How Using Good SEO Techniques Can Improve Your Writing

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Knowing SEO writing techniques can improve your writing, whether you are a blogger, a freelancer, a business owner, or an author. If you are writing for an online audience (writing for a website or blog), knowing a few key things can help you.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the cornerstone of ranking highly on search engines, particularly Google. Search engines use an algorithm to choose how to rank the sites on the Internet, in accordance with the search term or query that you put into the search bar.

SEO aims to optimize your website in a variety of ways so that your site is as close to the number one spot as possible. Since over 25% of people click on the first Google result, it’s easy to see why SEO is important. As a writer, you might be a little skeptical about the effect SEO might have on your creativity when writing. However, writers can actually learn a lot by writing with SEO in mind.

Let’s take a look at what you should bear in mind, and why.

Keywords

The term “keyword” doesn’t just apply to single words. Long-tail keywords are keyword phrases that help the algorithm pin down the best websites for you, which are based on these super-specific terms.

Writing with keywords in mind can be a useful way to focus your writing and make sure that you’re not going off track. They are also a key part of SEO, as they help the algorithm connect users with content that is useful and relevant for their search terms. By using them, you are showing the reader that you have understood their needs and are providing them with valuable information. Make sure to avoid “keyword stuffing,” though, which is where you use as many keywords as possible. Keyword stuffing makes your writing look completely unnatural.

Completing keyword research can also be helpful for you as a writer to find out what you should be writing about next. You can use tools such as Ubersuggest to help you. However, if you’d rather keep your focus on your writing, it can be worth outsourcing this task to a specialist, which will cost around C$440 per month. Regardless of what you do, it’s always best to follow the SEO Rules for Blogging Success.

Structure

Good SEO writing should be divided into sections using header tags. These tags work in a cascading system, with <h1> as the title tag, <h2> as a subheading, and so on. These tags help provide the content with structure, as well as make it easier for the reader to see what the article will cover. For SEO optimization, header tags make it easier for search engine bots to crawl the pages and categorize them.

Header tags are discussed in How to Develop a Great Writing Process. That post also shows you how to use them, and provides you with a sample topic as an example of how to structure a blog post using header tags. It also gives you

As a writer, defining your structure before you start can be great for making sure that you keep your piece relevant, as well as ensuring that you have covered everything that you wanted to.

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Write for Your Audience

As a writer, you want to make sure that you’re impacting your reader and providing them with worthwhile content. You should also write in a conversational tone. In addition to doing keyword research, you should also dedicate some time to looking at your competitors and reading things they’ve written. Read More

Interview with Freelance Writing Agency Owner David Leonhardt

image of Lorraine Reguly and David Leonhardt

4David Leonhardt is a freelance writing agency owner. He runs THGM Writers, a freelance writing agency that services primarily individuals and small businesses. You might remember him from when he gave you advice about what to do when your writing business grows too big for its britches.

Today, he’s here to participate in an exclusive interview, where he will reveal things he’s never revealed online before! I asked him to be a guest again because many freelance writers eventually pivot, and take their business in a new direction. For me, it was changing the focus to freelance editing instead of writing. For David, it was taking his business to another level by turning his business into an agency (where there is less work to do and the profit is bigger).

Whatever you decide to do with your freelance writing business is up to you. My advice is to find a decision you are happy with, so you experience positivity every day of your life! After all, being happy is part of your entrepreneurial excellence!

Interview with Freelance Writing Agency Owner David Leonhardt

1: How and when did you get into freelance writing?

– Were you initially a blogger who guest-posted and got hired by someone to write posts for their site?

– How did you find your writing gigs THEN?

– Are you still a freelance writer?

– If so, how do find your writing gigs NOW?

This is a long story (but I’ll make it short). I did not set out to be a writer. I actually set out to be a motivational speaker. I wrote my book. I set up my website. I discovered I was good at SEO. This was back in 2003-2004. Yes, there was SEO back then! So. I wrote about SEO and website promotion.

A couple of articles later (in particular, one on WebPro News writing about Google’s November 2003 algorithm update), I had three standing SEO clients. I wrote to promote their websites and to promote my services. And I wrote just for fun, because I have always loved to write. The more I wrote, the more people asked me to write for them. But those were mostly one-offs—the real money at the time was in monthly SEO clients.

Although I run a freelance writer agency now, I do very little of the writing myself. I’ve taken on a day job to reduce the feast-or-famine effects of ghostwriting, and I am more efficient having team members write the big projects. I still write wedding speeches (best man, maid-of-honor, etc.), some blog articles, some short bios, etc. Just the small, fun stuff for me. I also spend my spare time hiking and climbing rocks!

David rock climbing

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Guest Posting and Guest Hosting: Best Practices

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Guest posting. What is it, and why do it? What are the pros and cons?

What is guest hosting? Why host guest bloggers?

What qualities do great guests and hosts have? What are the rules? Who makes them up?

These are some of the questions you may have about guest posting and hosting and, whatever your experience with it—as guest, host, both, or neither—you will have answers to these questions by the time you finish this post. Guaranteed.

