Transcript:

One of the biggest balancing acts as a copywriter or content marketer is making sure that your content goes down well with everyone – and by everyone, I mean humans and robots. 

OK, maybe not quite robots, but search engine bots are important little beings to please if you want your content to rank in search engines..

Sucking up to bots and forgetting about the real people reading your work isn’t going to get you very far. 

So let me take you through five tips for writing content that keeps SEO in mind, all without alienating us mere mortals!

Get your typing fingers ready, because Wednesdays are about to get GIANT. 

Hey, my name is Liz and welcome to Giant Wednesday, the only place to be to discover the wonderful world of digital marketing. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and post your comments below.

So, writing for SEO comes with its challenges – largely that you have to make sure that you’re walking the fine line between doing all that you can to appeal to ranking algorithms, and actually exciting real life humans

In a perfect world, bots and humans live harmoniously – both supporting each other and enjoying content simultaneously.

But that perfect balance requires you, as the brains behind the keyboard, to keep some things in mind when you’re crafting your next digital masterpiece. 

So, without further ado, here are my five top tips to make that balancing act a little easier: 

Number 1 – Keywords

Keywords are arguably one of the most important factors when it comes to writing top quality, SEO-rich content.

Make sure you’ve done some keyword research that’s relevant to the subject of the page you are writing, and use this to scatter in different variations of keyword.

Make sure you don’t overstuff, though – search engines have wised-up, and you can now face penalties if you get caught cramming a page full of irrelevant keywords, so keep it natural. 

Number 2 – Scannability

As we all know, online readers have much shorter attention spans, mainly due to the overwhelming amount of content and data that we have access to online 24/7.

To help ensure that people don’t lose interest when they’re reading your content, optimise the layout of the page – break text into smaller chunks, use subheadings to let people know what they can expect from each section (bonus points if you can get a keyword in there), and include visuals wherever possible. 

Number 3 – Links 

Links are a ranking factor that don’t look set to budge for a while, so if you want your content to rank – links are your friend.

Check out previous GIANT Wednesday where we look into the benefits of buying or building your own links.

Not only do internal and external links help to give search engines an idea of the breadth of content on your site, but they also help to point human readers in the direction of more content that they might find useful – whether it’s a product page, a whitepaper on a specific topic, or instructions for how they can get in touch. 

Number 4 – Intent

This may sound like a vague one, and I’m not expecting you to start whipping out your crystal ball (easy) , but thinking about a user’s intent when they landed on your page is a really handy way to determine if you’re providing useful information.

Before you publish, think about what a person searched for to get to you, or what they wanted to know – have you fulfilled that requirement? If not, it might be time to tweak. (cutaway some twerking) No, I did say Tweak. 

Number 5 – CTAs

Call-to-actions, or CTAs , are one of the most crucial tools when it comes to using content to help you achieve your business goals.

Make sure your content includes CTAs that push people towards taking the action you desire – whether it’s getting in touch, requesting a demo, or signing up for a newsletter.

Don’t forget to include verbs and emotive, action-inspiring language to encourage people to do what you need them to do. 

So, those were our 5 top things to consider when it comes to writing content that’s SEO- focused, while still being loved by humans. 

There are undoubtedly other things to take on board during the content writing process, such as the format you’ll use, the word count, or the images that could accompany your wordy goodness, but these 5 should help to ensure that you’re on the right track from the get-go. 

What are your top tips for writing content that keep both bots and humans happy? Let us know if we’ve missed anything in the comments below.

Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next week for another GIANT Wednesday.