“ What characterizes normal writing from SEO writing?”
If you are an SEO beginner or a blog operator, you may have many questions like the above. When we hear SEO writing, we get the impression that it requires special skills and is difficult to learn.
However, in fact, even if you are a beginner , SEO writing can be done by anyone just by holding down 7 tips !
Therefore, on this page, after explaining the difference between SEO writing and normal article writing, I will explain the SEO writing method in detail.
Also, at the end of the page, we have prepared an SEO content creation manual that allows you to be displayed at the top without having to go to a writing course or seminar, so please read it to the end!
“SEO writing is a way of writing that communicates to both users and search engines”
In this way, in addition to readers, SEO writing is to create sentences so that they can be conveyed to Google search engines .
So, how do you write sentences that readers want and that are easy for Google to understand? Next, I will explain the method of SEO writing step by step.
SEO writing methods that are appreciated by users
User perspective is the most important factor in SEO.
In other words, in order to create content with high SEO effect, evaluation from users is essential. Therefore, when writing, it is necessary to clarify what the user is looking for and provide the information the user is looking for in the article content.
So, from here, we will introduce 4 steps that are important for writing article content that users want.
① Read and understand user insights from search keywords
First, find out what the user is looking for from the search keywords that the user enters into the search engine.
Understanding what users really want (insights) from search keywords is the most important point in creating article content, which can be said to be the essence of SEO writing.
What is seo writing example?
For example, if the search keyword is “studying in English”, the following can be read.
- I am thinking of studying abroad in an English-speaking country.
- I want to know which countries I can study English in
- I want to know the recommended countries
In this way, deciphering user insights from search keywords is the first step in providing article content that users truly want.
Once you have user insights, it’s time to set goals for the article content.
② Set a goal
By setting the goal of the page to be created, clarify the purpose of writing the article content. Let’s say you run a study abroad site and want to create article content for the keyword “English study abroad”.
Examples of goals in this case include:
- Have users understand English-speaking countries and jump to the details page of that country
- For users who are concerned about cost, introduce countries where they can study abroad at low cost and get them to apply.
As above, set goals for article content in line with the purpose of your website or blog. Once the goal of the article content is set, we will design the structure of the sentence to connect the user and the goal of the page.
③ Design content
After deciphering the user insights and determining the goal of the article content, we will finally design the content of the article content. Consider the term “English study abroad” as a sample.
The goals of user insight and article content at this time are assumed as follows.
- User Insight: I’m thinking of studying abroad in an English-speaking country and want to know which country/study abroad company suits me
- Goal of article content: To users who are concerned about cost, introduce countries and companies where they can study abroad at a low price, and get them to apply
If you can set up as above, all you have to do is design the article content. See an example below.
Contents: Present the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia as study abroad destinations in English-speaking countries, and introduce the characteristics of each.Heading 2: Not only in the English-speaking world? What about countries other than the above?
Contents : Introducing New Zealand, Malta, Philippines, etc. as English study abroadHeading 3: If you want to do it cheaply, study abroad in two countries
Contents: Introduce that studying in two countries in the Philippines + English-speaking countries is popular now, and guide you to the inquiry page
As mentioned above, we will create a flow to guide users to the goal of the site, which is to inquire about cheap study abroad. The point is to set the headline so that it can serve as a bridge between the user and the goal of the article content.
After setting the headline, it’s finally time to write the content.
④ Lighting
There are three things to keep in mind when creating user-friendly texts:
- Clarify logical structures with appropriate conjunctions
- 1 message 1 outcome
- avoid the same ending
I will explain each one.
Clarify logical structures with appropriate conjunctions
Therefore, writing with conjunctions such as (reason), but (paradox), and also (parallel) clarifies the logical structure. Use conjunctions appropriately to create user-friendly article content.
1 message 1 outcome
Many of you may have had the experience of reading the article content and saying, “I didn’t understand what you wanted to say after all.”
What I tend to do when writing is to cram what I want to convey into one sentence.
The more you want to convey, the longer your sentences will be, and you may end up not knowing what you want to say.
Therefore, avoid making long sentences with commas (,) as much as possible, and try to include one message in each sentence. By doing so, it will be a sentence that is easy to understand for users and will be in the head.
avoid the same ending
Increase the variation of word endings and don’t end with the same ending. Difficult-to-read sentences often end with “desu” or “masu”.
If that happens, be aware of using various endings such as “-should” and “manifestation stop” instead of just “masu” and “desu”. Rhythm is born in the sentence, and it becomes article content that is easy for users to read.
The above four steps are the writing method for writing the article content that users are looking for.
Next, I will explain the tips for writing sentences that are easy to understand for Google’s search engine (crawler) and have a high SEO effect.
