In this article, leading Seattle search engine optimization company, Verti Group International a.k.a. SEO Seattle® (VGISEO) shares tips and techniques for writing the best SEO content when trying to rank content on the first page of the most relevant search engine results.
Let’s begin with a detailed look at what much of the SEO community labels as one of the most critical SEO elements when supporting a web page getting displayed on first-page search results – the title tag. Title tags show on most search engine result pages as the blue bolded and clickable headlines displayed in each of the individual search results. Title tags are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing. Titles also give both users and search engine bots insight into the linked content. Simply, title tags are an important SEO element that supports the respective digital content displaying at the top of the most relevant first-page search results.
Once you have decided on a subject to write about, it is a good idea to conduct several of your own online searches for like content related to your topic while closely considering the most common words used within the majority of first-page ranking titles. When VGISEO conducted this exercise in support of developing an appropriate and search engine friendly title for this page hosting our SEO writing tips content, we found that both “SEO writing tips” and “How to write SEO content” were equally popular queries. The majority of users searching for meaningful and relevant content about writing the best SEO content were searching for tips and how to’s. The chances are good that the search query you used to find this content included one or more of the words we used in our final choice for the most relevant and search engine friendly title tag that supports the many search phrases that help to increase traffic from search engines.
The number of characters to use in an optimized title is also something you need to consider. While many search engines will display the first 60 to 70 characters of a title tag, VGISEO recommends that you try and limit your title to 55 characters. If needing to be more precise about how the title will display in the search results, we recommend conducting a search using the most relevant search query on Google or other targeted search engine and then counting the actual maximum number of characters displayed in the titles which can be found on the first page of the search results.
It is a good idea to also keep in mind that using fewer characters in a title tag is best. The more words you use in a title, the higher the risk you run of diluting the title’s main keywords. For example, “SEO Writing Tips – How to Write SEO Content” is better used than “Great SEO Writing Tips and How to Write Better SEO’ed Content.”
One more important share is that Google, the world’s largest and most used search engine, recommends branding your titles. That said, you will sometimes find including your brand in the title will result in using excessive characters beyond the VGISEO recommended limit of 55 characters. It becomes necessary at times to support the need for branding content, and it is best to brand as close to the very beginning of the associated page description. For example, we found it necessary to brand the content of this page by adding our brand, “Verti Group International a.k.a. SEO Seattle®” to the description tag. We simply did not have room to include our brand in the title and used the page description tag to display our brand and clearly provide authorship to the bots and users.
As a seasoned SEO company, we can assure you that the branding of your authored digital content has become an essential part of the content found ranking at the top of online search engines. This is better understood when considering the amount of “fake news” and incorrect information still being uploaded to the Internet. Authorship and branding should be given serious consideration and will help to provide confidence in your content by both bots and users.
One final consideration in developing relevant titles that convert.
Titles are best aligned with the most popular search phrases seen included in a majority of actual search queries. This will also help provide the correct title best supporting your content for users to consider and help important SEO elements such as the page’s bounce rate. One way of confirming whether your chosen topic is popular in search engines is by looking at the volume of indexed pages. For example, when using Google desktop, you will find the total pages indexed for a select query in search results at the very top left corner of the search results page. You will find something like, “About 91,300,000 results (0.52 seconds) “which is the number of results indexed for a select search query “How to write SEO content.” For the search query, “how to write SEO content” the number of pages indexed by Google was about 88,900,000, which clearly is a number linked to the popularity of this topic. One thing to keep in mind is that the higher the number, the harder it will be to find your content displayed as one of the 10 or fewer listings found on first-page search results.
We mentioned using the description tag as a secondary place to display your brand. For this reason, we think it necessary to share that the description tag when not needed for branding, is at times best-left blank. Not including a descriptions tag will allow search engines like Google to display a snippet of text from the linked content that it sees best matches the actual search query entered by a user. This is an SEO technique used by VGISEO and deserving consideration.
The next step in our path to better content optimization is designed to assure the inclusion of attributes found in the top-ranking links when searching your subject online. This includes the amount of content needed and the keywords and their densities you will want to include when writing the content. At VGISEO, we use what we refer to as “Writers Guides”. Writing guides help an author write content that is best aligned with what a select search engine displays on first-page search results.
First, you will want to take your title or a portion of it and conduct an online search using the search engine you want to rank. For this content article, we searched Google using the search phrase “How to write SEO content.” Next, we took the top five ranking URLs from the search results page and using a keyword density tool like the one provided by SEOBOOK considered the most prominently used words and phrases and their respective densities. Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword appears on a given webpage or within a piece of content as a ratio or percentage of the overall word count. Using the search query shared above, we found these URLs in the top five organic search results. www.titangrowth.com/blog/capitalize-on-content-10-techniques-for-seo-content-writing/, ahrefs.com/blog/seo-content/neilpatel.com/blog/seo-copywriting-how-to-write-content-for-people-and-optimize-for-google-2/, www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/01/17/seo-content-beginners-, guidebacklinko.com/hub/seo/seo-writing. Note, be careful not to include URLs from advertisements, pay per click, or the local pack.
It is especially important that the keyword density tool you use also provides a way to isolate and calculate only the body text of a page and not include consideration of menu text, footer text, code, etc. The SEOBOOK tool provides a tab that can be set to “body text,” as is displayed in the image below.
When inserting each of the five URLs into your choice of keyword density tools, it is time to consider the most common and prominent words used in the body text of each of the pages linked to the five URLs taken from the search results. You will also want to determine the exact densities of the most prominently used words and phrases. Here is what we found when completing this task for each of the five URLs.
The following includes all five densities for each of the most prominently used words and phrases and labeled and that we want to target when writing our content. Also included is the recommended density to use.
Words and phrases to include when writing the content about “How to write SEO content”:
Content (3.04-2.02-1.73-2.80-2.50) Recommend 2.50
SEO (1.70-.81-1.13-1.55-1.47) Recommend 1.50
SEO writing or SEO content (1.07-1.16-.20-1.90-1.57) Recommend 1.50
SEO writing tips (1.34-0-0-0) Recommend using at least one time.
It is also a good idea to include a second group of words and phrases so to add those words that were not found to be prominently used by the top five ranking pages, but that you would like to include in your content. For example, “SEO writing tips” were found to be used prominently on only one of the five pages of content, but we felt it important to include them. Here is our example of the second grouping of words and phrases to consider including.
ADDITIONAL EXACT WORD INCLUSIONS
SEO copywriting – Recommend 1x
SEO writing tips – Recommend 1x
What we have shared here are just a few of the most important steps we take at Verti Group International a.k.a. SEO Seattle® to assure that our SEO clients’ content will indeed increase the overall online visibility and traffic to our page. We hope you found this article both enlightening and useful in your quest to write better SEO content. Below are a few links to more information and content about writing SEO content.
SEO WRITING GUIDES – A top SEO product
Best SEO Tips for Today’s Digital Age
