Guidance for writing a Search Engine Optimisation friendly article
Hey there, we thought it would be useful to provide you with a little information to help you to write the best article you can. Below are the things we need you to take into consideration when writing for CTUK to ensure our website is SEO friendly. But of course you can use this as a practice for starting or improving your own blog and helping to attract a bigger flow of traffic to your own website.
If writing a SEO friendly article is a new experience for you then it may seem daunting or a little overwhelming but that really doesn’t have to be the case. If you follow our top tips below then we are sure your article will look, read and perform brilliantly.
So let’s get started!
- Take a little time to plan and think about what you want to write about. What is the message behind your writing? What do you want the reader to know more of, to feel, to think after they have finished reading? Things that work well are answering specific questions, top tips, how to guides, stories, etc.
- Think about how you will sound in your article. Whilst reading the reader will pick up on how your voice may sound, how you use words to communicate, how well you will communicate with them. Try and make the reader feel as if you are talking to them, keep it professional but also human too.
- Give your article a heading that says exactly what the article is about. You should also make the first line of your text appealing to read, making the reader want to read more, inviting them in. Your article is your chance to get people to want to visit your site and find out more about you and to attract potential clients. You need to make it appealing enough so that others want to like, comment and share your work, helping to increase your audience and potential client list.
- Give your article a good structure including an introduction, main body and conclusion.
- Be aware of the appearance of your article. Use a heading and sub-headings if appropriate. Keep your article simple, don’t have really long sentences, about 20 words per sentence is good and have short and concise paragraphs containing about 2-3 sentences per paragraph.
- Choose a key word for your article and try to include your key word once in the title, once in the heading and several times throughout your text, but don’t over use it, 6-10 times in an entire article is fine as long as it is placed is these places to enhance your SEO.
- Don’t write too little. Make your blog post a minimum of 500 words but not too long that the reader will get bored and stop reading – 1000 words is considered a short read, whereas 2000 words is considered a long read. If you feel you could write more, that is an excellent thing and let the words flow, but maybe consider doing a series of posts on the topic you are writing about.
- Feel free to add links to your own website in your text, encourage the reader to find out more and establish yourself as someone who knows what they are talking about.
And don’t forget, if you are unsure as to how your post will read or come across to others then simply ask for feedback. Feel free to share your work in our Facebook group, Counsellors Together UK, and ask others what they think. Then when you are happy with it we can go live, start sharing and helping your potential clients to find you. =
