How to make your content more SEO-friendly

SEO-friendly content plays an important role in lead generation, by attracting the right visitors to your website or landing page. With the right visitors, it becomes easier to convert them to clients.

Here’s how to make your content more SEO-friendly.

Do keyword research

Before writing content, perform keyword research because keywords help search engines find your content. 

A keyword can also be a phrase, and include a location. For example, some of the general keywords applicable to a mortgage broker include:

• Mortgage broker
• How to become a mortgage broker
• What does a mortgage broker do
• Mortgage broker advice
• Mortgage broker [location]
• Direct lender vs mortgage broker
• Do I need a mortgage broker to buy a house?

Google Keyword Planner is a tool to search for the best keywords, but there are other free keyword research tools available. For example, the free version of answerthepublic.com returns these results when looking up ‘buyer’s agent’:

You could also look at AWStats (which is installed with most Linux website hosting systems) to see if people used keywords to reach your site. 

The major search engines also freely distribute keyword tools, like Google Analytics and Bing Webmaster Tools (see screenshot below). These tools will show you which keywords you rank for and how high you rank, and let you search for relevant keywords you could include in your content.

Use headings and subheadings

Headings and subheadings help search engines understand what content is on the page and whether it’s relevant to the search term.

As an added advantage, headings and subheadings also make the content more scannable, so once people land on your page, it’s easier for them to quickly scan your headings to find the information they’re looking for.

Produce high-quality content

SEO content isn’t just about keywords; it’s about people. Search engines focus on content that answers questions. Search engines also try to find the answers themselves.

In the example above, Hunter & Scribe did not tell Bing they’re great content writers; Bing figured it out from the reviews.

So once you’ve done your keyword research, incorporate those keywords into relevant content, which could be educational information, news or both:

• Website text
• Blogs
• Newsletters that are posted on your website

That way, you’re writing for people, but you’re also writing in the way that maximises your website’s chances of getting featured in search results.

Your social media posts can also boost your SEO, if your social pages link back to your website.

For example, a credit repair agency could briefly answer a common question on social media, like ‘What is a credit score?’, and direct readers back to their website for more detailed information.

The more content you publish, the more chances you have of naturally incorporating keywords that attract the attention of Google, Bing and other search engines. But you have to write interesting, relevant content, because search engines won’t reward you if you pump out content just for the sake of it.

Your articles should be clear, well-written and concise, so both people and search engines can easily understand them and work out what they’re about.

Search engines may disregard content that doesn’t add value to the reader, because they’ve become smart enough to understand what they’re reading. They also ask for feedback. So if users don’t get proper answers to their questions, they’ll tell the search engine and your ranking might suffer.

This is why you should consider outsourcing your content writing to Hunter & Scribe. We specialise in writing content about property and finance, such as the property market, interest rates and tax.