Shownotes
In this episode about SEO for coaches, we talk about 'How to Write for Search Engines'. 4 tips that will help you create blog posts that rank on the first page of Google.
Topics this episode...
>> Writing foe Search Engines
>> Optimizing your articles for Search Engines
>> On-site linking
>> Meta Description
>> Alt Tags
Episode Links and Mentions:
>> Keyword Finder: The tool I use for Keyword Research
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Full Transcript
Hey, thank you very much for joining me today. We're going to talk about SEO for COVID. Today's episode is a continuation of the series, the SEO for coaches series, which I'm running on the online coaching podcast. Last week, we talked about the four steps you have to follow to create your SEO strategy.
And this week we're going to talk about writing for search engines. This is one thing I get so many questions about, and it's actually one of the things I really go deep with in my training programs with my clients and also in my one-to -one sessions. So my advice on writing for search engines is don't. Yeah, just don't write for search engines.
I mean, you can optimize for search engines and it's perfectly fine, but we do not write for search engines. I often come across people who say. That they are search engine, and writers or SEO writers or, and this just completely rubs me up the wrong way. And I'll tell you why. I mean, I always teach my clients.
We write for people. We do not write for search engines. Although of course we are going to do keyword research and we are going to weave those keywords into the article. We still do not write for search engines. So what we do is the first thing is to just write for people. So the first thing you need to do is, you know, your title, your title has to be based on your keyword.
And it has to be based on the right topic that allows you to then optimize the article for that particular keyword. But it does not need to be written specifically for that. So once you have your title and you know, your title is kind of going to take you in the right direction so that you cover that key.
Then you forget the keyword. So you sit down and you write an article and you think of your ideal client. If you think of what they want, you think of how you can possibly give them as much value as possible. And also how you can find ways of maybe getting them to engage or take some action after reading your blog post.
Once you're happy with that, then you can go into the optimization. When it comes to optimization. My first tip for you is to use one keyword. You've probably heard that, you know, with Google getting more complex and modern a CEO and you know, some people are using two keywords or maybe even three to optimize one blog post.
And I can understand that kind of approach, but there are two problems with it. The first thing is it's going to be really difficult for you to track what you've used as a main keyword and sub keywords. Over time, you can have so much overlap. It just becomes really overwhelm. So, what do you do instead?
You just use one keyword and this one keyword you keep track of. Now, Google is still going to decide which keywords are going to rank you for. So you could choose a keyword like marketing for coaches, and then Google decides to rank you for coach marketing instead. So in reality, Google is smart enough to optimize, look at your article and still rank it for different keywords, although you are not using those different keywords.
So I think this is a little bit of an old fashioned idea. Google gets smarter and smarter. And we really don't need to spoonfeed very much, especially if our website is structured in the right way. And all the other content of our website is going to tell Google what we're really about. So then, you know, Google can take decisions about what your article
should be served for. So, you know, what other keywords your articles should be saved for? So definitely stick to one keyword because that makes it easier. Now, there is sometimes going to be a problem that you have a very long keyword can be a whole sentence sometimes, and it becomes really difficult to optimize for a whole sentence.
You know, how many times can you use it? So what we do is you can actually, in that case, take a look at synonyms. Phrases. That means the same thing and use a mixture of those. So that in that case it works perfectly fine. But as a long-term strategy, I prefer, and it works very effectively to just use one keyword.
The next. Tip for writing for search engines is to use internal and external links. Now, when you're writing, keep in mind all the other topics that your website is about, especially the ones in the same category that you're writing for and in a way it's going to happen naturally. But also, if you think of your article in the context of the category, it's going to be published and then this is going to be so much easier for you to optimize later.
So definitely think about what internal links you can have. So how you can find words in your article and link them to other articles on your website. And also two articles outside your website. Once your links are sorted, you will want to think about my next tip for you, which is the meta-description the meta-description sometimes referred to as the meta description.
They are one in the same thing. It actually does not appear on your page. But it has a very important role for search engines. In fact, when you go and punch a keyword into Google, you will see that you get a search results. The search results would normally have a title. It will have a date at the bottom of your blog is dated.
It will also have a short description. And the short description is your meta description. Most of the time, I'm say most of the time, because sometimes if you don't have one or if you don't have one that Google likes, maybe it's too long or too short, they might just pick at random and take a piece of your art.
But generally we want to do a good job of our meta-description because this is going to tell Google what our keyword is. So we definitely want to have our keyword in there. So this is going to tell Google what it's about, but it's also a very important part of the whole SEO strategy, because this is the part that people will see.
And apart from the title, which is of course extremely important to have a clickable. But your meta-description is the second most important because that's what people read before they actually. Your search out as the one they want to click on. And the more people click, of course, the higher your searches all goes.
If you are in the first search results, if you are in the first page, then you're going to rise to the top. As long as people click on your result, you will stay at the time. So, this is extremely important. I also like to add a call to action, and this is a little trick that a lot of SEOs use. So you can use a call to action.
You can describe what your article is about, and then you can write click here or read more. Or, you know, see more or just more with three dots on it, whatever you do. It's important to have a call to action because call to actions will increase the amount of people that actually click on your search results.
A lot of search results will not have your call to action. So you will have a little advantage there. So why is the meta-description so important? The meta-description actually in the old days, there used to be just. And this one method description used to describe the whole size, but today you can have a meta description for every page and for every blog post on your website.
And this is a very good way of kind of summarizing to Google. What your article is about. So this might be a little bit tricky. It can't be very long. You can only have about 25 words in it because of course it's also important that it shows properly on mobile. So 25 words to actually appeal to people to click.
And also to explain to Google what your page is all about. So meta-description put the work in it. Shouldn't take you too long, but definitely make sure that you have one. Now, since this does not normally show you usually need an SEO tool on your website to use this. So if you using WordPress, then this should be a plugin called Yoast.
And there are other sites like WIX that have their own sort of embedded features. And there are unfortunately also platforms that don't allow you to do this. And this is why you will hear that some platforms are better than others for SEO with WordPress, probably being the most popular and then other tools that's appeared more recently on the block that are perhaps not as well optimized.
It's really allow you to you know, make too many changes and put a meta tag for all your different. Okay, so to finish off, I have one last bonus tip for you. You've probably heard this a lot, but for those of you that haven't as just a little reminder that the old tag, which is the alternative tag, or actually the tag that is hidden behind your images can also make a big difference.
So Google will also look and other search engines, they will look behind your images to try and understand what your website is about. And the old days search engines used to take a look at them because people used to put descriptions for people who are actually blind or need to use something.
Tool in order to access a website. So that's where the Altecs came from. They were actually for people with special needs mostly with visual impairment who needed to use a third-party screen readers in order to to actually. Understand what the site is about because perhaps they couldn't see the images.
This is actually where my experience with SEO started all those years ago. I used to program websites for people with special needs. What happens is that. When you put keywords on your old tags it really helps Google understand the whole principle of sort of all the topics that you're covering on your, on your article.
And it's basically another source of information for them to find out what your article is really about. So do write short descriptions or long descriptions, use your keyword behind the images. Very. Especially your featured image. You want that to have your main keyword? And this is like, it's going to give Google a really clear loud signal as to what the keyword you're optimizing for is they will still take their own decisions as to whether you are the best choice for that particular keyword.
But at least you can tell them the keyword that you're trying to optimize for. So that makes it really, really loud. So that's all I had for you today. If you'd like to see the show notes and take a look at the tools and the tips that I mentioned today, go to Stephanie fatina.com/ 37. And find this podcast.
See you next week.
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