Need GREAT SEO content? Write for us, not them

Because although computers crawl over your text, HUMANS read it!

Contrary to popular belief, optimising your text for search engines is not a robotic task. So many of my clients are amazed at how intuitive SEO content actually is: simply put, it’s creating titles, tags, headings and content that is keyword focused and located in the right places. Anyone can do it of course – but you do need to know a little bit about how it all works before you dive on in. So here goes: tighten your swimming caps dear readers, we’re about to take a dip in the world of SEO content writing!

1. Keep your content human

What does this mean? Well, have you ever been told to optimise your text by repeating a key phrase or keyword as many times as possible? And, once you followed that advice, have you ever gone back and tried to read your wonderfully optimised content? If not – you need to. That keyword-peppered text could very well be the worst thing you could possibly have done for your business: it has transformed your words of wisdom, your sales messages and your product descriptions into meaningless babble that no-one will spend their incredibly short attention span reading. Don’t get me wrong: keyword selection is still one of the most important aspects of creating successful SEO content. Your keywords need to be focused, clear, and relevant to your content and market. At the end of this blog you will find a list of my favourite tools for selecting relevant keywords: they’re free, and they’re fantastic.

2. Sharing is caring

Why is this important in a blog about SEO content? Put simply, social media is king. Google uses a constantly evolving, reactive algorithm for their search engine that notices the important things such as: who is linking to your text, who likes your media feeds, who is sharing your blog posts or content, and what words are being used to describe your content in these social forums. Yes, this is hard to control or predict, BUT one thing is for sure: genuinely helpful, important and relevant content will be noticed, and has a much higher chance of being shared. Remember, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation: so first you need to understand where a search engine looks for information about your website before you can optimise your content for it. Making sense? It’s a little confusing, but really, the most important thing to understand about social media interaction and integration, is that HUMANS, not machines, are your target market. Write for them, and you will be rewarded!

3. Don’t forget your media!

Many people forget that images are just as searchable as content – and in many cases, more so! An important part of optimising your website for search engines, is remembering to optimise every component of your website: from content, to images, to videos, to sound clips: everything has title tag, meta description and target phrase optimisation capabilities. Use them! Every targeted keyword used will increase your authority and integrity with search engines. I have a favourite tool for this too, again it’s free, and it’s created especially for the non-techy among us.

Check your SEO toolbox!

Tools to increase your SEO ranking

The Wordstream Free Keyword Tool is an easy way to find best-match keyword ideas for your content pages.

A great Title and description optimisation tool is extremely important for ensuring your site is up to scratch, this one is easy to use and does the job very well.

For those among us who are using WordPress as a platform for their website, you most probably already know about the optimisation giant Yoast. If you don’t, you need to! Check out the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin – of course it’s free, and it’s quite simply the best.

Well there you go, you can take off your caps now everybody and take a deep breath: but be warned, your immersion is only just beginning: these are only rules of thumb, so keep on researching and keep writing fresh content for your sites!