How to Write Content to Please People and Search Engine
Reading Time: 7 minutes Content marketing is no longer a trend, and SEO experts have been actively working to find the right balance between human and machine when considering the content. However, learning to write content that will naturally engage readers while still satisfying search engine guidelines is not a piece of cake.
Most SEOs write for search engines. They start with keyword research and then write a bunch of “keyword-rich content,” hoping to rank on Google’s first page. And sometimes it works. Unfortunately, these articles look robotic and boring to humans. This is an immense problem as they won’t pass the “bored test”: If people read your article and get bored quickly, it shows your content doesn’t provide enough value to human beings.
That’s the reason for writing on the web can be trickier than you think. Humans and Google have different needs, and people, search engines, and robots all want to receive the same value from content. However, these three groups think differently.
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It is not easy to write content to please people and search engines. Google thrives on high-quality content, and if you’re trying to rank for competitive terms, this task gets more challenging. The challenge lies in balancing the needs of your audience and Google’s search spiders.
The SEO world changes rapidly, but one thing has remained the same for the past 15 years – content is king. Yes, Google will continue to make changes, but the most important thing for success is creating good content.
This post will tell you the critical steps to writing content that gratifies people and search engines.
Table of Contents
Create a solid content plan
Understanding content marketing is critical to the success of a business. Content marketing is the discipline of creating and distributing relevant, valuable, and consistent content to attract and keep a clearly defined audience – to drive profitable customer action.
Creating a content marketing strategy is easy, but creating a solid one that works is not. There are many things to consider (and techniques to try) that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.
Take care of both people and the search engine. If you only target one segment, you cannot come through with flying colors.
It’s impossible to create great content for people and search engines if you don’t have a plan. Take into consideration all the critical elements that can affect the quality of your content. Conduct research to figure out what works best.
You must use a combination of keyword research insights, your target audience research, and your personal experience.
Write a compelling meta title and meta description
Are you doing this right? A bad title and description can make your article be overlooked. Meta title and meta description determine how your article appears in search results. Search engines love metas.
If you’re looking to attract new visitors with your posts, the meta title and description is an area you cannot overlook at all.
It’s no secret that click-through rate (CTR) is a metric often used to determine the value of a piece of content. We can also influence it by crafting our meta title and meta description tags in specific ways. You should add main keywords to make your article popular.
Many don’t realize how much of an impact these small but crucial pieces of text can have on their click-through rates. The purpose of meta tags is to provide search engines with information about your website and the content, which is useful for analyzing your site.
Try writing unique and compelling meta tags for each post on your website. This way, you will target both the search engine and people.
However, make sure that your title and description do not exceed the specified limit (i.e., 60 and 160 characters, respectively). If you go above that character limit, Google will truncate the spare part of your text. That’s the reason it’s so important to track the length of metas.
A free word counter not just allows you to count the number of words you have written but also informs the number of characters used in a particular piece of text.
You do not have to count characters manually. Instead, copy and paste text in the designated area to see characters with and without space.
Write highly engaging headings to attract readers
You have a great article about an exciting topic, but you’re not getting many clicks. Writing engaging headings will help people find your article on the web.
For a blogger, it’s quite important to have eye-catching blog headings to attract users. If you share articles on social sites such as Facebook or Twitter, blogs with attractive titles and thumbnails grab more attention than those without.
You need to craft highly engaging headings that can help your blog attract more traffic and get found everywhere. Unfortunately, many writers do not take care of the headlines. They just write content without following a set structure. This makes their articles look boring.
A piece of writing with a well-defined outline can be lucrative for your blog’s success. Readers read headings before they read the text, and that’s the reason you have to put effort into writing engaging titles. Therefore, writing beautiful headlines is an excellent place to start if you want to increase readership.
Focus on writing about trending topics
One of the best strategies to target both people and search engines is to write on trending topics. If you write about the subjects already discussed on the web quite a few times, then it must be challenging for you to rank well on that topic.
Trending topics have less competition, and you can rank well for them if you write in a timely manner. Tools such as Google trends tell about the trending topics. You can select a theme from the choices and start writing on it. When you become the first to publish content on a specific trending topic, you are more likely to rank well for it since there are not too many competitors.
Include good keywords in the content
It’s true that Google loves great content. The more engaging, share-worthy, and conversion rate-rising your content is, the more natural backlinks you will get, be able to build relationships in your industry, get social media shares and become an authority in your niche.
However, you need to conduct solid keyword research to make this happen. Content without relevant keywords might struggle to rank well in search engines. That’s the reason you have to be very careful while choosing keywords for your content.
Not sure how to grab the right keywords? No worries, many useful tools can help you find the right set of keywords that you can use in your content and increase chances of securing better rankings in Google and the rest of the search engines.
Use the main keyword once in the H1, meta title, and meta description. Use the same keyword a few times in the article. The frequency of the keyword depends upon the total length of your blog post. Try not to use it so many times so that it looks unnatural. Only use where it makes sense and never overdo it.
Write research-based brief paragraphs
Good content means different things to different people. For example, some people may label a piece of content as good if it is written well. Others may define good content as content that provides value to the user. And yet others may say good content is content that ranks high in SERPs. Regardless of the definitions, all good content shares similar traits.
Both Google and people dislike content that does not provide value. If you really want to become an apple of Google’s eye, then you have to write research-based content. It should include information that people find useful.
For instance, you can write on a particular subject and talk about the most important aspects of it. Try to address questions relevant to the topic so that you get everything covered. People pay attention to content when it addresses their queries and provides potential solutions.
Try to create short paragraphs so that readers do not feel stuck reading long-form articles. Content which is divided into small sections is more likely to grab the reader’s attention. In short, write well-researched content to win the hearts of people and search engines.
Create internal and external links
Having a better link structure is excellent from an SEO perspective. Internal and external linking is imperative to establish the authenticity of your content. Internal links can be referred to as links to other pages on your site. For instance, you write about a specific topic and then direct users to other relevant posts already published on your website. Site visitors can derive additional value by visiting those links. In this way, you become honored in both Google and people’s eyes.
Likewise, you can direct readers to other high-authority websites. People can click on hyperlinks and go to other websites where relevant information is available for further exposure. This practice of building internal and external links helps you improve your search rankings and organic traffic.
Conclusion
Being a content writer is not that difficult; however, writing content to please people and search engines can be intimidating. Things should come in handy when you follow the proper practice. You can do a lot to write content that satisfies human beings and search engines. Stay up to date and follow the latest content practices. You can follow SEO and digital marketing experts to stay on top of everything. Learn about new developments and try to implement new strategies. That’s how you can grow in the competitive landscape.
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