EDITS.WS

Tag: Content SEO

  • How to choose the right focus keyword

    In Yoast SEO, you’ll find a focus keyphrase input field for every page on your site. Here, you can enter the keyword or keyphrase you’d like the page to rank for in Google. Next, Yoast SEO will check the page’s content to see if search engines will recognize what it is about. Here, we’ll explain the purpose of a focus keyphrase and how to choose it well.

    Table of contents

    Looking for keyphrase suggestions? When you’ve set a focus keyword in Yoast SEO, you can click on ‘Get related keyphrases’ and our SEMrush integration will help you find high-performing keyphrases!

    What is a focus keyword?

    The focus keyword or keyphrase is the search term you want a page or post to rank for. When people search for that phrase, they should find you. If you set a focus keyphrase for a page with Yoast SEO in WordPress or Shopify, the plugin or app evaluates the page’s content and provides feedback on improving the content to increase your chances of ranking higher for that search term.

    You’ll find the input field for your focus keyphrase in the Yoast SEO sidebar on the right side of your editor. If you’re working in WordPress and don’t see the Yoast SEO sidebar, click the Yoast icon on the top right of your screen first. If you’re working in Shopify, click the ‘More actions’ option at the top of the screen to optimize in Yoast SEO.

    the focus keyphrase input field in the Yoast SEO sidebar
    The focus keyphrase input field in the Yoast SEO sidebar

    If you’re using WordPress, you can also find the focus keyphrase input field in the Yoast SEO meta box below the post editor:

    the Yoast SEO input field for the focus keyphrase in the post editor meta box
    The focus keyphrase input field in the Yoast SEO meta box

    You’ll find the feedback to improve your content in the SEO analysis tab. If you amend your page with this feedback, it will be easier for search engines to recognize what your post or page is about.

    Check out this video to see how it works:

    Why use a focus keyphrase?

    Regularly adding quality content to your website or blog is a good SEO strategy. Google sees that your website is active because you add new information and increase the volume of your content.

    But randomly adding content to your site isn’t very useful. You have to craft a keyword strategy, and based on that strategy, you should create high-quality content your audience is looking for. When you write those articles, optimizing them for the keyphrases you’re aiming at is important. And that’s what Yoast SEO helps you with.

    How to choose a focus keyphrase

    In our opinion, there are at least three things you should do to determine which keywords or keyphrases you should optimize your blog posts for:

    1. Find a focus keyword people search for
    2. Research the search volume
    3. Google your keyphrase

    Let’s elaborate on these steps a bit:

    1. Find a focus keyword people search for

    As mentioned above, your keyword strategy should have given you some idea of what you want to write about. You should create a keyword strategy if you haven’t yet. You can read our ultimate guide to keyword research or take our keyword research training course if you need help finding your perfect keywords and keyphrases.

    Long-tail keywords

    If you want a post or page to rank, you can increase your chance of success by aiming for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords often exist of more words and are less searched for than very popular ‘head’ keywords. But less popular also means less competition, and the chances to convert are usually higher. We elaborate on this in our guide to content SEO.

    When you’ve done your keyword research and know what you want to write about, you can use various tools to find long-tail variants of that keyphrase or related keyphrases.

    One of these tools is at your disposal in Yoast SEO in WordPress and Shopify: a Semrush integration to easily find related keyphrases. When you are a user of our WordPress plugin or Shopify app, and you know what to write about, you can click on ‘Get related keyphrases’ below your focus keyphrase to see what phrases people search for in Google:

    You’ll find the ‘Get related keyphrase’ button in the Yoast SEO for WordPress sidebar

    A screen will open with related keyphrase suggestions:

    Find related keyphrases in Yoast SEO for WordPress/Shopify with the Semrush integration

    2. Check the search volume for your keyphrase

    Once you have found a long-tail search term you want to rank for, you should research whether there are many searches for that keyword or phrase. This used to require quite some effort: you’d need to dive into Google Adwords or Google Trends. However, as you can see in the image above, you can now easily get information about related or long-tail keyphrases in Yoast SEO if you’re on WordPress or Shopify!

    For instance, you can check out the search volume (how often it is searched for in a specified period) and trends (how that changed over time). Now, you can easily compare the related keyphrases and decide which one(s) you want to focus on in your current or other posts.

    Add more than one keyphrase

    Optimizing your post for related keyphrases can improve the quality of your content: it will make it more complete and easier to understand for Google. If you want to set one of these related keyphrases for your posts, you can do so with one click in Yoast SEO Premium for WordPress and Shopify. Afterward, return to the post editor and optimize your post for the new related keyphrase.