[7 Tips] How to create content that can be ranked high
Why is seo writing important?
Google’s search engine is evolving day by day, but the reality is that it still can’t understand sentences like humans. Therefore, SEO writing requires easy-to-read sentences not only for users but also for Google search engines.
Here are 7 SEO writing tips that even beginners can put into practice right away. Here are 7 tips:
- don’t use pronouns
- Include keywords in titles and descriptions
- Include keywords in h tags
- use co-occurrence
- Optimize images (alt tags)
- HTML markup
- Set easy-to-understand permalinks
Let’s take a look at them one by one!
1 Don’t use pronouns
First, don’t overuse pronouns. That’s because Google’s search engine can’t understand exactly what pronouns refer to in the way humans do. If you can’t understand the content, the SEO effect will be low.
Therefore, replace pronouns such as “this” and “that” with nouns whenever possible so that Google’s search engine knows what you are referring to.
② Include keywords in titles and descriptions
Be sure to include keywords in your SEO-critical titles and descriptions so that Google’s search engine knows what your content is about.
In addition, if the keyword is included in the title and description, it will be easier for users to understand the content of the content, so you can expect a higher click-through rate.
However, if you put more keywords than you need, it will be judged as excessive SEO and you may be penalized. Therefore, try to use keywords naturally and set the title and description
③ Include keywords in h tags
In SEO, the h tag is the second most important element in the article content after the title. So include keywords in your title tag as well as your h1, h2, and h3 tags.
However, even in the case of h tags, if you stuff keywords unnaturally, it will be considered excessive SEO. Therefore, it is important to include keywords in a natural way.
④ Use co-occurring words
A co-occurring word is a word that is often used with a specific keyword. If “education” is the keyword, co-occurrences include words such as:
“Committee, School, Information, Learning, University, Heisei, Seminar, High School, Elementary School”
By writing using such co-occurrence words, Google’s search engine judges that the article content is close to the user’s search intention. There are tools that allow you to search for co-occurring words, so when writing, use them as much as you can without making them look unnatural.
⑤ Optimize images (alt tags)
An alt tag is alternative text that tells search engines what the image is about. Google’s search engine doesn’t know what the image is referring to.
However, by setting the alt tag, you can have Google correctly recognize what kind of image it is. In addition, since it is easier to be displayed in image search results, you can also expect inflow from image search, which is a two birds with one stone.
In addition, if the alt tag is set, users using browsers and screen readers (computer screen reading software) that do not display images can also understand the contents of the image.
In normal writing, it is a point that is difficult to see, so let’s set it up properly and create effective content for SEO.
⑥HTML markup
Correct use of HTML is also an important part of SEO writing. In order to correctly convey the content of the content to Google’s search engine, let’s use the following basic tags appropriately.
・h tag
Be sure to use <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> in that order. For design purposes, you should avoid h2 followed by h4, etc.
・Bullets <ol> <ul>
Tell search engines that you have a bullet point by using <ol> and <ul> tags instead of line breaks.
・Citation <blockquote>
Use <blockquote> to indicate to Google where you have quoted from other sites or reference materials.
・Table <table>
Use the <table> tag when creating a table. It is also easier to appear in featured snippets, which is also a trend in SEO.
・Image <alt>
As mentioned earlier, use the <alt> tag for images to tell search engines what the image is referring to.
⑦ Set easy-to-understand permalinks
Set permalinks that let you know what the article content is about at a glance, not random numbers and letters. Google also recommends setting up logical and human-friendly permalinks.
If you compare the two URLs below, it should be obvious which one is the clearer permalink.
Permalinks that show the content at a glance will increase the click-through rate and attract more customers.
These are the 7 tips for effective writing methods for SEO. It’s all about what you can do right away, so please try to practice with SEO writing from today.
Does the word count of content matter for search rankings?
When it comes to SEO writing, many of you may be wondering, “How many characters should be in article content?”
You may have heard various information such as “3000 characters is necessary”, “more characters are more effective for SEO”, “character count doesn’t matter”.
Backlinko, a famous American SEO blog, investigated over 1 million search results and found that there was a positive correlation between the number of characters in article content and search rankings. See graph below.
In addition, it is said that the average number of characters in the article content appearing on the first page of the search results (web pages ranked 1st to 10th) was 1890 words.
Of course, it does not mean that the number of characters is large, so be careful. Article content with a large number of characters is not displayed at the top by the number of characters.
It is displayed at the top because it has a high degree of comprehensiveness of information related to search keywords and provides appropriate answers to users .
If you dig deep and write what the user is looking for, you will naturally need about 4000 to 5000 words. Rather than uselessly long sentences, try to write with depth that can solve the user’s worries.