Introduction
It is never easy to get your voice heard on the internet. It can sometimes feel like you are standing up on a soapbox in a street full of people, waving frantically to try and get everyone’s attention. You might consider yourself an expert in your field, with pearls of wisdom to share with your audience, but what is the key to getting people to stop long enough and listen to what you have to say?
Well, the answer is that you need to find the right balance between what is known as SEO friendly content and user readability. You need to make sure that the search engines can find your content as if they can’t find it, your potential readers won’t be able to either.
So let’s look at how to create SEO friendly content!
Choose the Right Keywords
Keywords are one of the most important aspects of SEO and are the first thing you should think about before you start to write. If you leave keywords until the end you will likely find that it can be hard slotting them in without it looking forced.
You need to find the words and phrases that people are searching for in relation to your content which can be done with trusted tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool can also help you get an idea of competition for the keywords, however, it is primarily used for Google Ad’s so competition may not be the same as that of organic search. Ideally you want to find long-tail keywords that will be easier to rank, for example; instead of “SEO Company” consider a more specific term such as “SEO Company in London”.
Placing Your Keywords
Search engines like Google do not just look at which words you use, but where they are placed also. You should try and get your keywords into important places such as the page title, H1 tags and within the content itself. When adding to the content, try and place your most important keyword into the first paragraph.
It is important to find the right keyword density as adding it too many times can look like “keyword stuffing” which can result in a penalty and a loss of rankings. Too many forced keywords will also put off your readers.
There are also some hidden places you can place your keywords such as image alt texts and meta tags.
How to Create SEO Friendly Content with Free Tools
There are a number of free tools that you can use to your advantage when optimising your content for SEO. Google Analytics is important as it allows you to monitor your traffic and see what content on your site needs more work.
If your blog or website is built on WordPress there are a number of free plugins that help make your content more SEO friendly. Tools such as Yoast allow you to optimise all your meta data easily and avoid duplicate content, whilst there are tools that let you optimise your images to ensure that they are search engine friendly too.
Use Links Wisely
It isn’t only what your write that counts. You can boost your contents rankings by using links too. Links in the content can be both internal and external. An internal link will point to another page on your site such as the contact page whilst an external link is usually a reference and points to an authority website in your niche.
Don’t add too many links and keep them below the fold. You don’t want people clicking away from your site before they have finished reading your posts.
Make it Readable
Ensure that what you write is easy on the eye. User experience is now a ranking factor and what you don’t want is people finding your content and then leaving the post straight away. This will show the search engines that people are not finding your content valuable.
Break up the content using sub-headers and bullet points and avoid using large chunks of text that people are unable to scan through quickly.
In addition, rather than just have text, help break the article up with images, tables and graphs.
That's all for now:
Hopefully you now know how to create SEO friendly content and can start getting in front of your audience more.
If you've read all the way through this article, we are thankful. We have a large collection of articles, guides, and comparison reviews of eCommerce solutions, web hosting providers, website builders, and more! Feel free to check them out;
Please share any comments below!