Today I will:

1: Define guest posting and guest hosting.

2: Tell you some pros and cons about guest posting and guest hosting.

3: Provide you with some guest-i-quette and host-i-quette best practices (etiquette that guests and hosts should follow).

A Brief Intro to Guest Posting

Guests don’t always follow proper guest posting etiquette, and hosts don’t always provide clear guidelines for guests to follow. As a result, more time is often spent emailing each other back and forth instead of on the post itself, trying to figure out what’s going on, what’s expected of them, and resolving problems.

How can this situation be rectified?

The solution is actually quite simple: Know what is required of you—whether you’re a guest OR a host.

The fact is that there are often many problems that arise simply because many bloggers have not developed their own set of guidelines for their guests to follow and many guests don’t know the best practices of offering someone a guest post.

Definitions of Guest Posting and Guest Hosting

Guest posting is defined as writing a blog post and having that post published on someone else’s website. It is also called guest blogging.

Guest hosting is when you allow someone to write something for you and publish that post on your website.

just words that say guest blogging

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G Suite and 5 Ways It Can Benefit Bloggers and Entrepreneurs

5 Ways G Suite Can Benefit Bloggers and Entrepreneurs

Imagine you are running a business or an institution.

Would you use some applications just because they are free, even though they come with annoying advertisements or they have glitches, at times? Probably not. I am sure you will not find it convenient to work with such free applications because those apps give you limited features, very little storage, insufficient security, and come with malware.

If you are an entrepreneur or a blogger, you probably want to achieve entrepreneurial excellence. Therefore, I know you will want your presentations, documents, and/or spreadsheets to be professional. With free apps, you often cannot have that. Moreover, you have to download different applications for documents, spreadsheets, email, etc.

So, as an entrepreneur, you look for a package that gives you all the applications in one platform, with sufficient storage and security so that you do not face issues while using the applications and you can concentrate on other important work.

If you are an entrepreneur or a blogger, you want to manage your documents, spreadsheet, email or a presentation without any interruption. In such a case, you must get G Suite to overcome issues with free apps.

What is G Suite?

G Suite is a package of different applications like a spreadsheet, documents, email, presentations, etc., that help entrepreneurs or bloggers run their businesses smoothly.

It’s advantageous to get the essential IT services within one package! You will find it very convenient and efficient to have everything in one package that also comes at a low price.

There are many advantages to using G Suite. Here are the 5 most significant benefits that make G-suite a preferred option over the free apps.

5 Ways G Suite Can Benefit Bloggers and Entrepreneurs

1: Enhanced security of your data

Nowadays, data security is the biggest issue for most business owners. If you are a blogger or an entrepreneur, you want your data to be secure because you may end up losing everything if your data is not safe. Cybercrime and cybersecurity for entrepreneurs have become serious challenges, so it is critical to protect important data related to your business. With G Suite, your data is saved in the cloud, so there is no chance of losing data. Not only that, but you can also track your employees’ devices using G Suite.

Related: 4 Simple Ways for Small Businesses to Protect Themselves Online

Related: Security Tips for Freelance Writers and other #Entrepreneurs

2: Get a Business Email

If you are an entrepreneur, don’t you think it is professional to have an email address with the domain name of your company?

Having an email address like yourname@yourdomain.com is very professional. Not only that, but it also brings more confidence to your business partners and clients. Many companies do not provide an email address to the entry-level employees that looks professional, but with G Suite, you can create email addresses for all of your employees with the domain name of your company, and you won’t have to pay anything extra for this. Read More

Why Evaluate Your Business? (+ WHAT to Look At)

Why Evaluate Your Business? (+ WHAT to Look At)

A business evaluation can provide you with valuable insight as to how your business is making money and how you’re spending it. Taking a closer look at your finances can reveal things you never knew about your company’s finances, and where you need to plug potential holes in your expenses.

Here are 5 things you should evaluate when performing your business evaluation.

Business Evaluation Component #1: Employee Performance

Labor is probably the biggest expense for your business, and if your employees aren’t measuring up to certain standards, you’re throwing away your money. As business owners, we set standards to ensure that we’re paying employees fair wages, based on what they can do and how well they perform in their areas of expertise. If employees aren’t measuring up, it’s time to take a look at how this really impacts your finances.

Let’s say you’re paying someone $50,000 per year for a high-level job that requires a lot of work. This employee has continuously failed to meet goals throughout the year, causing other employees to have to pick up the slack and help do their job. Not only is this detrimental to the cost of keeping this employee on the payroll, but it can cause serious frustration and extra work for other employees.

If someone on the payroll isn’t measuring up, perform a review twice a year and give them goals to reach. If they continuously fail to meet those goals, it may be time to consider seeking out a new person to fill that position.

Additionally, because blogging can help your business thrive, you should be sure to hire bloggers who can create compelling content for you on a regular basis. This will help boost your brand’s visibility online as well as help you rank in the search engines. Read More