The big secret to get your website to rank higher is to post awesome content on it. A website with a way to help you do this is key and that's basically a blogging tool or a Content Management System. Webstix provides that and we invite you to get a great website set up utilizing responsive design so that you have a better chance of ranking higher but let me focus this article on the "writing content" part of the SEO (search engine optimization) formula.
By far, I think the questions of what to write about is the biggest question out there. Should you just write about anything?
No, be focused and have a plan... for sure.
First of all, put yourself in Google's shoes or Bing's shoes... your job is to give out the best search results, right? You want to give people what they're searching for. You've got all these websites out there and you need an automated way to help figure out what the best results are. Bam! That's the Google search algorithm.
If Google's looking at your website, what do they see? How would they classify it?
Well, if you write about certain topics that are all related, then that helps search engine more reliably refer people to your website. Don't write about turkeys one day and roller coasters the next day... unless, that is, you have a business about turkeys on roller coasters. Good luck with that if that's you!
The first step is always keyword research - find out what kinds of phrases people are typing into search engines and write about those things. Wow, that's simple... give people what they're searching for! Easy!
How do you do keyword research? Well, I could write quite a bit about that and to be honest, it's actually pretty boring and tedious. It's "grunt work" for sure. If I explained it, you'd probably get turned off and decide that doing all this isn't for you. Just have us (Webstix) do this for you. We have the tools and we kind of geek out on it.
Now you just have to write! Your article needs to be informative, have new information (lots of meat / no fluff) and be interesting. It should answer people's questions and give them help. As I say, it needs to be "share worthy" or "bookmark worthy" or something people would like and share on social media.
Remember to follow "AIDA" which is:
Get their interest right away, get their interest, create desire and have them take action.
Don't sell something every time but your action can vary. The action might just be asking them to share your great article.
If you're not a writer, then don't worry - you're normal. Most people don't like to write. I used to hate it. Now I see it as being creative and I've grown into it. I like it but it took quite a while to get there. I know you're probably not there yet but maybe you want to be or you want some help to get there.
Here's a good article I found recently that can help you:
This article lists things like coming up with a list or be funny or do an interview. It has lots of good ideas, so definitely check it out. Just don't do their tip #11, which is completely wrong.
Here are some of my own tips for help with writing articles:
The more you post, the bigger net you have - and the more "fish" (website visitors / potential customers) you'll have.
The best thing about posting content to your website is you post it once and it keeps working for you, over and over again into the future. There's not much else you do that has this kind of return, so invest in writing great content.
In conclusion, it's good to write a conclusion. Sum up what you wrote and point things out. This is also where you can include your call to action and ask people to either share your article or sign up for a newsletter or buy something.
Keep all these tips in mind and, after a while, writing will become easier. You'll also be helping search engines classify what your website is about as well as grow your net so that you can capture more traffic. The absolute best thing you can do for SEO is write great content. Have a plan, plan the time and write articles on purpose to help your website visitors.
Here are more articles like this that I've written that will help you:
Happy writing!
-Tony
