Category Archives: SEO

Writing content based on customer-centric SEO strategy

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Customer-centric approach for writing SEO content

Is your content writing customer-centric SEO-based or you randomly go on writing and adding content to your website or blog just to cover the keywords you think people must be using to look for your business? There is nothing wrong in preparing your own list of keywords – both small combinations and longtail keywords – and for all you know, since you are an expert in your field, you may very well know what your prospective customers and clients might be looking for, but in many cases I have found, people have no idea.

Most content writing is done to improve search engine rankings

No matter how holistically I look at my content writing and content marketing services, 70% of the clients hire me to improve their SEO. I don’t mean to say that it is less of a service, but rather than worrying about their conversion rate, they worry about their search engine rankings, which, in itself is not bad, but it is definitely bad if you’re trying to achieve this at the cost of the quality of your content.

If I want to make a priority list of things to keep in mind while writing your business content, here is my sequence goes, with number one being the most important thing:

  1. Highly useful and topic-centric content that is well-written.
  2. The content highlights all the benefits of the product or service people should buy that product or service for.
  3. User engagement and two-way communication should be facilitated by your content.
  4. Content writing with high conversion rate. I put it at number four not because conversion is less important than the three points listed above, it is because if you take care of the above-listed three points, conversion automatically begins to manifest.
  5. Improved and higher search engine rankings. It is the same as improving conversion rate – if you take care of the above-listed three points – 1, 2 and 3 – your search engine rankings automatically improve. SEO content writing basically means high-quality content written to inform and engage your audience, using the language your audience is comfortable in.

Aligning content writing with your customer-centric SEO strategy

Why do you want to improve your search engine rankings? Don’t laugh, I really mean to ask this question, why are you bothering with SEO? The obvious answer is to get traffic for the right keywords. What are those right keywords? The keywords that you think people are using in order to find your product or service. Are you using any tools to find what keywords people are using? Are you asking those people what words, expressions and phrases, and even questions people are using in order to find what you are offering? Yes, people do type in complete questions like “where can I get an expert content writer for my industrial legal services website?” or, “when I am in Casablanca, which is the best taxi service I can hire?”

This is why I always advise my clients, don’t focus on particular keywords, focus on the answers you need to provide in order to help people become your customers and clients. When you provide answers to the right questions, on your own you begin to improve your search engine rankings.

How to follow customer-centring SEO strategy while writing content?

One thing you can do is, ask people straight away. While making people fill up your contact form, ask them how they found you and if they used the search engines, exactly what keywords they used? Not everybody will respond, so make it an optional field, but some will. You can also ask people once they have become your customers and clients because then they are more prone to replying to detailed queries.

You can ask people face-to-face. Ask them what problems they are facing? Even if they seem to be using bizarre words, note them down – you will be surprised to know how many people actually use those bizarre words.

Obviously this is not going to be a one-day or a one-week, or even a one-month project. It may take time to cover all the important keywords that people are using in order to streamline your SEO process through strategic content writing.

Can you optimize your web content writing for search engines as well as users?

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Is it possible to optimize your web content for search engines and at the same time for human users? This is a perennial question for people constantly worrying about how to write web content. No matter how much you deny, you need content from both ends of the spectrum – you want your content to convert and you also want your content to rank well on search engine result pages.

This blog post by Umair Qureshi rightly says that both can be achieved, and I personally believe it is not even a big deal as long as you stick to your topic. Nonetheless, he has included in the blog post a nice template that you can use in order to optimize your web content both for search engines as well as human visitors or users. This is how the template looks:

Template for creating search engine optimized as well as user-friendly web content

In the image he has taken an example of chocolate donuts from Mary’s bakery. He has shown how to create your headline and where strategically to use the key phrase “chocolate donuts” and its various combinations at strategic locations.

This is a standard procedure to write an optimized webpage without spamming the hell out of your content. The basic idea is to use your keyword or expression in such a manner that it is fairly represented from within your content without over-using it. You can also use its various versions. For example, if I want to optimize this particular blog post for “web content optimization” I can use various combinations such as the whole thing, then “web content”, then “content optimization” and then somewhere “web”, somewhere “content” and somewhere “optimization”. The above-mentioned template is a nice starting point. You can create your own by referring to this one.