    Buy Yoast SEO Premium now!

    Unlock the premium content analysis and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!

    Get Yoast SEO Premium Only $99 USD / year (ex VAT)

    If you’re a Shopify user and want to maximize your SEO efforts, check out our Yoast SEO for Shopify app if you don’t have it already!

    Check posts that already rank

    If you already have some (blog) posts that rank well for good terms, you will know how many visitors these posts attract. Using Google Trends to compare the focus keyphrases of older posts (which you can view the statistics for) with the focus keyphrase you have in mind for your new post could give you some idea about the potential traffic. Make sure to choose older posts most similar to the post you plan to write. If you plan to choose a long-tail keyword, compare posts with long-tail keywords.

    For instance, this post about the focus keyphrase could be compared with a post about snippet previews, a related feature of Yoast SEO we already wrote about. In WordPress and Shopify, you could do this by using the Semrush integration in the Yoast SEO plugin:

    Compare posts to find out more about the potential traffic

    As you can see, the amount of traffic is a bit lower but still comparable. We know the search traffic to our snippet preview post is reasonably good, so we know it’s worth optimizing for.

    Another good way to use the Semrush integration in the Yoast SEO plugin is when considering several (long-tail) focus keywords. Because it will easily show you which search term will have the highest search volume compared to another, it will help you decide which long-tail keyword is most commonly used in search.

    For additional tools, see our post on keyword research tools.

    3. Google your proposed focus keyword!

    Apart from knowing which search terms people use, you need to know whether your post or page idea fits the needs and expectations of those who use these search terms. In other words, you need to determine your audience’s search intent. A quick way to find out is by Googling your proposed (sets of) keywords yourself.

    Check the search engine result pages

    Take the time to look at the search engine result pages (SERPs) Are the articles in the Google results of similar character to your article? Could your article fit the results shown on these search pages? If you write a blog post or page for this exact focus keyword, you aim to get your post amongst these results.

    The type of content shown on the search results will help you decide what content to create: does Google show product pages or blog posts? Or perhaps video or images? If there’s one dominant type, Google probably “thinks” this is the type of content people are looking for, so it’s worth investing time in creating that type of content, too. Of course, the results change when the search intent changes. Remember: you’ll have to beat the other search results, so only do this when you can create something truly outstanding and useful for your audience!

    Content of the results pages

    Be sure to use the content of the result pages as an inspiration for your blog post. However, do NOT copy content. Use the result pages to check if you missed information or arguments for your post or page. And, most importantly, to see how you can make your post stand out. How could your post be better, funnier, and more original than the post displayed in the result pages? Try to create content that will make the audience click and share!

    Check out social media and forums

    Another great tip: Check what people say about this topic on social media and various online forums. This will probably give you loads of input for your post or page. You can directly address the questions people have and the difficulties they encounter regarding this topic. On top of this, it will help you use the right wording, which is crucial if you want to reach your audience.

    Don’t forget to repeat your research now and then!

    Remember that search suggestions change all the time. And they will often be tuned to what you’ve been searching for. When we searched for the term “focus keyword” some time ago, the suggested keyword differed from the ones we got a couple of weeks ago.

    Suggest changes based on people’s problems, so monitoring it for important keywords makes sense. New results can give you input for your post or other related posts.

    Yoast SEO checks the quality of your keyphrase

    A good focus keyword for your post is essential if it wants to stand a chance in the search engines. Therefore, Yoast SEO checks some aspects of your keyphrase, both in our WordPress plugin and our Shopify app. First, we check the length of your keywords to ensure your keyphrase isn’t too long. In addition, Yoast SEO checks whether the keyphrase only consists of function words.

    The function word check in Yoast SEO

    Function words (words such as the, a, and, or, have) carry very little meaning. They don’t help Google figure out the topic of the copy. Even though it’s unlikely that you come up with such a keyphrase yourself, it can happen when you’re distracted while typing in your keyphrase. For instance, you could have typed [the] instead of [the best movies of 2020]. To prevent keeping your focus keyphrase like this, Yoast SEO will show a warning with a grey bullet in the SEO analysis of your post and help you stay focused!

    In rare cases, you might mean to rank for a phrase consisting of only function words. For instance, if you are writing a post about a meme called “Why would you do that?”. In exceptional cases like this, you can avoid getting a red bullet by adding a double quote before and after your keyphrase. By doing so, our tool will look for the exact match of this phrase, and the warning will disappear.

    Read more about the function word check in Yoast SEO.

    Should every page have a focus keyphrase?

