Writing for search engines is one of the most valuable skills you can have if you want to work on the internet. Whether you’re writing a blog, selling a service, or promoting your products on Etsy, you can set yourself apart from the competition if you know how to write in a way that finds and attracts the right people.
You might be thinking “oh whatever, I’m a graphic designer/illustrator/crafter, writing isn’t important to my business.” WRONG you are! When you’re on the internet, words are the ONLY thing you have to properly communicate with everyone else, including search engines, so it’s crucial that you know how to use them to your fullest advantage. If you know how to write, you can sell literally anything. There is no skill more valuable to internet success than writing and SEO, no matter what anyone else tells you.
Now that we’ve gone over the basics of SEO for your blog or website, it’s time to go over some of my top SEO writing tips.
(This post contains affiliate links)
What is SEO Writing?
SEO writing is a skill that involves communicating with both your readers and search engines so that your content is ranked high when people search for relevant information. It’s more efficient than any method of advertising – in fact, it will help your advertisements reach the right people more efficiently – and it doesn’t cost you anything.
Good SEO writing looks like any other type of writing – if you do it right, you can properly tell a search engine what your content is about without sounding like a robot or turning off your readers.
How to Optimize Your Website Content With SEO
Back in the day, SEO writing was all about stuffing as many keywords as possible into a post, but we’ve since learned that it requires far more than that when the internet is filled with trillions of words on the exact same topics. You can’t just slap in some hot keywords and expect your audience to show up. As you probably know by now, the average attention span on the internet is equivalent to that of a goldfish, so you don’t have much time (or webpage space) to waste if you want to find your people and keep ‘em around.
Know Your Audience Inside and Out
This might sound hard to believe, but good SEO writing is less about technical expertise and more about a deeply intuitive understanding of your customer and your niche. Having a niche will help you come up with more specific keywords that reach the people looking for exactly what you offer, even if the audience pool seems smaller than something more generic. The people looking for your specialized help will be more engaged and thus more likely to rely on you for what they want.
Take some time to write down a description of your ideal customer.
How old are they?
What do they like?
What are their beliefs, feelings, and desires?
What are they looking for that you are providing?
What questions do they have that you’re trying to answer?
How knowledgeable are they about the topic? Somewhat experienced? Total noobs?
The more specific you can get about who you’re writing for, the more you can help them and the easier your job will be.
Choose Your Target Keywords
What are you writing about? What is someone who would benefit from this content searching for in Google? Coming up with keywords can be difficult at first, but tools like Google Keyword Planner and EtsyRank (if you’re using Etsy) can help you compare keywords and see what’s getting the highest volume of searches. For example, if you’re writing a crochet tutorial, people would probably be searching keywords like this:
Crochet tutorial
Crochet pattern
How to crochet a hat
Crochet for beginners
Crochet tips
Your keywords should appear organically throughout your content in the following places:
- The title and headline of your page
- The first paragraph of your article
- In the URL permalink
- In the body of your article
- In your meta title/description
- In your post headers
If you’re using WordPress, Yoast is an excellent SEO plugin and a life-saver with keyword strategy. There is a free version which allows you to plug in one focus keyword per web page or blog post, but Yoast Premium gives you 5 focus keywords and measures their density throughout the content, which is a great assistant if you’re intimidated by this whole concept.
You’ll want your focus keyword/s to appear a handful of times throughout your content. One simple and engaging way to do this is to ask a question at the beginning and/or end of your article, either to give readers an idea of what questions will be answered, or to encourage them to engage in the comments.
Use Short and Long Tail Keywords
Short tail keywords are 2 words or less, such as “crochet pattern” in the example above. Long tail keywords are, well, longer and more descriptive, such as “how to crochet a hat”.
There is really no secret strategy for whether you should use one or the other, it really depends on your industry, how much competition you have, and what people are most likely to search. There are benefits to using both types of keywords:
Short Tail Keywords:
More competitive – Good luck getting on the first page of Google for the search term ‘t-shirt’ when you’re up against Amazon. However…
Larger audience – More people are searching these generic terms, so that’s more eyeballs, but…
Lower focus = Lower conversions – A keyword like “men’s t-shirt” might reach more people than a longer one like “vintage men’s Star Wars t-shirt”, but the latter is more likely to reach your exact customer.
