When I sit down with clients to discuss the future of their website the number one thing I talk about is substance. Content is king, after all. It is one thing to have a pretty site, but in order for it to be effective it must be intuitive and quickly convey valuable information to its readers. But this is not necessarily a simple thing.
Why? Because in today’s site saturated world, content also has to be search engine friendly in order to be found. Problems arise because people and search engines do not hold the same viewpoint on good content. People look at it as a whole. Does this answer my questions? Does it make sense? Did I find the information I was looking for? Search engines look at the parts which make up the whole. Does the title contain primary keywords? Are there hyperlinks in the body copy? Does the keyword density fall within the recommended maximum of 5.5%? The same content has to follow two very different sets of rules in order to be effective. So how is this accomplished?
One of the best ways I have found to do this is to use a third party application that analyzes the content I will be posting. I write with people in mind, it analyzes the content for search engine optimization. Then, I make adjustments according to Dave, my editor and the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) analysis findings and voila, perfectly optimized content for both humans and machines! Previously, I have written about how to write blog articles, but in this article I’ll be focusing on optimizing for the search engines.
This is how it works; I add my content to the site and analyze it. Then the website gives me a score according to SEO Standards. The percentage will be green if it is good to go, yellow if it needs a few tweaks and red if it just needs work. See my examples to the left…
But the useful information does not stop there. Not only does it tell me if everything falls within the predefined acceptable parameters, but in if I need to make adjustments it gives me tips on what to do. After all, in the beginning it was a rare occasion that I hit the score I wanted on the first time around. Now that I am more familiar with this system, I write with these tips in mind.
One of the coolest features it does is to identify the primary and secondary keywords. If this analysis comes back and the main point I am writing about does not show up, I know my content will never be found under this category. In making adjustments it offers help on how to rearrange the content with these keywords, both in placement and frequency, so that I define the keywords instead of rolling the dice and gambling on the outcome.
Of course no SEO suite would be complete if it didn’t offer you alternate keywords to use in your articles. It is easy to write about vast topics like SEO, but it is hard to be found under this category because lots of experts write about it. So the Alternate Keyword tool gives you long tailed keywords relating to your topic. People are searching this way to narrow down the possible results of their searches, so adding related search terms in your content can help it do better on those searches.
Next, the software gives you related tags to add to your site. If you site is set up as a blog, using a tag based system will help you with your internal linking strategy. In the analyze it suggests the tags to use. The more content you have, the more related items and the more likely visitors will stick around and explore.
Lastly, the analysis gives you your SERP (search engine results page). This is what is displayed in the search engine when your site is listed. The SERP item is comprised of the first 72 characters of your title and the first 165 characters of your description. It is important to keep both your title and your page description to these character limits otherwise a … is replaced for the runoff weakening your ability to pull in readers. This also is a wonderful way to visualize how your content will be displayed in the search engines. It gives you a heads up if you need to make adjustments.
That is it, an easy build your site’s articles for SEO without losing the human factor.
If you are interested more information regarding optimizing your website, please contact us, we are happy to help get you on the road to a great web presence!
