Writing Content For SEO In 2020

Stop Using Keyword Density

Keyword density is an age-old black magic trick: make sure your exact-match keyword takes up 1-2% of your content and watch your website rank sky high! 2006 sure was a much more simple time for SEO – but it’s 2020 now and people who cling onto the idea of keyword density simply will not last much longer in this industry. Stuffing your exact-match keyword into your content will no longer rank you, search engines have become a lot smarter at analysing and indexing content. It can detect when you are destroying readability for the sake of slapping a keyword into your content, and it will punish you in the rankings for it.

The solution is simple, don’t think about your keyword as a keyword, think about it as a topic and you will include your keyword and semantically related keywords and phrases naturally – the method search engines like Google simply can’t resist!

Put it to the test: search Google for a keyword that simply can’t naturally read in-content, such as “web design Wigan.” This is definitely something people would search and what companies would optimise their content for, but it simply cannot be naturally used in-content: you will find this on the search results too. The higher ranked pages will only use the exact-match keyword in things like titles or footers, and use more partial text in-content such as “website design in Wigan” or “website design company in Wigan” which are far more natural-reading and does not reduce readability for the visitor. The websites that don’t do this and decide to include exact-match keywords as much as possible will see their work returned with lower rankings in the search results.

Long-Form Content

It’s no secret that search engines prefer long-form content as opposed to shorter content. Case-studies have shown time and time again that longer content correlates with higher search engine positions. Long-form content also helps user satisfaction and an important metric many people may forget about: dwell time. Google needs to know that the positions they have calculated for search results is providing a good user experience. To do this, it follows a set of metrics including dwell time, bounce rate and click through rate. Studies have shown that long-form content correlates with longer dwell time, lower bounce rate and higher click through rates. Keep your users satisfied and Google will be satisfied too!

Optimise For EAT

Since Google’s Algorithm update in 2018, dubbed the Medic Update, the search engine has been reviewing and rating websites with a new algorithm and score known as EAT. This algorithm is to establish a websites:

• Expertise: is the website and content from an expert in the industry?
• Authority: is the website/company/author an industry-leader and authoritative figure?
• Trustworthiness: is the website/company/author a trustworthy figure?

EAT is incredibly important for YMYL websites (Your Money Your Life) which is content that has the ability to affect a user’s happiness, health or wealth. This is exactly why when EAT came into play in 2018, the medic industry was widely affected – if content about medicine or medical health is low quality or even incorrect then it can have a massive negative impact on a user’s well-being. For these YMYL websites, it is important to optimise your content for EAT, this means ensuring it is even more high quality than usual and written by an expert who knows what they’re talking about. This can best be done through the inclusion of author bio’s on your blog posts, which shows to both search engines and visitors who wrote the content.

Hire A Professional Service

At Blue Whale Media, not only do we provide the best website design in Wigan but we also have a team of content writers who can craft unique website content, blogs, press releases and articles. Our content writers are also all trained to create SEO-friendly content. You can learn more about our content writing service online.