Google always asks us to emphasize and concentrate on content to get good ranking in search results. Writing quality article is part of SEO copywriting and we should follow some simple step to make it optimized for search engine and readers. Writing excellent content will help you get more organic traffic and also some back links through linkbaits. Excellent content often delivers what the readers looking for in single article.
1. Straight To The Point
Writing often led to out of topic, so keep your content straight to the point. Make a list of keywords and elaborate the keywords in your own words. Don’t go out of topic. If you are looking for “how to bake a cake” article and search in Google. I am sure you will immediately close the page if it has some rambling about “baking a cake stories”. Instead, article that really shows step by step guides on “how to bake a cake” might help us and we may stay a little longer or follow their steps too. Keeping our content narrow to the point of your title is a great content.
2. Attractive Title
Having an attractive title for our blog post or article is a must in order to attract more visitors. Make sure to insert important keyword first in the title. Also, numbers can be helpful too. For example, on this blog post, I choose “12” as a number, and “SEO Content Creation Tips” as the most important keyword phrase for this post. Most top articles in Digg, Stumbleupon, etc are the combination of numbers and keyword type of title.
3. Keyword Research
Keyword research analysis is the most important value in creating new contents. It can help you target for low competitive keywords and get top ranking and draw almost instant traffic instead of fighting those big giants that have established strong footprint in top ranking for high competition keywords. Use proper keyword density in your article and don’t use excessive repetition or stuffed keywords. It will not only look bad to readers,
4. Not Sales Writing
I am sure if you read any sales gimmick type of article, you would immediately close the page or switch to another. It is the same for your readers. Do not use those bombastic sales page words to push your article. It may drive your visitors away reading the fist line on your post. Writing genuine and helpful content that is readable and doesn’t require high level of language skills to understand will be a good article. Make sure your article is understandable to even 12th grade kids. Although, some technical part need higher skills but the main idea should clear.
5. Share Important Links
Showing external links to other sites that is relevant to you will not only increase their popularity but yours too. If you are surfing for certain info but able to find all information in one single page, wouldn’t you bookmark this page? The information provided with several related links will definitely increase our page’s ranking. Remember, try not to overdo it as it may look like spam. Limiting 100 links max per page would be a good idea.
6. Share Relevant Links From Your Blog
This is another way to get your internal pages exposed well enough. Plus, it will encourage page rank flow among internal pages and if it is relevant, this will give heavy credit. So, try to look for relevant internal pages from your blog and link it with proper anchored keyword and dofollow. It will also encourage your readers to stay a little longer on the site and reduce bounce rate.
7. Use Bold, Italics and Underline on Important Keywords
Make use of bold, italics and underline format in your article or blog post. This is an effective way to highlight important keywords or links on page. Some SEO experts declared that usage of bold or italics will increase the weight of your keywords in the article. I noticed that not many bloggers practice this free method to increase keyword popularity of their blog post.
8. Declare Meta Tags
Declaring proper meta title, meta description and meta keywords for each blog post or article is a must. It will represent the way our article looks in search results to visitors. A good meta tags will motivate searchers to click on our posts or articles. So, take some time writing an overview that is attractive for each blog post. The limit for title will be 70 letter, description 160 letter and keywords is 4-5 words per post. Avoid stuffing meta tags with repeated keywords instead use synonyms or other set of keywords.
9. Use Synonyms and Plurals
There is a positive limit on usage of keywords in any article. It is good to follow low repetition on important keywords. But, it is not easy use the most important keywords once or twice per article. So, make use of synonyms which is similar meaning to your main keyword and plurals to your keyword. This will expand your targeted keywords and add more relevant keywords in your article. Your article will be keyword rich and targeted set of content for those particular keywords.
10. Use Number List
Article that is lengthy often bored and drive away your readers. If your article is long or you wanted to keep your article interesting, try to use list often. This simplifies reader understanding on our content. Famous post in most blogs would be some sort of list. Creating list could take time, but it is all worth when you see the number of backlinks and traffic it receives.
11. Use Image and Alt Tag
Make use of image in your article more often. Some readers that blog hopping, will stop and read post if they find images are attractive. I am not asking you to use only sexy female pictures for all you posts. Instead, you can use some humorous, drawings, charts, cartoon, etc that is relevant to your post. Always, make use of alt tag for your image. Name your image file name with proper keyword.
12. Use Relevant Video
There are tons of new videos posted in youtube. Make use of it on your post. If you plan to use personal video, optimize it with seo tips for videos. It is not the best idea to send the message and if we compare videos and content, search engine prefers content. So, if you want to send some important message, it is wise to do it with content. But, a combination of content and video perfect it.
Nice info, thanks for sharing buddy.
@Jane detailed articles provide full info and you are not confused with any point. So I guess articles should be detailed always.
I tend to get sleepy when reading a long article, so in case number list is inappropriate, try to breakdown paragraphs into short ones.
Videos are indeed helpful especially for people who are not on the mood to read.
Great list!