Tips for Writing Engaging yet SEO-Friendly Content

“Content is the King” and writing good content that is SEO friendly also requires skills and planning. To keep people engaged, you should carefully decide the structure of your content and keep the text interesting. If visitors like your content and find it valuable, they will share it with more people, improving your rankings. In this blog, I will provide you with tips for writing engaging yet SEO-friendly content.

You should do keyword research before you start writing your blog or article to figure out what keywords your readers would use for the search. You need to write content that is centered around these keywords and even include keywords in the content itself without overstuffing them. Read on for writing effective SEO-friendly content.

#1 Decide the Theme Before You Start

Before you start writing, you need to be crystal clear about what your purpose is for writing a particular blog or an article. What do you want to convey to your readers, or which question do you want them to answer? The search intent of readers should also be kept in mind, and the best way to do this is by looking at the search result for the keyword you want to focus upon.

#2 Create a Structure for Your Content

In order to make it easy for your audience to read & understand the content you write, it should be structured in an appropriate manner. Your post should have the following:

• Introduction of the topic
• Main body
• Conclusion

You can write a few sentences for each of these three sections to create an outline of your post. This helps in creating a structured blog post that is engaging and reader-friendly. Once this structure is in place, actual writing can begin.

#3 Create an Attractive Title & Heading Tags

The title tag is the text appearing in search results and may be different from article titles, which you see when you are on the webpage. An attractive title tag will attract attention and convince the visitor to click on the search result’s link.

Google considers title tags as one of the factors for ranking the webpage and is made of crawlable HTML code. The title should have the primary keyword but not be stuffed with keywords. It should ideally be under 60 characters and almost 95% similar to the title on the webpage.

For H1, make sure it is unique, so visitors do not get lost in similar pages on your website. Use words like “Guide”, and “How to” or use numbers like “Top 10”, “5 Best” etc. as such titles get more traffic than the usual ones. H1 of the page should also describe the content; otherwise, Google considers it low-quality content.

Creating engaging subtitles H2, H3… will improve the overall readability of the content. These subtitles should be in a hierarchical mode and should not sound similar or confusing to the reader.

#4 Use Transition Words

Transition words help people understand the flow between sentences and paragraphs, and in scanning the text. For example, there are three reasons why you should indulge in a particular activity. In order to explain the three reasons, you should use words like “First of all”, “Secondly”, and “Finally” as transition words. “However”, “For Example” and “Similarly”, when used in the right place, give a clear signal to the readers. Your audience will know that a conclusion will follow after words like “in short” or “to sum up”.

#5 Internal & External Linking

You should not neglect the importance of internal as well as external linking for the actual post you write. If you have already written content on a related topic to your current post, you should link to that post by selecting a proper word or phrase. This will make both posts stronger as this indicates authority on the subject. This internal linking also helps with SEO as Google considers it one of the ranking parameters.

For external linking, you should link to websites that have high domain authority and are considered experts in the domain. This will ensure your readers that you have researched well on the topic and they can rely on the information provided. However, the links should flow with the theme of your article.

#6 Do not Neglect URLs

URLs tell a lot about what you have written in your post and should not be taken for granted. URLs are also a part of your SEO strategy and an important ranking factor for search engines. You should try to include the target keyword for the article in the URL, but the overall length should be around 60 characters. Use hyphens to separate words and keep URLs simple, engaging, and relevant.

#7 Get Proof-reading Done

Any blog post or article should be carefully read by someone who has not written it, before publishing it. The author should then ask the proofreader what was understood and the message they got from the blog or article. The proofreader should also be asked to point out any grammar or spelling mistakes. If you have someone in your organization who is an expert on the topic you have written about, ask the person to go through the content and tell whether you have missed anything which should have been included.

#8 Use Images, Infographics & Charts

Your audience will clearly understand what you are trying to say by viewing images or infographics. You can insert infographics between long pieces of text to prevent reader’s getting bored and leaving the webpage. Images, infographics & charts can convey a lot of information in very less time. Advertising agencies or SEO Experts can help you with designing attractive infographics for your audience. However, try to reduce the size of your images in terms of Kilobytes, or else the page will take more time to load. Alt tags are text alternatives for an image for the search engines and for the audience who are using screen readers. Alt tags should be relevant to the image and unique.

#9 Work on Meta Description

Meta description a brief about your post, which Google shows below the title in search results. This makes it as important as the content itself as it will encourage the reader to click on the title and go through the full post. A meta description is one of the best mediums to attract the attention of new visitors and should be carefully crafted. Ideally, it should be between 155-160 characters, gives a brief idea about the article, and contains the target keywords. However, there is no guarantee that the meta description you have provided to the search engine will appear in the search results.

#10 Optimize for Mobile

Most of your audience will be reading your content on a mobile device. Hence, it becomes necessary that your content structure should suit the mobile screen. Google is now ranking websites that are mobile optimized higher than other websites. Your layout and navigation should be simple and intuitive. Include social media sharing buttons wherever possible and update your content regularly. All this will have an impact on your SEO efforts.

Wrapping Up…

Although it does consume time & considerable effort to write engaging yet SEO-friendly content, it pays back in terms of increasing website traffic and conversions. You should focus on writing for your audience and not for search engines. If your content provides value to the visitors, they are more likely to subscribe and share it on the web. So, try to follow the tips we have discussed and focus on quality rather than quantity.