How to write SEO friendly content for your business

Now you know what SEO friendly content is, no doubt you’ll be wondering how to construct your content in an SEO friendly way. I say ‘construct’ because you’re effectively building an SEO structure for your content to sit on.

As a copywriter, it’s something I’m asked all the time by prospective clients baffled by the whole SEO shebang. Fear not friends, writing in a way that’s SEO friendly, isn’t rocket science. It’s also something you can easily incorporate into your writing process until it’s second nature.

Let’s break it down into some nice, manageable chunks. For maximum SEO benefit, you should place your keywords in specific places on a web page or blog post. These are:

a. Heading (your H1 and intro paragraph)

Your H1 tag is your title to your page or blog post. Its purpose is to help a reader understand what a page or blog is about.

Your heading should always contain your most important key phrase, preferably at the beginning of the title (see the title of this blog – ca ou guess what my key phrase might be?).

You should also use your key phrase in your introductory paragraph to anchor it to your post.

b. Backlinks and anchor text

A backlink is a link created when one website or webpage links to another.

Internal backlinks are links between site pages to make your site easier to navigate (e.g. a link to your contact page from your services page).

External backlinks are links between websites like when you reference quality, reputable sources in a blog post. Quality is essential here because the credibility of the sites you link to reflects on you.

Both types of backlinks are important because the number of high-quality websites linking back to your site helps boost your rankings. Search engines see you as an authority on a subject if other reputable sites link back to yours.

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Using useful, descriptive and relevant anchor text in your backlinks helps search engines understand your content’s context. Using your keywords in your anchor text helps search engines make sense of what your pages are about. It connects (or anchors) your content to your keyword.

c. Meta-title and meta-description

Your meta-title is your page title displayed on SERPs, web-browsers, and social networks. Your meta-description is the small line of text that appears under your meta-title, often around 160 characters in length.

Your meta-data is your target audience’s first impression of your site and your first chance to sell your product or service. Make those characters work for you because, according to WordStream, less than half of all Google searches result in a click. A lousy title may prevent a potential client or customer from clicking through to your site.

SEOMofo is a great little tool for previewing and optimising your Google SERP Snippet.

d. Image alt-text

Search engines don’t see images as we do. Alt-text is a written description of what a photo or graphic shows. Search engines use an image’s title and alt-text to learn what an image is about.

Adding your keywords to alt-text is often overlooked as a way to improve your search engine rankings and gives you an excellent, easy way to embed your keywords into your SEO friendly content.

It also makes your content more inclusive, as screen-readers can describe images to a visually impaired reader.

General blog writing pointers

Never forget that you’re writing for people, not search engines.

Algorithms are highly sophisticated and rank content based on various factors, but they are increasingly prioritising positive user experience.

Simply, this means they prioritise excellent writing.

The best writing shares certain traits, so make sure yours does too:

Write in Plain English
Use short, simple sentences
Use subheadings, bullet points, lists, and negative space
Include a clear call to action

Final thoughts

When it comes to writing SEO friendly content, there’s a lot to unpack.

A highly complex, ever-evolving subject, I could never hope to explain it in a little over 1000 words. Still, I hope that my whistle-stop tour of SEO basics has at least made it seem less daunting and you feel less desperate!