How to write seo friendly content
Our friend Google is an important consideration for small and online business owners. However, too many ignore this powerful marketing opportunity, especially when it comes to how to write SEO friendly content, which can have devastating impacts on their bottom line.
When you get your SEO right, Google (and other search engines) essentially brings new potential customers to your front door. So the question is, how do we get SEO right?
First - I need to flag that SEO is no longer just about tags.
Yes, having meaningful tags is important however it is no longer the only actor to consider when it comes to your site's ranking. We can thank dubious content generators for that change.
You might be surprised to know that Google actually has over 200 factors it considers when presenting results in a search index.
Yep - 200!
Now, you are most welcome to dive down the rabbit hole of all 200, but what I am sharing today is where you can have the quickest wins without spending weeks buried in research.
Before we dive in I first need to introduce you to Google's relevancy scores.
I often describe relevancy as Google's little sister. Here is a very simplified overview of how little sister can impact search results.
A user opens up Google and searches "kimonos" for example.
There is a high chance that my fashion business, iland co, will return at the top of the list - if you fit a few key requirements determining the relevancy of my business to you the individual.
Now if you are searching for Kimonos in Europe, where I do not actively market my products currently nor communicate to them in my content, I won't appear on the first page of the results.
The simple reason is relevancy.
Google's little sister is filtering search results based on what Google knows about the user and their needs. This filter includes Geolocations, topics of interests, past search results, and lots more. All of this information is considered AND impacting search results.
From a user perspective, Google (and relevancy) are giving you what it perceives to be as the most helpful search results.
If you are searching for kimonos in Australia, there is a high chance you are looking for a local option. You are probably not interested in knowing about Kimono's in Sweden, so Google pushes those results way down the list and serves up the local results first.
So how does this impact your SEO?
In short – you need to create amazing content! The biggest impact on your rankings and relevancy is content. Great content (as decided by search bots and Google's algorithm) is determined by a number of key factors, including how to write SEO-friendly content.
So, are you ready to #slay on SEO?
Let's go!
My Top 3 Tips for Writing Great SEO Friendly Content
1. Nail the title!
Your content title remains the number 1 biggest impact on your content's rankings in search results. To truly understand how to write SEO friendly content, remember that your title is the first thing search bots scan, giving you the best chance to improve your rankings.
What makes up a Google SEO-friendly title? Keywords.
Including keywords in the title, and placing them as close to the start as possible, will improve your SEO.
Make sure your meta descriptions are also in place and well-formed. Although meta descriptions now have less of an impact on your overall rank, it’s still worth the time to set them up correctly.
If you're a WordPress user, Yoast makes this very easy, and I highly recommend installing it on your site ASAP.
2. Size matters
The length of your content does matter, but there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Google determines the ideal length based on several factors like industry, topic popularity, and credible sources.
When learning how to write SEO friendly content, my go-to guide is to research the length of content that’s already ranking well. I typically review 5 to 10 articles on a similar topic, looking at content length, keywords, and imagery (which also boosts SEO).
Is Google preferring shorter, more concise copy for this topic, or does it seem to favor long-form articles? A little research on what’s already working can go a long way when optimizing your content.
3. Content is still king!
Google is equipped to sort through the miles and miles of content on the web and determine what is good quality content—and what is not. This works in your favour and is designed to ignore or penalise those trying to trick the system.
One of the biggest lessons in how to write SEO friendly content is to avoid writing solely for keywords. Google can usually detect keyword stuffing and may ignore content that feels unnatural or manipulative.
So what is Google looking for?
Part of Google's suite of web trawling tools is a product called RankBrain. Originally released in 2015, RankBrain is designed to assess the comprehensiveness and usefulness of your content.
Basically, RankBrain is there to close the gaps.
For example: If I type “Autumn Fashion” into Google, RankBrain begins scanning the web alongside search bots, looking for high-quality content with helpful, related phrases—like “Autumn Fashion trends” or “Autumn Fashion shows.” Articles with this kind of comprehensive content will rank higher than those using just the single phrase.
RankBrain focuses on how complete and helpful your article is, working with other parts of Google’s algorithm to surface the most relevant and useful results.
For business owners, this is a huge opportunity. Learning how to write SEO friendly content allows you to create well-written, high-quality content that improves your search performance and attracts more potential customers—without needing to get into the technical side (though that certainly helps too!).
Bonus Tips
Before we wrap up there are two important bonus tips I want to share because although they are not content specific, they do have a big impact on your SEO rankings.
- Mobile friendliness of your site, and
- Page speed
Your site NEEDS to provide a good user-friendly experience on mobile - without exception.
If your site does not currently provide a good mobile experience then I encourage you to spend some time looking at how to improve this ASAP. Google is watching!
And when it comes to overall page speed - faster is always better!
Google expects all pages to load in 2 seconds or less and yes, this does have an impact on the rankings. Slow site performance = lower rankings.
Google wants users to have a great internet experience and will always push sites that have great content and super fast performance to the top of the results.
If you are unsure how your site is performing speed wise, you can speed test your page using Googles speed test tool here.
And if your site is running a little slow, look out for uncompressed images, CSS files or scripts. These are often the biggest culprits for slow page speeds.
Need help making sure your customers stay on your site once they arrive? Check out my courses.
Or, if you have questions, you can reach me via email at [email protected] or pop over to my Facebook page here.
