SEO means Search Engine Optimization and it's how people find your website.
SEO is an acronym that stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engines like Google use your website's optimized content to help them determine how useful your website is to a particular search query. The higher they rank you, the more people will see your site in their search results, and the more visitors you'll have.
SEO is about choosing the right keywords for your content and making sure you have good content to back it up.
Choosing the Right Keywords
The first step in incorporating SEO into your writing is to select the keywords you’re going to use. To do this, you need to think about what your audience is searching for and how they are searching for it. Then, you can use tools (such as Google's Keyword Planner) to check on how much traffic any given keyword gets. The more popular a keyword is, the more competition you will face if that is what you decide to write about. It's also important to make sure that your article has something valuable and relevant to say about a given topic. If not, it won't rank highly no matter how great its keywords are.
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| find the best possible keywords |
Good keywords are crucial—but they're only half of the equation! While choosing them well can help a lot in terms of search engine optimization, good content is equally important.
How Many Keywords Should You Use? When deciding on which words or phrases are best suited for your content, don't try too hard to fill in all those blanks - stick with one or two keywords per sentence at most and avoid using them excessively throughout the entire text.
You don't have to be an expert to write good blog posts.
Now, I’m not an SEO expert and I don’t claim to be. But from what I learned from SEO experts as well as my own personal research, it seems that there are a couple of key components to good SEO. Those three components are:
Relevant content: Google wants to serve its users with high-quality, relevant search results. If you include keywords in your blog post that aren’t relevant to the topic of your blog post, users will click on your link and then leave because they don’t like what they see — sending a signal to Google that your blog post isn’t relevant or helpful. And if you have too many irrelevant keywords within the body of your text, Google may also penalize you for “keyword stuffing.”
The right amount of keywords: If you use too many keywords in your content, it can seem unnatural and robotic. But if you use too little keyword density, Google doesn't recognize the relevancy or importance of your content on those particular topics. According to Matt Cutts — former head of Google's webspam team — there is no right amount but 3-5% is recommended by most experts.
Understanding how Google works - Google bot Indexing. You can see more about this on my previous article.
Research your topic thoroughly or write about something you're very familiar with.
Wordy writers, take note.
You'd be surprised at how much time you can save by learning to use a keyword research tool. The benefits are many: you'll find the ideal keywords for your writing project, you'll know how long it will take to complete your post, and you'll have a better idea of what information is most important when considering the best way to write about your topic.
If you're not sure where to begin with keyword research tools, I recommend starting with the tool that contains the minimum amount of whining necessary to get started: Google's Keyword Planner. It returns a page full of suggestions for words that people type into search engines in order to find specific information on particular topics based on their previous searches (for example, if someone types "how do I make a paper lantern" they'll get this suggestion).
Once you've found an appropriate word or phrase in Google's Keyword Planner and made an idea of how long it will take before completing your post (which can be figured out by looking at other blog posts similar to yours), keep brainstorming ideas around your chosen topic until you have enough material so that it won't feel like an overwhelming task when beginning work on your post. Brainstorming ideas should be done with a mind map since some words come up multiple times while others only appear once in different combinations—so just make sure that each word is connected by lines in your mind map so nothing gets lost.
Use a keyword research tool to include relevant search terms in your writing.
Once you’ve done your keyword research, it’s time to optimize your content. First of all, make sure that you’re using the relevant keywords in your title and headings.
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| find the best possible keywords using online tools |
For example, if you write a blog post about how to build a birdhouse, the best way to include your keyword phrase in titles is to include it at the beginning of the title:
How To Build A Birdhouse If You're Not A Carpenter
If you're writing a listicle, add some of these words to your subheadings:
Buy The Right Wood To Build Your Birdhouse
Cut The Wood With Precision Using These Tips
Nail Everything Together Correctly And Securely
If you have one main keyword phrase that you want to be found for (e.g., “how to build a birdhouse) make sure that you use it throughout your article as well (in addition to synonyms or related terms). One good way of doing this is by working on sentence structure—for example, putting related information together into lists:
Once you have your keywords, create a list of related topics that new posts can cover.
Now that you have your keywords, it's time to broaden your horizons and create a list of related topics. This will help you create a content calendar or editorial calendar.
First, determine how many blog posts you want to publish per week
Second, decide on how many weeks of blog posts you want to plan out at a time
Third, divide the number of weekly posts by the number of weeks for which you are planning content
Now that we know how many topics (posts) we need, let's flesh them out. Each topic should be relevant to your niche and one or more of your selected keywords. For example, if one of your keywords is "SEO," then some possible topics may be "On-page SEO tips," "Blogging SEO checklist," and "Google Analytics explained." It's also a good idea to have a list of evergreen topics—topics that will be relevant for years to come. You can use these topics whenever you find yourself in need of inspiration—or as part one of an evergreen series!
Don't overload articles with too many keywords, but do make sure they are used correctly in the text.
Once you have found the best keywords for your content, you should then work them into your sentences in a way that makes sense to human readers. Don’t just tack on a keyword here and there, or use the same one over and over again. Google and other search engines are looking for natural language usage patterns, not some sort of robotic keyword-stuffed text that is designed to get high rankings at all costs. Also, be careful when using keywords within links—just because they are hyperlinked doesn’t mean they carry more weight. When choosing keywords to use as anchor text in your web pages or blog posts, beware that too much of a good thing can be bad when it comes to SEO. You shouldn’t use the exact same keyword phrase in every link out from your page or post because this looks spammy to the search engines and will eventually cause them lower their ranking of your content. Still, it is good practice for you as a writer to always use relevant keywords in links where appropriate—as long as it is done naturally and enhances reader experience rather than detracts from it.
Write naturally and use synonyms when appropriate.
Use keywords, but avoid keyword stuffing. The most common mistake people make when writing for an audience is choosing a keyword and putting it in every sentence. Keyword stuffing is not only obvious to the reader, but can also hurt your ranking on search engines. Keeping your content natural, but using various forms of the keywords you want to rank for, will sound smoother and help you rank higher.
You might think that repeating the same word over and over or adding too many tags to a post will help Google recognize what you’re writing about. Not so! Instead, use synonyms or related terms as naturally as possible throughout the post. You’ll still include all of your desired keywords by doing this, but it won’t come across as stilted or boring.
SEO is important to making sure people find your online content and it doesn't take much specialized knowledge to learn how to do it effectively.
SEO for bloggers and content writers doesn't have to be a chore, nor does it have to require a stint in computer science. The whys and hows of SEO are no more complicated than knowing your audience, finding the right keywords, and structuring your piece in such a way that makes it easy for both humans and search engine bots to get the information they need.
Once you start using SEO strategies in your writing, you'll see just how easy it is to incorporate them into your routine. You can get started today by learning how to do keyword research.
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