Optimizing for search engines and user experience is one of the most important things you can do for your content, as search engine optimized websites with authority and a good backlink profile rank higher.
To create SEO friendly content, you’re gonna need to invest a lot of time and effort, which will all pay off in the end if done right.
If your site shows up on the first page, you’ll get more clicks, shares, likes, and engagement but if nobody ever finds your page, then even the best-written content is pointless. All this to say that if you want your business to grow, you need to make sure you write SEO-friendly content.
Here are 10 ways you can create SEO friendly content:
1. Keyword Research
Keyword Research is perhaps the most essential piece of the SEO puzzle.
After all, if you don’t know what people are searching for, how can you possibly enhance your content for search engines?
Keyword research is the process of discovering keyword opportunities that can generate massive traffic and sales for your business.
Here are some things to keep in mind while you’re choosing your target keywords:
- Understand the searcher intent.
- Identify keywords that are relevant to your content.
- Understand how these keywords fit into your sales funnel.
- Understand the search volumes.
- Try using one or two long-tail target keywords as they tend to have the best results.
- Try using a keyword research tool such as The Google Keyword Planner.
Once you have found the right keywords, ensure that it is included in the following: - Title
- Meta description
- Image names and alt image tags
- URLs
- In your content
2. Write Catchy Titles and Subtitles
As you may have already realized, the title is a fundamental part of your text.
Titles have a huge impact on SEO and user-friendliness. Descriptive and catchy titles can help readers tell what your site or post is about, and what they will attain from reading it.
It’s also one of the most important factors when it comes to search engine-driven searches because when crawling through your site, they’ll recognize your titles and use them to further understand your content better, like which parts are the most relevant and important to its users.
Also, having headings and subheadings increases the keyword saturation, but remember to not over stuff.
There is also a limit on characters and pixels that you should make sure not to cross to avoid getting your title cut.
3. Link Previous Content
Search engines often rank content by the number of backlinks a site has. Good content will organically tend to get a lot of backlinks, both external and internal. If you want to drive traffic and rank your older content higher, then linking them to your newer posts can be helpful. Backlinks to high-quality and reputable websites will also help increase the authority of your website. The better the links, the higher your page will rank in the search engine results. Also, using credible links within the body of your text creates a sense of trust among your readers.
4. Ensure That Your Content Is Well Structured
Identify the main part of your post and then divide it into different parts so that it helps to make your writing easier and faster. Once you structure your content, you can work on each part separately. Each piece of content should include an introduction, main body, and conclusion. You can divide the body into different parts and write content that helps to showcase your personality and also which resonates with your audience. One thing most people don’t put a lot of effort into is the conclusion. Ending your content with a strong call to action can help in further engagement.
5. Adjust The Paragraph Length
One thing to keep in mind is to keep your paragraphs short. It doesn’t mean that each sentence needs to start on a new line, but the paragraphs should be arranged logically and have their own idea to bring clarity. Use different formatting options, such as bullet points, highlighted text, different fonts, etc that help to make it easier for mobile users to read your content and also make your content less monotonous.
6. Write SEO-Friendly URLs
Well-crafted URLs are one of the most important elements in SEO. URLs are an important ranking factor as they help provide a better user experience and easy sharability.
The following are some points to keep in mind while creating SEO Friendly URLs:
- Include the target keyword for each page. That will improve the visibility of your website and help search engines further categorize and identify the page.
- Always use lowercase letters as uppercase letters can lead to redirects or 404 errors.
- Shorten your URLs by removing irrelevant and unnecessary words, also make note that the average URL should be around 60 characters or three to five words.
- Use hyphens to separate words.
- Keep your URLs simple, compelling, and relevant.
7. Optimize Your Content-Length
Google likes longer content as it tends to get more views and mentions on social media. Therefore, longer posts have a good chance of ranking in search engines.
The optimal length of your content should be around 2000 words. But it shouldn’t be your number one goal to write 2000 words every time. You should provide the most useful and informative content for your readers that is in line with their search intent. Quality is more important than quantity. So, check your top-ranking content to see what articles get the most views and analyze the impact of content length and further decide what works best for you.
8. Ensure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
As an increasing amount of web traffic comes from mobile devices, having a site that is not responsive to different screen sizes and shapes will negatively impact the usability, especially for local searches. In addition to that, Google recently deployed the mobile-first index, which means they’ll use the mobile and not the desktop version of your site to crawl and index it. They are literally saying: “that if your site is not mobile-friendly then it won’t rank highly on Google”.
9. Optimize Your Images
Images are essential in making your content interesting and appealing. You can optimize the photos by adding your targeted keywords to the image files and providing ALT tags. Also, keep in mind that pictures that are too large will slow down the load time and hurt the SEO. Make the image as small as possible without compromising on the visibility or quality.
10. Make The Content Shareable
Once you’ve successfully managed to write an SEO-friendly article that people want to read. The next step is to make it shareable. Websites like ShareThis and AddThis make it easy to add social media buttons to your website so people can share your content easily.
Conclusion
Initially, it will take some time to figure out how to create SEO friendly content for your site effectively, but in the long run, it will be extremely worthwhile. When you follow the tips mentioned in this list, you will be able to create SEO friendly content regardless of the industry for which you are writing.
You will eventually learn how to write content that people want to read and share through practice and resilience. SEO friendly sites are known to get more traffic, and higher traffic levels help to improve your overall SEO score. Which will in turn help you ensure that good content leads to more shares, leads, links, and returning visitors.
