Quiz: Writing for SEO
What you write on your website can hurt or harm your Google rankings! Most business owners know they need to have something on their site so that search engines can work out what it's about, but they aren't sure how to write for SEO.
Crafting content that keeps website visitors and Google's algorithms happy is a balancing act, but taking time to optimise your copy for both parties will pay off in the long run. Look at it as an investment in your company in an increasingly digital-first world! Even if SEO isn’t your “thing”, I have a couple of simple copywriting tips that you can use to keep on the right side of Google's guidelines.
Want to find out more? Grab a cuppa and take my five-minute quiz to find out how to write SEO-friendly copy. Simply read the following statements and decide if it's an example of good SEO or bad SEO.
Question 1: Picking a keyword and repeating it over and over (and over and over) in the copy.
Answer: Bad SEO!
Google isn't a fan of keyword stuffing and neither are your website visitors! Keep everyone happy by weaving your keywords into the copy in a way that looks natural and reads well. Google is advanced enough to pick up on synonyms, so don't be afraid to add some keyword variations into the text.
Question 2: Writing content that revolves around intent
Answer: Good SEO!
Optimising for intent is a hot topic of 2020! Think about what your audience wants to achieve when they reach that webpage and use this insight to shape and focus your copy.
Typically, people’s intent falls into one of the following three buckets:
Navigational - I want to go
Informational - I want to know
Commercial - I want to buy
Writing for intent now will help you future-proof your site’s content. Voice search is set to grow in popularity and with it’s rise will come more long-tail keywords that revolve around - that’s right - searcher intent.
Question 3: Write for people first and algorithms second
Answer: you guessed it - good SEO!
All of your website copy should be well written and user friendly. Sure, we're optimising it to help people discover your site on Google, but if it has obviously been written for bots, it'll look like spam and nothing causes site visitors to drop-offs like spammy content!
Question 4: Duplicating copy across your site to fill up space
Answer: Bad SEO!
Every time you duplicate content an SEO manager cries. Not really, but duplicate content is bad. It means that you're competing against yourself and your pages might rank lower than they would have done otherwise. If you simply copy and paste the same copy you’ll also miss out on the opportunity to target a portfolio of relevant keywords and optimise each page for related searches.
That's it!
Thanks for taking part in the quiz! How did you score?
Want more advice on how to write copy for SEO? Get in touch for a chat - the first consultation is free!