How to Make a Good Article Become Search Engine Friendly
78Have you ever written a great article and then found yourself wondering "why doesn’t my article get picked up easily by search engines?" If so, then the information here is for you.
Luckily, it's much easier to improve a good article to make it search engine optimized (SEO) than it is to write a good article in the first place. So take heart in knowing that if you've composed a well-written and grammatically correct article, you're already close to having a web-friendly finished product!
To make a well-written article SEO-friendly for the web, there are three main things you'll need to address. These are:
- Article keywords
- Title
- Summary description
Article keywords
Keywords impact your ranking
It's critical that your article contains keywords that readers would actually type into Google (or any other search engine) if they wish to find information on your topic. So think about it from the reader's point of view. Do these keywords already appear in the body of your article? If not, you will have to make changes to your article to include these keywords. Note that these may be single words, or keyword phrases (two or more words together).
For example, in an article about gardening with perennials, in addition to the keywords gardening, perennials, you may also wish to include planting, flowers, popular perennials, and garden.
It's important to strike a balance between making the article sound natural and flow well, yet still have the desired keywords. A related factor is how frequently the keywords appear. You'll want them to crop up enough to make the article SEO-friendly, but not so often that they would sound unnatural to the reader. In any case, Google penalizes 'keyword stuffing' so let yourself be guided by how the article sounds instead of aiming for a specific keyword density.
Also, make sure your keyword placement is reasonable; keywords should be found in different parts of the article instead of mainly being localized in one area. Again, let your ear be the best guide for the final say.
Title
The title impacts your ranking and your click through rate
You cannot underestimate the importance of an SEO-friendly and reader-friendly title.
In order to make it appeal to search engines, make sure your title contains your major keywords, although be aware you're unlikely to fit in every last keyword.
The title also needs to sound interesting and accurately convey your topic. This will encourage your readers to select your article from the search engine offerings; this is known as the click through rate.
Some examples:
Gardening with Perennials
Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Gardening With Popular Perennials
Tips for Gardening with Perennials
Gardening with Perennials: a guide to popular flowers
Gardening with Popular Perennials
Don't get hung up on article tags
Article tags (also known as Keyword Tags) used to play a big role in search engine results but are not significant today for ranking purposes. In fact, Google has announced that it ignores keyword tags entirely in web ranking2. By all means use these tags for other purposes if you wish (e.g. for generating RSS feeds or other internal indexing), but these tags won't have any effect on your Google ranking.
The summary description
The summary description impacts your click-through rate but not your ranking
The summary description is a short summary of the article in about one or two sentences; this may show up under the Google search results depending on the search terms entered.
If you have the option to create your own summary description, use it. A well-written summary, when displayed, can increase traffic through generating a better click-through rate of visitors selecting your page from among the search results. However, it's important to note that the summary description will not affect the ranking of your article on a Google search, according to Google1.
Depending on the website for which you write, you may or may not have any control over whether you can create your own summary. Some sites calculate the summary automatically by defaulting to the first few sentences of text; this is not usually to your advantage because it is possible to get spurious text included that way such as picture captions.
Example of a summary description:
Get flowers that bloom year after year by gardening with perennials. Planting a superb garden is made simple with this gardening guide which includes popular perennials.
Putting it all together
Your choice of title and keywords should display some overlap and point in the same direction. Together, these are the two most significant factors in how easily your article will be found by search engines. To improve the click-through rates of potential readers, write your own summary description instead of relying on an automatic calculation.
Think of your article keywords, title, and summary description as helpful tools at your disposal. Give your well-written article a competitive edge on the web by employing all of these SEO-friendly tools to your advantage.
© 2011 Giselle Maine
Cited sources
1. Raj Krishnan, Snippets Team "Improve snippets with a meta description makeover" (2007) Google Webmaster Central Blog
2. Matt Cutts, Search Quality Team "Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking" Google Webmaster Central Blog
Also for writers...
- How to Make a Good Article Become Search Engine Friendly
Improving a good web article to get it better picked up by search engines is simpler than it sounds. The important areas to address are title, keywords and summary description. Make your article SEO-friendly with these helpful tips. - 13 months ago
- Speed Up Your Freelance Writing
Speed up your non-fiction freelance writing by making specific changes to common writing problems using these easy tips. Whether you write articles, product descriptions or web content, these solutions will help you write faster. - 16 months ago
- The Best Way to Calculate Keyword Phrase Density for a Text Block
Many types of keyword phrase density calculator exist, but most are designed for websites and not a block of text. Most manual methods are not suited to a two word or longer keyword phrase. How to best perform this calculation is shown here. - 20 months ago
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Hi Alastar, glad you liked the hub. I appreciate your supportive comment.
Yep, the keywords and the title are the two main hitters...I've heard this so often I know I should pay more attention to it.
Hi Paradise7, thanks for stopping by & commenting.
Wonderful article with lot of good info. I learned a lot from this hub and now i will try to follow these tips.
Hi Katrinasui, glad you found this article helpful. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Great stuff..I bookmarked it and voted it up!
