By Aulia R. Sungkar
What You Need to Know:
Writing an engaging and well-informed article isn’t enough to draw in readers. Nearly anyone who uses the internet to read articles online will make use of search engines, such as Google, to search articles on topics they want to read.
In order to get as many readers as possible, writers need to understand the concept of applying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to their articles. An SEO-friendly article will be prioritized by search engines like Google and boost incoming traffic to your site or blog.
Want to know how one can go about writing SEO-friendly articles? Read more to find out!
1. Carry out research on what’s trending on search engines
Before you go about attempting to write an SEO-friendly article, we suggest that you conduct some research on what currently is trending on search engines like Google. You can do this by using SEO tools like Google Trends that give you real-time information on what topics are trending on the internet.
2. Optimize keywords
Keywords are central to SEO-friendly articles. By using Google Trends, you can figure out what keywords are experiencing recent surges in search numbers and write articles making use of those trending keywords.
After all, keywords with high search volumes indicate that a lot of people on the internet are looking up those keywords. Writing articles based on those trending topics can attract higher numbers of readers.
On the other hand, writers can also take advantage of keywords with low search volumes by writing articles on topics with very few in the way of other writers competing for limited readers. This allows for the possibility that your writing on this under-searched keyword can be placed highly on search engine visibility.
In addition, keywords have to fulfill the three rules of “PPT”, which stands for “People”, “Places”, and “Things”. “People” can encompass the names of individuals, organizations, brands, groups and the like, while “Places” refer to locations and “Things” indicate the name of events or issues being focused on. Keywords that follow the rule of PPT allow for articles that are easy for audiences to discover.
3. Ensure proper writing structure
Just as with conventional writing, SEO-friendly writing has to be structured in such a way that everything is clear. It has to consist of a few sentences for an introduction, the main body text, and a summary section. Structuring your writing this way makes it easy for people to read.
4. Include a ‘call to action’
This is a step that often gets ignored, even though the inclusion of a call to action is pivotal in creating SEO-friendly articles, especially if the articles in question are of a commercial nature. A call to action guides readers to continue to read articles on your website and even nudges them to register a user account on your website and visit your online shop.
5. Write an eye-catching meta title
A meta title isn’t just important for creating an SEO-friendly article. It’s also something your readers will need. A clear and attractive meta title can help to distinguish your articles from that of your competitors, and can help draw in more readers.
6. Use title tags
The use of title tags arranged in a proper hierarchy will allow Google and other search engines to better detect the kind of article you wrote. The ‘H1’ title of your article should contain a main keyword as a tag. Then after that, in the body of your article, your ‘H2’ title should tag major topics that your content will cover, while your ‘H3’ and so on can feature increasingly less central topics.
7. Create SEO-friendly URLs
A “Uniform Resources Locator” (URL) is a way of pointing someone to a website’s address. These URLs help users find the websites they want to visit.
URLs serve important roles in creating SEO-friendly articles, as they make it easier for search engines to identify articles that they can place on top of their search results. The more a URL is written out like the topic of an article, the better. A well-made URL can provide users with a better experience, especially when it comes to the process of sharing links.
We suggest that you make your URLs dense and succinct. Erase unnecessary words. A URL on average is made up of 60 characters or three to five words.
8. Use brief paragraphs
In addition to making your article SEO-friendly, having brief paragraphs ensures your article is reader-friendly. Ideally, a single paragraph contains two to three sentences discussing specific ideas.
You can also use other formats that aren’t just paragraphs, such as bullet points and highlighted text. You can also make use of font changes, so your writing will be reader-friendly and visually more appealing.
9. Optimize your visual content
Search engines use alt-text as information to help understand the subject matter an image is describing in better detail. What do we mean by ‘alt text’?
Alt text refers to HMTL attributes that determine alternative texts to be displayed. This is to explain the meaning of an image being shown. Putting it simply, alt text is a way for writers to “guide” search engines how to comprehend images they have placed in articles.
For this reason, it is essential that you label your alt text, captions and file names. The following is an example of alt text for an HTML image:
<img src=”alveologo.jpg” alt=”alveo agency logo”/>
10. Optimize your mobile layout
A study has shown that the number of people accessing the internet through mobile devices in 2021 reached 4.32 billion. In other words, more than 90 percent of the global internet population used mobile devices to browse the internet. In the future, the number of users will continue to grow alongside technology developments that make such mobile devices more and more affordable.
Hence, it should be of no surprise writing SEO-friendly articles that are optimized for mobile devices is essential.
Conclusion
Writing SEO-friendly articles isn’t just something you do to produce interesting content. It’s a process that allows your written articles to appear higher on search engine results. Well-written, SEO-friendly articles will drive your readers to share, retweet and drive traffic to your website. (ALV)