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Content writing for Google Pigeon Update and local SEO

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content writing for Google pigeon update

Content writing can have a big impact on your local SEO no matter what updates are going on at Google and other search engines. According to this Search Engine Land report, The Google Pigeon Update was intended towards improving local SEO giving more relevant and accurate local search results that are “tired more closely to traditional web search ranking signals” (frankly, I was unable to understand this, can anyone help?) The updates were mostly for US English searches targeting US local SEO and SEM sectors. Later on it was also expanded to the other regions of the world. My focus would be the content writing aspect of local SEO vis-a-vis this ongoing debate on the Google update.

Since the Google Pigeon Update is more focused towards improving local search algorithms, it was difficult to ignore the business directories that mostly cater to local businesses, for example in India we have IndiaMart and many more. Last year, the local review site Yelp had complained that the Google search results were ignoring its results and SEO advantages it had enjoyed so far, and were pushing Google’s search results ahead of local business and review directories. This seems to have been corrected in the Pigeon Update and Yelp again has attained its SEO advantage. In a blog post last month, Shelly Kramer posted a review of the impact that Google’s Pigeon Update has had so far on different businesses and their SEO positions.

Content writing for Google Pigeon Update in particular and local search results in general

Give and take everything revolving around search, eventually it is content writing that impacts your rankings. It’s mostly your content that decides (of course there are scores of other factors but mostly it is your content) what sort of search rankings your website or blog is going to enjoy. Anyway, how do you write your content for the Google Pigeon Update in particular and local search results in general? Here are a few things you can do:

  1. Talk about your locality as much as possible. If you provide computer repair services in and around, say Pigeonburg (no such locality as far as I know, so don’t try to look in Google maps), create lots of content talking about your computer repair services in and around Pigeonburg. Write about the various events taking place in Pigeonburg and connect these events to your computer repair services. Routinely write about Pigeonburg and computer repair services.
  2. On your social media profiles try to create a community of Pigeonburg residents who would be interested in your computer repair services by posting highly relevant content that would interest people in Pigeonburg.
  3. This is not related to content writing, but you should also get your business website listed in as many Pigeonburg online business directories as possible because as mentioned above, the business directories are given more preference over natural results.

Content writing for local SEO is not much different from writing content for any other topic in order to optimize it. You just need to talk a lot about your locality – in the right context – and then also incorporate the keywords relevant to your business.

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How better content improves your search engine rankings

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Better content improves your search engine rankings

I have many clients who need content to improve their search engine rankings and this is why they hire me. They know that I can write them optimized content without having to resort to keyword stuffing and creating nonsensical content just to fill up blog posts and webpages. But how does it actually happen? How does better content improve your search engine rankings?

Better content and search engine rankings are interconnected

Search engines survive on the strength of the content they can index and rank for the users. Why would you use Google if you don’t find what you’re looking for? When you use a search engine you’re looking for some information that you can trust and rely on. Suppose the search engine is unable to provide you that information? What do you do? Perhaps due to the preconceived reputation you go on using it for some time but eventually you give up and then you try to find another search engine that can give you better results. When you shift your focus to another search engines, the search engine you have abandoned (Google, for instance) loses business because in order to earn money, they need more users.

This is the reason why the quality of your content matters to the search engines. Is this foolproof? No way. Lots of shoddy content shows up, undeservedly, on the first page, even at the first spot at the first page, but with every successive update (Penguin, Panda, etc.) they are weeding out such aberrations.

You will be surprised to know that the search engine algorithms these days also take into factor your bounce rate. If people aren’t spending much time on your blog or website, it means you’re not providing value. If people are going through various links within your website and spending a couple of minutes going through your important pages, the search engines can make out that your content is worth reading, and hence, good. If you don’t have well-written content, if your content doesn’t provide the information people are looking for, they leave your website within a few seconds. How do you keep people on your website longer?

