It’s been said countless times over the years, and we’ll say it again: in SEO, content is king.
Google has never devalued the importance of content. However, the importance of quality content is becoming an increasingly important ranking factor.
Here you tell me “Okay! But what does quality SEO content look like in 2022?”
And I answer you “Let me introduce you to a recipe for good content as if you were ready to cook a delicious meal in your kitchen”.
1 – Incorporate a reasonable number of keywords into your post
The first step is to choose quality keywords that will serve as the basis of your article. Ideally, get keywords with good search volume and reasonable keyword weight. Feel free to target long-term keywords for short-term results.
You can start with a topic you have in mind by looking for search volume on specific keywords, using a tool like Semrush. Or you can search for a specific topic by exploring the possibilities using your favorite keyword research tool.
For example, to come up with this post idea, I didn’t do anything original. I simply typed the word “SEO” into my tool.
After five minutes spent filtering keywords to explore the possibilities, the topic was found.
Once your main query is found, look for secondary queries to solidify your semantics. Doing some research on the query “optimize SEO content”, Semrush provided some interesting results to add to my post.
I put it together in a nice table that I share with you here:
Once your list of keywords is established, integrate them into your post. There is no need to repeat them at the beginning of every sentence, it would be unproductive. Just let them appear naturally in the important HTML tags of your page and in the text.
This will be the best practice of SEO for search engines.
Lastly, keep your keyword density between 2% and 5% of your post’s total word count.
Now that you have the tools, let’s get cooking.
Before tackling the main content of your post, focus on the two most popular SEO tags: the title tag and the meta-description tag.
The idea is to fill them with your main keywords according to Google’s guidelines.
Let me give you an overview of the title/meta description tags of this post so you can see the correlation with my keyword research.
3 – Structure the post with explicit Hn tags
We are starting to get closer to the heart of the recipe: the content itself!
When writing SEO content, I like to start my optimizations by outlining Hn tags.
The Hn tags correspond to the headings of different sections of your text. There are six of them in total, the most important of which is the H1 label, and the least important is the H6 label.
The H1 tag is generally unique, while for other tags there may be several. We usually use H1, H2, H3 or even H4 tags, depending on the importance of the content. The more subparts, the more you can increase your Hn marks. Unless you are publishing a nuclear physics essay online, H5 and H6 are rarely used.
So here’s how I started writing this article:
Web Developer is the best tool if you want to quickly visualize the Hn tag structure of any web page
If you look closely, you’ll find that these Hn tags are made up of a mix of the searched keywords we talked about earlier and words that appeared naturally.
This is the tip that ends this section: optimize your Hn tags with keywords, but make sure they are relevant to the reader!
A good SEO post ideally includes several images related to your main topic.
Optimize their weight/size so your page load speed doesn’t change. Name your images with a relevant title in lowercase letters, avoiding accents and using “-” to separate words.
And above all, don’t neglect the alt tags of your images.
An alt tag is an alternative text that describes an image and is displayed when the image cannot be loaded. The goal is to tag your images by inserting one or more relevant keywords into their alt tag.
This tag has a fairly weak impact on the search engine ranking algorithm, but it helps anchor the weight of your content if it’s filled out correctly.
Want to discover an alternate tag for this image? Right click on the image, then “inspect element” to reveal it!
5 – Season with relevant content
Once your Hn structure is validated, you have the skeleton of your article! Now you have to write the content of the different sections.
Your goal shouldn’t just be to accumulate searchable keywords. This technique has not worked for the last 15 years. You need to maintain a good balance between the different components of your content, with:
In 2022, the average word count varies by page type:
The goal: to please crawlers and your visitors. They need to find the information they are looking for in your content. Give them as many relevant details as possible and get them converted.
This applies to both a lead generation site (forms, invitations, etc.) and e-commerce.
In the case of a lead-gen site, optimize the content of your services/blog/home pages as a priority. For a commercial site, highlight the texts of your category pages and product pages and possible blog posts.
6 – Serve everything accompanied by semantic keywords
keywords help algorithms better understand the content of your page. They form the lexical field of your article.
Taking the current post as an example, if my main keyword is “How to optimize post SEO?” my semantics refers to anything even close to this topic:
All these semantic keywords will help Google better understand the main topic of this article.
Of course, these semantic keywords will have more weight in relevant and informative sentences.
7 – Soak your content in a bath of interlinks
In SEO, internal linking is very important.
Crawlers track all the links made between the pages of your site. Apart from your menu/footer, the text links you make in your content are very important. They make crawling easier and help robots know what your pages are about.
Avoid, with some exceptions, generic link anchors such as “click here” or “learn more”. Rather, provide an overview of the topic discussed in the article you are linking to.
8 – Use bold and italic (HTML) to highlight your keywords
A strong tag is a semantic HTML tag. Its function is to indicate that the content contained in it is of great importance to the meaning of the text. By default, this tag bolds the words it contains. It also gives them visual importance.
Use it to amplify the weight of your primary and secondary keywords and your semantics. Avoid making keywords bold every time they appear to prevent over-optimization. One or two in bold per important keyword is a good ratio.
The same principle for the em mark (italics), which will rather serve to reinforce the importance of the lexical field associated with your topic.
Namely: do not confuse these tags with the HTML tags <b> (bold) and <i> (italics) that have no semantic weight. Same thing for bold or italic via CSS, which has no weight in SEO.
9 – Keep it fresh and enjoy!
Now you have all the cards in your hand to effectively write SEO-friendly content.
But I have one last piece of advice for you, and it’s not the least important.
While it’s true that content that’s optimized for SEO from the start will bring you long-term traffic, content freshness is also important.
