SEO Secrets of Website Content Writing
There are basic concepts for writing on the web that are so fundamental that it is incredible they’re so often overlooked and forgotten.
No matter how wonderful your prose, no matter how stimulating or persuasive your arguments, however much someone should read your words, if readers can not find your website, it will remain unread. Probably the reason this central fact is so frequently forgotten is that many people do not realize that writing for the web is different from writing for an old-fashioned print medium.
When writing for the web, there are a few great rules for structuring your website content to maximize the potential of what you have written.
Searchers Intent
Put yourself in your potential readers’ shoes. What would you search for? If you wanted a chef’s paring knife, would you key in kitchen knife? No, because you know this would bring up millions of vague and unrelated results. Be specific – and search for “chef’s paring knife/knives”.
Also, thinking about the searchers intent and the page to which they will be directed in the search engines are important things to think about. If you are trying to target users to your site using the keyword “clothes”, but you only sell children’s clothes, you’re likely to get many users using the back button to get off your site. They might be looking for: the history of clothes, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, clothes for pets, or information on clothing manufacturing. Search engines look at bounce rate, and have integrated it into their ranking determination factors.
Keywords
Also important to note: searchers are becoming more and more specific with their search terms. Long tail keywords are utilized often, and can often translate to the point at which the searcher is in their buying process. A longer term keyword may signal they are ready to purchase, depending on what industry you are in.
Think about a variety of keywords. The best way to do this when writing for the web is to utilize third party tools like Google Ad Words, SEMRush.com, Wordstream, SEO Book, and others. Looking up synonyms for each of the obvious keywords will show you alternatives, and even Google Suggest can help you out.
Grammatical Tips
Keep your sentences as straightforward as you can. Please don’t be tempted to “impress” your readers with big words. They won’t be impressed and will move on quicker than you can type monosyllable. Short is sweet. Long paragraphs mean readers will leave you quicker than rats from a sinking web ship. Keep it short. Like that.
Onsite Tips
Don’t call your website something clever. Cooking Up A Storm may be a clever name for a main street cookery shop, but for an online version it could be a disaster. Who’s going to search for that? Integrate your keywords into the domain name of your site. If you’ve already set up a site, and your brand name doesn’t elude to the subject matter of your site, try integrating keywords in your URL. In addition don’t forget the obvious spots: Meta Title, Meta Description, H1-5 Tags, internal links from other pages, and image ALT tags.
Register Your Site
It’s important to register your site with each of the search engines, and upload your sitemap. In addition try adding your company to directories like DMOZ.org: a free directory, Yahoo directory ($299/annually), Business.com ($299/annually), BOTW ($99/annually), and if you have a blog submit it to Google News.
While the above ‘secrets’ aren’t exactly new, they do provide you with some great insight into how to help make your onsite content get indexed, cached, and found by potential customers and clients.
What secrets do you have to share in the world of SEO website content writing?
Steve Lazuka is the owner/operator of Interact Media based in Ohio. You can find him on Twitter, writing on his content marketing blog, or working with clients to help them with their business blog writing.
22 Responses to “SEO Secrets of Website Content Writing”
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SEO Secrets of Website Content Writing | Daily SEO Tip http://dailyseotip.com/seo-secrets-of-website-content-writing/790/
SEO Secrets of Website Content Writing | Daily SEO Tip http://dailyseotip.com/seo-secrets-of-website-content-writing/790/
Nice article, just enough to get people started into knowing how to write for online content. I do not however agree with your Grammatical Tips as you tend to forget that your readers are smart, if you write short you will offend more of them than the ones you are afraid of leaving because you use complex words.
It is not completely wrong however, there is such a thing as too long and too complex, but stay away from “talking to babies” – Talk to _your_ readers! This is a mistake many blog writers do today – They do not know their audience which is the first thing you must do in SEO.
Hi Steve!
Your article is a good overview for anyone thinking about writing articles for the web. You shared some fresh perspectives and some good insights. Thank you.
WRT your Grammatical Tips, I agree that you should keep your articles short, because most readers are searching to find information, not to pass the time. But I think Jim’s comment is also valid, too – we should be careful to avoid appearing to talk down to our readers.
Good article and good discussion.
Steve Lazuka Reply:
April 27th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Thanks for both your comments @Ken and @Jim. Agreed, there are two sides of the fence on writing short sentences for web copy. You have to constantly play a balancing act: keep the search engines happy, keep readers wanting to read more, and finally: not getting too in depth so as to lose the reader. Appreciate the comments!
Good article; well written.
I too am not convinced that simple sentences and basic grammar are the way forward.
Sure, if the underlying idea is intelligent then by all means keep it simple, but that doesn’t imply short, easy-to-read sentences.
If you simplify too much then you run the risk of boring people AND presenting yourself as dull.
Good blog. your article is good example for those thinking writing content for the websites.Interested blog.
Thanks.
Joining all those directories will cost $700.
Lots of blog posts do tout joining them but is there any evidence to show how much it helps?
Or if I were to only pay for one, which one should it be?
Very Interesting blog. Keep it up. Thanks…..
writing articles is important for seo work. thanks for sharing
Good advice. SEO is not magic. You just need to get into a certain way of thinking and acting.
That was a nice article though!
Some pretty good tips there, with regards to submitting to Google News for blogs, do they all get accepted or are there rules and guidelines to get accepted?
Article quality is good. It can be published as well.
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jonne Reply:
July 14th, 2011 at 3:35 am
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A very comprehensive article.. This will be a huge help for those writer of some article, to make they’re piece be more attractive to the reader..
Another way to get more traffic to your articles is to comment on blogs with commentluv enabled this is a great way to get instant traffic and quality links from relevant sites
Genuinely revealing cheers, It looks like your current subscribers may want a lot more well written articles of this nature maintain the good content.
Awfully challenging thank you, It looks like your trusty followers will probably want a good deal more content like that carry on the great work.
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