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Using Google Analytics for SEO content writing

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Using Google Analytics for SEO content writing

Using Google Analytics for SEO content writing

Google Analytics is mostly a free tool. It has various premium tools, but you can make the most of it even in the free version.

You can use the insights given in Google Analytics for SEO content writing.

All you have to do is, add your website link to your Google Analytics account as a “property” and then copy/paste the analytics tracking JavaScript in the header or footer of your website template. Google Analytics is free. If you have a Google account (which pretty much everyone does), then you can access Google Analytics.

Before you proceed, whether you want to write SEO content or not, implement the Google Analytics code on your website so that the service can start tracking and compiling your data and you have some usable insights in a few weeks/months.

You may also like to read 10 tips on how to write SEO content for your website.

Finished? Let’s proceed now.

One of the most compelling reasons that you should use Google Analytics to track your traffic patterns is the fact that it is by Google, the very search engine you would like to improve your search engine rankings for. Hence, it has designed and developed the tool so that you can use it to write, publish and provide better content to the search engine.

Google Analytics section that help in SEO content writing

Google Analytics section that help in SEO content writing

Using your bounce rate insights to write SEO content

When you start tracking your website traffic, you will notice that you are not writing your SEO content in complete darkness, just based on guesswork. Google Analytics gives you a solid data on how people are consuming your content and how they are reacting to it, which is very important.

You may also like to read How to improve your bounce rate with quality content writing.

For example, Google Analytics gives you the bounce rate of not just your entire website, but also of individual links and blog posts. If you go through these stats, you will know on which page people leave (bounce off) your website the most and then you can make changes on that page in an effort to bring your bounce rate down.

Your bounce rate is the number of people who leave your website immediately after arriving on a particular link divided by the total number of people coming to your website multiplied by 100.

If there are multiple webpages and blog posts with high bounce rate, it means you are not writing and publishing content people are looking for.

There are primarily 2 reasons why people might be leaving your website so fast:

  1. You cannot hook your readers into your writing and hence, you need to improve on that front.
  2. You are not publishing content people are looking for and hence, when they found irrelevant content, they immediately leave.

Whatever is the case, you can audit your content, make appropriate changes and then resubmit your link to Google and wait for a couple of weeks. The new data insights will tell you whether your bounce rate has come down, remained the same, or has worsened.

What changes can you make to your content (through writing) to decrease your bounce rate?

  • Make sure you deliver what you promise.
  • Write your content exactly according to the title of your web page or blog post (the promise that you make in your search engine appearance).
  • Make your writing easier to read.
  • Learn to inform and entice.
  • Write short paragraph, preferably, a single thought in a single paragraph.
  • Organize your thoughts in bullet points wherever possible.
  • Write in a conversational manner.
  • Avoid using words your target audience may not understand.
  • Link to other important pages and blog posts on your website and encourage visitors to click them.

You may also like to read 10 fundamental qualities of effective SEO content writing.

Using the search console data to streamline your SEO content writing

The search console insights tell you which search terms and keywords people are mostly using when they find your website.

You may also like to read Importance of keyword research before content writing.

These may not be necessarily the keywords you are aiming for. These are the keywords and search terms your website is ACTUALLY getting traffic for.

Unless you’re using a specialized SEO content writing tool it may be difficult for you to write content exactly the way your audience searches. Through the search console data, you can find out

  • If you’re attracting traffic for wrong keywords and search terms.
  • If you’re attracting traffic for related keywords and search terms and thus, you can ride on the popularity of these mistaken keywords and search terms to improve search engine rankings for your desired keywords.

Average time spent on individual pages

This section of Google Analytics tells you how much time people spend on your pages and blog posts. If they’re spending very little time – just a few seconds – then you know that they’re not reading your content. They are just skipping it.

Go through those links and try to find out why people are not reading it. Are your title and content mismatched? Do you have lots of distractions? Is your writing unreadable? Is it totally uninspiring?

Try to improve your writing. If your paragraphs are very long, divide them into shorter paragraphs.

Remove the fluff because most of your readers will be put off or get bored.

Try to explain some of the intricate concepts using images, if possible. Remember that the important thing is that people stay on the web page or blog post they have arrived on.

The “Average time” metrics tell you on which page you should spend more effort. For example, there is no use putting your energies into improving webpages on which people spend ample amount of time.

On the other hand, if you notice that there are some very important webpages where people must spend more time but are not, try improving them. Try various combinations.

This may take some time, but don’t worry. SEO takes time and effort.

