Nowadays everyone is focussed on writing articles that are SEO friendly, are readily found by automated bots working for search engines. Search engines on the other hand are focusing more and more on finding ways to determine which articles are most useful to its human users. A way to leverage this relationship and succeed with the complex SEO techniques and terminology in the online content publishing world is to focus on its human readers. Same principles apply to both audience –search engines and human readers, and here they are –
Start by identifying one key topic and its related concepts. The topic should become clear at the beginning of the article, so be direct. Include the topic in the title or the headings. At the same time avoid mentioning it too many times – excessive use of the topic keyword would undoubtedly irritate your readers and hence is also penalised by most search engines.
In today's world when we are bombarded with information from all directions all the time, it is important that when you present a topic to your audience, it must offer something new – a new insight, a better explanation or a new topic itself. An SEO article should cover the topic in as much detail as possible. Using keyword research
It is easy to get carried away with the topic once you start writing. An outline helps to structure content around the central idea. A structure also provides a lucid flow to writing and prevents you from digressing towards other unrelated topics. When in doubt, err on the side of brevity.
This step seems trivial, however there are some key points to mention here. Search Engines cannot read language like humans; hence they rely on clues and structure of the content. Few pointers - content must be grammatically correct; the language must appeal to your target demographic; use font illustrations like bold, italics wherever applicable; insert appropriate headings and conclude the article by emphasizing key points.
This step is crucial. Proofreading allows us to correct mistakes or repetitions that we may have overlooked initially. If possible asking a second person to proofread the article helps to get a different perspective and an honest opinion.
In addition to basic writing tips some SEO specific actions are: share link to your content on social platforms and build incoming links using white hat SEO techniques. In addition follow SEO steps that are provided by your hosting service (like WordPress).
Shortcuts would not work for SEO friendly articles in the long term, so it is better to stay away from them!