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High-quality content is an essential part of SEO.

Not only does high-quality content look great on your website and inform users on what they can expect from your product or services but, when optimised, it can help to drastically improve your discoverability in search results too! Here is our step by step guide on how to write content for SEO.

 

Headings

When it comes to creating content, headings can be extremely useful. Headings are a great way of breaking up the text as they provide structure and can help to decipher information and make it easier to consume. Headings are also great for SEO.

Search engines take headings into account in order to gather context for your page. They can impact the findability and usability of your entire website, so it makes sense that you should optimise these too!

 

H1’s

H1’s are used to introduce your topic, just like a title. Therefore, you should try to include a keyword or phrase within this. When creating a H1, you should try to make sure that it’s between 4 and 60 characters in length.

 

H2’s

H2’s are similar to chapters of a book, as they cover the main points within your content. Where convenient, keywords can be used here too but try to avoid appearing spammy.

Any other heading sizes used after this will simply serve as additional sub-headings which can help to structure your content. It is important to remember that although they look the same,  using headings is very different to using bold text to demonstrate importance. You will not improve your chances of ranking or reap the rewards of optimised headings if you do not use the heading function when creating content. Search engines do not credit bold text!

 

Image Alt-Tags

An image alt tag is an HTML attribute applied to an image tag which provides a text alternative to a said image when appearing in search results. Not only is this a great way to describe images to visitors who may be sight-impaired or who may be unable to visually identify the image but image alt tags are also great for SEO.

In terms of SEO, image alt text simply offers you another opportunity to include and hopefully rank for your chosen keyword. When creating image alt text you should try to create a description which describes the image well (which will, in turn, improve user experience) and that includes the keyword you are targeting. You should also keep the description relatively short as most screen readers cut off at around 125 characters. The description should be short, snappy and (preferably) involve the keyword or phrase.

 

Internal Linking

Internal links are links which navigate from one page to another within the same domain. They are important for a few reasons: they improve the navigation of a website, it can help to spread link equity around the website, it can help to establish information and can also help users find other services and products more easily which could result in a conversion.

 

Keyword Research

Keyword research is an essential factor in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It refers to researching key terms and alternative terms which people will be entering into search engines, in order to achieve better rankings in search engine results. This plays a big part in your content, meta information, page titles, image tags etc.

Once an alternative/niche keyword is found, we can then expand on that and find similar keywords. Once keywords have been identified, we can pick and choose the most relevant keywords to use within your content in order to get these ranking.

By targeting search terms which are in line with your brand, you have a better chance of appearing before people who are more likely to engage with your website content and thus have a better chance of them converting them to signing up/making a purchase, whatever your goal may be.

 

Meta Information

Meta information refers to snippets of data which provide a search engine with more information about your web page. They are important to SEO because most search engines will pull your Meta Title and Meta Description to form the snippet of data when your pages are listed in organic search results.

 

Meta Titles

A meta title should tell people exactly what your page and/or content is about. This piece of meta information is important as it can have a huge impact on your search engine rankings and your click-through rate.

When creating a meta title you should try to keep things short and simple. To avoid your title being cut off in search engine results, you should keep the character count between 50 and 60 characters, with no more than 65 characters. To improve your chances of ranking, you should include your target keyword or phrase in the title, and include this towards the beginning if possible.

 

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions provide search engine results with a description about your web page, so it goes without saying that this should clearly describe what your page or content is about. Meta descriptions are a great way of finding out more information, so it is important to target your audience with an optimised description to improve your chances of ranking and increase your click-through rate.

Meta descriptions should aim to be around 160 characters, anything longer than this and your description will be cut off in search engine results. That being said, you should try to take advantage of the character count and include descriptive and compelling information about your page. You should try to include your target keyword or phrase in the description but do not overuse it or this will be flagged as spam!

These are just some of our top tips for creating quality, optimised content. By following these steps, you will be on your way to improved website health and increased SEO rankings in no time. But remember…practice makes perfect. They don’t call us experts for nothing.

To find out how our services or digital training days could work for you, get in touch today!

 

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