SEO
Top 42 Tips To Master A Combined Art
True digital success – for search engine rankings, user experience, and the brand overall, whether personal or business – occurs when the art of SEO and the art of writing are combined.
The best SEO writing comes from the perfect blend of:
- Topical knowledge/expertise.
- Deep knowledge of writing well
- SEO best practices.
SEO is a must for any online writing, especially from a keyword perspective, and correctly mapping those keywords to pages/posts.
Readers can recognize an authoritative voice immediately, and a fake voice even quicker.
Whether you want conversions, brand awareness, or something else, your writing needs to have authority (and authenticity).
With that said, here are the top 42 writing tips for any content writer within any type of company, from billion-dollar software designers to local pest control companies.
The focus weighs more towards the art of writing itself, which will naturally lead to the creation of quality content that search engines demand.
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Writing for SEO: The Essentials
1. Think Keywords First
Your writing must be found before you’ll have any impact on your target audience. This is why keyword research should always come before any research or actual writing.
This keyword research will massively influence your research, also, because you’ll discover other ways your target audience is searching for your topic.
No matter how intelligent they become, search engine algorithms can’t recognize the best voice in a piece of writing. But if keywords are there, you have the opportunity to be heard.
New to keywords? Check out this beginner’s guide to keyword research.
2. Approach Keyword Research Like An Art
There are thousands of keyword research articles available. Research, discover, and test what works best for you.
Such as…
Make this process cyclical. I build content calendars out in three-month segments, performing fresh keyword research at the beginning of every cycle.
Industries change, and new keywords trend quicker than you’d guess.
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3. Study The Competition For Keywords
There are many tools available to help you find competitor keywords.
Warning: Only take keywords – don’t study the actual writing of your competitors. Once you do that, you sound like them and struggle to create anything original. Create an original voice and you’ll be heard.
4. Target 1 Or 2 Keywords For Each Page Or Blog (Except Homepage)
Always focus on broader terms for your main “parent” pages and longer terms for the “child” pages below.
Targeting searcher intent first, volume second will help you get into the mindset of what your target customer wants.
5. Use Keywords Where They Matter Most
Use your keyword in the following (prioritized of importance) to send search engines strong signals of the content’s intent:
- Title tag.
- Internal links within content.
- Alt attribute of image.
- Headline tags (always have an H1!).
- Meta description.
6. Use Bold & Bullet Points Wherever Possible
Google pays attention to these, including when awarding featured snippets.
Make sure to use target keywords in bold and bullet points when possible.
7. The Title Tag: Still The Most Powerful Element
Make sure your target keyword is part of the title tag, ideally toward the front.
Also, remember that title tags should be about 60 characters, so put as much time into this as your actual content creation.
For the homepage title tag, target three of the most important keywords that describe the business/website.
Always think about storytelling. Keep it simple. Speak the language of your target audience. And write to influence that click-through.
8. Add Related Keywords
Don’t simply stuff keywords in after doing the writing.
If you’re well prepared with keyword research, have the list of topically related keywords at hand as you write.
If you are staying on topic, you will insert related keywords naturally.
9. Use Your Target Keyword In Your Meta Description
Google says it doesn’t use the meta description as a ranking factor.
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However, if someone is searching for that target keyword or phrase, those words will be bold.
Bolding attracts the eyes – and might entice a searcher to click rather than scroll by.
Also, write your meta description like ad copy. The goal is to excite the audience to further influence a click-through (your title tag should be the first influencer, immediately backed by your meta description).
Writing For SEO: Craft & Routine
10. Write. Rewrite. Then Rewrite Again. Until It’s Right.
It’s all about routine and process.
As William Zinsser says in, “Writing to Learn:”
“Only by repeated applications of the process – writing and rewriting and pruning and shaping – can we hammer out clear and simple product.”
11. Outline And Plan
It’s much easier for a mind to think (and a search engine to read) in chunks, and actually see those chunks coherently.
