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Does SEO content writing improve your search engine rankings?

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How is SEO content writing different from regular content writing? Does it matter that you pay attention to how you are arranging content on your web pages and blog posts in order to improve your search engine rankings? Right now it does, in the future, things may improve and perhaps the search engines will be able to rank URLs according to their actual value rather than the words being used.

The fundamental challenge of content writing, especially on the Internet, is, striking a balance between meaningfulness of the content and SEO. Frankly, there is no escape from paying attention to the way search engines interpret your content if search engine traffic matters to you. Whatever you are writing, eventually, it’s the algorithms that decide for which keywords and key phrases – whether you’re trying to target shorter phrases or longtail keywords – your content is ranked, or not ranked.

These days I am using ScribeSEO to revamp all the content on my website as well as blog. Although I am an experienced content writer, and I know a thing or two about writing content for SEO, sometimes it becomes difficult to keep track of the language you are using while writing content. It doesn’t happen all the time, but once you start analyzing your content using specialized tools, interesting things get revealed.

For instance, one of my pages, despite different tries, was optimized for “your content” despite the fact that I was targeting for “content writer”. Who would, and how many, would search for something like “your content”? The language that I had used, seems to have misled the ScribeSEO analysis software.

No, I’m not saying that you should get too much bogged down by what a particular SEO tool advises (or for that matter, an SEO expert) you to do in order to improve your search engine rankings. Nothing can surpass your own judgment and analysis. Of course when you need to do lots of content writing one or another tool comes handy, but eventually it is your own way of writing that can help you in terms of SEO.

Are SEO and content writing interrelated

It depends. Pure SEO doesn’t mean good conversion rate and effective content writing doesn’t always mean higher search engine rankings. That is why I said in the beginning, an experienced content writer tries to strike the perfect balance. When I’m working for my clients, I know that search engine traffic for them is as important as, if not more, their conversion rate. If there is no traffic, or very little traffic, there aren’t many people to do business with. Conversely, if the content doesn’t convert, no matter how much traffic you get from search engines, it hardly matters.

How do you make sure your content writing caters both to the search engines and the human visitors?

It’s very easy to do once you decide to write what really matters rather than being manipulative. SEO content writing actually depends on writing content that is totally user-friendly. There are primarily 5 things you need to take care of

  • What language does the target audience use vis-à-vis the product or service you are writing about
  • How focused you are going to remain on the topic of that particular page or blog post
  • What are the key words or phrases people use on search engines while trying to find what you are going to write about
  • Use those keywords and key phrases judicially while creating content
  • Use those keywords and key phrases at prominent locations such as the first paragraph, the title tag, the description, headings and subheadings and bulleted points

The language is important because this is the same language people use while talking about your product or service, whether they’re trying to search for it on Google or talking about it over there social networking profiles. The problem with SEO content writing is that it has a sort of, bad reputation. People relate it to keyword stuffing. It actually means writing content that search engines think the users will appreciate and like.

It doesn’t always have to involve your core topics. There may be some interesting news, or even political news that directly or indirectly affects your business or the way your prospective customers and clients do business with you. SEO content writing can involve sharing your thoughts with your readers and somehow relating them to your own business.

Remember that these days search engines, especially Google, are very touchy about the overuse of keywords. So don’t use them if there is no need to use them. That is why you need to vertically focus on the topic of the page you are writing the content for, so that you can naturally use those keywords and key phrases.

So should SEO be in your mind while writing content? It should be, even if getting good rankings isn’t one of your priorities. Good SEO practices while writing content automatically make your content more focused, subject-specific and easier to read. Search engines want to index and rank content that they think is useful to their users. By following good SEO practices while writing content, you make it more user-friendly.

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Can your SEO content writer improve your search engine rankings

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Your search engine rankings definitely depend on the sort of content you have on your website/blog and also the quantity if you face tough competition. Your content conveys to the search engine algorithms exactly what information your website contains. Than the search engine algorithms use their own logic to rank your content according to the keywords and search terms used by their respective users. On a basic level a search engine like Google.com ranks your pages according to

  • The quality of your content
  • The quantity of quality content
  • The occurrence of keywords and relevant phrases
  • The usability of your website
  • The number of “trusted” websites linking to your website

The importance of an SEO content writer

As far as an SEO content writer goes, his or her job is not only producing great content for your website but also arranging the text in such a manner that it is easier for search engine crawlers to crawl it, index it and then supply that information back to the search engine servers. There is a thin line that divides quality/qualified content and spammy content. Even when you think that you have got great content going for your website (most of us don’t intentionally want to publish spammy content) you might end up having suspicious content just because your SEO content writer doesn’t actually know how to create SEO content.

That is why it is very important to work with a content writer who exactly knows what he or she is doing and also has a performance record to prove that. Merely having an ability to use keywords again and again doesn’t make one an SEO content writer. He or she should know that search engine algorithms can also read between the lines.

Can your SEO content writer improve your search engine rankings?