Long Tail Keywords:
Less competitive – If you’re selling a vintage men’s Star Wars t-shirt, you’re going to have less competition under that longer keyword than “men’s t-shirt”, which means the clicks you’re getting are from more relevant results.
Smaller audience – In SEO terms, it’s not always bad to have a smaller audience if they’re more likely to engage with your content and find it valuable. In fact, a larger, less engaged audience can look bad to search engines. If an article has a ton of hits but no one is sharing, commenting, or bothering to read anything else on the site, what’s that tell you?
More focus = More Conversions – You’re more likely to reach your exact customer with a keyword like “vintage men’s Star Wars shirt”. If that’s what they’re looking for, they’re not just typing in “men’s t-shirt.”
Write Original, High-Quality, Helpful Content
This sounds obvious, but it can be harder than you think. Writing good content takes time and practice, and the only way to get better at it is to do it and practice regularly. Google rewards valuable content that people click and share and link to, which all give you SEO juice that can help boost you to the top of search results.
People are often going to Google because they need help solving a problem – how to make a pot roast, the best wedding DJ in Detroit, etc. The more useful and detailed your content, the more Google will trust and reward you. Readers will also reward good content by sharing it, which boosts credibility.
It’s easy to write content that’s fast, cheap, and easy to get the right keywords in and find the right customers, but you’re only hurting yourself and wasting your (and other people’s) time if the content is mediocre and they end up clicking out after 5 seconds. You want to be known as the best, so make sure your content reflects that.
Optimize Meta Titles and Descriptions
Yoast helps you create titles and descriptions at the perfect character count for a Google search. This helps with click through rates because it looks more straightforward and intentional. For example, if I didn’t use Yoast and let it automatically fill in, Google searches that land on this post would look like this:
When a few tweaks could look like this:
Optimize Image Alt Text and Titles
Images are a great way to make your post stand out, even if you don’t technically NEED a photo to get your point across.
When you upload a photo to WordPress, you’ll notice a box that says “img alt text”. This text does not show up on the page or as a caption, but it does help tell Google what the page is about. Plus, if someone is searching through Google Images, your image will show up if it includes the right keyword. It’s a great spot to add your descriptive keywords as metadata.
Create Categories Relevant to Your Keywords
Categories are an easy way to boost SEO and organize your content in a way that’s useful to readers. Well-named categories will also lower your bounce rate, as they often encourage readers to keep clicking and finding something new before leaving your site. I recommend having a list of your categories either on the sidebar of your website, or across the header menu.
Break Up Text by Using Keyword-Relevant Headers
WordPress makes it simple to add in headers that break up your text and improve SEO. When you use H1, H2, and H3 headers in each piece of content, you’re improving readability (especially if it’s long, like this article) and overall structure. This helps keep readers on the page longer, which lowers your bounce rate and improves your credibility to search engines.
Use H1 for titles, H2 for subtitles, and H3 if you need smaller subtitles below your other subtitles. Make sure they include a combination of your target keywords, both short and long-tail.
Link to Other Content on Your Website
Link building is another great tool for lowering your bounce rate and improving SEO. Readers are more likely to stick around if a link to similar content is right in front of their face. For example, if you’re writing a recipe for your favorite meatloaf recipe, it only makes sense to link to your recipe for perfect mashed potatoes as a side dish and your peach cobbler recipe for dessert.
Edit Content for Grammar, Structure, and Readability
Lastly, make sure you look like you know what you’re talking about by editing your post for grammatical errors, structure, and readability. I know, editing sucks, but it doesn’t suck as much as readers leaving your website because you abuse the ellipses or use “your” instead of “you’re.”
You can hire an editor, or you can use Grammarly, a content editing tool and plagiarism checker that has probably saved my business at this point. When you spend hours on a piece of content, it really helps to have a second set of eyes that politely nudges you to where your attention is most needed.
I hope this helps you better understand why SEO is so important and how to best implement it for your business. If you have any questions or would like professional help with your SEO, feel free to send me an email at mandy@agirlsgottaeat.net.
I will follow all your tips. thanks for sharing!
your post helped me a lot and i learned so much here, thanks!