Fundamental Qualities Of An SEO-Friendly Article
There are thousands of articles doing the rounds on the internet. How can an article find a noticeable place amidst those? Answer- the content must be SEO-friendly. That’s how search engines can identify the article easily and place it among the top searched results. Is this all about keywords that allow search engines to connect an article with a particular input? Well, a part of it is. But, it is just the tip of the iceberg. You must be thinking that we are beating around the bush. Well, it is just a teaser of waits ahead.
So, what exactly are the qualities of an SEO-friendly article?
More the qualities, increased are the chances of an article to become SEO friendly content. You cannot escape any of these qualities if you are aiming to top the charts.
- Background Research
The research will focus on the insights of content and the keywords that can be targeted, the general length of such an article, frequently asked questions about the content, and what other articles of similar nature speak about. The limitations found in other articles during this research work will have to be targeted for your content to achieve uniqueness amongst others.
- Ideal Keywords
Search with your target keyword to find out what sort of articles come up higher in the ranks. You will discover various searching patterns in the search list while you do that. This is when you will get an idea about keywords for your article. Make sure to frame the content using such keywords to help the search engines bring your article to the highest ranks. The idea should not be on modifying the keywords according to your writing style but rather the other way round.
- Ideal Length
There are certain norms as to how long an article would be to make it SEO-friendly content. How can you know that? The internet is there to save you. Study the first few research results and the average length those have. With appropriate use of keywords and length, it is a bang-on! All you have to do is to make sure you determine a proper word limit and frame your content accordingly. This word limit will differ from content to content. Thus, you should conduct in-depth research before preparing the article so that you reach a desirable article length.
Answer to the Frequently Asked Questions
Your research work will involve a search for the frequently asked questions related to your content. For this, your targeted keywords will be of help. You must search with such keywords and check for the ‘People also ask’ section in the search engines to get an idea of the various questions that might get raised relating to an article. Aim at answering all these questions in the concerned article to make it SEO-friendly. However, this is not the end of it. One question will lead to further questions added up by search engines. The more the answers in your article, the higher are the chances of it getting high in the ranks.
- Post Title and Meta Title
What are they? The post title refers to the form in which a reader sees a particular title of your post while reading it from your website. Meta title refers to the form in which a search engine displays your post in the results derived from the search. In case you do not specify a Meta title, the post title will become the Meta title. The most important element in this is certainly the use of proper keywords in your Meta title. This will, in turn, attract the readers to open the article and research through it.
- Post Meta Description
Meta descriptions are extremely significant for achieving higher ranks in a search engine. These Meta descriptions are required to be added by you on your post. These meta descriptions are written to attract readers as and when they see them without much complication. You need to add your main keyword to the meta description you are adding to your post. This further builds the potential of making SEO-friendly content by attracting the maximum possible traffic on the site.
- Image Descriptions
You should add image descriptions beneath every image you use in an article, making it easy for the readers to understand an image. Say you named an image as “image012.jpg” within the article. This doesn’t seem right, and it would be best to mention what’s in there or what it depicts and keep it relevant.
- Interlink
Every article must include various links that connect to previously posted articles on your website. This makes readers spend more time on one particular website and make it a one-stop for all the information required. An SEO-friendly article aims to make the same article achieve higher ranks in a search engine and take the host website to a higher level. The more the interlinks, the greater the attachment of a reader with your website, and thus, the greater the chances of getting attracted by more and more people. This will eventually allow for better navigability of the website.
- Removal of STOP words from the link
Various stop words get used in an article. Take ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’ for example. And these are only three from a huge list. The title of an article might contain various stop words. For example, if the title is ‘Ways to create SEO friendly content,’ the stop word used in this is ‘to.’ From the permanent link, it is very much required for you to remove these stop words. Edit the link using the words’ SEO friendly content’.
- Heading Tags
One of the most important aspects of SEO-friendly content is putting the proper heading tags to it. Proper H1, H2, and H3 tags should appear in headings. The title, by default, uses an H1 tag for the heading, which needs to be followed by the H2 and H3 heading tags. It is also very important for you to use the main keywords of your article in these heading tags. While you are absorbed in researching your article, you must decide what heading tags you should use to match your article content.
- Search Intent
Get this done during the initial research phase. Search intent refers to the intention of a user in searching your article while making an online search. Search intent can be of four different types.
- Informational intent refers to the intention behind a search where the motive is to gain knowledge regarding a certain subject.
- Commercial intent: This refers to the intention behind a search where the motive is to purchase something.
- Navigational intent refers to the intention behind a search where the motive is to visit a particular website.
- Transactional intent refers to the intention behind a search where the motive is in buying and completing a particular transaction.
This comes with the obvious factor of having the right format for your content so that the readers find the information they need without much hassle.
- Visual Content
Visual content is necessary for content to become attractive and convert into SEO-friendly content. Visual storytelling is always powerful in making content attractive, and this lets a message become easily conveyed to the audience while keeping the audience attracted throughout. Visual content can be of several types. Make sure to include visual content like checklists, videos, images, and infographics. These will increase the value of your website while providing it with increased chances of achieving higher ranks in the search engines. Visual content helps keep the visitors engaged in the web page and serves as a quick and proper guide.
- Easy URL
We did mention that you should remove stop words. Guess what? There’s more to the URL. Make it an easy-to-comprehend one. Also, the best practice is to use a descriptive and easy URL that includes the target keywords. URLs may contain various folders as well as subfolders on your particular website. This enables the website visitors to jump on to a particular article of their choice directly. URLs do matter as these improve the overall user experience, increasing the website’s visibility by giving a better and proper idea about the context.
- Transition Words
Transition words are very much important in making an article SEO-friendly. These words help the visitors scan the entire text and understand the paragraph division and their relationship with the sentences. Let us take an example of an article that speaks about three reasons for something (anything). In such a case, you must use various signal words such as ‘first of all, ‘first and foremost, ‘firstly,’ ‘secondly,’ and ‘thirdly.’ Other words tend to provide clarity to the readers such as ‘however,’ ‘for example, and ‘similarly.’ Such words give an idea of what to expect in or after a particular paragraph.
- Small Paragraphs
Small paragraphs are a must for your article to keep the readers engaged. Make sure to maintain such a structure. You can’t keep your readers glued to the content if you are using too long paragraphs. Keep each one short, and that manages to grab attention better. A page or a half-page long paragraph tends to indicate that you have to read a lot. While surfing the internet, people would try to find quick answers to their queries. So, instead of feeding them with the whole thing at a time, give them one spoonful only. Trust us; you are the gainer here!
These are a few tricks and methods of how you can develop an SEO-friendly article, make it win the race and qualify into the higher ranks, and so on. Have you heard of them already? Great for you! Didn’t? Well, now you do!