Using the Referrals section data to improve your SEO

In Google Analytics, on the left-hand sidebar, there is a section called “Acquisition”. If you click on “All Traffic” and then on “Channels” you can find various websites that refer traffic to your website.

You may observe social media channels and independent websites linking to your various webpages and blog posts. Are very few people linking to you? If this is the case, you can start making changes to your existing content to make sure that it is link worthy.

Why do people link to your content? It’s because you offer something valuable, something that their own visitors may find useful.

For example, if you have written well about a subject or topic, instead of rewriting it, if other Webmasters find your writing useful, they would rather link to you. But you have to find whether the content that you have written is link worthy or not. Be ruthless and objective when evaluating your content for this purpose, just the way other publishers would be.

Conclusion

The basic idea behind using Google Analytics for better SEO content writing is to find out what you’re doing and what impact your SEO writing is having on the nature of traffic you are getting.

If you’re trying to target our region, Google Analytics can tell you whether you are drawing traffic from that region or not and if not, you can make changes to your content.

If you are targeting certain keywords, Google Analytics can tell you if you are drawing traffic for those keywords or not. Otherwise, even if you’re getting lots of traffic but the traffic does not originate for the desired keywords, it is not useful.

To be able to use Google Analytics, as described above, you will first need to install the script to your website and even after that, you will need to give it a couple of months before it can gather enough data to present it in the form of usable insight that you can further use for better SEO content writing.

Are you updating your evergreen content?

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Auditing your existing evergreen content

Auditing your existing evergreen content

If you wrote and published your evergreen content a few months ago or a few years ago, even if it enjoyed better search engine rankings back then, by now it must have moved down. Can you bring it up again? This Business2Community blog post says that updating your evergreen content can help you improve your overall SEO.

Although this post puts more stress on the need to target individual stages of your sales funnel through updating your evergreen content, my main point is to reignite the rankings of your existing evergreen content by constantly auditing it and then updating it.

What is evergreen content?

As the name suggests, it is the content that remains relevant irrespective of when your website visitors access it.

It can be your homepage. Your FAQs. Your how-to guides. Your case studies and white papers.

So, if it is evergreen content, why do you need to update it?

Over the time, the context changes, and the data that you used changes, the preferences of your website visitors change, and you gain more knowledge.

There are many webpages and blog posts on my website that I think I can change. I’m certainly a better writer than what I was 5-10 years ago. I’m certainly less pretentious. I have learnt how to say more with less words. I know not to get obsessed with keywords. I can clearly see that some blog posts can be stretched to 2000 words from merely 500 words (read about my content writing services for long blog posts).

Hence, I can make changes to my evergreen content and align it more with the contemporary ways of writing optimized content.

You should do the same. I can understand that revisiting existing content and then undertaking the task of rewriting it or updating it seems daunting, especially, when writing new content seems more exciting.

But believe me, improving your search engine rankings by updating your existing content is much easier compared to writing new content. It is also faster.

Create a list of all your web pages and blog posts and arrange the list vertically in an Excel sheet. In the next 2-3 columns, write the dates on which you are updating the links. This way, you will be able to track when you have updated these links.

Writing a new blog post or a new web page may take anywhere between 3-4 hours. You can audit and edit an existing blog post or web page in just half an hour.

 

 

 

How to improve local SEO with targeted content writing

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Local SEO with targeted content writing

Local SEO with targeted content writing

You can improve local SEO were targeted content writing.

For a few months now I have been helping a cab service improve its local SEO through targeted content writing.

In terms of being “local”, it is not a neighborhood business and being a taxi service, it covers multiple cities.

It provides its services locally in the sense that tourists, business people and pilgrims that come to that particular state, should be able to find the taxi service using Google.

Through continued targeted content writing I have been able to improve the rankings of the business, especially when people search for the service combined with the names of the cities or towns they want to travel to, let’s say, from the airport or the railway station.

Why search engine rankings matter for a local business

You may think that having a local business it must be very easy to get customers.

All you need is, open your shop, retail store or office and all your local business is yours for the taking.

This might be the case if you are the only business in your category and you sell something that is in great demand.

Then, yours being the only business, if someone searches for “find this business near me” your listing should appear at the top of the search results.

But, if there are multiple businesses providing the same thing with small variations, it becomes difficult for you to get higher rankings.

Take food delivery business, for example.

In our neighborhood, there are six big and small restaurants in the same row that deliver food.

If I search for “food delivery near me” at least six restaurants show up in the featured list and the remaining in the normal listing.

My tendency would be to check out the restaurant that appears at the top in the featured listing and only when I don’t get what I’m looking for, I will explore other options.

This goes for any service.

