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How to achieve on-page optimization with content writing

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On-page optimization with content writing

On-page optimization with content writing.

Search engine optimization has two parts:

  1. On-page optimization
  2. Off-page optimization

Off-page optimization is not directly under your control. It is a long-term process. You publish lots of content. People find your content. If they like it, they engage with your content by linking to it, referring to it on social media websites and mobile apps or finding your content useful enough to spend some good amount of time on your website.

On-page optimization on the other hand is completely in your control. Aside from efficient source code, you can write content that is search engine optimized.

A recent Moz blog post shares a few tips on how you can optimize your content for on-page optimization.

Here is how you can use content writing to achieve on-page optimization:

Format content that is easier to read when writing content

When people visit your website or the page you are subjecting to on-page optimization, they should be able to read it as easily as possible. The same holds true for the search engine crawlers. They should be able to read your content without much fuss.

This means making your content writing scannable. Here are a few things you can do.

Use the H2 tags

I have written on this topic multiple times. You should organize your content under different headings and subheadings. The above Moz author says that you should use your keywords – sometimes even the exact keywords you are trying to target – in the headings and subheadings.

Use headings after every 300 words. In this case, by headings I mean text between <H2> and </H2>.

Between headings, also use the <H3> tags as subheadings. This way, merely by looking at the text between headings and subheadings, your readers should be able to make out what your web page is about.

Use shorter sentences and paragraphs

Everybody finds reading shorter sentences easy. Communicate one idea in one sentence. Of course, when you are feeling like writing a long sentence, do that, but most of the sentences should be short. In grammar lingo, such sentences are called “simple sentences”. Avoid using compound or complex sentences.

Use shorter paragraphs. Ideally, don’t use more than two sentences in a paragraph. I tend to use more than two sentences, but I do that when my sentences are very short.

Use the main keyword within the first 100 words of the write-up

This tip isn’t included in the above link, but this can be useful. What does your keyword represent? It represents the core proposition of your web page.

Sometimes the search engine crawler cannot crawl your entire web page. By the time it reaches the body content, it goes to another link or completely leaves your website.

Hence, enable it to come across your main keyword (that represents the core topic of your web page) as early as possible so that even if it leaves your web page in a hurry, it processes the keyword.

Use bulleted lists

Bulleted lists are easy to read. They don’t even need to be complete sentences. You can just use phrases or even one-word expressions in the bulleted lists. Use your primary and secondary keywords in the bulleted lists. Use your hyperlinks.

Optimize your content for featured snippets

Featured snippets are the highlighted pieces of content that appear on search result pages when you search for something, and the answer is well defined. Here are some benefits of writing your content that is featured snippets-friendly:

  • You occupy “position zero”, even above paid links.
  • Getting featured in the snippets section is the ultimate search engine optimization fete, bringing you lots of traffic.
  • It increases your brand authority.
  • It brings you more back links increasing search engine rankings of other links on your website.

You may like to read: Is there a definitive way of ranking in Google’s featured snippets?

Featured snippets can appear in two forms: paragraph form and bullet form.

How can you optimize for featured snippets? By providing the exact answer being asked in a question, and in a manner that it’s easier to understand by Google’s ranking algorithm.

Although there is no definitive way of appearing in Google’s featured snippets, mention a question and then present an answer. Mention a problem, and then present a solution.

Something like:

Guide to using content writing improve on-page optimization?

  1. Divide your content between headings and subheadings.
  2. Use your keywords in headings and subheadings.
  3. Use bulleted lists to organize main points.
  4. Use your keywords within the first 100 words of your web page copy.
  5. Write short sentences that are easier to read.
  6. Write short paragraphs that are easier to read even on mobile phones.
  7. Optimize your text for featured snippets.
  8. Write text focusing on search intent.

The above is the format preferred by the featured snippets section.

Add an FAQs section

Although, you cannot add an FAQs section on every page, wherever you can, do so. For example, if I’m writing this blog post, it doesn’t make sense to add an FAQs section needlessly. But if I have a web page describing my content writing services, it is a perfect candidate for an FAQs section.

