SEO-Friendly Content Writing: Best Practices
Want some tips for SEO best practices?
Here are six rules to follow for all written content on your site for Search Engine Optimization.
1. Shorten your sentences.
During your editing process, focus on removing as many unnecessary words as possible. Some low hanging fruit is “very” and using as many contractions as possible (“I’m” instead of “I am,” “wasn’t” instead of “was not”). As a golden rule, you want to keep most of your sentences below 20 words. Are more than 25% of your sentences longer than that? Easy, shorten some of them! An easy way to do this is to go through some of your longer sentences and split them in half. You could do this by putting a period instead of a word like “and” or “but,” putting both ideas in one sentence.
2. Shorten your paragraphs.
In the same way, keeping paragraphs shorter keeps the attention of the reader. Keep the length of your paragraphs below 150 words whenever possible. Another good way to do this is to think of where one set of ideas ends and another begins. You can also separate them with photos or buttons with calls to action, bringing customers to booking pages or more info!
3. Break up your writing with as many headings and subheadings as you can.
This is another trick to make your content more readable. There are different types of headers: the ones you will use are H1, H2, H3. These will later be coded into the site and the identification of them really helps Google figure out what you are talking about. And while you can play with breaking up a paragraph with various headings, remember, you should only use one H1.
4. Avoid starting three or more sentences in a row with the same word wherever possible.
This is another trick to make your content more readable. There are different types of headers: the ones you will use are H1, H2, H3. These will later be coded into the site and the identification of them really helps Google figure out what you are talking about. And while you can play with breaking up a paragraph with various headings, remember, you should only use one H1.
5. Make sure fewer than 10% of your sentences use the passive voice.
The difference between the active voice and passive voice (“I read the sentence” and “the sentence is read by me”) is an important one for everything from content writing to journalism. If possible, you should avoid passive voices for SEO best practices.
6. Get real friendly with transition words!
Remember those words that we recommended taking out to split two sentences into one—words like “and,” “but,” etc? These are called transition words! Unless the sentences are too long, Google loves them because they are like ‘sentence math.’ Here is a full explanation of their effect on your written content on yoast.com.
Still want to go further?
Find out how DigiGrin can help. Let’s start off with a free, one-hour consultation to help you figure out what your next steps should be. Use the link below to schedule a consult with Amber, our Founder & Digital Marketing Director.