Top 10 SEO Content Writing Rules
- Content is everything – Well written, high-quality content will provide you with more SEO benefits than you can imagine. Since the launch of Google’s Panda, websites with trustworthy, original, and high-quality content are rewarded with higher search engine rankings and websites with unspecific, crummy, low-quality content are punished with lower search engine rankings.
- Have fun, but stay on topic – Let your readers know who you are by adding some personality to your writing. Writing should always be fun and engaging for the writer and the reader. However, always keep in mind that you must stay on topic. Avoid unrelated tangents and unnecessary phrases that would hinder the message you wish to convey.
- Write Compelling Headlines – Most readers will read the title of an article before even considering to read the article. A compelling headline will attract readers and will increase that article’s exposure to the interweb.
- Ideal Keyword Density – Content with significant and relevant keywords will have increased exposured to the interweb. Keywords play a major role in search engine optimization. However, pack in too many keywords and Google’s Penguin will penalize your website for over-optimization. The ideal keyword density is 2-3% per article, so an article with 100 words should have two to three keywords and no more.
- Add Keywords to Bio – Keywords in biographical information will help optimize your content and is a great opportunity to enhance your credentials. However, remember to use relevant keywords or you will risk damaging your credentials.
- Avoid Stacking Keywords – The ideal keyword density is 2-3% per article, but it is also extremely important that you spread these keywords evenly throughout the content. By doing this, the content will look more organic.
- Use meta-description – The meta-description is a 150 character snippet of your content. The meta-description provides excellent SEO benefits if done correctly. Include keywords into the meta-description so that Google will easily recognize your content and increase its ranking. This is the text that appears in search results.
- Write and Tag Hierarchically – Google’s Panda is on the lookout to reward high-quality content and to punish low-quality content. It is very important that your content is professionally written and structured. Use h1 tags for titles, h2 for subtitles, etc.
- Be Original – Search engines will know if the content on your website was fresh and original or copied and pasted. Never pirate any content from existing sources because this will damage your website’s reputation. Even the “copy and paste” of your own content is a very poor SEO decision.
- Choose Relevant Images – The topic of your content should have a relevant image. Misleading images will damage your website’s reputation as Google’s Penguin has the capacity to recognize this.
