Are you an excellent copywriter yet you’re new to SEO. You’ve heard about keywords, someone mentioned making sure your on page elements are all covered. You looked in the mirror and thought what is this all about?

Have no fear, here’s a short guide that will help you to smash your next piece of content.

There are a number of key elements that you should be covering when it comes to writing content with SEO in mind.

Keyword research

This is one of the cornerstones of ensuring your content is Search Engine Optimised. Also if you are willing to take the time to write content for your website, it seems daft not to ensure that Google will notice your content.

Through keyword research you will find keywords and phrases that people are searching for. Also you can look into the competitive level of these keywords and phrases. 

There are a number of free and paid tools that can be used to complete your keyword research. One of our favourites is most definitely SEMrush.

Let’s put those keywords to work

Now you have performed your keyword research what’s next? Do you just take your keywords and spread them around in the content you’ve just written. No!.

Ensure that you Include your keyword in the title, in the first 300 words, and in the first H1 or H2. Although please note that it isn’t necessary to hit both of the H tags. Make sure you have it in one of them. 

Now you should be trying to use variations of your keywords that naturally fit in your content. Remember not to spam your own content. This will not get you seen more, quite the opposite. It’s all about being natural for search engines as well as readers. 

Remember people are searching to answer questions, find products etc. If a person clicks through to your website and it doesn’t read right, it’s a simple click backwards to Google and a click to another competitor. 

Use your keywords wisely!

Audience 

It’s all well and good writing content but who are you writing this for. Starting to understand who your audience is key. There are a number of ways to start to understand who your audience is. 

The first one, if this isn’t a new website is Google Analytics. In here you will be able to look under Audience. This will enable you to start to understand a number of elements about your audience. 

• What gender are they? 
• What age bracket do they fall into? 
• Where are they located?
• What devices do they use?
• What are some of their interests?

Already this information can help you to start to target your content to your target audience. 

ON PAGE ELEMENTS

Headings

When creating content pages, headers are very useful. If you think of this in the same way as reading a document or book, headings are a great way to break up text into separate sections. It also allows us as humans to be able to consume content much easier. Jumping to sections we need or skim reading.

They also play a part in SEO. Headers still have some influence on pages when it comes to rankings in 2019. Headers also allow search engines to gain context of your page. So why would you miss these out? Yet so many people do.

H1’s

H1’s like in a document are used to introduce your piece of content, kind of like a title to a document. Make sure to include your keyword in your H1 tag. Ensure that you don’t keyword stuff. Remember to keep it natural and organic. 

H2’s

These can be seen as the chapters of a book, covering the main points of your content on your website. Optimising H2’s with keywords is recommended but remember to be natural and organic. Do not create spam…

Image Alt-Tags

Alt attributes are the text alternative to images when a browser can’t properly render them. They are also used for web accessibility. Even when the image is rendered, if you hover over it, you will see the alt attribute text (depending on your browser settings).

Internal Linking

Internal linking has several advantages as it helps build page authority, usability, connections between web pages, user experience, and potentially your rankings. If you are writing a piece of content and you feel there is a possible internal link, think to yourself is this useful to the user? Would they need this information that I may potentially link to? You want the user to be able to land on a page and if they need to navigate further through the website to answer their question or purchase a product for example.

Title Tag

A title tag should tell the user what the page is about. This also works the same with search engines. A well-written Title Tag can help increase click through rates from SERPs. Title tags are still used as a ranking factor.

Remember that when creating a Title Tag you want to keep it in between 55 to 65 characters before it gets truncated. Keep it in between these numbers to ensure you’re getting full impact of your Title Tags. 

Meta Description

Meta descriptions are a snippet of text that is displayed in Search Engine Result Pages. It gives a description to the user of what the specific page is about and what you can expect when clicking through. This is no longer a ranking factor for Google. That being said it is hugely beneficial for you to ensure you have created a well crafted Meta Description. As this will encourage a user to click through. Don’t waste this opportunity…

Check out SEMrush for their Ranking Factors study.

Technical SEO

All the beautifully written creative content in the world won’t mean anything if your website isn’t technically sound. As a content writer you are not expected to be a Technical SEO wiz. Yet understanding some of the common Technical SEO mistakes and issues will help to ensure that your content will be doing more than waiting for your keywords to rank.

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So what now? Remember use your Analytics

You’ve completed your keyword research. Created your awesome content. You added the elements you need to ensure you have optimised your page. You’ve even covered some of the common Technical SEO issues…

Well what’s next?

Please do not write content and then leave it, think that it’s complete and never return… This is bad form, for many reasons.

Jump into Google Analytics. Make sure you annotated the date that your piece of content went live. This will be invaluable for future reference. In six months or a year, you’ll forget the date that this content was made live. Little pro tip, use annotations as the story board of your marketing.

From here you will be able to see in Google Analytics how much traffic this piece of content is generating. Also you will be able to see additional metrics such as time on site, bounce rate, and pages per session. This will allow you to understand who’s finding this content and then what they’re doing once on your website. This information can aid you in improving this content further in the future. For example if you’re seeing high bounce rates, low time on page, then this may be indicating that your content isn’t hitting the mark with your intended audience.

Create, analyse, optimise, repeat…

At Purple Smudge these are just some of our top tips for creating content with SEO in mind. These steps will most certainly help you improve your ranking ability for your content.

Remember SEO is the training for the marathon ahead and training doesn’t stop. 

Do you have any questions relating to your content creation or SEO for your website? Get in touch today to speak with one of the team about your Digital Marketing challenges or our services. We also offer bespoke training for individuals and teams. We look forward to speaking with you.