Of course your SEO content writer can improve your search engine rankings because after all your search engine rankings are all about the content you have. Frankly content can exist in many forms and textual content (where a content writer gets involved) is just one of them. Content on your website can exist in the form of video, audio, presentation slides and images and almost all major search engines have separate engines dealing with them. But if you want to be found for written/textual content then your SEO content writer can make a big difference.

An SEO expert is totally different from a content writer. An SEO expert can help you improve your search engine rankings but he or she cannot help you improve your conversion rate. Your conversion rate can only be improved by compelling content: content that informs as well as convinces.

SEO experts have their own importance and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t hire SEO experts to improve your search engine rankings, but given a choice between hiring an SEO expert and hiring an SEO content writer I will always suggest you to go for an SEO content writer. This is not because I myself am a content writer and hence I’m biased towards them, it’s just that if you are hiring an SEO expert at the cost of an SEO content writer then you aren’t achieving much (it’s another matter if you already have high-quality compelling content but it’s not faring well on search engines – that again indirectly means that it is not high-quality content, but anyway, I digress).

With an SEO content writer – provided he or she really knows his or her stuff – you kill two birds with one stone (I’m not in favor of killing birds, by the way). You get a content writer that produces high-quality content and consequently improves your conversion rate, and additionally, he or she also gets the right people to your website from search engines and other online sources.

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What impact will Google Instant have on your organic search engine results

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If you keep a tab on the latest Internet trends you must have noticed the hoopla surrounding the new feature Google introduced a couple of days ago. It is called Google Instant. Now when you search on Google the search results are updated as you type in your query. You no longer need to click the search button (although eventually you can click). Even as you type in individual alphabets the search results are updated according to the search string you have entered so far.

Many website owners are apprehensive about this new feature and they fear that it is going to disturb their search engine rankings. Is it really going to happen?

According to Google the latest feature does not affect your search engine rankings, it simply makes it easier for its users to find the information they are looking for by instantly showing the results. This will save people lots of time because they won’t have to enter the entire string and then click the search button.

Search engines after all are more concern for the convenience of their users rather than worrying about the nightmares they unleash upon web masters, bloggers and search engine marketers.

Since Google Instant has no effect on your search engine rankings you shouldn’t worry about that. It may change though, the way people process the information they obtain out of the search. Since they no longer have to type in the complete query they may never end up searching the keywords you might be aiming for. Suppose you have optimized a particular web page for “sizzling seekh kebabs instantly delivered”. You rank at the top for this expression and lap up most of the traffic due to this. But through Google Instant your prospective customers may get distracted while they are typing “sizzling see” or even something shorter.

Similarly if you rank well for “freelance writer in L.A.” you may lose some of your visitors if they find something useful while typing just “freelance writer”. What does this mean?

You will definitely need to appear faster and preferably among the first 5 search results for your important keywords and search phrases. You will need lots of content not only on your own website but also on other websites so that you have enough presence to cover most keyword combinations and consequently appear faster on the search engine result pages.

This new development may also work to your advantage without taking extra steps. Due to immediate processing lots of results will be highlighted that were not previously been shown due to longer queries.

Should you do something? Ideally you should always be doing something in order to remain ahead of the competition: there is so much to be done in terms of staying connected through social media and networking websites, publishing your blog regularly and continuously trying to improve your search engine rankings, irrespective of what features Google or some other search engines introduce. Other than that, if you are not doing much it means you are anyway not proactively promoting your business and hence you should wait and watch. Carefully observe the traffic you are getting and how it is impacting your business. If you are getting more business, well and good. If it hasn’t made much of a difference then too it is good. If it is having an adverse effect then you must take some steps, for instance:

  • Evaluate your website for SEO problems
  • Analyze your present conversion rate
  • Mmake note of what sort of content you have on your website and how it can be improved
  • Start exploring other sources of traffic such as submitting your articles to article directories, websites and blogs
  • Enhance your presence on social media and social networking websites
  • Generate more content on your area of interest and business
  • Try to improve your current rankings
  • Make a list of alternative keywords that can fetch you traffic
  • Stay in touch with your existing customers and clients

Now, I’m not saying that you should follow these steps just because Google has changed the way it displays search results; they should anyway be followed. They will certainly help if Google Instant has affected your search engine traffic, at least from Google.

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Does SEO content writing really matter or is it just a fad?

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You must have noticed that I provide SEO content writing as a separate service, as in, I provide business content writing services and I also provide SEO content writing services beside other such services. But on many websites and blogs you must have come across people saying that there is no such thing as “SEO content writing” and the term is used to sound more esoteric, confuse the clients, and ultimately, charge more for basically nothing.

More or less I do agree with this notion. I believe there is just good content and bad content and good content always improves your search engine rankings. So why provide SEO content writing as a separate service?

After everything is said and done it takes extra effort to write keeping both search engines and humans in mind. Whether you agree or not search engines are constantly looking for content for the appropriate keywords and such terms. It doesn’t matter much if you’re selling something uncommon. But if you are promoting a service or a commodity that faces lots of competition, and if it matters to your business how much search engine traffic your website gets you have to organize your text in such a manner that all major search engine crawlers can crawl you are website, index your content and rank your links according to the keywords and search phrases you have used.