Why is an FAQs section search engine friendly? It delivers exactly what Google wants. It presents content in the form of questions and answers.

In the questions of your FAQs section, write the questions as if they are being asked by search engine users.

Take for instance the following question and its subsequent answer:

Can content writing improve on-page optimization?

Yes, content writing can improve on-page optimization if you format your content in such a manner that it’s easy to read both for your human visitors as well as search engine crawlers. Format your text so that it is easier to scan it. Use important tags such as <H2>, <H3> and <LI>. Hyperlink to your existing web pages.

And so on. You can provide a comprehensive answer. Google loves such question-answer types of web pages.

A good thing about on-page optimization is that it is completely in your hand. My personal experience has been that if you solely focus on on-page optimization, the off-page optimization part begins to manifest automatically.

Focus on quality content. Format it well. Use the right tags. Be persistent. Write and publish content on relevant topics. The rest gets taken care of on its own.

Outranking your competitors – can strategic content writing help?

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I’m not an SEO expert so I won’t claim that I can give you a concrete answer. I was going through my content aggregator, and I came across this blog post from Search Engine Journal: How do you outrank bigger sites for high competition keywords?

Can strategic content writing help you outrank your competitors? It can. It requires effort and persistence.

Aside from other things, what I found revealing and surprising is that the author says that the word count doesn’t really matter as long as you have structured your content well.

This means, a web page with 500 words can outrank a web page having 2500 words if the content on the web page having fewer words is organized better than the web page with more words.

I have observed this pattern even on my own blog. Sometimes I’m able to rank well even when the blog post has just 300-400 words. There might be many other reasons, but what I’m trying to say is, a blog post doesn’t always have to be very long to rank well.

So, what can you do to outrank your competitors according to the above Search Engine Rank blog post? Here are a few things you can do:

  • Your web page should be relevant to the query being searched for.
  • The information should be easy to read and longer text should be organized using headings, subheadings and bulleted points.
  • Schema should be well defined – what is the web page about? Is it an FAQs page? Is it a product description? Is it an information article? Is it a review? Does it explain your pricing?
  • You should use interlinking. The crawlers should be able to access other parts of your website and blog through the current web page or blog post they are crawling.

Aside from these tips the author has also explained a few SEO-related things you can do.

How does strategic content writing help you outrank your competitors?

First of all, at least in the beginning, don’t focus on outranking your competitors if you are just starting. Focus on publishing lots of relevant and quality content.

Your competitor – assuming he or she has used fair means – must have spent months or years to deserve the rankings he or she enjoys right now. You cannot suddenly decide to outrank just because you want to.

The better approach is, start providing information that your visitors will find useful. Write content on interesting topics.

Make a list of all the topics that you can write about. The list should be around 50-60 topics.

Then write or get written the best possible content around these topics.

Of course, simply publishing content is half the job done. You need to spread your content. Follow SEO content writing practices. Make sure that your content is written and formatted in such a manner that it is easy for search engine crawlers and human visitors to read.

Share your content on social media websites. Broadcast the links using your newsletter. You need to promote your content. You can also use paid advertisements on LinkedIn and Facebook to promote your links.

Also, focus on longtail keywords containing your main keywords for which you want to outrank your competition.

Even if it is extremely difficult for me to rank for “content writing services”, I can try “content writing services for email marketing”. Or, “content writing services for web design agencies”.

As I have mentioned above, rather than worrying about outranking your competition, try to provide better content than your competition. Your rankings will automatically improve.

How do I write search engine friendly content for my clients?

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How to write SEO-friendly content

How to write SEO-friendly content.

Sometimes it becomes difficult to come up with interesting content to write about on a regular basis on my blog. I was answering to a Quora question and I thought, answers to some of my Quora questions can also be used to write blog posts.

I was providing an answer the following question: How do I write content that is SEO friendly?

