Writing with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind involves a combination of presenting valuable content and information honestly and accurately, while providing a structure and formatting that’s friendly to search engines.

Valuable content, readability, and structure make up the bulk of any SEO-friendly content. Not only does this include creating compelling and informative content, but also includes matching all content to meta tags and keywords, inserting relevant internal and external links where necessary, and developing content with top search terms in mind (i.e. writing for what the reader is searching for).

In addition, search engines even give weight to bold and italic words; while important to include, these techniques should not be overused, as readability must be maintained. There is a fine balance between providing your readers with valuable content and providing the search engines with popular content - use the tips and tools below to help improve your search engine ranking through content changes.


Basic Tips & Tricks

-Research popular search terms - remember, this isn't necessarily what you WANT people to search for; it's what they're ALREADY searching for - ensure that you use popular terms

-When writing content, pay attention to your "keyword density" to ensure you're using keywords that are popular, yet reflective of your message

-Use your meta tags and ensure every page's title, description, and keywords tags are unique to the page's content

-Pare down unnecessary language - keep your writing concise and to the point

-Keep track of your traffic and where it's coming from; tweak your writing style based on popular posts or pages

-Link to external websites as well as pages within your site

-Update, update, update! Frequent content means the search engines will index your site more regularly - start a blog or a forum or add an events calendar - whatever it takes for you to present regularly updated, fresh content


Reference

-Metatag Analyzer: a fabulous tool that generates a report based on how effective the meta tag content is on a given page - probably my most used SEO-related online tool; an easy way to obtain in-depth meta tag analysis

-Keyword Density Analyzer: enter your website address and security key, and this tool provides a "cloud" of keywords along with percentages

-Google Analytics: the industry standard in site analysis - easy (and free!) to use, and it provides powerful results

-Wordtracker Keywords: a free tool that suggests additional keywords (there is also a paid version)

-Alexa: provides information on web traffic