A question that comes up often when we speak to new clients is, do we have SEO expertise? This can be a difficult question to answer because an SEO strategy combines website functionality, design, and writing. So, we know how to write in a way that gives written content that has the potential to get a good SEO ranking, but we can’t optimise your whole website.
Let’s take a look at how you can tweak your business writing to gain a better SEO ranking.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. In simple terms, it is the practice of making your site more valuable to the search engine algorithm, so it appears higher in search results. SEO is a popular practice for increasing organic traffic to your website rather than having to pay for ads.
What Is the Purpose Behind SEO?
First, you need to understand what the search engine algorithms are looking for when they rank your website. Search engines are businesses, just like ours, and at the end of the day, their priority is ensuring that users find the information they are looking for. If all of the top search results are irrelevant or spam, then users might pick another search engine.
The search engine algorithm is designed for user experience. Every algorithm update is based on data collected from billions of searches to determine what is important to search engine users. They are all designed to ensure that when you type a search query into the search bar, you get the exact answer you are looking for.
What Should I Do to Improve My Website’s Search Engine Ranking?
Where many new business owners go wrong is that they think of website SEO as a formula. Algorithms are updated on a regular basis, so if you think of your website’s SEO as a formula, you need to update it every time an algorithm changes. Instead, you need to approach your website SEO thinking of the goal of the algorithm which is user experience. Every algorithm update is designed to improve user experience, so optimising your website for user experience allows you to stay ahead of the algorithm.
It is difficult to think about SEO in this way. When you’re following a formula, you can complete a checklist of tasks to get the result you work. But when you’re just trying to improve the user experience, there is no clear checklist or clear endpoint. We completely understand that this is a frustrating answer, but it is the key to an evergreen SEO strategy.
In the last few years, you may have heard an increase in the term UX in business circles. UX stands for user experience, and you will see many digital service providers who are UX experts. There are even UX copywriters. As far as we’re concerned, all copywriters focus on the user experience to some point. After all, our writing has a goal and that requires us to be hyperaware of how the user interacts with your website and the copy.
There have been times when we pushed back on recommendations from our clients’ SEO experts because it would hamper the user experience. (It is obvious to prospects when you are trying to jam as many keywords in as possible.) User experience is important to all copywriting because customers are less likely to take the desired action if they have a poor user experience.
Okay, But What Does That Mean For My Writing?
When you are writing for your small business, you need to ensure that your writing is appealing to human users. We will give you some tips on how to make your writing easier for users to read, but always keep the user experience at the forefront of your mind. This means you should make a note of the frustrations you feel when you read website copy or content. Make a note of the websites you really enjoy reading too. What is it about the layout and writing that appeals to you?
As professional copywriters, the layout of a piece of writing is just as important to us as the actual writing. We need to know how the user will interact with our writing so we can write for that. If we’re writing your website copy, we’ll ask if you are keeping your current website layout or if you’ll be redesigning your website. If we’re writing content, we’ll ask for a link to where the content will be posted so we can see how it will appear. Our main goal is to keep users reading so we can work behind the scenes to sell to them. It doesn’t matter if your goal is to sell them on your expertise, on taking the desired action, or to buy from you; it’s all selling in the end.
7 Tips to Improve the SEO of Your Business Writing
Now that you know a little bit more about SEO, here are some tips for improving the SEO of your writing.
1. Make Your Writing Easy to Navigate
If your blog post or website is a big old wall of text, your customers are going to nope out of there without reading. You need to make it easy for customers to find the information they are looking for. That means:
- Add headings
- Use graphics to illustrate important points
- Shorten paragraphs
- Use a contents section for long content
- Break up the text with dot points or numbered lists
All of these things will make your content less daunting to look at. A user can do a quick scan of the article, determine that the information will be useful and begin reading.
2. Use Alt Text
Alt text is used as an alternative if the user cannot see the image. If the image doesn’t load for some reason, the alt text will display so the user can see what the image was. If the user is vision impaired, then their text reader will read the alt text.
Many people advise using alt text to try and fit additional keywords into your content, but you should use alt text to explain the image. If it is a stock photo, you can just explain how the stock photo relates to an article, like “photo of a business website displayed on a laptop.” If you have a graphic that shows additional information or illustrates a point, then explain that it is a graphic and add any text or data that can be gathered from the graphic.
Again, look at your website from a user experience perspective, not a “fit as many keywords in as possible” perspective.