Local SEO matters because it’s people’s natural tendency that they try to contact businesses that appear at the top and once they have found a business that satisfies the need, they don’t explore further.

If you don’t feature among the top listings, it will be difficult for your customers and clients to notice you.

Hence, it is very important that you you use targeted SEO content writing improve your search engine rankings on a continuous basis.

Another reason why you should take your local SEO seriously is because bigger brands are constantly threatening smaller businesses.

For example, many local stores have to close because of the constantly mushrooming malls.

As a local grocery store, how can you compete with the bigger brands or even with a multinational company?

The advantage that you have is a better grip on the local nuances.

Bigger brands have money and they also have bigger marketing budgets, but it is often difficult for them to localize their marketing.

So, through targeted content writing and a continuous effort towards improving your local SEO, if you have maintained your search engine rankings, there is a greater chance that instead of finding a shop in a mall, when people Google your product or service, they are going to find your shop.

Improving your local SEO with targeted content writing

50% customers who search for a local business online physically visit the store on the same day (source). 35% of all search traffic is local.

This is a 2017 report and the figures may have increased further by now.

It is easily understandable that local means lots of references to the name of the city or the town where you do your business.

This is a given.

But there are many other attributes that help people find information regarding your city or town.

For example, is there a famous landmark?

If you do your business in Agra, you don’t always have to write about Agra; you can also talk about the Taj Mahal.

If you provide your business services in Paris, you don’t always have to talk about Paris; you can also talk about the Eiffel Tower.

Is there some famous eatery in your locality that draws people from great distances?

Has it become a part of your city heritage?

Why not write about it in such a manner that you can also talk about your own business?

Coming back to my taxi client, there are various reasons why people may hire a taxi service.

They might be visiting the city for business purposes.

They might be on a pilgrimage (luckily for the client, there are many reasons people may like to visit the geographic area he covers).

Millions of tourists flock the place.

So, I’m writing about the top tourist destinations.

The top hotels to stay.

Different landmarks.

The way people dress up.

The cultural sensitivities.

The various exotic itineraries.

The favorite seasons to visit the place.

The famous festivals and rituals.

The local cuisine.

The legends specific to the area.

There is no end to it.

There are practically unlimited opportunities for writing targeted content to improve your local SEO.

Of course, the central point of reference is your business.

How does your business fit in the scheme of things?

This is something you need to figure out.

Remember that you don’t want to end up as an information portal for your locality because then your business message may get lost and your prospective customers and clients may end up being confused.

Many marketers suggest that you only write about things you do.

Make an impact locally, and then write about it.

This way you get lots of opportunities to generate targeted content writing for local SEO.

For example, there is a local event happening.

Can you participate in that event?

If you do, then write about how you participated and how you contributed.

Is there a cleanliness drive going on in your area?

Why not get involved and create videos and images about your involvement and what a difference you have made?

Positive coverage can do a lot to enhance your local SEO.

Even if you cannot get yourself involved physically, you can write your opinion on how, if your business got involved, what impact it would have and if you’re not getting involved, what is stopping you?

You need to be creative.

The purpose of the entire exercise must be to publish lots of content regarding your local peculiarities and then somehow make the connection with your business.

Something or the other is constantly happening in your area.

This gives you limitless opportunities to write targeted content to improve your local SEO.

Is content writing for local SEO different from the usual SEO writing?

The basic guidelines for writing content for local SEO don’t change.

For example, your main keywords must be in the title of the web page or the blog post your writing.

Your headline must have your primary keywords.

Sprinkle your keywords and its different variations all over your writing.

Use headings and subheadings.

Organize the main points in bullet points. Interlink to your other pages.

Follow SEO guidelines when using images and videos.

You may like to read How to write SEO content for your business.

Add to all these the local references.

Do keyword research before writing content

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The image shows an iPad with the Google homepage on the text says importance of keyword research before content writing

Importance of keyword research before content writing

Although your keywords shouldn’t dominate your content writing, they are an important part of the entire writing process especially when you are targeting search engines.

For me, keywords keep your writing focused. When you know what words to use, you know what to write and you don’t deviate from that.

Focus is very important when you are writing content to attract targeted traffic from search engines. Keywords keep you focused.

Sometimes clients send me a long list of keywords to be included in a single document. Although, with little bit of creativity, scores of keywords can be incorporated into a single document – provided you have a big document of more than 3000 words – normally I don’t recommend this.

Focus on a single phrase – most of the searches these days are based on phrases rather than keywords – and in that one single phrase, try to include the main things that you’re going to cover in the current blog post or web page.

