SEO guide - Express Writers

A Guide To Writing & Optimizing Great SEO Content (Gifographic)

March 23, 2022November 19, 2015 by Adam Oakley

How can an infographic get better? Add moving parts. Our fantastic design team created and designed this first gifographic from Express Writers. In it, we’re showing you the major tricks of the trade when it comes to writing and optimizing great SEO content. Tell us how you liked our first gifographic, and for a limited time, we’re taking gifographic orders! Full transcript below. Transcript A Guide To Writing & Optimizing Great SEO Content (Gifographic) Here’s Why Creating Great SEO Content Is So Crucial To Your Marketing Web traffic drives content marketing. The largest portion of content marketing success, 63%, is derived from website traffic. A big reason why you should focus on having correctly SEO optimized content on your site. 2/3 of B2B Marketers say content fuels their marketing. And if your content is well-written, answers questions, and is optimized for your buyers to find it, buyers are willing to finish 57% of your buying process without even talking to a sales rep. Google loves it! Google has said that quality content is key to rankings. Google Panda is the gatekeeper. The Google panda update has been launched primarily to ensure only high quality content ranks the best. This Panda algorithm looks into factors specifically that include how expertly the content is written, the quality of the source and author, if it is original and not duplicate, authoritative, complete, well-researched, and not-over populated with ads. Optimized blogs are powerful. 8 out of 10 Internet users are reading blogs and social media, which accounts for a whole 23% of time spent on the Internet. 3 Major Types of SEO Content & Tips on Correctly Optimizing Them Content is the fuel for what you publish on the web. Here are a few of the most common web content types: Web pages. Web pages are one of the most commonly optimized forms of SEO content. Boost your web page ranking through the inclusion of related, well-researched keywords, well written title tags, meta descriptions, awesome headers, and high quality writing. Never skimp on the quality of the writing if you want the best results from your web pages. Blogs. There are approximately 152,000,000 blogs on the web and with that kind of competition it’s obvious that optimizing your blog for SEO is an important way to get it to stand out. Include high quality citations (links) that reference any statistics you include and shoot for 2,000 words of high quality, well-researched SEO content per blog or more. Product Descriptions. When it comes to writing product descriptions, you want people to be able to locate them online quickly and easily. Don’t skimp on copy here either. Include keywords in your product descriptions and write descriptive headlines and meta content for each one. Social Media. Did you know that social media can be optimized, too? Except with social media, you optimize your content so that it can be located and shared by people rather than search engines. So don’t write around your keywords; write your social content around your audience. 3 Rules of Thumb in SEO Writing 1. Keyword Amount: Stay under a 3% keyword density in your content (web pages, blogs, etc.) Using them naturally is your #1 rule. Headers, subheaders, and throughout the copy are key areas to use them. How to Calculate: Keyword Density = (How many times you used the keyword / Total words in the text) x 100 Example: (20 / 800) x 100 = 2.5% 2. Don’t count your keywords. We mean it! Think of your audience, the quality of your content, how well you’re researching the content, and if the copy addresses every question the topic could raise. This is far more important than counting keyword density every time. Simply optimize naturally with keywords. 3. Find original sources when you’re stating a claim, and citate (link to it). See our sources at the bottom of this infographic? Those are our citations. You’ll want to actually hyperlink inside your blogs or other content where you’re making a statement or claim that you’ve read online. Make sure you use the original source when you hyperlink. 3 SEO Tools for the Web Content Creator SEMrush is a powerful keyword tool that allows users to optimize their sites for SEO, create intuitive pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and conduct social media and video advertising research. When it comes to using SEMrush to find keywords for your ad campaign, you’ll want to look into niche-specific long-tail keywords that apply specifically to your industry. While it’s all well and good to target a high-volume search keyword, it’s also harder to rank for these keywords, which means you may be better off focusing on a less competitive, more specific keyword phrase that allows you to rank strongly from the get-go. Wordtracker is another keyword research tool that allows users to search multiple sources for effective keywords. This tool can help you find keywords that nobody is competing on and will be an essential tool for SEO success. BuzzSumo is an effective tool for finding the key influencers that can help you promote your content and get it noticed by a wide audience base. It can also help you find trending content topics and take inspiration for audience related content. Although it’s not specifically SEO, developing great topic ideas and feeding off of industry leaders is every bit as important as SEO optimization. 10 Key Factors of Great SEO Content 1. Write great headers! Aside from your body content, the most important piece of content for SEO is your header. A header tells people what the piece is about, grabs reader attention and gives a general overview of the topic. To make your header as interesting as possible, include your keyword and focus on writing a header that asks a question or addresses your readers’ fears. Create headers that are irresistible and make your readers want to click; include the keyword naturally. 2. Stay away from “stuffing.” Keyword stuffing is a dangerous practice that will get you in trouble with the search engines, decreasing your … Read more

