It’s every website owner’s goal to improve their site’s ranking. But as you may already know, it doesn’t come easy. The fact that it’s a common goal means you’re competing with thousands of like-minded individuals that are probably using advanced search engine optimization tools. Moreover, you may be also competing against organizations or agencies with experienced SEO professionals.
On the bright side, these things alone do not guarantee a higher site ranking. Nowadays, if you want to compete against the internet giants, what you need is excellent written content, and that’s why you’re here.
Below are four writing techniques to improve your site’s SEO ranking.
Add links sparingly and appropriately
Links are essential elements of SEO writing, especially if you’re guest blogging. For one, they show that you’ve done your research when writing the content, making it more credible.
Furthermore, links allow you to maximize the value you can get from one article by linking to your existing content. However, there are a few things to remember when adding links:
- Make sure the first link is valuable as it’ll get the most attention
- Refrain from adding links on every other paragraph
- Avoid using anchor texts that provide no value (e.g., click here, read more, etc.)
- Write in a way that the content makes sense even without the links
Take your time to come up with the best title
When a person enters a keyword on a search box, the search engine looks up any content with a title relevant to that keyword. It then displays that content on the results page accordingly.
Once the person receives the results, they’ll look into each title to see which would be most helpful. In short, the title is usually the first thing the search engine and the readers look at when finding the best content. As such, it’s only fitting that you take your time writing the title.
So, how do you write a catchy and interesting title?
- Include one or two keywords in the mix
- Add a number
- Use emotional adjectives (e.g., effortless, essential, incredible, etc.)
- Make use of the five Ws and one H (why, what, where, when, who, and how)
- Offer a solution right from the get-go
While you may think that this is too much effort for a title, take note that there are professional writers who spend more time creating the title than writing the content itself.
Write in a featured snippet-friendly format
If you often use search engines on your daily routine, you’ve probably seen your fair share of featured snippets. A featured snippet is a short excerpt from a website that appears on the search engine results pages (SERPs) to answer a user’s question. So, for example, you type in “what is an LSI” on Google, you’ll be met with a paragraph from an article by WordStream discussing the said topic.
A featured snippet may also take the form of a list that enumerates the elements under a specific category. For example, a featured snippet may enumerate foods rich in vitamins.
Naturally, since you’ve already seen helpful information from that excerpt alone, you’re likely to click on that article to read more. That pretty much guarantees a high ranking for that page.
That must be your goal, but how does one write featured snippet content?
- Write several paragraphs in the content to answer similar questions
- Include facts and helpful information
- Add a list enumerating steps or elements of a set
Make use of LSI keywords throughout the content
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords are any search terms related to the keyword you’re mainly targeting. For instance, if you type in “LSI keywords” on Google’s search box, under the suggestions, you’ll see the different variations of that keyword, such as:
- latent semantic indexing keyword
- LSI keyword examples
- how to use LSI keyword
- what does LSI keyword mean
Similarly, when you search for that keyword, the search engine will display the results that either contain the primary keyword (LSI keywords) or its variations in the article title and content.
LSI keywords can come in quite handy in SEO writing since you can use them in place of the core keyword to avoid stuffing while still encouraging the search engine algorithm to rank your page highly. For your information, keyword stuffing refers to the practice of excessively using the main keyword throughout the content in hopes of gaining an advantage in search engines. On the contrary, search engines consider this practice as spamming, which will negatively affect the page’s ranking.
Closing thoughts
While it’s an essential aspect of SEO writing to write according to the search engine’s algorithm, remember that it is humans that read your content. So, not only should you cater to the search engine’s mechanics, but you should also keep your readers in mind while writing the content. With the right balance between the two, you should be able to improve your site ranking considerably.