Most minds naturally want to write in a stream of consciousness style like Jack Kerouac – but this isn’t novel writing. Most of us are writing for a business, to further that business’s success.
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Organize headlines (for SEO with keywords!) and fill in the gaps.
Sometimes those headlines are more important than the words beneath. Make those headlines scream thoughts, and the words shout to support those screams.
12. Write Sentence By Sentence
Set up Word or Google Docs in landscape mode for the first draft, and write sentence by sentence.
Don’t write any paragraphs until you do your first rounds of edits.
I learned this tip from Charles Euchner, author of “The Elements of Writing.”
Single-line sentences keep the mind fresh. They’ll help corral thoughts as you begin editing.
Think short for every sentence – like a 140-character tweet – and embrace short and concise writing.
13. Write Daily
A muscle grows when it has input combined with correlating relaxing points.
Your mind works that same way; embrace it.
Again, write daily to work out the writing muscles, followed by some relaxing.
Never stop the growth of writing muscles.
14. Shut Your Wi-fi Off
This tip comes from Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek.”
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This simple practice keeps focus in place and prevents the mind from answering anything outside of your focus.
Distractions move a mood. Make those distractions non-existent.
15. Got Questions? Ask Your Digital Assistant
The Wi-fi may be off, but sometimes you need immediate answers to questions that will nag you. Some can’t work without answering questions.
The solution is simple: ask Alexa, Siri, or your Google Assistant.
I keep an Amazon Echo Dot next to my desk and use it for quick research.
I have an Echo Show, but it doesn’t belong in the office where it can quickly jack your focus due to the video factor. That one remains downstairs, out of the office.
16. Read All You Can
Especially read the writers who simplify everything.
People may not love Hunter S. Thompson due to his politics or mad lifestyle, but his prose is crisp and simple. I read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” in one sitting.
(And not once, but maybe 10 times when I needed a push into something I couldn’t possibly finish and needed a mind breath.)
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If you’re business-minded, Michael Gerber’s “The E-Myth” is a one-sitting read, too. It’s simple and informative.
17. Stop Waiting For Inspiration
It’s useless.
There’s no such thing as inspiration unless you like to talk about writing instead of actually doing it.
True writers write every day and make it a lifestyle that helps develop the “art.” Practice makes stuff happen and takes discipline.
Words simply flow better and easier after practice and discipline. Nothing happens without the simplicity of practice.
18. Read The Essentials
For traditional writing, read William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well.” Don’t just read it once. Reread it once a year.
For the digital age of “short” writing that makes an impact, read Roy Peter Clark’s “How to Write Short.”
Don’t stop there. Read “The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America’s Greatest Writing Teacher” and “Ernest Hemingway On Writing.”
19. Try Writing In Longhand
This article is based on notes I took while flying over the Atlantic Ocean en route to Valencia, Spain.
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Flying is a great time for thinking and using longhand. Plus, it keeps your mind off the snoring passenger next to you.
Write in longhand in cabs, buses, middle of meetings, etc. Try it, and revisit those notes before you get to work typing.
20. Write About What You Love
To truly master the craft of the written word, embrace writing that makes you happy – regardless if it’ll make you money. The more you write, the better you’ll become.
Short writing provides inspiration (regardless of how absurd it feels or reads sometimes!).
21. Ask Questions Daily
Friends, family, wife, children, whoever. Continually ask questions.
The more you learn, the more you can provide readers (possible prospects in business), regardless of your industry.
Questions are the highlights of learning. Let people talk.
Think 80/20 – let others talk 80% of the time as you listen, and you can talk the other 20% of the time.
Your readers will thank you one day.
22. Know Your Audience & Write For Them
Remember to keep your voice and style the same.
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That’s how to set yourself apart from the zillions of other content writers out there.
23. Work Better Under Deadline?
For some people, the pressure of a deadline forces the creativity out of you.
If this is true for you, have project managers bump up your due dates.
I do this with my teams, sometimes by as far ahead as four weeks.
24. Build Your Work Around Questions
Always ask, “What’s the problem and how do I clearly provide a solution?”
