Optimizing your website so that your website is easily understood by a search engine and responding to the search intentions of potential visitors to your website defines itself as SEO optimization. In article – what is SEO? explains what SEO is. The article below explains how you can optimize the pages on your website for optimal search engine marketing in 9 steps based on our SEO optimization step-by-step plan.
SEO OPTIMIZATION STEP PLAN
Step 1: Choose focus keywords
Select a keyword for the relevant page, on which you want to be found. Make sure the content on this page matches the keyword. After selecting this keyword, it is interesting to vary the use of this keyword. You can do this, for example, by using synonyms of this word.
Step 2: Page Title
The page title is the underlined bold blue text that appears in Google search results. The page title is the name of the relevant page. Below are 5 tips for a good page title:
- Make sure the page title is a maximum of 66-70 characters
- Try to use the chosen keyword at the beginning of each page title
- The moment you use multiple keywords, separate them by means of a |
- Use a unique page title for every page on your website
- On the homepage and contact page it is possible to use the name of your company in the title. It is not recommended on other pages.
Step 3: Meta Description
The text under the page title in Google search results is the meta description. The meta description is mainly seen as a call to action. The reason for this is because it supports people in determining whether they want to click on your result.
Some tips for a good meta description:
- Make sure your meta description consists of 150 – 160 characters
- Try to incorporate the chosen keyword in a relevant way
- Clearly indicate why people should click on your result
Step 4: URL structure
The chosen keyword must be included in the URL of this page. It is also important to separate each word in your URL with a hyphen(-). See example below:
Stap 5: Heading tags
Provide every page with an H1 heading tag, in which the chosen keyword is processed. Make sure the H1 tag is high on the page. Of course, the H1 tag, page title, url and content must form a whole.
Step 6: SEO Copywriting and Internal Links
Incorporate your keyword multiple times on your website in a natural way. Write relevant content, which consists of at least 400 words. You can do this, for example, by describing the most frequently asked questions related to the keyword. It is also important to use internal links, suppose you are using a new term, but explain it in detail on another page. Refer to this page using a hyperlink.
Step 7: Make Images Search Engine Friendly
By giving each image a proper name, by distinguishing each word in an image’s name with a hyphen (-). Every image needs an alt text for the search engine. An alt text makes it clear to a search engine what the image is about. A good alt text is identical to the title of the image, but without hyphens (-). These steps allow a search engine to understand your images.
By performing the above 7 steps you can easily optimize the on page SEO of your website. Integrating these steps and doing them properly can lead to more traffic and a search engine will more easily index your website. In addition to these 7 steps, there are of course several steps to make your website rank better in the search engines.
SEO COPYWRITING: HOW TO WRITE CONTENT FOR PEOPLE AND OPTIMIZE IT FOR GOOGLE?
If you want to create a bigger audience for your blog, you need to learn to be smarter about your content. One of the biggest challenges bloggers and content marketers face is writing content that is optimized for search engines, but still appealing to readers.
According to Copyblogger, SEO is the most misunderstood topic on the web. However, SEO content isn’t difficult once you understand that readers, not search engine algorithms, take precedence. SEO companies make a profit by understanding this simple concept.
If you want your online business to thrive, you need to go beyond simply ‘writing content’. Your content should achieve two goals: First, it should be attractive to the end user (customers, readers, etc.) and second, it should solve a specific problem.
How do you make SEO friendly texts?
However, how do you create content that achieves these goals? How do you create content that both ranks high on Google and convinces people? That’s what SEO copywriting is all about. Don’t worry if you can’t afford an expensive SEO copywriter or SEO specialist. You can do it yourself by following a few simple rules. And that is what you will learn in this article.
We will discuss the following topics:
- What is SEO?
- Understanding Copywriting
- What is SEO Copywriting?
- Components of SEO copywriting
- Writing useful content for People
- Keyword research for content creation
- Copywriting- Driving people to action
What exactly is SEO?
We all know what happens when you type a search term into a search engine and hit enter: You get a list of search results that are relevant to your search term. The pages full of results appear as a result of search engine optimization (SEO). In short, SEO is a method of optimizing (increasing the effectiveness) of your content for the search engines, to ensure that it appears at a higher rank than content from other websites targeting the same search terms.
