Evergreen Times

There’s no getting past it: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) still matters. But, much to the relief of writers, the nature of the beast has changed dramatically. 

I can still remember receiving long lists of very similar keywords, being told to implement a certain keyword density, and being instructed to structure work around keywords instead of what matters: information. It used to annoy me no end, and article writing often turned into a “word game” in which I had to somehow produce something readable while shoehorning keywords into awkward places. 

Times have changed, but I still find that some clients, usually DIYers with SEO hopes, are stuck in the dark ages of SEO. Hoping to get some content writing tips for better SEO? I’m with you! Here are some of the basics that you need to know.

Note: Content Matters, But It’s Just One Element of SEO

The first thing to know about SEO is that content is only part of the big picture. It’s still a very important part, but there are a great many things this article won’t discuss. For example, image SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO all matter. 

Without going into detail, the top guiding principle here, and in all forms of SEO, is offering a good user experience while making your site intelligible to search engines so that they can index it. If you’re serious about all this, I strongly recommend getting help from a reputable SEO expert. But for now, let’s return to written content and how you’ll go about producing work that stands a chance of ranking well. 

Use Keywords Strategically and Naturally

If you’re aiming for good search engine rankings, the first thing to do, before you develop any content whatsoever, is to develop a keyword and content strategy. With this in place, you can start looking at how to use keywords correctly. 

Keyword-stuffing, repeating the same keywords many times in an article, is likely to earn you search engine penalties. This means you’ll use your keywords sparingly and strategically. Top real estate for keywords in written content? Place them in:

• The title
• The first paragraph
• One or two H2 headers
• Two or three places in the body text per approximately 1K words
• The conclusion

Needless to say, there are times when you can’t use a keyword sparingly, especially when it’s a short phrase or a single, very descriptive term. For example, if you’re talking about buying a house in the UK, it’s a phrase that’s going to crop up several times, if only because that’s what the article is about. However, for style reasons if nothing else, do try to change it up a bit – synonyms can be a big help. 

Now to our second point: using your keywords “naturally.” Have you ever stumbled on awkward-sounding sentences in which you can clearly spot a targeted keyword? I’m sure you have! It’s shoddy workmanship and you shouldn’t allow yourself to become guilty of it. Remember that search engines are happy to ignore those short little words that link things together, and they also recognise synonyms. 

Need an example? You’ve discovered that you can rank well for “Goldfish owners, UK.” No problem: you can change that to “Goldfish owners in the UK.” But if you want it to look natural, you had better say something that’s unique to this group of people. “There are (X number) of goldfish owners in the UK,” is an example of this. If you can’t find a natural-looking and logical way to use a keyword, ditch it. 

Always Consider Search Intent

One of the best things about search engines is that they’re doing a pretty good job of matching search intent with search queries – and we can expect more improvements to come. Search engines “want” to give people relevant results when they enter a query. Although this primarily has relevance to keyword research, which we won’t discuss here, it also has a bearing on how you use keywords. 

As a writer, there have been times when I’ve queried instructions from SEO specialists because they didn’t consider search intent. It’s rare and usually happens when they’re in a rush, but if you pick up irrelevant phrases in lists of suggested keywords, don’t hesitate to ignore them. If you’re writing for a client, let them know what you’ve done and why you did it.

Search engines are getting better and better at filtering out irrelevant results, and if you start optimising for keywords that don’t match search intent, you’re going to confuse readers as well as algorithms. Expect a higher bounce rate and downgraded results on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Relevance matters. This type of “optimisation” will harm your SEO efforts. 

Give Great Information

Giving lots of useful information is one of the most important things you need to boost search engine rankings, but you will need to exercise caution. Word counts are only a very basic indicator of how much information your article contains. It’s entirely possible to use a lot of words without saying an awful lot, and I’m still encountering the “longer is better” school of thought. 

In my opinion, while you don’t want to be so succinct that your text loses the ability to engage readers, “SEO fluff” – making articles way longer than they need to be – isn’t likely to stand the test of time. 

As always, it’s worth remembering what search engines are for: helping people to find good information. They’re already pretty effective at evaluating content, and they’re only going to get better with time. Balance is everything. By all means, adopt a chatty tone if that matches your brand, but never pad articles with fluff just because you want to stretch the word count. 

Looking for examples? You’re sure to find plenty. Repeating the same information in different words over and over again is something you’ll frequently encounter. You’ll also see this in articles that go off-topic a lot. In my recent forays into tech support article writing, I’ve seen plenty of examples of this. 

Hoping to beat the competition thanks to the quality of your copy? Here are my top tips: 

• Try not to repeat information: There’s one exception here: sum up your body content in the introduction so that readers can decide if they want to read on for more detail. 

• Go in-depth: Didn’t you love the good old days when you could make what you do sound complex and provide no solutions other than contacting you? You’ll have to do better now. Give people the details. Don’t worry. You probably won’t lose business by telling people how you do things. You might even add to their value perception. 

• Get your facts straight: Search engines aren’t always good at fact-checking, but never assume readers are dumb. If they notice misinformation in any part of your work, they won’t trust the rest. That means they’ll bounce, and a high bounce rate signals to algorithms that your information wasn’t useful. 

Always Write For Readers

I’ll never forget this type of instruction: “You’re writing this for algorithms, we just need it to make some kind of sense in case a person reads it.” I can’t tell you how happy I am that I haven’t had this kind of brief in the last decade or so! That’s because people who know SEO also know that algorithms keep getting better at noticing what I term “SEO junk.” 

Lessons to learn? There’s only one. Write for readers. Even if some other “trick” works to boost your rankings, it’s likely to be a temporary effect. Consider the real audience. It consists of people, not crawlers and bots. 

Don’t Use AI: Or Use it at Your Peril

When AI first started making headlines, I said that search engines would soon be able to spot AI-generated text. Since none of it contains fresh ideas and some of it is hugely inaccurate, I predicted search engine penalties. And voila! Here we are, with confirmation that search engines can spot software-generated content. But is using AI going to hurt your rankings? Not necessarily – but with some caveats. 

Google says: “Using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies.” 

It notes that it has no real problem with AI-generated content, but then goes on to say that it must be “helpful and original” and that it should put people first. There are problems with AI fulfilling all of these criteria – at least for now. 

That’s followed by the usual blurb about using AI as a writing tool – one which I absolutely cannot endorse. Working as an editor for AI-generated writing is even more time-consuming than coming up with original work. I know, because I’ve tried it. 

Are there exceptions? Possibly. I can see AI doing entry-level stuff like writing a serviceable (though not particularly engaging) product description if fed the right facts. Will it be right for your SEO-optimised yet reader-focussed content? Unless your subject matter is very simplistic, very likely not. Finally, I’m not at all sure it can get the tone of voice (TOV) just right, and that’s important if you’re serious about your brand. 

Quality Matters, But Do You Have the Time?

As you can see, there’s a lot to be considered when it comes to writing SEO-optimised content that doesn’t screech “spam” when search engines get to indexing it. Your ultimate aim is to use SEO techniques in such a way that they benefit people who hope to find information like yours. Now, more than ever, there’s no getting around it: good SEO is only going to work on good content. 

If what you’ve read so far makes you think that crafting your own content is going to be a lot of hard work, you’re perfectly right. Hiring a freelance writer to help you could be the solution. Just remember that the work isn’t as easy as it looks. Use my tips to help you make the right choices – and if you enjoyed this article, feel free to contact me.