It’s just as important to ask, “Will readers care?”
This helps keep your voice trustworthy and authoritative, keeping search engines and readers happy.
25. Split Long Projects Into Short Tasks
Write all headlines first (remember to use target keywords in them), and fill in each portion.
This works just as well whether you’re writing a 2,500-word piece on the craft of writing, or a 750-piece for a client discussing the technical aspects of a product.
26. Always Have An Ending in Mind
Knowing where your content is leading will keep your writing focus sharp, and will help you more often achieve the ultimate goal of most online writing – a conversion.
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27. Check Your Spelling & Grammar
Misspell a name and the article immediately loses credibility.
Craft your content with sloppy grammar, and the reader doubts your authority.
After you’ve checked for spelling and grammar errors, check again.
28. Aim For Credibility
Without credibility, you’ll lose any chance of capturing an audience’s attention.
Situations get worse if you spread false facts.
Take added time for research and fact-checking.
29. Edit With The 10-Second Rule In Mind
This goes for every single paragraph, especially for the first paragraph and meta description.
You want to immediately grab the reader’s attention — and keep it.
Is the article worthy of additional conversation? If so, and you have proper CTAs, this can help move readers one step closer to conversion.
Writing for SEO: Form
30. Write Strong Sentences & Paragraphs
The strongest words should begin and end a sentence.
The strongest sentences should appear at the end and beginning of a paragraph.
This helps keep the slower, more in-depth material in the middle, and the most important thoughts before the reader.
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31. Become Obsessed About Clarity Of Voice
Clean writing reflects a clear mindset – something people (clients!) need.
For example, Starbucks uses both functional and expressive language to clarify its voice in its marketing.
Or Mailchimp’s voice is plain spoken with a dab of dry humor.
32. Keep Writing Free Of Clutter
Keep it simple.
Get straight to what you’re saying.
Strip all useless words.
Get sentences into their simplest form.
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33. Beware Of Excess Adverbs & Adjectives
If the verb or noun can’t perform the explanation, that verb or noun isn’t strong enough. You can learn more about writing with adverbs and adjectives here.
34. Use A Variety Of Long And Short Sentences
A variety of sentence lengths helps your content to create some rhythm.
Readers enjoy this.
35. Short Paragraphs Allow The Mind to Breathe
Use short paragraphs often.
Space between paragraphs psychologically takes less energy to read, saving that prospect’s energy for the sale/lead.
36. Always Use Active Verbs
In this sentence, the active verb is “Use.”
Without active verbs, the mind shifts. It wanders.
You lose an audience… or a sale.
Be clear on what action the reader can take next.
37. Avoid Clichés
Like the plague.
You feel me?
Writing for SEO: Favorite Hacks
38. Listen to Your Favorite Music
Why not write to it? Some forms of music will bring drastically different emotions out on the page before you’d realize it, so the more the better.
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While writing this, I went from Coltrane to Infected Mushroom to Hendrix to SRV to Dimmu Borgir to Breaking Benjamin to Chopin.
For editing, Wes Montgomery was my go-to.
Music can help words flow, so embrace it all.
39. Commit To The Most Serious Writing In The Morning
I’m typically up by 5:30 a.m. That’s when my brain is freshest.
I always block a few hours every morning for my most serious writing.
40. Carry A Tablet To Jot Down Ideas
If you think clearer in longhand, carry a small tablet for jotting down ideas overusing your phone.
Moleskine tablets are my favorite because they are thin and fit into books, which I always have with me when traveling.
There’s only so much marginal space within a book for ideas; a tablet takes care of this and keeps you off the phone.
41. For Clients: Think 80/20 For The Initial Few Engagements
Focus on the 20% of your writing that will produce 80% results for the client’s sales. How?
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Simple: always begin a content strategy around the top ROI products. This shows value, and will help contribute to the overall qualified keywords you want them to want to rank for.
42. Remember To Get Away From It All
The writers that have the true minds to create and provide value to clients always need a break.
