SEO is a very familiar word. For many companies and businesses that market themselves or their content online. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and as the name itself suggests, it’s the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic, as well as exposure to your brand, through non-paid/organic search engine results.
Optimizing your site or content will help deliver better information to search engines so that your content can be properly indexed and displayed within search results, so even a small use of SEO can result in big significant changes that add to the value of what you’re trying to display. SEO is done by understanding how a human mind works, by analyzing what people are searching for online, the keywords they’re using for their search, and the content/answers they’re seeking.
In this fast-evolving world, SEO can be frustrating because it is a very dynamic field. One needs to stay well-informed and learn continuously, because it takes more than just building links, creating any old content, and adding a few keywords to improve your organic search rankings and increase the visibility of your business or brand.
Some ways in which one can practice SEO in their articles are-
Good Keyword Research
One can start by identifying keywords relevant to the topic. One can either come up with them off the top of their head, use the keyword planning tools like the one from Google, use a more advanced SEO tool like Ahrefs or KWFinder (compare them here), or hire an SEO agency to do that for you. When one is writing with SEO in mind, it’s tempting to take as many keywords as possible and optimize the text for all of them.
However, this may lead to convoluted, disorganized content. So, pick one primary keyword and then dig deeper. The primary keyword should be the main focus of the entire article. One can create a hierarchy of keywords and use the most search generating upfront. The most important keywords can be used in the title itself.
Research the topic
The major reason why people conduct searches on Google and other search engines is that they’re looking for useful content. The best way to get people to read and engage with your content is to write content that is useful and entertaining. Search engines reward sites that have high-quality, relevant content, so quality is more important than almost every other factor on the list.
One can also start by identifying their audience and researching topics that matter to them, and one can build their content around answering the audience’s questions and providing them with solutions. If one wants to write the best content that will rank well on Google, they will have to target keyword phrases. Ideally, put the keyword in your headline, but make sure that it reads smoothly to your readers.
Creating a well-optimized title
The title introduces the content to the audience. That’s why it’s often the primary piece of information a user uses to decide which result to tap on, especially when searching on mobile. Consider the user intent. One can choose a title that indicates what problem users will solve or the benefit they will get from reading the content.
One should Include the clue words to catch users’ attention and entice them to click. Keep the title between 15 to 40 characters long. Include your target keyword in titles. Search engines use titles to understand whether the content is relevant to the query. However, over-optimization is often a problem that should be avoided
Managing the content structure
Good structure is an essential element of high-quality content. One can do that by-
- Adding subheadings to make the content easier to read.
- Adding a table of contents to optimize an article. If the article is long, one can add a table of contents at the beginning of the article to let visitors quickly go to the desired section.
- One paragraph equals one idea, so one can divide the content into logical, digestible segments that can keep readers engaged.
- One can highlight important ideas and using different font sizes or emboldening certain texts to emphasize things can make the text easier to follow.
- One can divide long sentences. Just like breaking the content up into paragraphs, divide long sentences into shorter ones.
- Using bullets and numbered lists can be done. Using them, one can convey large amounts of information in a concise form. Bullet points also increase your chances of getting a Featured Snippet.
Use transition words
Transition words help people scan through the text and understand the relationship between sentences and paragraphs. One can use signal words like: ‘first of all; ‘secondly’ and ‘finally’. Also, words like ‘however’, ‘similarly’, and ‘for example’ give a clear signal to the readers. Readers will instantly get that a conclusion will follow after words like ‘to sum up’ or ‘in short’. Transition words are therefore very important to add structure to the text.
Optimize the length of your article
Make sure the length of an article is balanced. Google likes long articles, however, if the article is too long it can scare users away. One should only write long articles when they know they are a skilled writer. It’s asking a lot of the visitors to read your entire post when it’s lengthy. And remember to keep using the focus keyphrase throughout your text to make sure you end up with an SEO-friendly blog post!
Add images or any form of visual content
Different visuals across a page can help convey information to the user better and circulate the content better. Use of infographics, checklists, templates, and other types of visual content to deliver value to the audience faster and in a more catchy way. People have become extremely visual and it would be nearly impossible to effectively position a brand today without including supporting images to build brand recognition.
Put simply, building a brand requires the use of every multimedia asset available. The other benefit of pictures and videos to any blog post or copy is that they can be ranked in the Images and Video sections of Google and even get into Featured Snippets and attract additional traffic.