Thanks, Highvoltagewriter! I'm grateful for the vote-up and thrilled you've found it helpful enough to bookmark.
A great piece on SEO. Helpful, straight-forward and very well written. I am impressed and I hope that you do more seo topics. You gained a mediocre follower!
Hi CJ Andrews, thanks so much for your supportive words about this article. I had a look at some of your articles (great selection of different topics there).... and by the way I don't think a Hubnugget nominee such as yourself need refer to yourself as 'mediocre'! Thanks for reading & commenting.
very very good. i am very impressed.super, i am now your fan
Hi mkrandhawa, I greatly appreciate yur comment. I'm glad you liked the article. Thanks for stopping by!
Great article. Thank you.
Hi Marlin, I'm so glad you found the article helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment.
Giselle, this is a very helpful hub. I learned from it and now I'll make sure I correct my writing and make it more efficient.
Always, Samantha :)
Thanks Samantha - glad you found it useful. These tips are best applied to informative articles instead of more creative types of writing such as poetry or fiction. In my opninon it's actually not a good idea to mess with a beautiful and uniquely creative poetry/fiction hub to make it search-engine friendly... it can screw up the wonderful creative flow of it!
But if you're writing a "how-to" style of article, then these tips will work out really well for you. Best wishes for your writing! And thanks for taking the time to comment here.
Hi Giselle, that was some very useful information for online writers and you explained it in a great manner. Title, Keywords and summary are indeed important - there is one more thing of similar nature, back-links to your article. The more websites refer back to your website and webpage in particular too, the more Search Engines trust your article. Personally I think, RedGage (it has a link directory - you can add your link along with a description) and ExpertsColumn (no link directory, so you'll have to write an introductory article - but real great SEO) are good places apart from social networking sites to create back-links.
You also inspired me to share some tips, which would be rather extension to your suggestions. They are rather more technical in nature too :) so I guess I'll have to devote some quality time.
Once again, great hub.
Hi Anusha, thanks for your interesting comment. I completely agree with you about back-links; the only reason I hadn’t mentioned them here is that I was intending the scope of the topic to be restricted to things that can be done within the article/site itself. But you are so right, backlinks are really important in terms of SEO and should not be overlooked. I was glad you mentioned your particular favorite backlinking sites and reasons for them; I think other readers will certainly benefit from your comment here.
I think it would be superb to see a hub from you on a similar topic, I would definitely look forward to it. I really enjoy your writing.
..well I trust completely and value the GOOGLE search engine - for all of my research, spelling and information and if you google me I am the only EPIGRAMMAN in the entire cyber universe - lol lol
lake erie time 1:20pm
Hi Epigramman, you are so right that having a unique user name can definitely help keep your content distinct from others, although it only works if people know to search by your username. It's wonderful that you're the only Epigramman in the entire web! And what a great user name - witty and nicely picked.
OK I have to ask - are you ever considering writing hubs about your experiences on the newspaper or about appreciation of ballet, etc? Or do you prefer to stick mainly to poetry on Hubpages? I'm curious as I have also seen a lot of your comments on Flora's hubs and got the impression you would have lots of non-fiction about which to write. But perhaps poetry appeals more to your creative side. Just curious.
Hi Giselle, I'm learning a lot from your articles I've discovered, this one and a few others on keywords and SEO. Thanks for sharing, I"m bookmarking them all to review after this semester is over.
Hi Danette, I'm happy to hear that you are including my hub here in the collection you're bookmarking for later review. I absolutely love it when I hear someone has bookmarked one of my hubs! It was great to hear from you again. Best wishes.
Thanks for the tips, Giselle! I am still trying to figure out how to get traffic to my hubs, and these tips will help me revise and hopefully get authentic traffic. Voted up and useful! :-)
Hi Sholland, glad you liked this hub on making articles SEO-friendly and thanks so much for the votes! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and comment.
Thanks Giselle.
Simple, concise and clear advice on the weird and wonderful world of SEO.
Interesting and useful hub
Thanks molometer, I'm thrilled to hear that you liked this hub about SEO, and I appreciate your supportive words. Thanks for reading & commenting!
Your welcome Giselle.
Hi Giselle,
I am trying to find new ways to share hubs and have just signed up for a Google + account under Susan Holland. If you are there, let me know so I can add you to my Hub Page and Following circles. I am really new to it. Google +'ing this hub. :-)
Hello Sholland, thanks so much for stopping by. Yes, lots of people are using social networking as a tool for getting more traffic to their articles.
I like your idea but I'm actually not on Google+ (I'm one of those people who are not on any social networks at all - unless you count Hubpages as one!) Thank you for your invitation though, the sentiment is certainly very much appreciated. And thank you for the Google+ on this hub - that's the first time I've ever got one of those!
I think it is a great idea that you are creating online connections related to your writing. Thanks for stopping by & sharing this news!
Informative and well written! Great job!
Thanks Jennifer, I'm so glad you liked this hub about SEO friendly article writing. I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and comment.
Alastar Packer Level 8 Commenter 13 months ago
Thanks Giselle, these were some useful tips. Hub was concise and not unnecessarily drawn out.