One of my weekly tactics for resting and reenergizing is “half-day Wednesday.” I tune out and either play guitar, hike or ride motorcycles… basically whatever is needed.
This mid-week break keeps the mind fresh and clear, which translates into positive workflow and, ultimately, happy clients.
Conclusion
Creating content that leads to conversion involves not only the art of SEO but also the craft of writing.
Embrace both if you’re serious about providing the most value to your readers or your client’s readers, which you naturally want to turn from prospects to customers.
Also, remember that the appeal and popularity of strong content will only compound online over time.
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Think of SEO writing to a business as compounding interest to an investor – have the patience and discipline to do it correctly, and the results should continually speak for themselves.
Featured image: Paulo Bobita/SearchEngineJournal
SEO
Google Declares It The “Gemini Era” As Revenue Grows 15%
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced its first quarter 2024 financial results today.
While Google reported double-digit growth in key revenue areas, the focus was on its AI developments, dubbed the “Gemini era” by CEO Sundar Pichai.
The Numbers: 15% Revenue Growth, Operating Margins Expand
Alphabet reported Q1 revenues of $80.5 billion, a 15% increase year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street’s projections.
Net income was $23.7 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.89. Operating margins expanded to 32%, up from 25% in the prior year.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s President and CFO, stated:
“Our strong financial results reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base.”
Google’s core advertising units, such as Search and YouTube, drove growth. Google advertising revenues hit $61.7 billion for the quarter.
The Cloud division also maintained momentum, with revenues of $9.6 billion, up 28% year-over-year.
Pichai highlighted that YouTube and Cloud are expected to exit 2024 at a combined $100 billion annual revenue run rate.
Generative AI Integration in Search
Google experimented with AI-powered features in Search Labs before recently introducing AI overviews into the main search results page.
Regarding the gradual rollout, Pichai states:
“We are being measured in how we do this, focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”
Pichai reports that Google’s generative AI features have answered over a billion queries already:
“We’ve already served billions of queries with our generative AI features. It’s enabling people to access new information, to ask questions in new ways, and to ask more complex questions.”
Google reports increased Search usage and user satisfaction among those interacting with the new AI overview results.
The company also highlighted its “Circle to Search” feature on Android, which allows users to circle objects on their screen or in videos to get instant AI-powered answers via Google Lens.
Reorganizing For The “Gemini Era”
As part of the AI roadmap, Alphabet is consolidating all teams building AI models under the Google DeepMind umbrella.
Pichai revealed that, through hardware and software improvements, the company has reduced machine costs associated with its generative AI search results by 80% over the past year.
He states:
“Our data centers are some of the most high-performing, secure, reliable and efficient in the world. We’ve developed new AI models and algorithms that are more than one hundred times more efficient than they were 18 months ago.
How Will Google Make Money With AI?
Alphabet sees opportunities to monetize AI through its advertising products, Cloud offerings, and subscription services.
Google is integrating Gemini into ad products like Performance Max. The company’s Cloud division is bringing “the best of Google AI” to enterprise customers worldwide.
Google One, the company’s subscription service, surpassed 100 million paid subscribers in Q1 and introduced a new premium plan featuring advanced generative AI capabilities powered by Gemini models.
Future Outlook
Pichai outlined six key advantages positioning Alphabet to lead the “next wave of AI innovation”:
- Research leadership in AI breakthroughs like the multimodal Gemini model
- Robust AI infrastructure and custom TPU chips
- Integrating generative AI into Search to enhance the user experience
- A global product footprint reaching billions
- Streamlined teams and improved execution velocity
- Multiple revenue streams to monetize AI through advertising and cloud
With upcoming events like Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the company is expected to share further updates on its AI initiatives and product roadmap.
Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
SEO
Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome
Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.
The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.
Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025
Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.
Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The statement reads:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”
Continued Engagement With Regulators
Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.
This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.
The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.
Transition Period & Impact
In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.
However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.
The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.
While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.
Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.
Publisher & Advertiser Implications
The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.
Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.
However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.
With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
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