The basics of good writing still apply and you may be surprised that there’s not much difference between writing a good article for publishing on a reputable site or magazine, versus writing a good article that has been optimised for search engine use. There are just a few insertions that you need to do and keep an eye on.
Key phrases and Keywords
The main difference between regular articles and those that are meant to be found by search engines is the incorporation of keywords or key phrases. These are the important key words that you want your article to be associated with. These are words and phrases people type into search engines when they are looking for answers, products and services. For example, if you were looking for affordable hotels in Osaka, Japan. You might key in:
– Affordable
– 3 or 4 star hotel
– Osaka
– Review
– Online booking
Your goal when writing articles is to write a piece of text that is relevant to your reader (and the search terms they use), and is also found to be relevant and useful in the eyes of search engines, such as Google, by incorporating the keywords or phrases throughout your article.
It is important that you do this in a natural and sensible way without going too overboard in your keyword usage. A 3-4% ratio of keywords compared to the overall length of your article is suitable.
Insertion of Useful Links
After writing a grammatically correct article with your keywords, you need to insert a link to your site (if this is being posted outside of your page) throughout the article so that people can visit your site should they be interested to do so.
You need not show the whole URL, you can use anchor links to create a link within a key word or phrase. For example, you can place your URL within the phrase “check out hotel photos” so that people will click on that link and they will be lead to your establishment. Just like with the keyword ratio, use your links with caution and sense. Users will be easily turned away by irrelevant links and keywords in useless articles.
Content is STILL King
This leads us to our final point. No matter what you do, content is still king. No matter how well written the article or the page is, if it does not connect to your site in any way, then users will not be compelled to go back to your page. Usability and relevance is still a key factor and the keyword insertion plus link building are just secondary tools in effective SEO efforts.
You can review the Associated Press writing guidelines to make sure that your article is indeed up to par.
Search Engine Academy offers personalised, hands-on SEO training, which will give you the skills you need to boost your online presence.