If you have marketed online for long enough, you will remember the good old days when all you needed to write valid SEO content was to ensure you had a certain number of words and within them, a specific percentage of the keywords you wished to rank for linking to your pages. It was very simple and worked effectively at the time. However, these days have long gone and now writing good SEO content is much more complicated than the old simple formula. In this post, Martin Reaves from The Search Equation gives us some tips on writing SEO. He says when writing for SEO It is important you see things from a customer’s point of view and write in a way that appeals to their perspective. So rather than telling the customer what you do, you need to get the point over how they will benefit from your services. In other words, it is about showing prospective clients what they will get from you.

Keywords

In the old days, keyword density was considered important. There was a lot of effort put into finding which keywords would be lucrative, and these would be placed a number of times on the page, with an exact anchor text link going to the site you wanted the keyword to rank for. These things may still have some impact but they should not be your priority, as keywords do not mean the same thing these days. There is no longer clearly defined way of ranking for a specific word or phrase. However, having said that, you should still use your keyword or better a variation thereof in the title of your post, in the subject heading, and once or twice throughout the body of the copy. The keyword you wish to rank for should be your guide as to the content of your post. So if you want to run for “tapas in Barcelona” for example make sure your post also talked about types of tapas, best areas for tapas in Barcelona, best restaurants et cetera. This is a far more effective way to write good SEO copy these days than simply including the term tapas in Barcelona in your titles and once a twice about the content.

Keep your readers on the page

The amount of time a visitor stays after landing on your page has an effect on how well the page will rank in the search engines so you need to keep them reading. This is not only for SEO purposes, but also because an interested reader is more likely to become a paying customer. Use lists and bullet points to help break up the content, and also use lead in sentences or finish a paragraph with a question that entices a visitor to keep reading, remember to always check for grammar mistakes or ask someone to proofread it after you are finished. You have to be careful with lead ins, because you do not really want your post to sound like a commercial, so use sparingly.

Supplemental content

Supplemental content is a piece that is published to help visitors find other relevant parts of your website, for example, your blog, a downloadable item, or a product you sell. Supplemental content should be helpful and relevant offering the user a meaningful experience, rather than just a way to advertise your products. Google’s own YouTube is a good example of a site that uses this type of content. When you have finished a video, you are lead to a similar video, which keeps you on YouTube, while at the same time offering you something you are likely to find useful. Again, be careful when using this type of content and do not implement it too much, as it can go from being useful to distracting.

Reading Levels

When writing SEO content you should write in a way that would appeal to a person of around 13 years old. Do not use long words when short ones will do. In fact, do not use any words that could be classed as redundant. Having said that, it is important to think of your audience. If you were writing for a medical journal for example, you would not want to write in such a simplistic style, so always consider the user along with the search engines. Finally, do not think of SEO writing as a way to improve rankings. While rising the ranks is obviously important, when writing for a website, the most important factor we should be thinking about is turning a visitor into a customer.