SEO, or search engine optimization, is a big part of digital marketing. It is also one of the major growth drivers, as 68% of online purchases start on search engines. Thus, SEO is still a big part of business growth and revenue.
SEO is a process for improving site visibility on search engines. I started my journey into digital marketing with SEO a little under a decade ago. Over the years, I have built an agency that provides high-quality digital solutions.
Hi, I am Shovon Joarder, a digital marketing consultant who has been operating in the space for some time now. If you are reading this article because you want to know about SEO-optimized content, you're in the perfect place.
In this article, I will discuss a good SEO score, the importance of keywords in SEO, and how to write blogs for search engine marketing.
This all-encompassing guide on SEO writing for beginners will help you write killer content that performs well on search engines. So, without any further delay, let's start this guide!
What Is SEO, And What's A Good SEO Score?
SEO and marketing go hand in hand. Brands want to be discovered online, and SEO ensures that companies and other digital entities get found easily. It is one of the primary traffic drivers and works with other marketing components to establish a brand.
SEO's primary job is to help digital entities rank high, allowing for greater visibility, which usually has a massive impact on a brand's bottom line.
SEO is dependent on digital content as it's the indicator that shows search engines that a specific brand has what the user is looking for.
People can now measure how well a site or content has been SEO optimized using tools and SEO indicators formulated into an SEO score. If you are wondering what an SEO score is, read on, because I will tell you in the following!
What Is An SEO Score?
Simply put, an SEO score measures a site's technical aspects and user-facing elements to evaluate how much it contributes to SEO. The scores are up to 100, impacting four areas of crawlability ranking performance. Here are the four key areas it affects:
Content,
Technical,
User experience,
and Mobile
A high score means SEO optimization is good, while a low score means it's not up to standard. While SEO scores aren't considered when search engines rank or index a site.
However, it is still a good measuring tool to determine whether a site was properly SEO optimized, impacting its ranking. So now that you know what an SEO score is, let's explore what a good SEO score is!
What Is A Good SEO Score?
I believe a score of between 80-100 is a good SEO score. Scoring within this range ensures that sites were made in a way that meets top-quality standards in all four ranking factors in SEO.
Now, I've mentioned the SEO scoring factors a few times already, so let's check what you need to do to ensure all the elements are fully SEO optimized!
What Are SEO Scoring Factors?
As I mentioned above, SEO scoring factors determine your SEO score. There are four scoring factors, and I will tell you what you need to check in each aspect to ensure a high score!
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the most vital aspect of SEO. It ensures how well a site can be accessed, crawled, and indexed. If a site has terrible technical SEO, it won't rank high even if you have killer content, great UI, and the perfect mobile usability.
Bad technical SEO massively hampers organic site traffic. That's why checking a website's SEO score is a vital aspect of technical SEO.
When optimizing technical SEO, you need to look at a few factors. Here is a list of things that I ensure to make a client's site get an excellent technical SEO score:
URL structures that are search engine friendly.
Proper site structure.
Good web page loading speed.
Fast server response time
Good Indexability score
No broken links
Content
Content is the glue that holds everything together, and ensuring all content is SEO optimized ensures guaranteed success. All search engines have one job: to provide suitable options for user queries.
So, the algorithms look at content utilizing on-page SEO, page structure, and whether or not the user found what they were looking for, among other ranking factors.
It goes without saying that good SEO-optimized content goes a long way to increase your brand's visibility and add to your bottom line. Here are some of the things you should do when optimizing content for SEO:
Meta titles and descriptions for the entire site
Reducing or ensuring there are no broken internal links
Eliminating any duplicate content on the site
Ensuring other on-page SEO factors are completed, like heading tags, keywords in content, and image optimization.
Improving user metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and average pages per session
UX
UX, or user experience, is a low-priority SEO scoring factor. However, search engines consider it when ranking websites.
Ensuring your site has a good user experience will go a long way toward ranking high and driving traffic. Here are some of the things you can do when looking to improve your site's user experience:
Make sure the images load fast and are retrievable
Decluttered navigation (not too many links)
Ensuring the user can go to what they want within three clicks
Mobile Responsive
With 4.57 billion mobile phone users and 59.72% of all internet traffic coming from mobile devices, it's no surprise that search engines like Google are using mobile-first indexing for site content.
So making sure your content is mobile-friendly is the first step to ranking high for the intended queries. Now, you can avoid all that by ensuring a few things like:
Integrating a responsive design
Make sure the site is touchscreen-compatible
Ensuring page load speed is fast across all devices
So now that you know everything you need to do to ensure SEO optimization, it's time we move on to writing blogs and articles for search engine marketing and optimization.