SEO Optimizing Your Online Copywriting: Tricks of the Trade

January 1, 2021January 30, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Search engine optimization is a bear of a topic. Many of us feel like we’re staring down a ferocious bear as we try to wrap our heads around SEO optimization of our online copy. It can seem like a daunting task, even when we hire a professional. Today, our goal is to turn that ferocious bear into a teddy bear by the time you finish skimming or reading this blog. Are you up for the transformation? SEO Updates: Pandas and Penguins and Hummingbirds, Oh My! Writing for the web has been said to be a beast of a task. Unlike traditional copy where you wrote for the audience, online copy demands that you write for the search engines too. Google, the king of search engine beasts, makes no secret of their requirements for proper SEO optimization. The guide they provide is great, but suddenly we find ourselves being hit by various creatures. In 2013, we had a panda, a penguin and a hummingbird thrown at us! Since when is throwing untamed wildlife at us okay? Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird were all updates to SEO. With each one, the focus of optimization and rankings changed. At times, it felt like we were being attacked by wild animals. Now that the dust has settled (and the wildlife seems to be caged, at least for now), the ferocious SEO bear really does look a bit more like a cuddly teddy bear. The Truth about Keywords In all the wildlife excitement, someone had the courage to start a vicious little rumor that the days of keyword optimizing were going, going, gone. Based on Google’s SEO updates, we respectfully disagree. It is undeniable that how we use keywords has changed, but we have by no means been discouraged from using them altogether. As a result, you still need to tackle keyword research and keyword usage when optimizing online copy. Keyword research is a frightening topic. “Research” isn’t a word most of us appreciate. It brings to mind painful classes and scary essays. What exactly is keyword research? Well, it boils down to discovering which words or phrases your target audience will use when conducting an Internet search. We published an informative blog about keyword research that can open your horizons to this concept in more depth, back in December. You’ll want to pinpoint the top 1 to 3 keywords for your target audience. These words should be inserted into the following places: The title tag The #h1 headline Image alt tags The body of the text (usually in the first and last paragraphs) SearchEngineLand published a fantastic article about optimizing a single page of content with multiple keywords. If you need (or want) detailed information about where and how to place your keywords and phrases, it’s a great additional resource. Keyword usage in copy is a whole new ball game these days. In the past, Google’s search algorithms weren’t synonym smart. As a result, we had to use specific keywords and keyword phrases. It wasn’t uncommon to read copy that made both the writer and editor cringe. Proper grammar? Forget it. Semi-proper grammar? Maybe. Keyword phrases were often out of order or senseless because they had to cater to the search engine. Thankfully, search engines are smarter today. Not only can they handle synonyms, but they can also adapt to variations! Instead of having to insert “sandwich peanut butter” into a sentence and cringe, we can now write “peanut butter sandwich” and the search engine will still grab this key if someone types “sandwich peanut butter” into a search query. Keywords and phrases still need to be researched and used, but they don’t have to be used at the expense of quality content. The general rule is that a piece of content should have a keyword density of approximately 1 to 2 percent. However, the flow and quality of the copy should take priority because, as CopyBlogger points out when writing about SEO copywriting, “Google treats the truth and authority of your domain, what others think about your content and the words they use to describe it, as an important indication of quality and relevance.” The Importance of Relevance and Authority The primary way websites are ranked today is through a combination of relevancy and authority. In essence, search engines want to see relevant content conveyed by a credible or authoritative entity. They have numerous algorithms designed to determine relevancy and authority; geo-location, search history, Query Deserves Diversity and Query Deserves Freshness, just to name a few. Domain authority is growing more and more relevant to SEO. At first, wrapping your head around it can be a terrifying prospect. I’ll be honest: the first time I read about domain authority, I felt like I was sitting at a tech conference. I thought, “My god, I’m in way over my head.” The SEO bear was growling at me, and I could have sworn he was about to swipe. Then, I started to find resources that helped me make sense of the tech jargon. Moz published a great article about domain authority. Personally, I had to read it a couple of times to grasp it all. Don’t feel bad if you have trouble understanding domain authority at first. The learning curve isn’t as steep as it appears, and it really is natural to feel a little lost. Here’s what you need to know about domain authority in laymen terms: Domain authority, or DA, is very difficult to directly influence. A DA rating represents how a website performs in search engine rankings. One way to begin increasing your DA is through SEO linking, but don’t expect immediate or noticeable results. The only sure way to influence your DA is to spend time improving your overall SEO. The Trick to Improving Your Overall SEO The ultimate trick, the perfect key, the guarded secret…it all comes down to one primary thing: quality content. SEO is literally all about creating content that is so compelling, so … Read more