10 rules for writing SEO optimized content
You have a website. You want to be found by exactly the people who are looking for what you have to offer.
How do you do that? You start by writing a great quantity of quality, SEO optimised content.
It is how you consistently let the search engine spiders know, as they index your site, what your web page is about. While it is only one factor in the search engine optimization process, and depends on the quality of your keyword research and selection, without it, the search engines cannot determine whether your page is relevant to their searchers’ request.
There are two components to writing quality SEO optimised content. One is what you tell the search engines, the other is what you tell your visitors.
The meta information is for the search engines. Your keyword focused content is for your visitors.
There are some simple rules to follow, but your first aim is to provide excellent content for your visitors, so make it natural, keep it in your own voice and don’t ‘stuff’ your content with keywords. The search engines will penalise you for it.
First, here are a few definitions which will help you to understand and apply these basic rules.
Anchor text: The clickable words that link you to another page on the web. They hide the actual hyperlink, which is the web address for the page that is being linked to.
Latent semantic keywords: Keywords that are similar in meaning to your primary keyword (synonyms). For example, if your primary keyword is fashion styles, then you might use additional words such as clothing, couture and flair. This will also help the search engines distinguish fashion as clothing, as opposed to fashion (construct, build).
If you are doing ongoing keyword research around your niche, you will pick up a library of latent semantic keywords as you go.
Custom Title Tag or Meta title: The title, shown as the blue link, in the search engine results page (SERP), confined to no more than 70 characters. Consider this as the killer headline for your page.
Meta Description: The description of the page below the meta title in the search engine results page. Regard this as equivalent to the advertising copy for your page. This can be no longer than 150 characters, which for those of you used to Twitter will not be a challenge!
The 10 basic rules for writing SEO optimized content
1. Use your selected keyword for your page in the page address
(ie: www.yousitename.com/yourselectedkeyword)
2. Use it once in the headline (referred to as the H1 tag). Ideally, your headline should be the same as your Custom Title (meta title).
3. Use it once in the opening paragraph, which ideally should be the same as your meta description
4. If it is appropriate, use it in a sub head or italicized somewhere in the text
5. Use it in the call to action at the bottom of the post
6. Use it in any image name, and in the image alternative tags
7. Use it as anchor text to link to another page on your website (ie. You can find more information, about your ‘selected keyword’, here).
8. Use latent semantic keywords in your content and, if possible, in your meta description. Make sure the context flows naturally and does not make your content sound contrived.
9. Don’t overuse keywords. The current thinking is that they should not constitute more than 3 or 4% of a longish article (750) words
10. Always link once in your text to your home page.
OPTIMISED SEO CONTENT TEMPLATE
As in many things, it is useful to employ a discipline when posting regular content to your website. If you copy and paste the template below into a simple text document, you can key in your content directly into it, to ensure you stick by the rules.
META information
Keyword/s: Write the keyword you have researched for your page or post here.
Latent semantic keywords: Write the words or phrases that more clearly describe what your keyword is about, or are synonyms, here.
Page address or Permalink: www.yousitename.com/yourselectedkeyword
Custom title tag/meta title: Write up to 70 characters here. This is the killer headline in the search engine results page (blue) and MUST CONTAIN THE KEYWORD
Meta description: Write up to 150 characters. This is the advertisement for your page and MUST CONTAIN THE KEYWORD and, if possible, a latent semantic keyword. It is always a good idea to include a call to action, if you can. (Call, click here, for more information etc)
TEXT (Visitors)
Headline: Write your killer headline here. MUST CONTAIN KEYWORD (If possible it should mirror the custom title tag, but not compulsory)
Opening paragraph: MUST CONTAIN KEYWORD (If possible mirrors the meta description)
The body of the text: Write the copy here. It should contain the primary keyword at least once, depends on the length, and latent semantic keywords in a way that is natural and makes sense.
Sub headline: If you can include a sub headline using your keyword.
Call to action: If possible, write a closing paragraph as a call to action and include your keyword as an anchor text hyperlink.
