Online content writers often have to write “seo content” that can help their clients achieve higher search engine rankings. Is there really some difference between regular content and SEO content? It depends on how you want to define your writing, and what you need to attain as a professional online copywriter or content writer. Almost every (almost every seems contradictory though) website owner wants higher search engine rankings to increase their visibility and get more targeted search engine traffic and they know their content can help them achieve that. So when they approach a content writer they want to know whether they can get SEO content that can help them improve their search engine rankings. You can write “normal” content and you can write seo content based on the kind of competition the website faces on search engines. If there isn’t much competition even regular content can bring your website to the first page of major search engines (I may quickly add that merely adding SEO content doesn’t get you lots of traffic — it depends on many external factors too). More competition means you really have to highlight your message. This is where SEO content writing guidelines become important. Here are a few.
Cover focused topics
Don’t try to cover everything under the sun on a single page. Search engines prefer focused pages, especially talking about a particular topic or phrase. So if you are creating a page on “social media services” then stick to the topic and let it be known to the search engines that you’re really talking on this subject. Similarly, if you are talking about SEO copywriting then deal with only this subject. It also satisfies people crazy about keyword density. When you talk about a topic you use its associated phrases and terms on your own without making an extra effort.
Page title, yes, again
One of the most important parts of your page is the title, the main heading. It must present to the search engines the most compelling reason to crawl and index that page (or blog post). Preferably, use the entire phrase you are targeting, in the title. You don’t have to use the words in the same order, but try to use them. No need to sound esoteric, no need to use puns. Take for example the title of this blog post. It says: SEO guidelines for content writers. It can also be written as “how to improve your search engine writing” or something else, but I want to talk to content writers who are looking for SEO guidelines.
Organize your content using the right tags
The search engines specifically look for the right words at particular locations. They check for you keywords in heading, sub-heading, bullet-ed lists and anchor texts (text that exists as a hyper link). This is because many people simply go through the headings and bullets to get a gist of your page. Keywords in hypertext are a good accessibility policy.
Of course this is not an SEO tips blog post so I’m not going to talk about the changes in the source code; my main focus here is the text — how you can organize the text in order to SEOmize it.
And what about the keyword density?
There is no magical formula actually. Use the keywords wherever they seem appropriate, and wherever their appearance seems unnatural, don’t use them. If you are really hung up on using some sort of percentage, just use your phrase in the first paragraph, in one or two headings, in the bullet list at least once, and if you can manage, as a hyper text. Then use it in the last sentence but it’s not necessary.