In the following, I will give you some easy-to-do SEO writing tips for beginners and provide insights on the mistakes you should avoid. So let's check them out!
Common Beginner Mistakes When Writing SEO-Optimized Content
If you are new to content writing and don't know much about optimizing your content for SEO, you may have made one of these mistakes. Don't worry; it's pretty common. I made the same mistakes when I was new.
I learned the hard way so that you don't have to. Here are some common beginner mistakes you should avoid when writing SEO-optimized content!
Choosing The Wrong Keywords
While they are called "keywords," the best keywords are actually more like sentences. Long-tail keywords are always the best ones to choose when researching keywords. Try choosing keywords with 3-5 words that have a high volume and little competition.
The importance of long-tail keywords for SEO is vast, and selecting short keywords with high competition usually hurts your content performance.
Keyword Stuffing
There can be too much of a good thing. While keywords are essential for optimizing content for SEO, stuffing the page or content with keywords will hamper your growth.
Search engines hate being cheated, and Google even penalizes sites that it thinks are stuffing keywords. You can use tools to determine whether your content has a healthy keyword density.
Copied Content
While using articles as resources is good when creating content, duplicating content and publishing them on your site isn't. Search engines look for original content; however, they penalize duplicate content. Also, new copyright laws can even be a legal issue in some countries.
No Meta Title Tags & Descriptions
Search engine crawlers need to understand the content and page; title tags and meta descriptions help with that. Therefore, ensure you use strategic keywords within the title tags and meta descriptions to assist the crawlers.
No Image Alt Tags
Search engines love image alt tags. These are there to help blind readers listen to what the image is about over their speaker. So don't forget to use image alt tags when optimizing your content for SEO.
Bad Link Building Practices
Google looks for authenticity and accurate information. One of the cornerstones of ranking high with content is providing sources and additional resources to help readers understand the topic entirely.
Interlinking between pages to share the SEO juice between contents is a good practice. Also, remember to create backlinks for your content and don't just buy them.
Black hat techniques provide good short-term numbers but no growth. Plus, your site will most probably be penalized for using these techniques.
So now that you know what mistakes to avoid, let's get to the good stuff. Next, I will list some impactful SEO writing tips for beginners.
Highly Effective SEO Writing Tips For Beginners
So now let's talk about what you are here for. If you are new to writing SEO-optimized content and cannot hire a professional, don't worry. You can do it yourself. Here are some simple tips!
Find & Focus On The Right Audience
The first step to writing perfect SEO-friendly copy is to find the right audience for your content. A search engine's job is to provide users with relevant content, so finding out what your audience wants and catering to their needs is the best way to ensure success.
Pay Attention To The Structure
It's not good enough for the content to be relevant. It also has to be structured so that people and search engine bots can actually read it.
Make sure to break down big paragraphs into smaller readable ones. Remember, people will be reading your content on their devices. They will move on to the next if they have difficulty reading it.
Content-Length
Search engines love long-form content. Whether it's videos or blogs, long-form content performs well on SERPs. In one study, SerpIQ found that the top 10 content on Google all had over 2000 words.
However, that study is old. You don't need to produce 2000+ words regularly to rank high in Google SERPs. Instead, according to Google, you need to provide value to your readers. It can be 120 words 12000 words, or any number of words. Your content will rank high if you provide value to readers.
When it comes to length, a good barometer is to ensure it's over a thousand. However, if you can provide value under a thousand, then all the power to you will rank high.
Finding Your Voice
This is about understanding the perspective you are offering your reader and being consistent. It factors into readability, so ensure you provide the readers with an authentic and consistent voice.
Use The Right Format
Formatting the content also plays a vital role in your SEO score. Making the content easier for the reader to navigate works in your favor.
You can use headlines, bullet points, tables, and many other methods to engage readers. Ensure you also utilize other visual elements within your articles to aid your efforts.
On Your Way
So, that concludes my take on writing SEO-friendly content for beginners. I have tried to address everything to ensure your content ranks high on SERPs.
I broke down every aspect of the relationship between SEO and content. Hopefully, you will be able to create content that dominates SERPs now.
First, however, make sure your website is up to scratch. There are plenty of free tools out there to check your website. If you find it isn't up to scratch, make sure you tend to it.
Now, if you feel I have missed covering something, whether it's about the importance of keywords, search engine marketing, or something else entirely, reach out to me.
You can schedule a meeting, drop your questions in the comments below, or hit me up on my socials, and we will sort it out together.
That's all I have for you today. I will come back with something new soon. Until then, see you!
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