Nowadays, it's not all about creating appealing content on the internet, it’s also necessary that the content pleases Google. To do so, there are a few guidelines that you should follow to make Google like the content you write.

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The 4 steps to validate in order to write on the web

Writing for the web

Content: a keyword = an idea

When you are going to start writing, it is very important to place yourself on a keyword. You can start with a keyword search. The important thing is that your keyword has volume and with little competition to be able to position itself on it. Your keyword should appear once every 100 words.

You will also need to choose secondary keywords, which will allow Google to contextualise your content and check that your content is of high quality and therefore relevant to the user's search.  

The structure

In order to fully understand what your article is going to talk about, Google needs to have well-structured content with titles, subtitles.

The title

The title is the title that is given to the page. It must follow some basic rules:

- The main keyword must be at the beginning of the text.
- 65 characters maximum (10-12 words).
- It must be unique throughout the website.

The golden rule is: the title should make the user want to click.

serp-title-tag-example

The H1

The h1 tag is, after the Title tag, the most important tag on your page. This is the “headline” of the page.

And must meet with the following rules:

- It MUST contain your main keyword, or at least a very similar keyword.
- 100 characters.
- Describe the content of the page.
- Be unique on every page.

H1


The H2-H6

The H2-H6 are the subtitles that will help structure the page.

As in the example below:

h2-h6-structure

The table of contents

You've structured your page well, now it's time to create a summary.

We want to make a summary for blog articles such as here: https//smartkeyword.io/seo-on-page-balise-h1/

We want to do this for three reasons:

  • The user, who, if the article is long, can directly understand the content of the article and possibly find the information of interest.
  • SEO:
    • Increase CTR from result pages.
    • Get answer box / position 0 or results in people also ask.

aswerbox

The method

html-structure-contents

→ Replace in the code all H2 tags by:

h2-html-code

→ The summary anchors (part after the #) must be in lowercase and the spaces must be replaced by underscores “_” and must briefly describe the title.

→ The id of the h2 must be the same as the anchor of the summary.

Example on the article: https://smartkeyword.io/balise-h1-seo/

example-summary-code-h2

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Links and meshing

It is important to link towards content related to your article. On the one hand, you can make internal links based on the mesh you have chosen on your site, so you can bring traffic to other pages of your site. On the other hand, you can make links to external sites related to your topic which will provide additional information to your readers.

Technical SEO: elements to be well understood by Google

The meta description

The meta description allows you to stand out from your competitors, so put your content forward, always following the few rules:

- Main keyword at the beginning of the text.
- 230 characters max (otherwise it’d end up truncated).
- Unique throughout the site.
- Related to the title tag.
- Sentences with subject + verb + complement.

Be careful! Avoid: list of keywords, repeated keywords, numbers, special characters, words in capital letters and precise dates.

Image & ALT text

Illustrate your content with images for readers! However, Google cannot read images, so it is necessary to contextualize the image usingthe ALT attribute.
To put it in place
- The main image of the page must contain the main keyword.
- 5-6 words in simple English.
- Describe the image.
- Pay attention to the size of the images: compress them with https://imagecompressor.com/fr/

URL

THE URL directly informs the user of the content of your pages, allowing them to easily access them and improve your visit rate. For search engines, it makes it easier to understand the topic addressed on the page.

The URL should:

- Contain the main keyword.
- 100 characters.
- Clear and readable.
- "-" dashes allowed.


Avoid: dynamic URLs, “_” underscores, special characters, symbols, accents, capital letters and too deep hierarchies.

The breadcrumb trail

The breadcrumb trail allows you to locate yourself in the tree structure of the site and therefore return to the previous categories for the user.

breadcrumb-example

Outsource writing: editorial brief

If you don't have the in-house writing skills or just don't have the time, the solution may be outsourcing through a web copywriter.

But first of all, you will have to brief the editor on the content you want.

Download our sample template.

Here are some tips on what content your brief should have:

The brief is made up of two parts, one on general information that the writer should know beforehand and another on content and structure.

General information

General information contains:

  • A topo on your brand: the universe to understand in which context the copywriter must write.
  • The target: to describe your readers.
  • General information: aim of this article (informational, transactional, etc.), the number of words, the location on your website.
  • Semantics and tone: is it a serious or a humorous article?

Content and structure  

Indicate as much information as possible about the content you want to have in the article:

  • Give an example of a structure to give the main axes that you want to address.
  • Indicate the main and secondary keywords by having done a keyword search beforehand. Secondary words are contextual words related to the topic.
  • Give examples for inspiration by giving URLs, structures of other sites.
  • Provide title, H1 and meta description tags.

Conclusion

Writing on the web requires following certain rules in order to be able to meet the expectations of both the user, who is looking for an answer to his research, and the search engines which want to reference you on a request. Do not wait any longer to write, to your keyboards!

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   Article written by Louis Chevant

Further reading

Copywriting and SEO

Find out all the rules you need to follow to make Google like what you write.