Steps to writing SEO-friendly content:

  1. Include the main keywords in the title.
  2. Include the keywords in the meta description.
  3. Mention the keywords within the first 100 words of your write up.
  4. Focus on writing answers to specific queries.
  5. Write for search intent.
  6. Write shorter sentences.
  7. Use headings and subheadings.
  8. Focus on longtail keywords.
  9. Link to other blog posts and web pages from your current blog post or web page.
  10. Write short paragraphs.
  11. Summarize using bulleted points.

To be frank, I have written on the topic multiple times on my blog, but I can always add new things. I’m constantly learning new ways to write search engine friendly content. In this post I’m going to expand what I wrote on Quora.

Should you go overboard with writing SEO-friendly content?

The problem with writing SEO-friendly content is that sometimes people go overboard and ignore the bigger picture. Your content succeeds not because it gets you higher search engine rankings, it succeeds because it provides relevant information that can be quickly understood.

For many website owners and bloggers it’s SEO that’s most important. This does you more harm than good.

Even if right now you have better search engine rankings because you think you have cracked the search engine algorithm, if you’re not satisfying your visitors, the rankings go down.

This is because your rankings depend a lot on your bounce rate. If people find your link, come to your website, and then leave immediately because they don’t find the information they are looking for, Google and other search engines know that.

So, even in the beginning if you can improve your rankings because of “strategically” using your keywords, ultimately, it all boils down to how people interact with your content.

What exactly is SEO-friendly content writing?

I don’t believe that SEO-friendly content writing means content writing that improves your search engine rankings. Your search engine rankings depend on 200+ factors.

So, solely focusing on writing SEO-friendly content doesn’t help you much.

What is SEO-friendly content writing?

It is writing in a manner that it makes it easier for search engine crawlers to crawl your main content. Once the main content is crawled, the search engine algorithms should be able to make sense of your content. They should be able to make out what you are communicating. This, is SEO-friendly content writing.

Do I keep SEO in mind when writing content for my clients?

I definitely do.

Valuable content is necessary, but how I present that valuable content can have an impact on search engine rankings. Here are a few things I do when writing SEO content for my clients:

Include the main keyword in the title

There is a difference between the title and the headline. The title here means the string of text that appears in in the title bar of your browser window when you visit a website. This is the title:

Example of the website title containing keywords

Example of the website title containing keywords

By main keyword I don’t mean a single word. Target for a phrase of around 3-4 words. Nobody searches for a single word. People either ask a question or search for a phrase that contains a few words.

Many content marketing experts may tell you that it doesn’t really matter if you use your main keyword in your title, but it does. Whether the Google algorithm takes the keyword in the title into consideration are not, is another matter.

There is a logical reason why you must have your main keyword in your title.

Research has revealed that when a part of the search query that a user has just used appears as a hyperlink in the search results, the user is more likely to click the link.

This sends more people to your website or that particular link.

And if your link is relevant, this signals to Google that the rankings of this particular link should be raised.

Include the keywords in the meta description

I know, sometimes meta description text may not be a part of content writing, but many times my clients ask me to write the meta description too.

When you include your primary and secondary keywords in the meta description, Google highlights them.

Example of the meta description containing keywords

Example of the meta description containing keywords.

Again, this prompts more people to click your link and this in turn improves your bounce rate, which in turn, improves your SEO.

Mention the keywords within the first 100 words

I have arrived at this logic by trial and error.

When the search engine crawler comes to your website it may not get a chance to crawl your entire piece of content. Hence, if it does not encounter your main keywords, it may not associate the keywords with the body text.

Therefore, it is important that you mention your primary and secondary keywords within the first 100 words of your web page or blog post text.

Create a context though. Don’t just randomly use the words

Focus on writing answers to specific queries

Google loves the question-answer format. People ask questions and Google find the answers.

For example, you may have come to this post if you searched for “How do I write search engine friendly content?”

I’m not saying that you should always write in the format of question-answer, but this sort of content fares better than the usual content.

Write for search intent

If you want to know what is search intent, you may like to read my blog post on the same topic: Why search intent is most important when writing content for your website.