If we look at it step by step, you are working on SEO when:
- You are researching keywords
- Then choose a specific keyword
- That keyword used to write content
that other people then read and share on Twitter, Facebook, their own blogs and other social media. According to Redevolution, Google displays web pages in search results based on the authority and relevance of the page to enrich the user’s experience.
How is authority and relevance measured?
Google determines the relevance of your landing page by analyzing its content based on a number of factors, including where and how often your particulars are used in that piece of content. Google measures authority by the number of hyperlinks pointing to this page and how reliable they are. On the web, you can compare links with votes. However, there is a difference. The winner of an election is only determined by votes, while your webpage ranking is not so much about how many links you have (quantity), but about their quality. It is important that your marketing team understands this.
Quality has been the number 1 determining factor in your ranking since the google panda and penguin update.
Understanding Copywriting
Copywriting is the art and science of creating content that prompts the reader/end user to buy the product, subscribe, test drive, or any other action that benefits you.
Who prompts the user to take action? That is the job of the copywriter. A copywriter is a professional who writes for advertisements, promotions and clients. An SEO copywriter does the same, but focused on online content.
A copywriter is someone who understands people, who knows what their audience likes and chooses the words that will appeal to them. The headline, words, sentences and paragraphs used in the content should convince people and prompt them to take action. An SEO copywriter also understands how Google handles certain words and phrases, especially long tail phrases.
If you are a blogger, freelance writer or online business entrepreneur, you can become a coveted copywriter when you perfect your creativity and writing skills.
If you want your online business to thrive and survive in this changing world of SEO, your job is to create useful content that is interesting, compelling, well optimized for search engines, and consistent in doing so. This is part of the user experience; Getting new content as soon as you claim it.
What is SEO copywriting?
SEO Copywriting has changed over the years as Google came out with more updates. If you want to write useful content that ranks high on Google’s rankings and at the same time drive customers to your online business, you need to be familiar with the parts of Google’s ranking algorithm
SEO copywriting is mainly about creating useful, engaging and valuable content that focuses on specific keywords so that other people will promote it without resistance on social media channels. This increases the authority and relevance of your content and increases the ranking with Google for the chosen keywords. So when you recommend something, Google sees it as relevant and you get better SEO content results.
SEO copywriting helps you focus on your customers and solve their specific problems with well-crafted content.
Certain parts of valuable content, such as timely and visually appealing content, that fall under the favor of copywriting. Implementing SEO strategies consistently in your content will naturally lead the content to the Google top 10 and increase your website traffic. However, there are certain things that will ensure that you rank high on Google and that your conversions go up. So before you start implementing the various parts of SEO copywriting, remember that there are things that need to be done before web page optimization.
These are the 6 parts of SEO copywriting that make up:
1. Speed of your website
A study by Akamai shows the following figures:
- 40% of online users will leave a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to fully load.
- 47% of end users expect a webpage to load in 2 seconds.
Loading speed has been an important factor for your ranking since 2010. If your website loading speed is longer than 2 seconds, which is the average speed for most websites, then you need to take steps to improve it. Even if your content is useful and interesting, readers will quickly leave the page if it takes too long to load. The user experience of your website is bad in this case.
How do you measure the loading speed of your website? You do that as follows:
Step 1: Use Pingdom’s website speed test
Step 2: Analyze the loading speed of your website. Then click on ‘History Tab’.
Step 3: Check your history. You want to find out the average loading speed of your website
2. Page Title are SEO title of your page
No matter how good your content is, if your title is not catchy, few people will click on it. Sin.
On average, people read just the title of an article five times more often than the entire text. So if you have a dollar to spend writing an article, you spend 80 cents writing the title.
With SEO copywriting it is therefore important that your title attracts attention and encourages people to click on it and read on. So, as you become a better writer, it’s important to pay attention to the things your readers will notice first, such as the title.