Also keep in mind that an increasing number of searches are voice searches – people use devices they can talk to, to look for information, for example Google Assistant or Amazon Echo.

Nonetheless, it is important that you do keyword research before writing content.

Why keyword research is important before content writing?

The concept of keyword has changed over the years. In terms of SEO, it doesn’t mean a single word, though, people get confused and assume that they should focus on single words rather than complete phrases.

For SEO and content writing, when you talk of keywords, you can safely assume that they mean even complete sentences.

Back to why keyword research is important…

It tells you what language people use when they are trying to find your service or your product or even when they’re talking to each other on various online forums and social media platforms while talking about your service or product.

Search engine algorithms are becoming intelligent by the day. They are fast moving towards a state of being when even if you don’t use your keywords, provided you stick to the topic, they will be able to make out what you are saying and then accordingly, rank your content.

In fact, this is already happening. When SEO experts and content marketing professionals talk about “searcher’s intent” this is what they are basically saying – your keywords don’t matter much, what matters is, whether you’re solving people’s problems or not, especially problems for which they are searching for solutions.

Nonetheless, keywords matter, and they will go on mattering simply because the words that people use to find you on Google, can be distinct for distinct requirements.

For example, if you’re looking for a content writer for your business, you will not be looking for “content writing” or “how to write content”.

Although, these two phrases do have something to do with content writing, for your particular need, you may look for “content writing for my boutique business” or “content writing service for SEO”.

If you’re looking for a writer to write your product descriptions, you’re not going to search for “professional copywriter”. You may search for “writer for writing product descriptions” or “looking for someone to write product descriptions for me”.

These may seem very obvious observations, especially when you are reading this blog post, but when you need to target scores of keywords because your business depends on traffic originating from those keywords, you need to do comprehensive research.

Again, the purpose of keyword research is not to prepare a long list of keywords and then use these keywords to write content (unless you’re using Google AdWords), the purpose is to use these keywords as a guiding force.

You enjoy better search engine rankings if you write in the language that your prospective customers and clients use.

Why before content writing?

As I have written above, the purpose is not to stuff keywords into your writing, the purpose is to use your keywords as a direction towards creating highly purposeful content in a language that people use, especially people who can be your prospective customers and clients.

When you write content, you should ask yourself, “Why am I writing this blog post?”, or “Why am I writing this webpage?”

Of course, you don’t just want to generate search engine traffic from your content writing because search engine traffic by itself means nothing. If your content can draw people from Google and other search engines but people simply leave your website without doing anything, it is an exercise in futility. This happens when you solely focus on SEO.

The primary purpose of your content must always be to provide information people are looking for so that they can decide whether they want to do business with you.

Take for instance this current blog post. Here I’m explaining to you why it is important to do keyword research before writing content. You may say that by merely reading this blog post how am I conveying that I’m a professional content writer and you should hire me?

Through a search engine or through another website or through Facebook or Twitter, when you come to this blog post and you read, you will know that I understand a few things about keywords and writing content based on those keywords.

The layout of my website/blog is such that you easily know that I provide professional content writing services and if you’re looking for a content writer who can focus on your keywords and despite that, also write high-conversion content, you may like to contact me.

If you don’t get such a feeling (despite requiring a competent content writer) then I’m not doing a good job.

Similarly, the ultimate aim of your content writing is to convince people that you are open for business and doing business with you is a good decision.

Hence, when you’re writing content, your aim must be converting people.

Now, this is where it becomes difficult for content writers who are not experienced. They can either focus on keywords to improve your SEO (which is not a big deal) or write conversion-centric content which, though, does not attract traffic, but if people land on that webpage or blog post, they are convinced.

So, how does one balance between keywords and conversion-oriented content writing?

Use your keywords (phrases, sentences, search expressions) to steer your language so that both search engine algorithms and visitors know what you’re talking about. Don’t simply use them to improve your SEO because that is counter-productive.

Again, take for example this blog post. It talks about why it is important to research keywords before content writing. At the time of writing this, I’m not sure whether people will be able to find this link for the right keywords or search terms, but this is what my intention is – if someone searches with a combination of keywords and content writing and maybe also SEO, he or she should be able to find this link.

But once he or she is on this blog post, only good content writing matters, not what or how the keywords have been used.

Why your business needs more written content

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Your business needs more content writing

You know what? Written content isn’t going anywhere no matter how avant-garde video and infographics become.

I provide professional content writing services.

Every day I get queries and phone calls from business owners and entrepreneurs who want content for their businesses.

From my website they can easily make out that I provide written content: I don’t provide graphic design services or video production services.

I provide content writing services.