Search intent is a very big factor when Google is evaluating your content. It is the intention with which a search engine user uses a query when searching for something.

You can easily write content targeting specific search intents described in the above link. The more you write content targeting specific search intents, the more SEO-friendly your content is.

Write shorter sentences

Shorter sentences are easier to read. They are also easier for search engine algorithms to process, analyze and evaluate.

Using shorter sentences does not mean that you are a novice writer. In fact, it shows that you are a confident writer. You have got nothing to prove to anyone.

Well, that’s a different issue, but one of the biggest benefits of writing shorter sentences is that you express a single thought in a single sentence, which makes it easier even for your readers to read. It doesn’t tax the brain.

Use headings and subheadings

Screenshot of headings and subheadings

Screenshot of headings and subheadings.

Headings and subheadings amplify your primary and secondary keywords. They also make it easier to organize your content under various sections. Headings and subheadings also make your writing scannable.

Since you use your primary and secondary keywords in your headings and subheadings, the Google algorithm thinks that they must be important to your message.

Focus on longtail keywords

Shorter keywords are quite competitive. For example, if I try to optimize my writing for “content writer” or “content marketing services” it may be difficult for me to rank for these keywords because they are highly competitive, and many bigger companies are already ranking quite high for them.

So, what do I do?

I aim for something like “indisputable benefits of content marketing”. This makes it easier to rank my content.

You will be surprised to know that most of your traffic comes from longtail keywords.

Longtail keywords exist in the form of longer such queries. They are phrases that contain 3-4 words.

Link to other blog posts and web pages from your current blog post or web page

Contextually, though.

Suppose, I want to elaborate on the indisputable benefits of content marketing. If I have already published a blog post on it, I will be creating duplicate content needlessly if I explain the same thing again. Hence, I just say, in case you want to read about the indisputable benefits of content marketing.

This does not just make it easier to refer to your existing content, it also allows the search engine crawlers to come across your old links in case they haven’t yet been crawled.

Write short paragraphs

The logic is the same as writing short sentences. It is easier to read shorter paragraphs. Both for humans and the search engine algorithms.

In fact, there are many renowned content publishers who use just a single sentence in a paragraph, but you can easily use a couple of sentences.

Another benefit of writing shorter paragraphs is that they are easier to read on mobile phones.

Summarize using bulleted lists

Just as headings and subheadings make your content scannable, so do the bulleted lists. People tend to read the bulleted lists more than plain sentences and paragraphs.

In bulleted lists, you don’t even need to write complete sentences. You can sum up your points in monosyllables. In bulleted lists, the information is more important than how you write it.

These are the main points that I wanted to cover. If you take care of them, it can make it easier for you to write SEO-friendly content.

The inalienable relationship between copywriting and SEO

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Copywriting isn’t just about writing ads these days. When we are writing copy for websites and blogs, it goes beyond selling stuff, although, I must admit that selling stuff is one of the most important functions of copywriting.

As a copywriter writing for websites and blogs, you need to pay close attention to the SEO aspect of writing. Of late I have been repeatedly stressing that you shouldn’t allow your SEO to dominate your writing, but it doesn’t mean you completely ignore it. There is a complete branch called SEO copywriting.

Is there even a separate field called SEO copywriting? It depends. There are many writers on the web who call themselves SEO copywriters but mostly it’s about striking a balance between writing compelling copy and writing in a manner that improves the website’s search engine rankings.

On day-to-day basis, there are very few clients who understand the difference between a content writer and copywriter. When you are writing for a business website, for example for a homepage or for services page, you’re not writing content, you are writing copy, copy that is intended to “sell”. Clients want that from you. Whenever you are writing to sell and not just to inform and educate, you’re being a copywriter and not a content writer.

At the same time they also give you a list of keywords you need to optimize the content for. Therefore, you’re not merely selling through your writing, you are also incorporating keywords to improve search engine rankings. Whether it actually improves your rankings or not is another issue, but this is what you call SEO copywriting.

