SEO Content is an article, post, page, or other consumable with specific marketing purpose. It is created, published or promoted with the purpose of being indexed by search engines, rank well for specific keywords, provide opportunities for social media sharing, and ultimately drive organic search traffic back to the SEO content itself.

Take special care when planning SEO content. If you are interested in driving visits from search engines, then you will most definitely want to create SEO content that is optimised correctly for search engines. We highly recommend that you plan your SEO as part of the content creation process, so it is uniform with the content piece as a whole, consistent with other on-site SEO content from page to page, and prevents further revisions that may occur after publishing.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of creating and organising website content so that it is easily indexable and identifiable by search engines such as google.com, yahoo.com or bing.com. The ultimate goal of search engine optimisation is to receive as many clicks on your search engine listings as possible by achieving higher search engine page rankings or SERPS, creating enticing page titles and meta descriptions (the text that makes up the SERP), and delivering high-quality content on the underlying page.

On-Site SEO

On-site SEO includes numerous activities from page and content restructuring, code organisation, internal linking structure design, keywording header tags and more. On-site SEO also includes optimisation of keywords within a particular piece of content which may include a website project page, a blog article, or another informational page type. We recommend that you optimise each page for a unique keyword phrase (2-4 keywords) that best describes the topic of the page. Search engines favour pages that cover one main topic or keyword phrase and include possible discussion of 2-3 secondary or supporting keyword phrases. Make your keywords as clear as possible, so that search engines can accurately discover what your page is about. You will better compete for higher page rankings against those pieces of content that are less clear what they are about.

What is SEO Content?

SEO content is created with the specific intent of achieving high search engine rankings so as to drive visitors to the underlying page. SEO content can be optimised for a high volume, highly competitive keyword phrase, or for a low volume non-competitive keyword phrase (known as long tail keywords) or somewhere in the middle. You must be careful when creating SEO content; if done incorrectly it can lead to wasted time or money and possibly negatively affect your search rankings. Create pages with the intention of driving traffic from specific keywords, while also maintaining relevance and readability.

Here are a few examples of proper SEO Content intents:

Website Example Content Intent Implementation
University Website Resource Guide Competitive information, lead generation A university website wants to attract visitors to their medical program. They decide to create several pages that discuss popular topics that future medical students may search for.
SAAS Website Product Pages E-commerce, product awareness A software as a subscription tech company released a new tool. They create several individual pages that each discuss a common problem that their tool solves.
Entertainment Blog Gain followers, raise awareness, e-commerce An entertainment company wants to generate visitors for their live shows, so they decide to create a blog that covers news, gossip and information sought after by fans of the show’s regular performers.

Optimising Your Content SEO

It is recommended to create content with the user in mind. You always need to create high quality and user relevant content and not just an amalgamation of words aimed at search engines. Besides the fact that you actually want users to take action or convert, modern search engines understand things like bounce rates and unfulfilled searches and will penalise SEO content accordingly. Even if you are looking to drive traffic from people looking for specific keyword terms, it is important to always deliver high quality, relevant information so that a user will not have to continue their search. Here are a few ways to optimise your content SEO and reader-wise.

Put Your Users First

Create content with the user in mind first, then look for ways to optimise your primary and secondary keyword phrases.

 

Optimise Header Tags

Include your SEO keyword phrases in your header tags (h1, h2s, h3s)

 

Keyword Placement

Your SEO keywords should be in the page title, URL, and meta description and found throughout your body copy and image alt tags.

 

Use Synonyms

Consider using alternate keywords to say the same thing, so you don’t sound like a broken record. Modern search engines understand synonyms

 

Check Keyword Density

Use a keyword density tool that checks how many times your keyword phrases appear in your content. Likewise, try to break up unintentional keyword phrases or 2-4 words that have high densities.

 

Engage Users

It is important to provide imagery and break up text into lists, tables, and infographics. Your goal should be to keep your users as engaged as possible. This will lower bounce rates and entice them to visit more content on your site.

The Importance of Planning SEO Content

SEO content planning can be easy assuming you carry out the planning steps in the right order to reduce backtracking as much as possible. Content should be published with search optimisations already in place so that the moment they are indexed by a search engine they have as much potential to rank as highly as possible. Backtracking to optimise pages later is not recommended. There is a good chance you will introduce decreased readability, create a rushed look, overwrite intentional industry or branded keywords, and introduce inconsistencies.

 

 

Previous: Optimising Your Content Workflow         Next: Writing Content for the Web