Since the competition is fierce you have to be very particular about the way you write and arrange your content and to an untrained person this might be quite difficult. Writing is an interactive activity and you cannot quickly train yourself to write in a certain manner. You can easily write a story or product or service descriptions but it takes training and experience to create text that is received well by the search engines as well as your prospective customers and clients. the skill has to be ingrained into your subconscious.

This is why it is better to hire someone who is comfortable at SEO content writing rather than you throwing darts in the darkness just to find out where they hit. Of course you can do that if you want to learn how to do it but if this is not your business it is simply a waste of time. In order to save a few hundred dollars you might end up spending time worth thousands of dollars.

Again, many people confuse SEO content writing with simply inserting keywords and key phrases into the text being written. Sometimes they overdo it (inviting penalty, unknowingly, from search engines) and sometimes the under do it, getting no relevance at all. Even while using your keywords and search expressions you need to sound as natural as possible. You need to have a compelling voice. Your writing should be able to convince your visitors because simply getting traffic doesn’t really do you much good if people leave your website within a few seconds because you’re writing cannot engage them.

There is another aspect of SEO content writing: it forces you to focus on a specific topic. For instance if you’re writing a page on “small-business web designing services” you need to mention this particular phrase in order to make sure the visitors understand what you’re trying to convey. It needn’t appear in every paragraph but it should appear wherever it is necessary. This will keep you focused on this particular topic. You may be providing web designing services for different types of businesses but you will write this specific page only for those people who are looking for small business web designing services. The same goes for any other field, let us say for instance, SEO content writing. If you are talking about your SEO content writing services you will be explaining what sort of SEO content writing services you provide and what are the advantages of hiring you for such services. Ultimately, this focus increases your keyword relevance.

So yes, SEO content writing does matter if you are really concerned about getting targeted search engine traffic without affecting your conversion rate.

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This entry was posted in Content Writing, SEO and tagged search engine content writing, , , writing content for search engines, writing content for seo on by Amrit Hallan.

SEO Content writing actually improves your search engine rankings

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SEO content as an expression has been gaining traction gradually, as more and more organizations and content creators realize that it doesn’t merely mean putting keywords here and there and then fretting over their density compared to the overall content. What do millions of Internet users access everyday while surfing the Internet? They access the content present on various websites? What do people promote day in and day out on various social media and networking websites? They promote content links. So it’s clear it’s everything about content, whether it exists in the form of text, video or images.

Since everybody is seeking content, how do you create content that’s actually being sought? And if you create content that is highly sought after, how do you let people know of its existence? This is where SEO content writing can help you. Whether people are using search engines, online directories or social networking websites to dig out relevant information, one thing is common that they use: the keywords, the search terms. There are many Internet “gurus” that say SEO is fast becoming irrelevant because less and less people are using search engines and more and more people are using social media and social networking websites to retrieve information that can help them make informed purchasing decisions. It’s true to a great extent, but from where do those social media and social networking websites get that information that is later on “found” by their users? Right. From websites and blogs.

SEO content writing is not just about outsmarting the search engines. It’s about talking in the right language and using the right words; words people actually use. If I’m writing about SEO content writing, and if nowhere on my page this phrase appears (let’s say all the time I’m talking about getting more search engine traffic — a good thing to do actually, but here I’m just explaining the expressions and their relevance) how can the search engines find my page when people are looking for SEO content writing?

So it’s very important that you figure out:

  • What’s your target market
  • What search terms and expressions they actually use
  • What they’re actually looking for
  • How to incorporate the data into your entire SEO content writing process

How does it help you improve your search engine rankings

A lot of your success on the Internet depends on getting found, if you don’t have millions of dollars to spend on advertising. Search engine optimization is definitely a good start and when you include keyword targeting in your overall SEO content writing strategy it helps the search engine ranking algorithms compute the relevancy according to the searches being conducted. It has a circular effect:

SEO Content Writing

As you can see in the diagram, with the right start, one thing leads to another and it goes on and on.

But is it this simple? Of course its not.

SEO content writing has to be matched with relevancy — it must provide solutions and answers. Suppose someone wants to know what smart phone she should buy? Simply optimizing your content for iPhone or Nexus One or BlackBerry isn’t going to be of much help and if it isn’t going to be of much help people are neither going to link to it nor going to promote it. Unless your content really helps her decide, it’s of no relevance, and even if it appears on the first pages of various search engines (flukes do happen), it neither benefits you nor your visitors.

Create few SEO content pages, but create highly relevant pages. This is where everything begins. If you start focusing on every keyword under the sun and start generating tons of directionless traffic it’s not going to benefit you, and you’ll end up concluding that SEO content writing doesn’t work. Instead, focus on a few search terms and create highly relevant content around them. Just in a couple of months you’ll notice a marked difference.

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