Optimizing content for SEO
Image by Chris_Carter_
“Content is king” is an age-old adage in the online world and is especially followed in the search engine optimization field. In past articles, we’ve always explored ways to enrich your site by making your content engaging for your readers, help ramp up your online reputation and use it to build a network online.
On the flipside, let’s not forget that articles, blog posts and the written context behind photos and other multimedia contents are what search engine algorithms are programmed to index when crawling a Web site. As such, it’s also important to write with a clear idea of how search engines would be able to look at your post.
Post value
First off, you need to make sure that every piece you write is of good value to your readers; something they can learn from. When informative and written in a compelling manner, your posts can ensure your reader’s stay in your site is a lot more fun and engaging. Here are a few ways you can enrich your posts:
Topic coverage
Based on your knowledge of your demographic, cover topics you know your readers will find interesting. Bound to a specific field of interest/s? Make a compelling spin on post topics, offer a different take on the subject or insert anecdotes as proof of your points.
Post Layout
To the eye, a block of text is…well, a block of text and it needs a visual break every few lines. A long paragraph looks like a task reading so make sure to segment your post by paragraph and insert a few relevant images while you’re at it.
Hefty Research
You owe it to your readers to churn out well-researched posts; from other resources online, your own previous posts, conduct experiments and actually talk to people of interest. In any case, make sure to check the facts twice, ask permission from site owners to use their findings and, most importantly, credit your source with a mention and links.
Utilize keywords
One of the easiest ways to optimize a written piece for SEO is by pulling in and using keywords within your sentences and the site’s meta data. It’s possible that you’re given a list of keywords beforehand but if that’s not tha case, you can determine keywords by using of services like Google Adwords’ keyword ideas, WordStream’s Keyword tool or Google Search-based Keyword tool or you can simply list down words, phrases and their synonyms related to your post.
Seeing that you are writing an actual piece about your topic, using these keywords within your article shouldn’t be a problem. It’ll really help if they’re also in the title, headings, image and video tags and the metadata within the site’s source code.
A word of advice though:
Play nice and avoid deceiving your readers in your attempt to reach for high rankings: don’t mislead the search engine algorithms with keywords of impressive keyword density that are completely unrelated to your topic. We’ve seen this happen when the movies Inception and The Hurt Locker started skyrocketing as trending topics. Sure it’ll boost the stats, but it can also disappoint and potentially annoy your demographic and prove to be such a disservice to your brand.
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RSpears @ July 26, 2010
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