Search engine optimization or SEO is a technique used by digital marketers to improve the visibility of a web page and thereby increase the traffic to the site. By strategically placing several key phrases, keywords, and hyperlinks it is possible to better rank the web page on the SERP (search engine result page). The more the visibility of the web page, the higher the prospect of conversion.
Crawlers or spiders are used by search engines such as Google and Bing to crawl web pages. They put these web pages in an index that is being examined by an algorithm and considering many ranking factors, these algorithms decide which all web pages should appear first in the SERP. The ranking factors include content quality, keyword placements, crawlability, mobile-friendliness, etc.
The digital world is highly competitive and every single organization is striving to achieve better visibility for its products or services. Since search is the basis of all those digital parameters like traffic, visibility, and ranking, it is important for the brands, web pages or content to be made quickly accessible to the crawlers and algorithms. This is where SEO plays a crucial role in digital marketing.
Stages of SEO writing
The process of publishing SEO content is not just about copywriting. Before writing one needs to do the relevant research and after writing proofreading is a must. Web content should satisfy both the search engine and the searcher. The copy should directly answer what the searcher is asking. Knowing the audience would be of great help while crafting web content. This will bring about more conversions.
Finding the right keywords is fundamental to SEO writing. Be its website content, blog content, landing pages or product pages, metatags, or campaigns, one needs to do elaborate keyword research before starting writing. There are plenty of tools available on the web to help you with keyword research. Ahref’s and Google keyword planner are examples.
After doing relevant keyword research, it is time to start writing the document. You should have an idea about the word count and the content. If it is a lengthy document you can split it into several sections so that writing becomes manageable. You can list the section headings and assign keywords for each heading.
Checking the readability of the write-up is the next step. This can be done while writing the document instead of doing it after writing the entire article. One can use tools like Grammarly but the best practice often is to read the copy aloud and then check it with the help of digital tools.
Proofreading, editing, and making changes is the final stage of writing a copy. It is better not to entirely depend on digital tools to proofread your article. Before you put the article to spell check or Grammarly, go through the copy twice or thrice.
Keywords and hyperlinks in SEO writing
A well-written, error-proof, informative, and entertaining content published on Google attracts more visitors. Content marketing is an ever-growing area with a lot of opportunities. One should have this in mind while writing an article for a blog or website. Including the most relevant key phrases in the title, headlines and copy will greatly help.
While writing, ensure that the important keywords are placed in the first paragraphs themselves. The first sentence should contain the most important keyword. Overusing keywords is not a good practice in SEO writing. Use the keywords intelligently and naturally. The desired keyword density in an article is 1-3 %.
Google will assume that the keywords are stuffed in the article if the article contains too many keywords. The keywords or keyphrases can be placed on every 155 to 200 words. Bolding the keyword in the first sentence will have a great impact when algorithms scan the article. This will also reduce redundancy as the article title will have the same keyword. The last sentence should contain the keyword to emphasize it.
Hyperlinking the keywords is a good practice. This will help boost the keyword. This can be done at the beginning and end of the article and also at locations where keywords are mostly present.
Page speed and SEO
Page speed is comparatively a recent addition in google’s ranking factor. The reason to include page speed is that with the lowering of the page speed, the bouncing rate increases. The bounce rate of a site is another ranking factor and Google ranks those sites with lesser bouncing rates, higher.
Page speed can be defined as the loading time of a web page. It differs among categories. For example, web pages having automotive, technology, travel, entertainment, finance, classifieds, and business will take a longer time which can be between 8 and 13 seconds. It has been observed that the bounce rate increases by 123% for those pages with loading time around 10s.
Google is penalizing those sites with higher bounce rates. If your site has pages that take a lot of time to load google, the crawlers may not be able to index those sites. So your site naturally does not appear on the first pages of SERP. Google has started listing the sites which are mobile-friendly on top of the SERP. Mobile-friendliness of a site depends on the loading time of the pages. So these have to be taken care of while optimizing your site and web pages.
Page structure and SEO
The structure of your website is very important for the crawlers to easily find out the site and to index. The structure is basically how the pages are arranged and categorized in a website. The better the arrangement, the easier for the site to be found out by the crawlers and the users.
Web sites have to be structured by an intuitive hierarchical model with coherent and consistent URLs. This helps the crawler to figure out the structure of the site, the hierarchical order of the pages, and how the pages are interrelated. This has a great influence on the ranking of the website or the given page.
An optimized site structure helps boost conversions and brand advocacy. This happens when the users who visit your site get what they want very soon and effortlessly. An optimized site structure ensures this easiness to the user and conversion happens in a few seconds.
The organic search performance of the site is greatly influenced by its structure. An optimized structure will improve relevancy and site links are generated to make it easier for the user to navigate.
The overall SEO performance of a site is greatly dependent on these factors. A little mindfulness while designing and optimizing the site can help. One needs to have a user perspective as well as a crawler logic while doing the SEO of the page or site.
Recent Comments