SEO Content Maximizes Search Engine Results

SEO content is anything written for Internet publication that has been structured to improve search engine placement. So is content written to suit search engines automatically bad? No, like anything written for publication, be it magazine or newspaper, such content is simply writing that meets the publisher’s requirements.

When writing SEO content you are consciously aiming at a target audience by including specific content so search engines deliver it where aimed. Achieving that result is not black magic or some esoteric practice only suitable for geeks. Anyone can consistently write effective SEO content by learning the essential elements and including them in their normal creative routine.

SEO Content Helps Search Engines

Authors are told to write for their audience. On the web writing for the audience includes creating content that search engines can interpret correctly. So, web authors need a basic knowledge of search engines to understand the elements of SEO content.

When Google, or any search engine, crawls a web page the essence of its purpose is to determine the page topic, which is much more than simple word counts. The engine examines the text, computes word and phrase counts and applies powerful lexical logic to find important interrelations.  Google says, “our technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word”. Google’s logic is private but reasonable assumptions can be made. Keyword placement or, as Google said, “the precise location” is significant and words that appear in prominent places are considered more important.

A hierarchy of prominence is generally assumed with titles being most important, then descriptions, next headings and finally body text. Placement also means words appearing earlier are more important than those later. So words appearing earlier in the title are more prominent, words earlier in the description more prominent and so on. There is disagreement as to whether fonts such as bold or italics add to prominence although Google’s official description says they consider fonts.

Google describes a perfect search engine “as something that, understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want”. Their objective in designing the search engine is to meet that goal not drive web authors crazy. The objective for SEO content should be to use keywords in a way that helps correctly identify the topic not to trick Google. It is ineffective for both the writer and Google if a page topic is “buying banana plants” but is interpreted as “plant stores”.

Build SEO Content on the Right Keywords

When writing about any topic an author has to decide where to start. For SEO content it is best to begin with keyword selection. Billions of pages compete for attention on the web so the right keyword choices are crucial.

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool may be used to help identify the right keywords. To use the tool select two or three words or phrases that seem most important to the topic and enter these into the tool. Then click “Get keyword ideas” for a list of related keywords. For each word searches per month for the current month and the average month are listed to the right. Clicking on the average month heading will arrange the list by the number of searches.

For example, enter “SEO” into the keyword tool and click “Get keywords ideas”. Clicking on the Average Month heading reports more than a  million searches a month on that term. Cool! Optimize on SEO and let the clicking begin! The problem with that tactic is that hundreds, possibly thousands, of pages compete for high volume words. Many of the competing pages have existed for a long time and have high ranking.  By selecting SEO as a keyword it may be impossible to get a high listing position. Instead, consider being a little more modest in ambition and look down the list. “SEO content” averages about four thousand searches a month. A lower volume word might be a better choice because of less competition. A listing on the first search page of a lower volume keyword will likely get more clicks than a listing on the fiftieth page of a high volume word.

When you select keywords limit the choices to three or four. It is difficult to effectively give weight to more words in the space of a web page without obvious stuffing. Pick the keywords that are most in harmony with your topic to allow the words to serve as a theme and flow naturally.

Write for Humans then Make It SEO Content

Other than selecting keywords, you do not need to change habits to write SEO content. You should write with the words in mind but avoid being so focused on them that effective writing suffers.

When the draft is complete you can analyze it by using Textalyser.net. Textalyser reports comprehensive information about complexity and readability which many writers find useful. For SEO purposes scroll down to tables for “Frequency and top words,” “2 word phrases frequency” and “3 word phrases frequency” and look at words and phrases with high counts. These are words that web crawlers are likely to identify as keywords.

A prominence score is also shown in the phrase tables. An algorithm analyzes word placement to compute this score. When you look at prominence ignore phrases listed with structural words such as is, the, or and so on. There are obvious deficiencies with Textalyser’s analysis of prominence when compared to Google’s description of placement since titles, descriptions and headings are not considered. But it does give a feel for what phrases are more prominent.

The chosen keywords should show high counts. The topic may have other common terms and writers tend to use favorite words and phrases which often result in other words with high counts. To improve the SEO content you should increase counts for keywords and decrease counts for any other high count words, “accidental” keywords. Adjust prominence the same way. However, because of the problems with Textalyser, if your keyword phrases are in the top ten of prominence that should be sufficient.

Special attention should be paid to the title and description. An eye catching title is nice. However, it is more vital that the title contains the most important keywords and conveys a sense of the topic. So, when in doubt choose plain and simple. If the publisher allows you to enter a brief description it should also include the keywords. The title and description typically will be used as the snippet shown in search results so consider the human perspective since good snippets lead to clicks.

When creating SEO be like Goldielocks and choose just right. Google is sensitive to purposeful keyword stuffing to improve page rank. A page stuffed with keywords may be penalized by Google and will be unsatisfying for readers.

In summary, you create SEO content with a simple process. First, use a keyword tool to select words that relate well to the topic and have a reasonable level of competition. With these keywords in mind, prepare a draft. Using Textalyser, review the draft for high count words and phrases. Next, increase appropriately counts for keywords and decrease counts for unimportant words.  Also increase keyword prominence by placing them early and using them in subheadings. Finally, create a clear title and description using the most important keywords. The result should be effective SEO content that reads naturally while enabling the search engine to “understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want”.

Final SEO Considerations

After optimization you can use TagCroud to test the text by copying it into the box, setting minimum frequency to three and using the English stoplist. Clicking visualize will show a pictorial representation that makes high count words bigger and bolder and low count words smaller and dimmer. If you have written SEO content successfully then targeted words will clearly stand out and other words will recede into the background.

Before the piece is published a good practice is to set it aside for an hour or even a day then read it aloud to make sure it flows naturally. Make any changes you need to eliminate any awkward wording. Sacrificing a little optimization to preserve good writing style is the better choice.

If the publisher allows tags to be entered then keywords should be used. Tags may affect keywords identified by search engines and help the publisher classify and promote the content.

After the web page is published you can check the actual web page using a tool such as Metamend’s Keyword Density Analyzer. This analyzer uses the live web page to produce a word cloud. Buttons that allow switching views between word density and prominence are the unique feature of this cloud. The word cloud verifies that the SEO content has carried through to the web and also show how efficient the web publisher is in displaying optimized writing.

If you practice writing SEO content it can become part of your normal writing routine. Good SEO techniques will help focus content and increase emphasis of the main theme while reducing distractions. A sharpened focus often results in a better article. The writing is always focused on readers but gently massaged to optimize for search engines.

Finally, be patient. Changes in web indexes take time and search engines give more weight to older pages. If you make content optimization a normal part of writing then, over time, your articles will perform better. You still write for people first but accommodate search engines to get maximum search engine results.

Corporate Information – Technology Overview, Google, Feb. 12, 2009