    People often ask us whether their About page or contact page should have a focus keyword and, if so, what it should be.

    The answer is easy: not every page needs a focus keyword. Your contact page should be easily reachable. It might, for instance, need to rank for “<company name> address.” That probably doesn’t make sense as a focus keyword, though, so it’s perfectly fine to leave it empty.

    Also, ask yourself: Do I want this post to rank in the long term? Some posts, such as temporary announcements, are probably not worth optimizing.

    Conclusion and further readings

    Choosing a perfect focus keyword or keyphrase is not an exact science. You should aim for a combination of words used by a search audience. Aim for a keyphrase that is relatively high in volume and will suit your audience.

    We have lots more articles on this subject: you can read about keyword research, content writing, and improving your site structure. We’ve also combined these different topics into an SEO copywriting course. 

    Read more: SEO copywriting: the ultimate guide »

    The post How to choose the right focus keyword appeared first on Yoast.

  • How to Yoast your post

    Are you aiming for that number 1 position in the search results? And do you madly chase traffic and clicks? It’s not easy to achieve all these things on your own. Luckily, Yoast is here to help. In this post, we’ll talk you through optimizing your post in the best possible way. We’ll explain the five steps on how to Yoast your post.

    Writing comes first, Yoast comes second

    Optimizing your post is important, but it should never come first. Writing has three phases:

    1. Prepare your content
    2. Write!
    3. Edit your content (and Yoast it!)

    It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a blog post, an article, or novel. The steps are all the same.

    Preparation is key

    Before you start writing an article, you should be able to answer the following questions:

    • What will be the main message of my post?
    • What do I want to tell people?
    • Who are my readers?
    • What search terms do I want to be found for?

    In other words, you should take some time to think about what you want to tell your audience and what the structure of your text will look like. You need to know who you’re writing for and what their goal or search intent is. And what keywords does your audience use, so your content can be found in the search engines?

    If you do not think about these questions long and hard, you’ll make mistakes like addressing the wrong audience, focusing on the wrong keywords or writing an article that’s badly structured and unfocused.

    Write!

    After thoroughly preparing your blog post or article, you can start writing. Make sure to start by filling out your focus keyphrases and their synonyms. What are the terms you want to be found for?

    Since you’ve thought about what you’ll write in the preparation phase, you should go with the flow when you’re writing. Don’t overthink. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You’ll have the third – and most important phase- to correct and Yoast your post.

    Editing: let’s Yoast it!

    In the final editing phase, you can Yoast your post. So, let’s look at the five steps you should take to optimize your post to the max.

    1. Make sure your text is readable

      The first step in optimizing your post is checking the readability analysis. If your overall readability score is green, you’re good to go. But that’s not always the case! Perhaps you used too many long sentences. Maybe you’ve used the passive voice too often. Correct those readability issues and make your text nice and easy to read. Check out our article about the readability analysis for more tips!

    2. Check out your snippet preview

      You want people to click on your site in the search result pages. You need to write a kickass meta description to make your result stand out. Because a good meta description lets people know they’ll find what they’re looking for on your site! That’s why you should choose a title and a meta description that stands out. Read our article on how to use Yoast SEO to write an awesome meta description if you want more practical tips.

      If you need more help writing awesome meta descriptions, try the meta description generator. Our AI-powered generator crafts unique descriptions and titles for you! This feature is currently available if you have our premium Yoast SEO plugin.

    3. Check your SEO score

      The third step is to check out the SEO analysis. Which aspects of your SEO need improvement? Perhaps you should use your keyword or its synonym more often. Or maybe you’re overdoing it. And what about headings and images?

      Check out which problems and improvements the Yoast SEO analysis indicates. Usually, you can easily make some tweaks that’ll make your copy better optimized for search engines. But don’t overdo it! You do not need all green traffic lights. You’re good to go if your overall SEO traffic light is green!

    4. Add those internal links

      Another thing you need before your content can rank is links. Google finds your posts and pages best when linked to from somewhere on the web. Internal links also connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website. So, using the right internal linking strategy can boost your SEO!

      Are you linking to your most important articles? Are you linking to articles that are closely related to the article you’re currently writing? Make sure your site structure is tip-top. Read more about the power of internal linking and why you should use Yoast internal linking.

    5. Read and reread!

      Yoast SEO is a tool that aims to help you optimize your content. It gives practical tips on what you can do to improve your content. Think of it as your personal SEO assistant! But that being said, it’s also just a tool. Make sure to re-read your content once you’ve optimized it to make sure you’re happy with the end result!

