good idea to include your brand name and unique selling points, like in this example from Worth Loving. It will help you connect with customers and create a positive brand experience that will ultimately lead to more sales.
If you’re struggling to write a great meta description, try writing it with your audience in mind and brainstorming ideas for words that could grab a searcher’s attention. Power words like limited time or sale ends soon can be especially effective at attracting attention and creating a sense of urgency for your page.
Internal Linking
Internal links help Google understand the structure of your website and which pages are most important. They also give you the opportunity to connect your content in a way that will be meaningful to users and search engines.
One of the most important aspects of SEO friendly writing is connecting your content in a way that is natural to your reader. Using internal links that match the context of your content can improve user engagement and encourage more of your readers to take action on your site.
Moreover, you can use internal links to highlight specific topics or sections of your website that you want to highlight. This is a great way to boost your rankings for related keywords.
Another benefit of internal links is that they can pass more value to the page they link to than other types of links. For example, if you have a page that ranks for the keyword “blog post”, it’s more likely to rank for related terms like “content marketing” or “blogging strategy”.
When you create internal links, you can choose the anchor text you want to use. Typically, the more context you provide around the link, the better it’ll be understood by both search engine bots and humans.
In addition, you can vary the anchor text between the page you’re linking to and your main page. This can increase the page’s link value and make it appear less spammy.
You should also make sure that all of your pages have internal links to other pages on your site. Without them, Googlebot and other web crawlers will not be able to find the relevant content on your site.
Images
Images are a key part of SEO friendly writing. They make content more visually appealing, help users understand the information, and give visitors a chance to share your articles on social media. Adding images to your blog posts and articles can increase your organic traffic by a significant amount.
Images convey information by projecting a clear visual representation of an object, person, or creature. They are typically still, but in some cases can also be moving or animated.
However, even though images can be very helpful, it’s important to understand when to use them and when to avoid them. For example, don’t add an image to a blog post that is just there for aesthetic purposes; you need to think carefully about the purpose of your image and what you want to accomplish with it before adding it.
When you do add an image, be sure to write the correct alt text for the image. The right alt text can be very important in SEO. It will not only improve your accessibility for those who use screen readers, but it will also make search engines better understand what the image is about and what the article as a whole is about.
Another important aspect of image optimization is optimizing the file size. If an image is too large, it can significantly slow down the loading speed of a page. It is important to compress images, as this can significantly improve the overall page speed and will also improve SEO.
As a result, image SEO became a top priority for many sites in 2018. In fact, Google has recently removed the view image button from search results to encourage image-hosted sites to optimize their image content.
Schema Markup
Schema markup is a set of HTML tags that tell search engines how to interpret a webpage’s content. This is a great way to improve your website’s SEO and increase its organic traffic.
Google uses schema markup to display rich snippets in its search results, which is a big deal for businesses. These snippets are more visible than simple organic results, which can help push down organic links and boost your visibility in the SERPs.
Using Schema is a great way to tell Google what information is important to your website, and it can also help you get featured in Knowledge Panels. These panels show up on the right side of the SERP and are a great way to get more eyes on your brand.
There are several types of schema, so it’s important to identify which ones are the most valuable for your business. Luckily, there are many tools online that make it easy to get started – whether you’re a beginner or an experienced SEO expert.
First, look at what your competitors are doing. What do they have on their websites that are tagged with the same data that you do? This will tell you what kinds of data to add to your website so that you can get more exposure and a higher SERP ranking.
Second, go to Google and conduct a search for your most competitive keywords. If your competitors are showing up with a star rating or FAQ, then you’ll know that this kind of markup is essential for your business and should be implemented on your site.
Then, head to your CMS (if you’re using one) or your source code and start adding the highlighted data items. This process can take some time, but it’s a great way to optimize your website and boost its search engine visibility.
