The mark of good, SEO-friendly content is that it should be meant for the users looking for answers to their queries and not for algorithms. The goal is to ensure that it’s written targeting the audience and builds a connection with the readers rather than making them feel disconnected and uninterested. This can only be achieved by developing a certain sort of mindset and understanding who to prioritize.
Why Is It Important to Ensure Your Content is SEO Friendly?
The main goal of putting up the content on the internet is to leverage its connectivity to bring the attention of the audience to a particular website or blog.
And this can only be possible when the search engines believe that the content is worthy of being pushed to a wider audience due to its relativity and the value it adds to the reader.
If you’re still unsure of what potential does good content has, it can turn a prospect into a lead/customer without any problems.
If making engaging and SEO friendly content is your requirement, here are 7 useful tricks you can use to ensure that the best content is produced every time:
- Keyword Research
Keywords research is elementary when it comes to SEO, and the right keywords can make all the difference when creating content. Remember, no matter how creative your content is, if the right keywords do not complement it, it’ll fail to achieve its goal.
This implies that focusing on a proper keyword strategy and research forms the basis of making sure your content is engaging as well as SEO-friendly.
- Related Keywords
As mentioned above, keywords can be the game-changers for your content. But often, due to our lack of proper understanding of how the keywords work, we only end up stuck with a bunch of keywords that bring in less than desired traffic.
The reason for this is that we are so focused on including the top keywords in our content that we forget about the untapped potential of related keywords.
For example, if ‘shopping’ is the primary keyword in your content, try to find a few other keywords related to it. A good set of related keywords widens your content’s range and helps target a broader section of the audience.
Pay Attention to Your Title Tags
There’s a famous saying that the first impression is the last impression. A good title tag shows if the copywriter has put an extra effort into producing the best possible content.
The reason behind this being a well-planned title can work as an appetizer for your reader, keeping them engaged throughout the article. A good title tag always fulfill certain goals like
- Increases your reader’s curiosity
- Provides a pathway for the user to achieve something.
- Builds credibility.
- Creates the necessity of your product.
- Answers the question of why your brand.
Having odd numbers, parenthesis, and brackets in your times have been found psychologically more impactful in grabbing the reader’s attention.
- Know Your Reader’s Intent
A common mistake we make while writing a piece of content for the web is that we mistake search engines to be the first priority. Good content rather does the opposite and puts the reader’s intent first.
This creates a sense of connectivity between the user and your content. This is because search queries are always a way for the user to meet a certain goal. Generally, you’re going to come as three types of user’s intent:
Informational
The user is trying to gather information on a certain topic through search queries. This form of user intent has the best chance of bringing in organic traffic. To cater to this need, your content needs to be long enough to fuel the prospect’s knowledge needs in order to turn him into a potential lead.
Transactional
The user here has already acquired the information he wants and is ready to take action. Thus focusing on short, crisp, and to the point, content is the way to go instead of long ones.
Navigational
The user is trying to find a location, such as looking for the name iPhone. You should focus on achieving that rather than on words related to android phones.
Knowing how to serve each type of user’s intent will help you in the long run in SEO. So, be aware of not just your resources but also know your opponents.
Instead of focusing on only the keywords used by your competitors, which might lead you to be stuck in a herd, find your pool of keywords even if it contains some with zero search volume.
- Get Down to the Business and Write.
The biggest problem with content creation for the internet is that we’re busy filling our baskets with technical bits and pieces. We completely forget what forms the basics of it; the writing.
Start writing with a simple plan that serves a certain goal of the reader.
Remember, perfection is not the goal here when writing. Rather, try to draft all the pieces of information you find important and organize them. You won’t get the cream content in your first draft; what it does is lay a pathway for you to work on the information you have in your hand to create something magical and relatable from it in the final copy.
5. Take Care of the Content Structure and Quality
A good structure is essential for driving traffic and ranking on SERP. Subheadings make the content scannable and easy to read. Blogs and articles with H2 and H3 tags tend to have higher traffic, shares, and backlinks performance. You can consider adding a table of contents at the beginning if the blog is too long. The goal is to structure the article in a way that it makes it easy for the users to decipher the context. Remember, you shouldn’t overdo by making the structure too complex with multiple subheadings.
6. Meta Descriptions Need Proper Care and Attention
Don’t exhaust all your attention creating the best title, rather distribute among the title as well as the meta description. You may argue that meta descriptions don’t influence Google rankings as the company itself cleared the confusion around the matter officially. Despite that, meta descriptions bring value to your article.
Even if it fails to rank your content, it gives your reader a taste of the content, just enough to spike their curiosity, leading them to satisfy this urge by clicking on your link.
7. Review Goes a Long Way
You might think you have the best content, especially after putting so much effort and time into it. So, going ahead with posting without revision won’t matter.
But this is where you create the chances for mistakes; focusing on revisions is as important as creating the content.
You need to check for any discrepancies and make sure you see how the final article will look in front of your audience after being posted. This will give you a better idea of which areas need to be redone to build a steady flow in your article.
Conclusion
It is not about choosing whether to be technically rich or creative when it comes to content creation. A well-articulated content always comes from the perfect balance of both technicalities as well as creativity.
As long as you’re trying to achieve the goal of satisfying your reader’s needs and not creating algorithms, you’re on the right track. Remember, it is important to give equal attention to all the above-mentioned points instead of simply focusing on a particular order to make your content more engaging and SEO-friendly.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to gain a competitive edge. Contact our team for expert assistance.