A Guide to Content Optimization for 4 Key Content Types
ice cream cone optimized As content marketing gains recognition as a viable online marketing strategy, businesses are producing content of all types at an accelerated rate. But what good is compelling content if it can’t be found? The truth is, if it can’t be found by your audience, it won’t be very successful, which is why content optimization is such a crucial step in the content marketing process.
Through content optimization, you are providing essential data that search engines will use to determine what your content — and, by extension, your business — is all about. Search engines then use this information in the search results they display for relevant keyword terms or phrases. As content in the form of text, images, videos, and news is now included in these search results, the content optimization processes you use should be tailored to the types of content you are producing.
Below are some tips on how best to optimize content in each of these four key formats — text, image, video and news:
Optimizing text
Website content optimization is crucial for all written text, but it is particularly important for landing pages that include information about other content pieces.
Title tags: One of the most important elements of website optimization is the title tag. In HTML code, the tag “(title)” is used to set off the page’s title tag, which tells the audience what the page is about in just a few words.
title tag example
Title tags are used in a number of places to describe the content. For example, they are used by search engines as the link text for each search result they display. Additionally, they are often used on social media networks to describe the page when someone shares the content. The title tag also appears at the top of the browser when the page is viewed, and if the browser is tabbed, it will be the name of the tab for the page being viewed. As a result, title tags are not just important to search engines; they serve as meaningful ways to describe your page’s content for your audience.
Meta descriptions: Meta descriptions are typically displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs) as the descriptor text for each result, making it a key piece of information for your audience.
The meta-description should accurately describe what visitors will find when they click to your content (see REI example below). Successful meta descriptions concisely state the purpose of the content page and include applicable keywords. This is your opportunity to sell searchers on clicking through to your page, so it’s best to avoid generic descriptors, like “Welcome to our home page,” that don’t really tell them anything about your content or give them a reason to click through. In addition, search engines limit the amount of real estate available for descriptions — normally about 150-160 characters. Any text that goes beyond that will likely be cut off.
meta description example
Meta keywords: Meta keywords are somewhat similar to meta descriptions. And although the meta keywords tag doesn’t seem to directly help improve page rankings, they have been known to potentially hurt search engine rankings if the tag is “overstuffed.”
Some webmasters have been known to paste as many keywords as possible into a meta keyword tag, hoping their presence will prompt inclusion in additional search results. However, that is not the case, so it’s best to err on the side of caution and include only a few truly relevant keywords in this tag.
URLs: A keyword-rich URL provides search engines with even more descriptive information about your content. So, in addition to optimizing content tags, your URL structure should be optimized to ensure that it is straightforward, meaningful, and contains the appropriate keywords that are relevant to your content. When appropriate, you may want to incorporate long-tail keywords into your URLs, so users seeking more specific results may find your content more easily in their searches.
Optimizing images
As consumers frequently search for images, the visual content you display on your website also needs to be optimized for discovery. Not only are images included in specific “Image” searches on search engines, they can also appear in the main “Web” search results — if the search engine determines that your image is relevant to a particular search term or phrase. In fact, your images may appear on a SERP even when your other content pages don’t.
Unlike text optimization, search engines can’t derive full meaning from image-based content — yet. (Though it’s certainly a goal all search engines have for the future). Though they largely rely on the context of the page (i.e., the text, and the text-related tags) an image appears to identify its relevance to a search query, the meta tags that are used for each image also play an essential role in determining its contextual meaning. Types of meta data that can be optimized for images include source (i.e., file location and name), alt, and title tags. To achieve the best results in search, all of these image tags must be optimized.
Alt tags: Alt tags serve as alternate text to describe the image when the image is not available to be displayed. This is key for several reasons:
An image may not be displayed if a user’s internet connection is particularly slow, or if the page fails to load correctly.
Additionally, if text-reading software is being used (e.g., for users with visual impairments), it is the alt tag that gets read aloud to describe the images that appear on the page.
For these reasons, and others, it’s important to choose simple, yet keyword-rich phrases in your alt tags to describe your website images.
Image tags: Similar to alt tags, image tags designate the words that should appear when a user scrolls or hovers over an image. They also help your audience understand the context of the image, so the tag text you choose should describe the image accurately and contain relevant keywords.
Alt and title tags are imbedded within the image source code as follows:
