Web content and SEO often go hand-in-hand, but the techniques that help develop great web content and efficient SEO strategies are often very different. To discuss this important topic, I asked Bernie Borges (@berniebay) of Find and Convert to tackle the issue. Thanks Bernie!
Website content needs to be written for two audiences: humans and search engines.
Of course, humans are the target audience that respond to marketer’s call to actions and ultimately convert into a customer. But, we must not ignore the search engines when writing website content.
Just how do you balance writing for humans and search engines? For that matter how do you write for search engines.
To answer both questions let’s start with writing for search engines.
To see how search engines actually “see” your content, just select “view source” in your browser. Viewing the source is a good reminder of how the search engines digest your web pages. They don’t see any of the visual aspects of your website.
The first concept to consider in writing content for search engines is to make the content available to search engines within the first 100 lines of code. If you have a bunch of code occupying real estate on your web page before your content appears, you start with a serious handicap.
Next, each page of content should have a clear and unique theme. Search engines identify the main theme of each page in three word phrases. If the name of your company is Henry Johnson LLC and you sell orthodontic dental supplies, you want the search engines to interpret the theme of your home page as “orthodontic dental supplies” not as “Henry Johnson LLC” (assuming you want to be found in search engines for orthodontic dental supplies).
Each web page should have several ingredients in place including:
- Clear title tags with a distinct
theme such as “orthodontic dental supplies.”
- H1 and H2 tags which support the
main theme of this page.
- Keyword density of the main theme
of the page in the 5% range.
- Hyperlinks from the main theme of
the page to other relevant pages.
- A human readable URL containing
the main keywords from this page.
These suggestions above are SEO 101 guidelines. Here are some more advance guidelines for your SEO content strategy.
- Broaden your footprint on the web by writing relevant content in other places, e.g., guest blog posts (such as
this), guest articles, white papers, press releases, etc. Write compelling content that others will link to such as industry-wide news, “best of” lists and generally any thought leadership or thought provoking content.
- Blog about your industry. Find non-marketing staff to write interesting blog content and write often. The more bloggers who write in your company the better.
- Respond to relevant blog posts with intelligent comments. Some blogs permit you to link back to your website.
- Recruit staff to use Twitter. Have them post links to good content. Some of the content can be yours but not
all of it. Promote other’s relevant content, not just your own content.
- Link out to other relevant content. Show the search engines you care enough to share other good, relevant content by linking out to it.
- Upload PowerPoint presentations to Slideshare.net. Link it to your website.
- Link from your LinkedIn profile using keywords, not your company name.
- Create videos and optimize them for search engines. Video is great content for search engines to index.
- Create still photos and upload them to social websites with links back to your website.
- Create a new section in your website with the sole purpose of populating it with a lot of content. The purpose of this content is for search engines. This section doesn’t need to be in your menu navigation structure as long as there is a legitimate link from a footer or header and it’s located in the sitemap. Populate this section with unique pages of content of not less than 250 words each.
- Make sure you have a sitemap (for humans) and an XML sitemap (for search engines).
Now, let’s get back to writing for humans.
Write web page content in a flow according to how your website visitors will consume it efficiently. Write web pages with not more than about 500 words. Give
visitors a reason to navigate to another page, eventually taking them to an action step.
The opposite of this approach is writing a long page of content with a call to action at the end. This is a common mistake. Often your visitors skim and don’t absorb a page with a lot of content. Break up long pages into multiple pages using the 500 word max guideline.
Link back to your home page from a keyword phrase that is the main theme. This actually serves both humans and search engines. The search engines give you more authority for the main theme when it’s linked to the home page. And, (human) visitors get reinforced that your website is about the main theme, e.g., “orthodontic dental supplies.”
In summary, writing SEO content best practices are an important part of an Internet marketing strategy. Remember that you have two audiences: humans and search engines. Writing for each audience requires a balance and awareness of the guidelines provided here.
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Writing SEO Content for Two Audiences: Humans and Search Engines
Web content and SEO often go hand-in-hand, but the techniques that help develop great web content and efficient SEO strategies are often very different. To discuss this important topic, I asked Bernie Borges (@berniebay) of Find and Convert to tackle the issue. Thanks Bernie!
Website content needs to be written for two audiences: humans and search engines.
Of course, humans are the target audience that respond to marketer’s call to actions and ultimately convert into a customer. But, we must not ignore the search engines when writing website content.
Just how do you balance writing for humans and search engines? For that matter how do you write for search engines.
To answer both questions let’s start with writing for search engines.
To see how search engines actually “see” your content, just select “view source” in your browser. Viewing the source is a good reminder of how the search engines digest your web pages. They don’t see any of the visual aspects of your website.
The first concept to consider in writing content for search engines is to make the content available to search engines within the first 100 lines of code. If you have a bunch of code occupying real estate on your web page before your content appears, you start with a serious handicap.
Next, each page of content should have a clear and unique theme. Search engines identify the main theme of each page in three word phrases. If the name of your company is Henry Johnson LLC and you sell orthodontic dental supplies, you want the search engines to interpret the theme of your home page as “orthodontic dental supplies” not as “Henry Johnson LLC” (assuming you want to be found in search engines for orthodontic dental supplies).
Each web page should have several ingredients in place including:
theme such as “orthodontic dental supplies.”
main theme of this page.
of the page in the 5% range.
the page to other relevant pages.
the main keywords from this page.
These suggestions above are SEO 101 guidelines. Here are some more advance guidelines for your SEO content strategy.
this), guest articles, white papers, press releases, etc. Write compelling content that others will link to such as industry-wide news, “best of” lists and generally any thought leadership or thought provoking content.
all of it. Promote other’s relevant content, not just your own content.
Now, let’s get back to writing for humans.
Write web page content in a flow according to how your website visitors will consume it efficiently. Write web pages with not more than about 500 words. Give
visitors a reason to navigate to another page, eventually taking them to an action step.
The opposite of this approach is writing a long page of content with a call to action at the end. This is a common mistake. Often your visitors skim and don’t absorb a page with a lot of content. Break up long pages into multiple pages using the 500 word max guideline.
Link back to your home page from a keyword phrase that is the main theme. This actually serves both humans and search engines. The search engines give you more authority for the main theme when it’s linked to the home page. And, (human) visitors get reinforced that your website is about the main theme, e.g., “orthodontic dental supplies.”
In summary, writing SEO content best practices are an important part of an Internet marketing strategy. Remember that you have two audiences: humans and search engines. Writing for each audience requires a balance and awareness of the guidelines provided here.
Subscribe - Junta42 - Outsource Your Content - Get the Book