8 Fundamentals of Content Writing for the Web
Before you start your content writing for the web, discover the 8 fundamentals to know for an effective content marketing strategy!
Do you want to embark on a content marketing strategy? Are you ready to write your first articles for your professional blog?
the writing of content for the web meets specific rules, adapted to the specificity of the support. Here are the 8 basics of web writing to know to write 100% SEO friendly content.
1. Content writing that meets specific goals
A print reporter writes to disseminate information. A web editor also aims to inform; but he must also know how to convince his audience (to sell a product/service, to demonstrate his expertise or his customer, to encourage the reader to stay on the site, etc.) and organize his text according to the rules of SEO.
Content writing requires the mastery of multiple skills, as well as the ability to meet specific objectives, which differ according to the field of activity and the profile of the Internet users to be targeted. To entrust this mission to a web editor is not, therefore, a luxury.
2. Choose your subjects according to your targets
Content writing requires you to choose specific topics: you do not publish anything and everything on your blog! To do this, one must take into account both its area of activity and the typical profile of its potential readers.
What message (s) do you want to address to your audience? What are the topics that interest them? These questions are crucial. You will not publish cooking recipes on a real estate blog, nor offer legal advice on a platform dedicated to children. Good content is first and foremost a well-targeted topic that will likely to appeal to your readers and attract more qualified traffic.
Think about it: you write above all for the surfer!
3. Put the main information forward
Attract attention: this is the secret of writing content for the web. Not only to get the readers attention, and the desire to read based on your titles and introduction. But also the attention of search engine robots, offering titles which allow them to index the page easily.
A good structuring of its content aims to put the main information (include: keywords) forward in:
- Titles Hn (H1 for the main title, H2 for the game titles, H3 for the subtitles …);
- Tags (title, meta description, alt …);
- The intro (about fifty words on average or 250 characters).
the main title and the meta description appear in Google’s results page. It is therefore essential to optimize them well!
4. Optimize the SEO of your content
Content writing aims to inform, convince … and refer to pages! SEO is an essential method for positioning your pages in the first results of search engines. Without this leverage, your content won’t be visible to users and you will not get traffic.
The on-page SEO goes through:
- Optimization of tags(see above);
- The keywords selection (popular but not too competitive, in line with the expectations of your target readers);
- The placement of keywords in the content (you must reach an average density of 1 to 2% for the main keyword);
- Optimization of the URL (containing the main keyword, and not too long).
Do not forget, too, to work the semantic field around your keyword. If your content relates to the Auto Showroom, for example, you will have to use terms like ‘car’, ‘automobile’, ‘vehicle’, ‘mechanical’, ‘four-wheel’, brand names, etc.
In any case, all these attributes are specific to the writing of content to impact the positioning of the page on the SERPs of the search engines.
5. Adapt the length of the texts to the subjects
This is a question that often comes up about content writing: do you have to write short or long content? Should we prefer the content of 300 to 400 words, quick to read, or offer expert articles that take the time necessary to explain things well, even if you know the 2000 words?
It is commonly thought that Internet users do not read, or little, the web content. However, according to a Backlinko study, the articles in first place in the results of Google are composed of an average of 1,890 words! And since Google does leave nothing to chance, it is because its users have to appreciate these long contents!
In reality, everything depends on the subject treated … and the purpose of the page. Sometimes, 400 words are enough to go around a question (if it is a page dedicated to optimization). At other times, offering content of 1,500 or 2,000 words helps to demonstrate its expertise on a given topic.
6. Make internal Linking
Once you have started writing content, you will quickly have several articles in stock on the blog. Take the opportunity to start working on your internal Links: this consists of inserting into your content links to other pages of your blog (or your website).
The internal linking has two advantages:
- It encourages your readers to click on the links to access other pages of the site;
- It contributes to the good indexing of your pages by the search engine robots (which, during the crawl, circulate on the site through hypertext links).
7. Set up an editorial schedule
At first, running a blog is pretty simple: you pick a topic to write an article every week, and you’re done.
But very quickly, the machine can get carried away. the Increase in traffic to your site gives you more responsibility because your readers are waiting for recent posts. In addition to the 5 weekly articles on the blog, you need to write white papers, guides, client cases, comments for your videos, etc. Topics become more and more expert, and you must manage multiple contributors internally and externally. Result: you are on the edge of implosion!
The solution? Set up an editorial planning for content writing. You will be able to organize your publications on a long-term: topics to deal with dates of publication determined in advance, topics already exploited (practice to organize the internal linking), ideas for future articles, and of course, the entity of the editor in charge of every content.
8. Share your content
Last fundamental point: a good article is a shared article. What’s the point of spending time on content writing if it is to wait for people to find you a little by chance on the search engines?
Go get your readers: distribute your content to your prospects and customers via all channels available to you (website, emailing, SMS). And do not forget to adopt a communication strategy on social networks to share your content … and push your audiences to share them in their turn!