Create Optimized (SEO) Content for Readers and Spiders

Search engine optimization (SEO) begins with the text or content on your website. However, many webmasters and site owners forget or ignore a key issue in this mad dash to attain top rankings in search engines (read Google).

Search engines do not buy products or subscribe to your newsletters. It is human readers that you want to attract and convert.

Yes, SEO performs the important task of putting your site in front of people who are looking for information that you are selling. However, after you’ve attracted the traffic, your content must now sound natural and appealing to human readers.

Think of a playground seesaw from your childhood. In other words, writing optimized content is a delicate balance between satisfying the secret algorithms of search engine spiders and convincing your readers to take a desired action.

In my opinion, it is best to write for your human audience first and let the search engines follow. How can you resolve this dichotomy?

Here are three steps to write your SEO content and still sound natural. (also see SEO Quick Tips).

Step One – Research keywords and phrases

Do your homework instead of guessing. You can use Google’s free Keyword Tool to get ideas on popular searches.

Don’t stop there, you also need to find your competition. Select a few keywords and phrases that are relevant to you and enter them in Google’s search field. Add quotes at the beginning and at the end like this “health and fitness” to find exact matches. The number of pages found is the supply or the competition that you are up against to rise in the rankings.

If you are so inclined, you can take your research up a notch by doing what is commonly referred to as Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). This post would become too long if I got into details of KEI but you can Google and find a ton of information on it.

If all this is too technical for you then sign up for a service like Wordtracker that will help you do comprehensive keyword research. (NOTE: that is an affiliate link).

Step Two – Write content for your readers

Visualize or form a mental picture of your ideal prospect and/or customer. Now, write your text that sounds as if you are addressing him/her directly . Make it conversational and effectively pre-sell them without sounding too salesy (topic of a future article).

Provide quality information that your readers will find useful and will also persuade them to take an action now – sign up for your newsletter, click on an affiliate link or visit your sales page etc.

Don’t worry about keywords or optimization right now, that will come in the next step. Edit your copy until you are satisfied that you’ve removed all unnecessary words and distractions.

Step Three – Optimize for search engines

Go back into your content from step 2 and start adding keywords and phrases where they seem natural. Don’t force fit anything for the sake of stuffing keywords.

Here’s an example of badly written SEO text:
“You can become a free affiliate banner user by registering for free affiliate banner programs that are run by a free affiliate banner network also known as a free affiliate banner network.” (source: The Copywriting Blog)

A better way to rewrite the above is:
“Join our free affiliate network program where you’ll find useful affiliate resources such as banners, solo emails and product reviews that you can use to market to your audience.”

Use variations of your keywords and phrases to make it sound even more natural and interesting.

Here are a few more tips for writing optimized copy:

• Add your keywords and phrases in the title tag of your pages (if possible, write a separate title for each page using different keywords)
  Examples:
  My home page title is — <title>DiY Marketing Coach – Practical, Purposeful and Actionable Do-it-Yourself Internet Marketing Guidance For Earning Money Online</title>
  A post on site traffic uses — <title>3 Things You Can Do Right Now to Get More Traffic | DiY Marketing Coach</title>
• Try to work in your keywords and phrases into your headline and subheads
  Example: What Is Search Engine Optimization?
• Avoid optimizing for more than two keywords per page
• Shoot for a keyword density of about 2 ~ 4% percentage i.e. repeat your keywords or phrases 2 to 4 times for every 100 words on the page.
• Use keywords in the first and last sentence of every paragraph and at least once more in the body (assuming your paragraphs are not one or two sentences long)
• If it makes sense and sounds natural, bold/italicize your keywords and use them in bulleted text
• Stick with White-Hat SEO tactics and avoid Black-Hat SEO tactics (See What Color Hat Should I Wear?)

Once you’ve completed your article, read it aloud to see if it still sounds natural to you. If possible, have someone else proof and critique your content before publishing it. That is one of the best ways to evaluate your content for human readability while satisfying search engine spiders.

Always remember to keep your audience in mind first and then the search engines – it is a strategy that will help you write optimized content that ranks and converts very well.