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How to Write SEO-friendly Content - Top 10 Tips for Small Business

Despite the adage that "Content is King," it is really SEO-friendly content that is king in terms of search engine optimization. This Top 10 Guide is your quick, hands-on to do list for writing SEO-friendly content and SEO-friendly URL's for Google and Bing.

By Jason McDonald Senior SEO Instructor - JM Internet Group. Posted: December 27, 2010 Share this Top 10 with friends! Copy, paste, email this link: http://bit.ly/eF02gO

The Big Picture

1.	Learn from Competitors and Non-Competitors: What Works? Pay attention to your competitors, especially their blogs and new website content. What are they writing? Why are they writing it? 'Reverse engineer' competitor posts and content ideas. Beyond your competitors, pay attention to non-competitors in other industries. As you live your daily life, do mainstream Google searches and pay attention not only to what content you read but how you find that content. Learn from more advanced industries than your own, and transplant these content-building ideas to your own industry.
2.	Think Like Your Customer: What do They Want to Read? Competitors and non-competitors can be great sources of ideas for content, but even better: think like your customers. Put yourself in their shoes, role-play their search patterns from search query to article desired. Ask your customers informally one-on-one as well as formally through surveys, what would they like to read about? What are their interests and needs? Create content that addresses the interests and needs of your customers, first, and only secondarily promotes your product or service.
3.	Identify Customer Centric Keywords Most companies write their content, first, and consider their SEO-friendly keywords, second. Reverse this process! Use tools like 'related searches' on Google, the Wonder Wheel (both located on the left column of a Google search), or the primary Google search keyword tool to research what keywords matter to your customer. Then, use these keywords (and the search needs that they represent) as the launching pad for your SEO-friendly, keyword-heavy new content.
4.	Write Beefy, Keyword Heavy Content Most people underestimate just how dense SEO-friendly content is. Modesty is a virtue, but not when it comes to search engine optimization. Do, for example, an Olympic search, such as 'Online Motorcycle Insurance Quote.' Then check out the landing pages that do well (i.e., non-home pages that are specifically optimized for that target keyword). Geico's page on Motorcycles, for example, scores very well - usually No. 1 on Google. Do a CTRL+F in Firefox and count the occurrences of the word 'motorcycle.' It's very, very heavy for the target keywords of Motorcycle, Insurance, Quote, and Online. The point being: Google favors very heavy text pages, pages with not just a lot of text but heavy density of the target keywords. Read pages like the Geico Motorcycle page outloud, and you will see just how heavy Google prefers its SEO-friendly, Google-friendly text.
5.	Use SEO-Friendly HTML Tags In conjunction with SEO-friendly, keyword heavy text, weave your target keywords into your page tags. Begin with the <TITLE> tag, putting your target keywords inside the <TITLE> tag. Other major tags include the H1 / H2 family, the STRONG / B (Bold) tag, the EM / I (Italics) tag and others. Don't forget the use of internal links (the A HREF) tag as well. Heavy keyword density works with proper tag structure to communicate to Google what your page is about.
6.	Create SEO-Friendly URL's Don't forget the importance of your URL structure. A page with a URL such as http://www.jm-seo.org/top-ten/seo-friendly.html is optimized in its URL structure for the keywords SEO-friendly, and Top Ten. In other words, use your target keywords inside your URL structure, placing higher profile keywords in directories, and lower profile keywords as the file names. Avoid 'Geek' URL's that are non-decipherable to humans (and Google). Everything should be keyword centric!
7.	Have a Desired Action Getting to the top of Google and even getting the click aren't the ultimate goals of your search engine optimization effort. Rather, have a desired action once someone lands on your page. This can be a registration (usually for something 'free' like a 'free' consultation, 'free' white paper download, 'free' software tool, etc.) or a purchase. As you blog, create content, write SEO-friendly articles for your website, think about the desired action and make that action prominent on the page. Wherever possible, the SEO-friendly writing should be in harmony with the desired action!
8.	Use Your Home Page as a Gateway to New Content Google considers your home page the most important page on your website, so use it wisely. Your home page should act as a gateway to your SEO-friendly content, preferably inside H1 / H2 tags as well as A HREF tags. This strong home page / landing page relationship will pull the Google search engine into your SEO-friendly pages. In addition, having links to new and fresh content on your home page will bolster your home page reputation with Google. Google sees that your home page is updated frequently, and is therefore more likely to return. It's win-win!
9.	Make Writing SEO-friendly Content a Habit Writing SEO-friendly content should become a habit, not a one-time shot. Posting frequent, new content will train Google that your site updates itself frequently. This has site-wide benefits. So make it a habit to post new keyword-heavy, SEO-friendly content on a schedule that you can maintain - perhaps weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Just as with physical fitness, make a commitment to writing SEO-friendly content and stick with it. Discipline and habit will be rewarded.
10.	Never Stop Learning Pay attention to your competitors by monitoring your target keyword searches, and the content which Google rewards with top placement. Do other searches outside your industry, and be a 'Google Detective' meaning pay attention to what sort of content climbs to the top of Google and why. Consider taking SEO classes or courses, such as those taught by the JM Internet Group. Never stop learning!