Nonetheless, they have this strange attitude: fine, they have no option but to contact someone for their writing needs, otherwise, they don’t believe writing is worth paying for.

That’s why many would-be clients balk at my rates.

No, I don’t mean that my rates are outrageous – my rates are just enough to make my content writing services affordable to a wide spectrum of business owners while allowing me to make a decent living.

Would I like to charge more? Of course. That’s a different story and right now I’m not going into that.

The point that I’m trying to make is, publishing written content is inescapable, whether you like it or not, and not just any sort of written content.

You need quality content writing.

Constantly, you need to provide something really valuable.

This is because, if you are not providing valuable content, then there are scores of other businesses providing more or less the same products and services as you, providing valuable written content.

Hence, it’s your loss if you don’t. Your choice.

Why does written content matter in the age of video and graphics?

When we need to prove that something matters, we either resort to some research and statistics, or we give our own reasoning.

Statistics are good, and psychologically, they are reassuring, and they also tell us what the rest of the world is doing about a particular trend or tendency.

This Entrepreneur article refers to Zazzle Media’s 3rd annual State of Content Marketing Survey that shows that there has been a 78% increase in the content marketing spend since 2018 (this is May 2019).

This is no surprise, because, a greater number of businesses are discovering the benefits of content marketing.

The interesting finding was, 98% content marketers surveyed said that written content is their main output to achieve content marketing success.

Written content in the form of webpages and blog posts is going to be the main priority for 77% of the market is throughout 2019.

Why written content is important?

Search engine algorithms use text as main source while evaluating your content for ranking

With much more advanced artificial intelligence it is becoming easier to tell what is there in a video or a photograph, but programmatically, when it comes to analysing content, text, or written content, still rules the roost.

Most of the search engine algorithms are more comfortable analysing your written content and then ranking your content accordingly.

You can focus more on video and graphics and then bet on the possibility that in near future search engines will be able to analyse videos and graphics and then rank your content based on the information given in those video and graphics, or you can put your money and effort into publishing lots of written content that is already preferred by the search engines.

Your choice.

Voice search converts voice to text and then text to voice to help you find information

Here is my web page on copywriting for voice search.

You must be aware that in recent years there has been a big shift from PC/laptop to mobile phones.

Even to search information people use their mobile phones and often, people who are not used to typing all the time, speak into their phones.

Voice-controlled devices like Amazon Eco and Google Home have further boosted the use of voice commands and using voice to find information on search engines.

Technology to convert voice to text and then text to voice is quite old now. Every basic mobile phone allows you to convert your voice to text and vice versa.

Hence, on the web, and also, on my own blog, you will find lots of information on how to optimize your content writing and copywriting for voice search.

For voice search to work, when you issue a command, for example, telling Google to find you something, whatever you have said is turned to text, and then the text string is used to find the information on the search engine, and when the information is found in the form of text, the information is turned to voice and communicated to you.

The backbone of the entire operation is, the ability of the technology to process text.

If you don’t have text, there is nothing to process.

Many people find reading more convenient compared to watching videos

In the times of abundant bandwidth and highly efficient screens, watching HD videos and graphics might be fascinating, but reading written content is convenient, and more satisfying.

Reading is more personal and less invasive. You don’t need extra tools to read.

Someone wants to check out your website to know what all services you provide: he or she will prefer to read about your services rather than watching a video or a collection of graphics.

Though, I’m not saying videos and graphics are not important – they are – but they have a limit.

We have been reading since childhood. The habit is embedded. Everybody prefers to read.

Written text is more accessible

Written content makes your content accessible across multiple devices.

All the screen readers can read text.

All screen sizes can accommodate text accordingly.

You can copy/paste text in any basic text editor to read it or edit it.

It is the lightest form of content.

Does any form of content writing help you?

Depends on what you want to achieve.

If you want to publish lots of junk content, who am I to tell you not to do so? Go ahead.

For better search engine rankings and for a good conversion rate, your content writing needs to be purposeful, relevant and of good quality.

Search engine rankings these days are all about efficiently providing information people are looking for.

You see, search engines like Google don’t produce and publish their own content. They have outsourced the service to the masses.

But, if they don’t provide good information to people’s queries, they lose users.

Hence, let’s focus on Google for a while, the search engine is not going to rank your content well simply because you have “strategically” used keywords and hyperlinks.

It ranks your content high only if you provide information people can really use.

To help Google achieve that, a group of 300 odd maths PhDs is constantly working on the algorithm.

If you think you can beat these maths PhDs with some SEO tactics without ever intending to publish high-quality content, well, as I said, who am I to tell you not to do so?