Everyone wants a piece of the SEO pie. If you play by its rules, Google rewards you by placing your website and content higher on its results page – but the inverse is also true if you don’t cater to the web crawlers. Considering the competitive advantage offered by first page search listing, there are no shortage of guides, tricks and hacks that promise results.
However, not all guides necessarily complement one another (nor may the information presented be up to date – or even accurate). For new marketers, it’s like being thrown into the deep end of the pool alongside various life preservers. Some will help you float… but some will sink the moment you latch on. If you’re worried about what to believe, Wordsmith has you covered with a quick guide on how to curate SEO content!
Know your keywords
Google defines keywords as the specific words or phrases that users type into the search bar, which are then paired with websites that are deemed most relevant.
For example, if you wrote an article about the three best substitutes for Microsoft Word, a possible keyword may be “word processor”. However, the lack of precision means you can expect all kinds of results – including results promoting` Microsoft Word – the opposite of what we wanted!
Be as specific as you can when you plan your keywords. Here are some that we came up with off the top of our head:
· Microsoft Word alternatives
· OpenOffice
· Google Docs
· Free word processor
Next, we need to consider where the keywords will be used. Do not dump your keywords all over your page – that is a guaranteed way to lower your page ranking. Instead, Sharon Hurley Hall (via OptinMonster) recommends that you use your primary keyword(s) in your first few sentences, then having variations of these keywords sprinkled throughout your content. “The bottom line: write for humans first, and make content readable and understandable,” Hurley Hall explain.
That’s not all there is to keywords though! According to Forbes Council Member Hanna Trivette, you should also consider additional and external factors, such as seasons, holidays and other coinciding events or trends that can influence your business (eg. Black Friday, Christmas, back to school sales and so on). “Having a variety of keywords and content increases its diversity and value,” explains Trivette.
What’s your style?
When we say style, we mean the tone, mannerism and way you want to convey information across your website. If you work alongside other writers, it might be worth spending some time to come up with a style guide that everyone can follow. This is important if you value a cohesive experience for your website’s visitors!
Trivette recommends the following considerations for style guides:
1. The type of imagery you want your content to convey (this applies to anecdotes and examples as well)
2. The style of voice to use
3. Font types, sizes, headings and type of header images to use
4. References to know when writing about a specific topic or for a client of a particular industry
Is it too much?
To create an even more cohesive (and consistent) visitor experience, the general length of your articles should also be standardised.
“Google generally prefers articles of a modest length, at least 500 words, that aren’t too long,” explains Trivette.
While it’s a good idea to be as detailed as possible, you should never overload an article with all the information you have on hand – for Wordsmith’s blog articles, we find a word count around 1000 to offer a good balance between detail and conciseness.
There isn’t a hard cap for the word count, but from experience, readers tend to lose focus after 1000 words, which means that any content beyond this point runs the risk of being unread. Relegate less important details here, otherwise, consider splitting the article into parts if there are some really key points that you’d rather not waste.
Due diligence and plagiarism checks
“When we think of plagiarism, we often imagine a person copying and pasting someone else’s work,” describes Trivette. “While this is definitely a more obvious form of duplicated content, Google’s standards for web content include those that have any significant matches.”
Whether intentional or coincidental, Google is not able to tell between the two, so the onus is always upon the content creator to check for duplicated material. Grammarly has a handy plagiarism checker that can compare your work with existing material online (note that you’ll have to sign up if you want to see specifically where plagiarism is detected).
Now why should we care about this? It’s just extra work for us!
We definitely should care, because Google does not take kindly to plagiarism. Should the algorithm detect any plagiarised content, the search engine will lower your ranking or possibly even block your page from showing up entirely. It definitely pays to do our due diligence when plagiarism has such high costs!
The SEO bits and bobs
Having keywords alone won’t guarantee you a good SEO score, which is why Trivette suggests the following extra steps:
· Page titles
60 to 65 characters is the optimal title length (taken straight from John Mueller, the Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google) – anything longer might get shortened or rewritten! In addition to this, Trivette recommends that your headline include one of your primary keywords to create a better connection with the rest of your content.
· Headings
Like with the page title, your headings should also contain keywords. For subheads, consider using secondary keywords (like the theme or point of that particular section).
· URLs
Don’t be one of those websites that use a bizarre combination of alphabets and numbers as the address. If someone were to manually type out the URL to your article, it shouldn’t be a slog to do so.
Links that contain the page title work best, and if you want to be really kind to your users, Trivette is an advocate for subdirectories, which are handy for cataloguing purposes too!
· Meta descriptions
Considering how your search result appears on Google is also essential. The meta description should contain several things:
o A brief explanation or snippet about what your article or page is about (within 155 characters) – make sure it includes the keyword(s) as well
o The publication date (and author if applicable)
o If promoting a product or service, the full product/service name should be specified
o A call-to-action
o An active voice
o A location (if applicable)
SEO can be a little troublesome to manage at first, but it should definitely receive the same level of care and attention as your article itself – otherwise, all your effort will be met with limited viewership and engagement numbers. With enough practice, hammering out keywords and meta descriptions can become second nature!