How to Create SEO-Friendly Articles
If you ever decide to write articles for your site, blog or guest posts on other sites, there are two things you need to consider. First, you need to make sure you’re creating quality content that people would want to read and gain something from it. Second, try to create content that is geared towards a broad audience. Creating something for a small niche isn’t bad, but chances are it won’t get read as much.
Since most of the web traffic comes from search engines, making sure your content is optimized for search engine visibility is one of the best ways to reach more people. Some people claim that writing quality content and high search visibility go against each other, it’s not true at all. If nobody can find your high-quality article, then what’s the point of creating it?
What makes an article good?
Truly amazing writing isn’t something that can be taught, but good writing is. Being a good marketer is kind of like being a storyteller. Telling the story of your brand through different websites, readapted for different audiences. Here are some tips for creating good, captivating articles:
1. Use concrete examples:
One of the best ways to add power and proof to your article is by adding relatable examples. Avoid using theories and instead, rely on case studies other facts when discussing a product’s success. Find connections in pop culture or news to provide a frame reference. Doing so will ensure these stories will stay in their memory longer than facts or numbers.
2. Don’t hide your voice:
Using your unique voice is one of the best things you can do for your brand. Be a little quirky, funny or even a bit weird. Of course, you need to keep with the standards of professionalism appropriate for your particular industry. If for example, you're writing an article for a CPA firm, you probably won’t be using your voice as those articles tend to be formal with many technical terms. But the more human you will sound, the more people will be able to connect with your writing. A good practice is to read it out loud to see if it resembles you.
3. Know your audience:
Knowing what type of audience will be reading your blogs is key. So using language that is suitable for that crowd of people is essential. If your audience is going to be large and broad, avoid using jargon. Make sure your paragraphs are short, 4 to 5 lines and that your article is broken down into sections with headings.
If possible, add links to examples that will help elaborate on certain difficult points. And the last thing you need to do is, revise, revise, revise. It’s highly recommended that you get someone else to read through it, a fresh set of eyes can discover things which you might not.
Writing for SEO
Now that you have a good quality article created, the next step is to make sure it will get seen. Just like cross-posting and social media, optimizing your article for search engines is essential to get your work seen by a larger audience. Doing so will not only the visibility, but also the trustworthiness of your brand.
Ways to create good SEO-friendly content
1. Choose organic:
A good way to drive up your recommendations is by using highly visible, popular SEO keywords in your articles. But is really important to add these keywords that feel organic to the subject. They shouldn’t stand out or seem out of place. People who do a lot of reading online, are very fast at noticing a bunch of stuffed keywords purely for the hope of driving up visibility.
2. Keyword placement:
Optimize the placement of keywords in your articles by incorporating them into titles and subtitles. Research your keywords ahead of time and use the most search generating ones up front. Your most important keywords should be in the title.
3. Pictures:
You should always use at least one picture with all of your articles. Pictures are a good way to break up your text to make it more appealing and easier to read. But doing so is not enough by itself. Most people that use pictures, skip one very important step. You need to fill out the “alt text” of your picture to get your page to show up in image searches as well. Image-driven content has been really gaining growth as a digital marketing technique.