The headline
Traditionally, the headline of an article determines as much as 95% of the success of the article. When it comes to books, magazines and newspapers – the title actually determines if one will purchase the publication or not.
Within the world of online articles – A title is key to attracting potential readers who are looking for something more than a sensationalist title that is traditionally used to get readers to buy hard copy printed texts.
Most users search the Internet using one of the major search engines, the most popular being Google. They typically type anything between 1 to 5 keywords that are related to the topic or information that they are looking for. The search engine will then deliver results that best match the person’s interest.
In order to attract some readers, articles need to be titled according to the search keywords used by people. These words will, more than anything determine how much traffic the text can generate.
The content
Continuing with the idea above, the common sense approach, would be to create an article which is rich in the keywords searched by the targeted audience.
Keyword-rich article is not an easy text to make though. The writer sometimes creates unnatural content in order to attract more traffic.
Let’s say that our keyword is: “natural ways to cure a hangover”
The title can actually be our keyword, but in order to generate a quality reader friendly text , a web surfer should not overuse the keyword phrase of natural ways to cure the hangover. Otherwise the reader might not actually see the answer to his question of the natural ways to cure a hangover and get bored of reading the article that doesn’t really provide him with the answer to his search question which was “what are the natural ways to cure a hangover” and move on to search for the actual natural ways to cure hangover somewhere else 😉 And let’s be honest, if someone is looking for an answer that would decrease their pain levels – they want it “now”!
The correctly constructed text for SEO:
- is created to capture the target audience, not to be liked by Google.
- is using language that is adequate to their interests and level of involvement in the subject matter.
- has the right amount of keywords vs. appropriate length of the text.
- has a clear and easy to read layout.
- has sub-heading that break the article into parts.
- answers the question of the web surfer.
- does not advertise your product/service if you are writing for the general public.
- try not to badmouth the competition (different to complaining about the service or product)
The conclusion is: write for people not for Google, because in the end you want people to read your article and engage with you or your company, not Google. What Google will do is promote your website and articles if people find it useful, that is what you are trying to achieve with effective SEO :).