Why do I say there is an inalienable relationship between copywriting & SEO?
Because the line is blurred. The content writer is also a copywriter when writing for the main website and since as a content writer one of your primary jobs is to improve search engine rankings, even as a copywriter you are trying to achieve the same.

Of course, this is difficult to explain to the clients and personally I feel even if they can make a difference, they won’t accept it because a copywriter charges more than a content writer. A different topic for a different day.

Don’t obsess over SEO as long as you’re delivering meaningful content

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I was just reviewing a web hosting package for someone I know and came across an add-on package that tells you whether you are publishing SEO-friendly content or not.

Do these “SEO packages” really help? What about the SEO add-ons? I recently removed an SEO plug-in from my WordPress setup.

SEO is of two types:

  1. Structural SEO
  2. Content-based SEO

Although there are also on-site and off-site SEO tactics, but in the context of my current blog post, I’m just going to stick to the two above-mentioned SEO types.

What is structural SEO?

This makes sure that the basic structure of your website or web pages/blog posts is SEO-friendly.

To make sense of your web page or your blog post, the search engines like Google take into consideration the keywords within your title. This is debatable, but most of the SEO experts agree that a title containing your keywords is particularly important.

Your title is also important because it appears in search engine listings as a hyperlink.

Screenshot of title and description

Screenshot of title and description.

Multiple studies have revealed that if your title contains the words that have just been used in the search query, the greater number of people click your link.

The same goes with the description. Your keywords or parts of your keywords should appear in your description because then these keywords are highlighted by Google.

Hence, every web page for every blog post must have a clearly defined title and a description.

There is also a “keywords” meta tag but it is no longer relevant.

Another important aspect of structural SEO is, how easy it is for the search engine crawlers to access your main content.

If the crawler has to go through lots of source code (JavaScript, CSS, HTML, add-ons and plug-ins) before accessing your actual content, this negatively affects your search engine rankings. It is because sometimes the crawler leaves your website or a particular web page or blog post without even evaluating your main content because most of its time goes into crossing the jungle of your source code.

How fast your web page or blog post loads also has a direct impact on your overall search engine rankings. Make sure that your web pages and blog posts load fast, preferably within three seconds.

So, these are the components of structural SEO:

  • The title containing the main keyword or the search query.
  • Various combinations of the keyword or the search query in the description.
  • Easy access to the main content for the search engine crawlers.
  • Faster loading blog posts and web pages.

Most of the content management systems these days allow you to preset these structural SEO components. For example, in WordPress you can use Yoast SEO to make sure that whenever you publish a new web page or blog post, you separately enter the title and the description.

Structural SEO is not something that you need to do repeatedly.

What is content-based SEO?

It is mostly writing content that is most suitable to the query being used by your user.

Suppose a user looks for “Which is the best content writing service in India?”

To satisfy this query, you can either list 10-15 content writing services and then choose the best among them, or you can explain why your content writing service is the best in India.

In both the cases, you should remain true to the topic. You must talk about the best content writing service in India. When the user visits this link, he or she should get the answer he or she is looking for.

This doesn’t mean that the answer must be perfect. Maybe the search engine user doesn’t want to find information about your content writing service or why your content writing service is the best. He or she may be just looking for a comparative analysis of multiple content writing services.

Whatever you write, just make sure that you are providing an answer to the question being asked.

The next thing to keep in mind is, mention the main query or the keyword within the first 100 words. There is a logical reason.

The search engine crawler doesn’t always go through your entire text. It may simply go through the first few paragraphs, or even less. Hence it is important that the crawler comes across your main keyword or the main search query string as early as possible.

Other than this, there is no need to obsess about SEO. Focus on the quality, and to an extent the quantity of your content. Publish regularly. Right on relevant topics. It doesn’t matter whether you write 400 words or 4000 words.

What matters is the substance. Don’t necessarily extend the length of your web pages or blog posts simply because research has proven that most of the web pages and blog posts that get featured on the first search result page contain more than 1300 words. It differs from industry to industry.