  • Create compelling headlines.
  • Deliver on the promise you have made in the headline and in the title
  • Use shorter sentences because many people access your content via smaller screens, for example mobile phones and tablets
  • Don’t create very big paragraphs
  • Don’t clutter your webpage with unnecessary animations, images and links (every distraction can cost you a customer)
  • Make your content shareable

Social validation these days is as important as creating quality content (but don’t just focus on social validation at the cost of creating quality content). How many people find your content worth sharing? In this Moz Whiteboard Friday presentation Josh Bachynski explains how it matters that authoritative people in your niche talk about your content and share it on their own timelines and blogs. The more such people promote your content, the greater search engine improvements you experience.

Social validation depends a lot on how better you can make your content. It is voluntary action. People will promote your content only if it adds value or at least delivers something they are looking for.

So focus on the quality rather than quantity. Hire a content writer not to produce bulk content for you, but high-quality content.

With no keywords [100% (Not Provided)], is SEO content history?

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Keyword data not provided

First of all, let me make it clear, there is no such thing as “SEO content”. You should always write content that is useful to your visitors, that provides the right information to your prospective customers and clients, and that is easily accessible. Stick to these guidelines and you have got “SEO content” on your website. Nonetheless, when you create content, you keep your primary keywords in mind while preparing the text. This is for obvious reasons. Up till now, the convention has been that if people are using certain words to find you, shouldn’t you be using those words? Suppose people are looking for content writing services, shouldn’t I use these three words as often as possible, while not overdoing it?

Recently Google has started encrypting every search – it means the various analytics programs that told you what keywords people are using in order to come to your website will no longer be able to do that. Here is an interesting take on this latest development:

Why does Google hide this valuable information in this awesome free tool called Google Analytics that they recommend you sign up for? Why do you think? My guess is it’s to encourage paid search engine marketing possibly through their Google AdWords product. I mean why else would you hide this useful information?

Whatever reasons Google has got, it is not going to show you the keywords for which you get traffic, and that’s that. It’s a big company, lots of businesses depend on it, and it can really take decisions that can wipe off smaller businesses just like that. Deal with it.

How do you deal with it? Most of my clients provide me a list of keywords when they want me to prepare content for them. Although more than keywords, what’s important is the message that is delivered through the content, but keywords are a big factor. You can use common sense to prepare content according to your main keywords. But how do you know that you are getting enough traffic for those keywords? If you are trying to optimize your website for multiple keywords, how do you know which keywords are already optimized for and which ones you still need some effort? In the absence of this insight, what sort of content do you create?

Google deciding not to show you keywords doesn’t mean that keywords no longer matter. After all it’s the keywords that people use in order to find the information they need. Although Google is shifting its focus on context rather than the words that you use – you may like to read my previous blog post titled Preparing your website content for Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. Despite that, keywords are going to matter and this is why…

The entire AdWords business depends on keywords because people bid on them. The advertisements on Google’s advertising network appear on the basis of the keywords people use to carry out searches. So do you want to know what keywords drive the most traffic to your website? Sign up for AdWords. Even if you are not interested in PPC advertising, you can use its PPC ad-creation tool to do research on keywords and find out the most relevant and the most widely used keywords in your industry. By spending some money you can also find out for which keywords people click your links the most.

The best thing to do is, stop worrying about keywords and start publishing content people find useful. In fact this can be a blessing in disguise. Almost since the beginning of the Internet businesses all over the world have depended on search engines for traffic. I’m not saying you completely start ignoring the search engines because millions of people use them to find products and services they need, but people are also using other sources like social networking websites, blogs, review websites and informative articles to make up their minds. In fact, trying to find good information on search engines can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. On the other hand if you ask your peers, friends and followers (whether face-to-face or through your social connections on the Internet) you can find exactly the sort of information and advice you need. Start networking with people. Build your clout and authority. Improve your author rank instead of solely focusing on page rank and keyword density. Let people send traffic your way rather than search engines.

If you are not publishing a newsletter, then perhaps this is the right time to start one. Have a signup box somewhere on your website and encourage people to drop in their email ids so that you can keep in touch with them. In fact, the conversion rate from your emails is much higher compared to the traffic that you get from search engines.

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