3. Use Simpler Words
Business writing is not poetry or literature; drop the flowery language and big words. We get it, you want to seem sophisticated and knowledgeable, but your writing will be more effective if people can understand it. The human brain seeks the path of least resistance, and if they need a cup of coffee and a distraction-free afternoon (who has those anymore) to read your work, they simply won’t. You need to write in a way that someone can read right then and there, instead of putting it off for later. Because we all know, things we put off for later rarely get read.
We recommend using the Hemmingway app to edit your writing. It will identify complex or long sentences so that you can tweak them. Aim for a Grade 6 reading level. If you are writing a technical piece, some of the technical words may increase the reading level score. But try and keep it as low as possible.
4. Reduce Sentence Length
When speaking, most people will use very long sentences. Our words tend to flow with our train of thought, so sentences become longer, and grammar rules go out the window. But, when you are reading, you can see how long the sentence is. Have you ever seen a sentence that runs longer than 2 or 3 lines? If you’re anything like us, that earns a sigh and a “Here we go!”
Long sentences are really hard to read. That fact is true whether you are writing copy or content. Copy tends to prefer short, snappy sentences that the brain can understand instantly. Content allows longer sentences because it tends to be more conversational. But you still need to cut down on the waffle. If you tend to ramble, here are our top tips for cutting down your sentences:
- One thought per sentence – The easiest way to reduce the length of your sentence is to not introduce a new concept halfway through a sentence.
- Turn long lists into dot points – It will make it much easier on the reader’s eyes and break up long paragraphs.
- Look for an easier way to say things – Write out your long rambling sentence and then sit back and think of an easier way to get your point across.
What’s the ideal sentence length? There is a lot of contradicting advice around the ideal sentence length. Ideally, the average sentence length of a piece of writing should be around 20 words. Less is fantastic; it just means your writing is easier to read. Shorter sentences not only help people with learning difficulties, they make life easier for everyone. People are less likely to get distracted or lose their train of thought halfway through a sentence.
5. Link to Sources
SEO search algorithms value credible writing more highly than writing that has no basis for their information. That is why something like Wikipedia will always be one of the highest-ranking websites on almost any topic. If you scroll to the bottom of a Wikipedia page, they have a long list of sources of information. We’re not saying you should do that, but don’t be afraid to link to credible resources when writing content.
You can do this in 2 ways:
- Link the source to an appropriate phrase in your text
- Create a list of sources at the bottom of the article
Your users have somewhere to go if they want to find out more, and the search engine will view your website as a credible source of information.
6. Add Internal Links
Along with linking to external sources, you should also include internal links in your article. Let’s say you wrote a really informative article on how to pick the perfect camping destination. After reading the article, your client might just close your website, or they might search for more information on Google. If you include internal links, you can direct your customer to other articles that they might like. You can send them to your article about how to create a camping packing list or your article about how to pick a tent. You could even use a CTA to get them to take the desired action.
Internal links help keep your website visitors on your website for longer. When this happens, the search engine algorithm sees your website as more useful to users. This in turn, increases your search engine ranking.
7. Use CTAs
CTAs are calls to action. In simple terms, this means a sentence that gets users to take action. It could be something like “Read more about X here” or “Grab my 2022 Camping packing list.” A CTA doesn’t always have to send users to a sales page; you can use a CTA to get users to take any desired step. This includes things like:
- Sign up for a mailing list
- Read another article about the topic
- Follow you on a social media platform
- Tweet or share the article
It is just a sentence asking the reader to take a certain action. Always use a link for a CTA to lower the barrier for readers to take that action. Don’t make them search to find what they need to do.
How Does Keyword Integration Affect SEO?
You may be surprised it has taken us this long to talk about keywords; isn’t that the main part of SEO writing? If a client has done keyword research and asks us to integrate certain phrases, we will always do so. But, keyword research is not a part of our strategy and here’s why:
The things people search for change.
Human activity ebbs and flows, and the keywords you research won’t always be the best keywords. Search traffic may reduce for that particular term, or competition for that term may increase. Writing copy or content around certain search terms is not an evergreen strategy. If your goal is to have constant organic search traffic to your website, you need to be doing regular keyword research.
We don’t know about you, but we don’t plan to update our website and all of our content every 3-6 months, so we don’t put too much focus on keywords. Instead, we focus on user experience and search intent. It’s not a strategy that will get us instant results, but it is a strategy that will get us consistent results. It also means we aren’t scrambling to review all of our content anytime Google announces an algorithm update.