How to write website content for SEO: everything you need to know

 When you are building a website, the large, blank spaces can look intimidating if you are not used to producing online content. The quality of the content depends on the way in which you are able to convey the aims of your company. The website copy is your constant spokesperson, and often the first impression someone sees of your organisation.

This is the primary function of your website content, but you can make your copy work twice as hard for you if you ensure that it is search engine optimised. This essentially means that it is as easy for search engine algorithms to read as it is for your human readers. Writing SEO content is a real skill. It takes time and practice to write copy which is search engine optimised without this being obvious to the untrained eye. The steps below will show you how to write website content which works in both ways.

How to write website content

If you are new to writing website copy, it’s important to sit down and form a plan before you start. Have a careful think about all of the information which your content needs to get across, breaking the points down into different sections and categories if possible. Try to put yourself in the position of somebody who knows nothing about your website, and think about all of the questions that you might ask if you were them. This should give you a good idea of the answers you should be providing before anyone has even had time to ask the question.

Knowing how to structure the page is just as important as knowing how to write website content, so once you know what you want to say, try to set out your points in the following structure.

1. Break up the page

There is nothing more likely to cause a reader to click off your page than being faced with a huge amount of small text in long, unbroken paragraphs.

Break up the page with section headings and bullet points so that readers are able to find their answer quickly if they are looking for something specific. Short paragraphs and good transitions between the two will keep hold of their attention and make them more likely to read on. It is visually much less intimidating to look at a list of bullet points or short paragraphs than it is to see a whole page of dense, black text.

2. Write longer articles

Although the individual chunks of text should be shorter, the overall article length should be at least 300 words, and ideally much longer. Anything less than this will not allow you to reach an effective keyword density without sounding forced and there is a likelihood that you will be missing out information which is essential to your readers. Longer articles also tend to gain more traction and are more trusted online.

3. Get the headings right

Make your headings informative and descriptive. Think of them as signposts for your text, letting the reader know where they should look for each piece of information. Don’t forget that you can use keywords in headings too where natural!

4. Choose your font well 

The general rule of thumb is to use serif fonts for headings and sans serif fonts for the body.

Make sure you use a font which is readable and professional, but feel free to choose something with a bit of character if you think it suits the tone of your website.

How to write website content for SEO

Once you have content which you are happy with, then you can start to ensure that it works just as well for the computer as it does for the human readers. The key to this is making sure that the text is rich with relevant keywords. Understanding how to write website content which is search engine friendly is all about knowing how to make the most of what people are already searching for online.

Research your keywords

Once you’ve selected the keywords you think you want to use for optimising your articles, ensure that they are:

• Relevant to the topic you are writing about
• The most commonly searched spelling
• The most often searched phrasing of that topic
• A combination of specific keywords and more general ones

Doing your research will ensure that you are using the most effective keywords to boost your performance in search engines.

Get your meta description right

The meta description is the short piece of text which appears below the website link in the search engine results. This is your chance to prove to people making a snapshot decision that your website is the one they were looking for. It is not worth going to all of the trouble of successfully increasing the position of your website in search engine results if the description is going to let you down at the last hurdle.

Ensure that it is concise, clear and a good representation of what can be found on your website.

Use the tools available

WordPress has a plugin called Yoast SEO which automatically scans the text you input to assess its effectiveness in terms of SEP. You input the keywords which you have chosen for the copy and Yoast will let you know how well you are doing.

Hemingway is another similar software which will help you to clarify the readability of your content. Find the tool which works best for you and the format of your website, but make sure that you make the most of what they are saying. You should be asking a human to read the text to test its appeal to humans and a computer to read the copy and assess its performance for computers.