4 TIPS FOR WRITERS: ON-PAGE SEO

As I started working as a content writer in addition to putting my own writings into cyberspace, I learned a valuable lesson: SEO is important. It does not matter if you want to find your audience or you want them to find you, SEO is a skill I believe every writer needs to tackle to win the battle to land on the first page of search results.

Be honest with yourself! When you search for something online, how often do you click on page 2 or 3 of the search results? Or do you just enter different keywords that are perhaps more specific?

Here are some SEO tips to keep in mind:

1. Specific keywords are better than general ones because they are less competitive. If you were to google “writing tips,” you would find a lot of articles that are not necessarily focused on a specific aspect of writing. You will get different results if you google “writing tips for bloggers.” As you get more specific, you refine your search results filtering out unwanted content. As you get more and more specific, the keywords get less and less competitive. Even though fewer users may be searching for a specific set of keywords, you have a higher chance of attracting them as a reader because your content is targeting them. It will also help you rank higher in the search results to generate solid leads.

2. Incorporate long-tail keywords into your content. These keywords are phrases or a combination of words that are written into an article. After you have written your first draft, go back and highlight what you think readers would search. You should also make a list of what you think your readers will search for and try to incorporate those phrases into your content. A lot of people search using questions starting with “how” or “why.”

Extra Tip: I strongly advise against keyword stuffing since this will probably work against you once google analytics picks it up. When you use keywords in your content, it should be natural.

3. Tags matter too! While long-tail keywords are better to help eliminate the competition, tags can help get your work featured on a specific page. If you use a site like Medium, choosing the correct tag is sometimes half the battle. When I see a story has been featured or picked by curators on a specific topic, I notice traffic increases to those stories. On WriteSpike, tags are used in a similar way as readers can filter what stories they view based on those genres. Do not ignore the power of tags.

4. Write captions for your pictures. Many times, writers will use pictures without putting a caption or a description of the photo. For instance, if you are publishing photos from a trip you took to provide a gallery of a specific city, you want to write the city name in the caption. When people are searching for photos of that city, Google will have a higher chance of picking up your photo for containing the correct keywords. To test this out, google your name. If photos of you or your work show up, why do you think this happened? If nothing showed up, why not? Did you post photos of yourself or your work without captions?

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash