A simple guide to writing Search Engine Friendly Content

Dmac Media are pleased to provide practical advice and simple steps to help you when writing search engine friendly content. This will help you achieve a higher ranking in search engine results and target your audience in a realistic way.

You may have been told to optimise the ‘SEO’ content on your website. This is good advice! Put simply , it means that you write all of your content (the text and information on your website), in a way that can be recognised and ‘picked up’ by Search Engines. This allows people to find you easily through popular search engines, like Google.

SEO means ‘search engine optimisation.’  So, lets optimise!

Before you start writing do some online research:

Keyword Research:

Search the internet with keywords relevant to your business.  Note which sites are at the top of the result list. Some of these have paid for this privilege, but they are marked as such, and you should concentrate on the ones below who make it on their own merit. Make a note of the most important words, (the keywords!) in each result. This way, you can focus on words for which a certain amount of search volume already exists – in other words, write toward topics that people are already searching for information about.

Keyword Optimisation:

Using those magic words! Once you have your keywords listed, you need to give life to them in your text or content, aiming for maximum search-ability. This means listing them with other words that are likely to be included by your potential clients. For example, you may use the keywords ‘ceramic bowls’ and this will indeed appear in endless search results , but ‘Irish handmade celtic style ceramic bowls’ would focus more on the clients you are trying to reach.

Writing the Content:

The bad news is that the more thorough and well researched content you include on your site, the better it will perform in search engines. In depth articles blow run-of-the-mill short blog posts out of the water in terms of SEO, content, performance and user satisfaction. Long content tops Google searches. The good news is that this is an advantage for you, as most of your competition is probably too lazy to write that much. Keep the writing style to your own ethos and a manner that reflects your business. If your business model has a more relaxed, chatty and familiar style (as demonstrated this blog) then the content should reflect this. Similarly, if you prefer a more formal tone, the writing should be adapted accordingly.     Be yourself.

A Good Start:

Firstly, compile logically, the list of headings/ pages/ for your site and compare it to a list of all the pertinent information that you think people want to see. The title of each link /item/page is important and should include your identified keywords. Take a look at other websites and ‘borrow’ the things you like, adapting them to your needs. Imagine you are a customer, searching for a product or service, and use your business acumen to decide on these headings. What do most of your clients enquire about? What do you, yourself want to feature most for?  Start writing something under each heading. Short sentences are best for the beginning of each section and are essential for the ‘landing page’ of your site. Remember you can edit later. Sprinkle your writing with the relevant identified keywords, but remember to use the most pertinent ones in the first 100 words of any page/section. Break up the long text with sub-headers at every 200 words or so, as this gives bite-size pieces of information to the reader which is apparently more palatable to their taste !

Finally – Jazz it up:

Text only pages are so 1980s!! Images, video links, audio, diagrams, charts, interactive media, quizzes, games and infographics will brighten the site and get you some street cred., well, that is stretching it a bit, but it will liven up the site. Use external links (google maps etc…Google love this !) This is just some of the tricks also used for keeping ‘clicks’ (people!) on the website for longer, which also helps to give you a better Google Search rating.

We at Dmac want you to present the very best side of your company/services/products to the world . We are committed to this and are more than happy to advise, assist and direct you to achieving the best SEO content possible. For any queries don’t hesitate to contact us. Happy Optimising!

Useful links: SEO/Moz http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo