Writing for Search Engine Optimization

Posted In: SEO . By dens

Author: Danielle Branch

Writing content for search engine optimization is not difficult to do once you understand the basic rules. Use your HTML tags properly to point out the main ideas, use smaller paragraph lengths, and structure your content in a logical order.

HTML Tags

Search engines like order since they are machines. If we make things easier for them, they will reward us with higher rankings in the search engines. Using correct HTML tags will do just this for us.

Reserve H1 Tags for your main Title only

The size is way too big for a human reader to see more than once, and we have trained ourselves to see the titles larger anyway,

Use H2 or H3 tags for section headings

The human eye scans down the page to pick out the relevant information before reading the screen. If you tell them what the sections are about, they will be more inclined to continue reading. The search engines will also recognize these section headings as key phrases as well, so it is important to always use them.

Proper English

Remember in high school, your English teacher told you about intro paragraphs and conclusion paragraphs? Well, in case you slept through that part of class, let me refresh your memory, because your readers are expecting it.

Introductory paragraph

Here you will tell them what you are going to tell them in a few sentences. Just list the topics you will cover. Remember those section headings I mentioned earlier?

Body

Use 3 -4 sections and order them with your section headings, much like I have done in this article. Tell them your main information. It is ok if you happen to need more than one paragraph to cover your section, just remember to use section headings.

Conclusion

Tell them what you have already told them. This is much like your intro paragraph, except you wrap everything up.

Readability

Our eyes are like the Charlie Brown cartoons when we see long blocks of print. BLAH BLAH BLAH. We cannot focus and maintain our concentration on large groupings of text. Making smaller paragraphs will ease the readers eye, and will be more visually pleasing. Try using a 2-4 sentence paragraph as opposed to a full paragraph of 5-6.

Search engines and humans like similar things when reading your content. They like proper use of heading tags, they like ease of readability, and of course they love proper English practices. Making things easy to read for both the search engines and humans alike is the best way to raise your ranking higher in the search engines. Keep it simple, keep it orderly, and keep it readable.