Many freelance writers who typically write for print publications are beginning to realize the advantages of moving into online content. There are a ton of opportunities out there, ranging from content portals and online publications to blogs. Writing for the web, however, is a completely different beastie compared to its sibling in print.
Online audiences have a notoriously shorter attention span – and as a writer, you have to compete with a lot more in order to gain that little bit of attention. You have to know what it takes to get your content found and read, and this means knowing how to optimize your content for search engines.
I have a feeling that most of my readers already know exactly what SEO (search engine optimization) is. For the sake of those who don’t, I’ll give you the short definition, according to Wikipedia:
“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via ‘natural’ (‘organic’ or ‘algorithmic’) search results for targeted keywords.”
The operative words here are “targeted keywords”. SEO is all about keywords, because those are what searchers use to find web pages. What you want to do is optimize your content with the proper keywords in order to increase its ranking in search engines and gain more traffic.
SEO is an intensive, ongoing process. Think of it like a puzzle – there are several pieces required in order to see the big picture, and writing is one of those pieces. Many businesses will hire freelancers to write optimized content for their websites, so you’ll need to have some basic SEO writing knowledge to be successful.
Here are a few tips for finding the right keywords for content optimization:
Tip #1: Talk to your client about the keywords they want to use.
Many clients already know what keywords they want their content optimized for, and they’ll provide those to you (typically anywhere from 1 to 5 keywords). However, if they’ve provided you with more than a few, you will need to find out which ones are their primary keywords. These are the keywords they want integrated into the content the most.
Tip #2: Have some keyword research tools ready.
You may have clients who either have keywords, but don’t know which ones to focus on, or don’t have keywords at all and want you to conduct the research. In either case, you’ll need to have some keyword research tools ready to work with.
There are plenty of excellent, free tools out there to help you. Here are a few I recommend:
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool – Comprehensive keyword research tool that shows you data across the 3 major search engines, as well as Delicious and Topix.net
Google Adwords Keyword Tool – Keyword tool used by Adwords advertisers (and no, you don’t need an account to use it)
Google Insights for Search – See Google search trends for keywords by category, seasonality, and geography
Tip #3: The keyword with the most traffic may not necessarily be the best keyword for the content.
When researching keywords, you have to think about the target audience and the keywords they would use to find the content you’re writing. This isn’t always the keyword with the most traffic, and more times than not it’s a long-tail keyword. Long-tail keywords are typically multi-phrase search terms, and much more targeted by nature because they embody the searcher’s need to find very specific information.
Here’s an example: “coffee beans” is a broader keyword that receives a large amount of daily traffic; however, when you consider the topic you’re writing about, you may want to target specific types of readers with certain long-tail keywords:
“buying coffee beans online”
“green coffee beans online”
“how to roast green coffee beans”
“types of coffee beans”
As you can see, these keyword searches are narrower in their purpose, and therefore may be a better choice for your content.
Tip #4: Don’t try to optimize one article or page of content with too many keywords.
If your client has a list of 5 or more keywords that need to be woven into the content at a 3-5% density each, you may need to have a talk with that client. Over-optimization (or “keyword stuffing”) can result in a few problems:
Readability issues: trying to fit too many keywords into one article will compromise the readability of the content, making it sound something like this: “There are many types of coffee beans and green coffee beans. This article is about the types of coffee beans and how to roast green coffee beans, buying coffee beans online, green coffee beans online…”.
Exclusion from Google: Keyword stuffing is considered to be an unethical SEO practice, and Google may actually exclude the page from search results if it thinks this is the case.
Lack of focus: Again, think about the purpose of the content and the target reader. Using too many keywords can degrade the focus and overall purpose of the content – resulting in a lack of conversions.
For best results, try to focus on up to 3 primary keywords. Another rule of thumb – the shorter the content, the fewer different keywords needed for optimization. I tend to gauge it this way – one keyword for every 250 words total. So, if a piece of content needs to be 500 words long, then you can optimize it for up to 2 keywords.
Tip #5: Know where to put the keywords for best results.
Keywords should be integrated throughout the piece, but concentrate more on the title and first paragraph. Mention the main keyword once in the title, and mention it again within the first 50-60 characters of the first paragraph (this is what will be seen when the page appears in search results). Search engines place more importance on the appearance of keywords in those areas when ranking pages, and searchers are more likely to click on results that contain those keywords.
If you want to make the jump into writing for the web, basic SEO writing knowledge is an absolute must-have. As a writer, your piece of the SEO puzzle is really not that difficult to obtain - it just takes a few tricks and tools to fit that piece into the big optimization picture.