Don’t hesitate to update your old content regularly and post new content frequently (via a blog, for example). Google loves recent and up-to-date content. This tells them that your site is alive and up to date. Conversely, a website that has never been updated will be less visited by “searchers” and will therefore fall in the rankings.
Finally, if you need help writing your content, don’t hesitate to contact us at Rablab. We can provide semantic optimizations as part of an SEO strategy dedicated to your company. We can also offer you SEM, SMM and programmatic strategies.
Gift: an infographic of what we discussed!
Rablab is a web marketing agency in Montreal specializing in SEO strategies, paid search strategies (SEM), social media marketing (SMM) and results-oriented programmatic advertising. Acquiring traffic, converting potential customers, generating online sales, our team of experts always finds the ideal solution to help companies achieve their goals. We are not a traditional agency. We form what is called Rabfam. Our clients love us because we are competent and fun. Come and see!
What are the 4 SEO rank factors?
What are the most important SEO ranking factors?
- A secure and accessible website.
- Page speed (including mobile page speed)
- Adaptation to mobile devices.
- Domain age, URL and authority.
- Optimized content.
- Technical SEO.
- User Experience (RankBrain)
- Links.
What is the #1 ranking factor on Google? 1. High quality content. You must have read in several places that content is king. And in the case of Google ranking factors, it is definitely the king.
How many SEO ranking signals are there?
You may already know that Google uses more than 200 ranking factors in its algorithm…
How many SEO techniques are there?
12 SEO Techniques You Should Be Using in 2022 Working on some of these SEO best practices will help you improve your visibility and traffic. Let’s start.
How many signals does Google use?
None of the signals I name match the 57 signals Google uses. In the future, I may discuss why each of these signals might be interesting. But remember: as long as you have high diversity in your distribution, you’re fine with any signal list.
How many keywords should I use for SEO?
Pages are easier to rank for if they focus on one topic, so you should focus on two or three primary keywords per page that are reworded variations. Targeting four or more keywords is difficult because there is limited space in the title and meta description tags to target them.
Are too many keywords bad for SEO? But like anything else in life, using too many keywords can actually hurt your SEO performance. And if you’re not careful, it could even hurt your website’s traffic and reputation. Here’s what you need to know about keyword stuffing and how it can affect your website.
Is 500 words good for SEO?
There is no general best word count for SEO. However, we recommend that you aim for at least 1000 words for standard blog posts, 2000 for long-form content, and 300-500 for news posts or product pages.
How long should a SEO text be?
The optimal post length for SEO seems to be 2250 to 2500 words. You also want to see your posts get shared and backlinked as much as possible. Longer posts are more likely to generate quality backlinks which in turn influence ranking factors.
What is the ideal word count for SEO in 2022?
The best blog length for SEO in 2022 is 1760-2400 words. According to numerous studies over the past ten years, Google’s algorithm prefers more content when going directly to shorter content posts, helping blog posts with more than 1,000 words on average to perform better, and significantly increasing the average.
What is a good score for SEO?
A good SEO score is between 80-100. A score in this range indicates that your website meets the highest search engine optimization quality standards in the areas of technical SEO, content, user experience and mobile usability.
How many keywords should I use for SEO blog?
A good rule of thumb is to focus on one or two long-tail keywords per blog post. While you can use more than one keyword in a single post, keep the focus of the post narrow enough to allow you to spend time optimizing for just one or two keywords.
How many keywords is too many for SEO?
How many keywords are too many? The ideal keyword density preferred by both readers and search engines is around two to five percent. Even in longer sections, it’s best not to exceed 20 uses per web page.
How many times should you use a keyword in a blog?
While this is more of an inexact science, a general rule of thumb is to include specific keywords no more than five times in a standard blog post. Anything else can be considered spam to the reader and negatively affect the user experience.
How many keywords is too many for SEO?
How many keywords are too many? The ideal keyword density preferred by both readers and search engines is around two to five percent. Even in longer sections, it’s best not to exceed 20 uses per web page.
How many words should be on a page for good SEO?
Yoast SEO content analysis checks the text length of your post. We advise writing more than 300 words for regular posts or pages, while product descriptions should be more than 200 words. Why is that? More words help Google better understand what your text is about.
How many keywords should you Optimise around?
How many keywords should I use for best success? You are free to optimize for 3, 4 or even 10 targeted keywords on a single page. Just make sure they don’t interfere with the flow and cohesiveness of the work. As a rule of thumb, each keyword must make sense to be on the same page as your main keyword.
Is there a limit to SEO keywords?
There is no maximum or minimum number of keywords that would be ideal for a website as a whole. Instead, you want to make sure that each page on your site is focused on a unique topic and that you have a clear understanding of all the keywords you’re targeting on that page.
Can I have too many keywords?
It sounds almost counterintuitive, but it’s actually possible to have too many keywords. And if you think about it, I guarantee you can come up with a few examples. We’ve all read content where we see different repetitions of the same phrase repeated too many times, often in ways that seem clunky or out of place.
What are 3 main areas of SEO?
The three main components of SEO are: Technical SEO. On-page SEO (or content SEO) Off-page (or link) SEO
What are the key areas of SEO? The Four Pillars of Technical SEO SEO: How well your content is crawlable and crawlable. content: have the most relevant and best answers to potential questions. on-site SEO: optimization of your content and HTML. Offsite SEO: Building authority to ensure Google stacks up in your favor.
How do you write content for a keyword?
Prioritize good, relevant, informative writing first. Then make sure that keywords are used only where they sound natural and elevate the content. Don’t worry if you don’t always use an exact match phrase either – Google is pretty good at finding slight variations of the same keyword phrase.
How do you spell the keyword? Keywords should contain words and phrases that suggest what the topic is about. Also include words and phrases that are closely related to your topic. (For example, if the paper is about heart disease, use words such as stroke, circulatory system, blood, etc. 4.