When you’re in Google’s top 10, it doesn’t matter if you’re number 1 or 4. As long as your title is click worthy and attractive, you will naturally draw visitors to your website. A successful SEO copywriter therefore generally writes the title first before he/she starts writing the text.
Note: The most successful titles are those that convey a particular message or idea. Titles with numbers score well, so if it makes sense in your title, it’s a good idea to add the stat. Titles with numbers in them are also more often shared on Facebook and Twitter.
Generate blog ideas: If you’re stuck with what to write about, you can use a web tool like Inbound now to generate ideas. There are also several tools that help write a click-and-share worthy title.
Note: If you want your entire title to be visible in search engine results, keep it under 65 characters. This also increases the number of clicks.
3. Your website content
Content itself is a central part of SEO copywriting. The main reason people search Google and other search engines is that they are looking for useful content. Search engines prefer newer SEO content, so it’s important that you update your website consistently.
If you want to write content that ranks well with Google, you should pay attention to keyword phrases. However, avoid stuffing your content with keywords or over-optimization. Ideally, you put the keywords in your title, but make sure that it still reads well.
The Google Panda 4.1. Update is made to penalize bad content, so that it does not end up too high in Google’s ranking. A blog post or article should generally contain at least 1000 words. However, it’s not just about length. Before you write SEO content, it is important that you understand the reader. Focus on the specific problem the reader is facing and try to solve it with your content – that is one of the goals of SEO and copywriting.
Any content you write should have a compelling introduction and at least one of your targeted keyword phrases. However, it is important to understand that modern SEO copywriting is about more than keyword targeting and placement. Today, the best approach is to write content that focuses on keyword intent. We will elaborate on this later.
4. Meta Description
Before writing and publishing content, it’s helpful to use meta descriptions to support search engines. Meta descriptions help search engines and search engine users understand what the subject of your content is and why your keywords and keyword phrases keep appearing in your content. SEO companies make a profit from this, because they realize this.
Google uses your page’s meta description as a snippet when people search for keywords that are relevant to your page. This snippet is what determines whether or not you get clicks, regardless of how high you appear in the search results. Ideally, the meta description is around 122 characters for mobile websites and around 155 for desktop.
The question that is of course central now is ‘How do I write a meta description that attracts people’s attention and that ranks well with Google?’
Step 1: Understanding keyword intent. Keyword intent is the reason you use these keywords. For example: Suppose you are a social media consultant and you want to attract customers for your business. In that case, your primary keyword might be ‘social media expert advice’.
When prospective customers type this keyword into google, they have a specific goal. They probably want a social media expert with advice on how to increase their online business. Your meta description must therefore be relevant.
Step 2: Once your article or blog post is written, you need to write your meta description. This is best done in one of two ways: In the first way, you start your meta description with a question. This indicates the purpose of your article. The second way is to name things that are obvious. It is important to remember that you do not necessarily have to name your keywords in your meta description, especially if it does not read well.
5. Keyword frequency of density
By keyword frequency we mean how often your chosen keyword appears on your web page. Keyword density, on the other hand, is concerned with how often your keyword appears on your web page in relation to other words. Both keyword frequency and keyword density are no longer as effective as they used to be, but are still an important part of SEO content. However, try to avoid making classic mistakes like keyword stuffing and excessive keyword insertion. A good trick to avoid this is to measure your keyword density. As long as it stays below 5.5% you are generally doing well. There are all kinds of online tools available to measure your keyword density.
6. Internal and external links
- Links are the building blocks of your web page. One of the things Google knows to be true is that there is always more information available. Links on your page indicate to Google that you are social and connected and that you have useful content that people can access from elsewhere. This can be your own content or content from another website. When you link to another website, you are acting in line with Google’s mission: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible. So it is definitely recommended to link well.
There are no standard rules for linking to other websites as well as internal linking. However, we do recommend the following:
- Link to relevant pages both on and off your website in your introduction;
- Link to content that goes deeper into your topic;
Link with text that fits within the content.
While it’s good to remember these things, you generally don’t have to worry about keyword density and page links. As long as you understand your target audience and produce the best content that solves your readers’ problems, these things will naturally work out.
