For many, writing for SEO purposes and writing to engage the readers may seem like two different and conflicting goals. However, that is a misconception as bloggers can find a balance between writing an SEO-optimized blog that also happens to be informational to the reader.
Besides, well-optimized and high-quality content improves your content ranking on the search results and hence, drives traffic to your website. In this blog post, we have shared a few sets of SEO rules that you should keep in mind for writing SEO-friendly content and boosting your ranking on search engines. Read on.
Structure Your Content
To write readable and SEO-friendly content, create a solid structure that readers can easily digest. A well-structured article should have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion part. Besides, make sure to use headings and subheadings or H1s and H2s in your content, as it helps the reader easily bifurcate the information and jump straight to what they are looking for. Don’t use similar tags in the content, as it might mislead the readers and search engines.
Optimize Meta Description
The meta description is the summary of your content that Google shows below the meta title to let the readers know what your content is about. Hence, it is imperative that you optimize your meta description by including the target keyword and making it appealing for readers to click on your blog post. The meta description length should be between 155-160 characters.
Use Relevant Keywords
Bloggers should avoid stuffing their content with focus keywords as it makes it less appealing to read, and it might also hurt your ranking on Google. With each passing day, search engines are getting smarter and want you to create helpful content that users will find informational. What you can do is use synonyms and related keywords that are relevant to your focus keyphrase. This is because a high keyword density is a signal to Google that you might be stuffing keywords in your content, and that can surely hamper your rankings.
Add Links
Another way to create an SEO-friendly blog is to add links to existing content or other external sources. If you post blogs from your MacBook, all you have to do is create a hyperlink on mac and use it in your content. Internal linking helps search engines understand the relevance of your content and allow readers to spend more time on your site, and reduce the bounce rate. External linking is linking out to external informational resources like Wikipedia to build the authority of your content and make it informative for the reader.
Post Content Regularly
Regularly adding new content to your site tells Google that your site is alive and can be used as a useful resource for search queries. If you don’t post regularly or don’t update your site’s content, Google will crawl it less often, and that might affect your rankings. Hence, bloggers who are just starting out should post at least once or twice a week. Also, make sure everything you post is high-quality content that entertains the readers and fits their search intent.
Final Thoughts
Gone are the days when a few SEO tricks were enough to get your website to rank higher on Google. Today, content is king. And good content also leads to more links, shares, and returning visitors to your website. While there are other factors that affect the SEO performance of your site, writing SEO-friendly content is the most important one.