However, there are a few more actions you can take to increase the chances of your web page showing up on relevant Google search results:
- Title tags: Knowing how to write a title tag for SEO is a good idea. The title is a meta HTML tag, sort of like the meta description we discussed earlier. It’s like the title of a book and is the very first thing that appears in Google’s search results. Google displays 50-60 characters of the title in their search results, so you need to think carefully about length. The best format to stick to is generally as follows:
- Primary Keyword- Secondary Keyword| Brand Name
- Heading tags: You have heading tags h1-h6. These heading tags ensure that your content is well structured for your readers
- Optimize your title: This is one of the most important things you can do to ensure that your title ranks in Google and attracts your target audience.
7. Write useful content for people
Words have power and lead to involvement. If you write valuable content, your target audience will continue to read. There is no alternative to well-written. The number of blogs that put new content online every day is increasing. However, you have to remember that posting duplicate content, content stuffed with keywords and low quality content is a very bad SEO strategy.
Recent research shows that even if your content is useful, three key components are still needed to increase traffic to your website:
- Optimized for many keywords for many types of searches.
- A reasonable number of confidential backlinks
- A brand new idea/topic
Search users’ intent: Keyword research is still necessary, but the most important part of any keyword is the purpose of the users. Before you can write good content that solves a particular problem, you need to understand what each keyword stands for. There are two types of keywords: Informational and commercial keywords.
- Informational keywords: The main reason people search with these words is because they are looking for useful information without having to pay for it. These types of keywords usually contain terms along the lines of ‘how do you do/should/make..’. People who use these types of keywords in their search terms usually just want answers, so don’t expect to be able to turn them into customers. Try to write content with these kinds of keywords that gives you brand awareness.
- Commercial keywords: These keywords show an intention to buy. They want solutions, and they want them fast. The kind of person who uses these kinds of keywords will most likely buy the product, or sign up for an email list that will eventually convert them into customers. When you write content around these types of keywords, the ultimate goal is to provide information about how you use the product and its benefits, among other things.
Should you focus on keywords? The answer is yes, Google still uses keywords to estimate what a web page is about. However, be careful and do not make the mistakes mentioned earlier.
Storytelling: As an SEO copywriter, storytelling is what sets you apart from other SEO copywriters. People just love good stories. If you can incorporate the story of your brand into your blog post, article or video, you will attract more attention. A good brand story is not only about yourself, but also about your target group. Only then will brand storytelling help improve your traffic, ranking and conversions.
Humour: Writing with humor keeps the reader’s attention. Your content doesn’t just have to be about solving a problem. It may also mean something to your readers. You can also use humor to lighten up a controversial or slightly uncomfortable topic. SEO copywiting should also entertain your readers.
Step #3: Keyword Research for Content Creation
More than 66% of all clicks go to top 3 search engine results. If you want to be included in this list, you need to know the ins and outs of keyword research. In modern SEO, long-tail keywords are the best idea. SEO is not complete without keyword research. This is how you determine the intent of your target audience and long tails can help with that.
Off-page optimization: In today’s digital marketing world, your audience determines how relevant and useful your content is. Google uses off-page factors to estimate the authority and value of your content. In general, you have no control over what happens outside of your site. You have no control over who links to your website and the quality of those websites linking to you. By using off-page SEO techniques you can build your brand online and increase traffic. Some ways to improve off-page SEO are:
Het bouwen van een gemeenschap door middel van social media
- Expanding your business
- Increase brand confidence through business review
- Link building
8. Copywriting- Getting People to Take Action
The very last part of the SEO puzzle is convincing your readers and provoking them to take action. Copywriting is all about selling a product, service or idea. Ultimately, it all starts with selling yourself.
Use bullet points: This way people can see what your content is about. About 3 to 4 things your readers can learn from the article is a good starting point for this.
Conclusion
There is a lot to learn in the field of SEO. If you apply the techniques in this article, you can get pretty far, but don’t hesitate to keep learning by, for example, following online courses or reading these kinds of articles! Do you think after reading this article I want to read more about SEO? Below
Below are three articles that will help you further:
- What is an SEO analysis?
- SEO benefits
- What is an SEO Specialist?