    Yoast your post

    Writing is hard. Optimizing your post all by yourself is hard. That’s why Yoast SEO tries to make it easier for you! We’ll check your posts for readability, paragraph length, word complexity, your use of inclusive language, and make suggestions for improvements. We’ll help you to Yoast your post. But in the end, it will also remain some work from your side.

    Good luck! Let’s Yoast it!

    The post How to Yoast your post appeared first on Yoast.

  • Benchmarking SEO: Do a competitive analysis

    Ever felt that some of your keywords don’t perform as well as before? And are you wondering why other companies outrank you in Google? Then it might be smart to do a quick competitive analysis. Because in most cases, it’s not necessarily your site that’s performing worse; it’s other sites doing better. Luckily, if you want to do a competitive analysis to optimize your SEO efforts, there’s actually a lot you can do yourself. Let us take you through the steps!

    Step 1: Define your keywords

    It’s very important to use the right keywords in a competitive analysis. If you insist on using your (possibly branded) company outing as one of the main keywords, you might not have any competition, but you also won’t get any decent, organic traffic to your website. An example: Let’s say you’re offering ‘holiday homes’. If you insist on using the keyword ‘vacation cottage’, you are selling yourself short. Match the words your customers use.

    Use Google Trends to get insights into how your keywords are used

    Doing proper keyword research will help. Not just for this competitive analysis, but for the entire SEO optimization of your website!

    Step 2: Analyze these keywords

    Once you have defined the keywords you’d like to check against your competitors, the next step is obvious: search for these keywords. See who your competitors are by writing down who ranks higher than you.

    Be realistic

    If you’re on page two in Google and want to do a competitive analysis with the number one, there is probably a lot to gain. But you should keep two things in mind. First, your rankings probably won’t immediately shoot to the first spot. They’ll most likely go up step by step. And second, the high-ranking web pages, depending on the keywords, might have a higher marketing budget than you to back their ranking strategies. In fact, this could be the reason why they rank so high in the first place!

    But don’t give up. Our mission is ‘SEO for everyone‘ for a reason. If you put in the work, you’ll be able to climb to higher rankings step-by-step. Check the keywords, then make them long-tail or add local keywords (city name, region name) if needed. Do a thorough analysis. Google Trends will tell you what keywords have more traffic in the target markets for your business, and (free/paid) tools like Ahrefs.com and Searchmetrics.com will give you even more keyword insights. You can even use the Semrush integration in Yoast SEO to find relevant related keywords that might attract traffic.

    Climbing up in rankings a (few) step(s) at a time

    Sometimes, you can achieve a big improvement in your rankings. But if your website is ranking number six, it’s easier to climb to spot five or four before you target the top three. Again, that top three probably has the marketing budget to go all out, whereas your immediate ‘ranking neighbors’ are struggling like you. Beat them first; it’s easier. Having said that: if you have the opportunity to dethrone number one, two, or three, of course, go ahead and do so.

    Step 3: Check technical differences

    You’ll need to check a number of things to determine on which aspects your competition is ahead of you. That’s why the next step of your competitive analysis is to see if there are any technical differences.

    Site speed

    The faster the site, the happier the visitor, and the happier the search engine. That’s why it’s important to look at speed insights when doing a competitive analysis. Speed insights will tell you if there is a huge difference between you and your main competitors.

    There are many ways to check your site speed, like using Pingdom and Google’s speed tools.

    SSL/HTTPS

    HTTPS and SLL are about serving a secure website to your visitor. Obviously, this is very important. Because having a secure website shows that you want to deliver the best user experience. It will help you to gain trust from your future customers. Plus, Google likes it too, and will most likely rank a secure website over a non-secure one.

    Again, there are multiple ways to check SLL/HTTPS in a competitive analysis. You can get a nice overview with Builtwith.com. This site gives you a ton of technical information, including an SSL certificate. You can obviously check your browser’s address bar for this as well, but Builtwith could give you more insights while going over all other details. Like what CMS your competitor uses (and if they upgraded their WordPress install and you didn’t?).

    Mobile site

    Mobile-first. Mobile parity. Mobile UX. It’s all about mobile these days. Which makes sense, as most of today’s website traffic is from mobile devices, a few exceptions aside.

    A good mobile website is about getting your visitor to the right page as soon as possible. This has to do with speed, a clear and pleasant branded design, and deciding about top tasks on your website. Go check the websites of your competitors and see where they are clearly outperforming you. Be sure to check your Core Web Vitals as well, as Google is paying a lot of attention to these. To test this, you can use for instance:

    Step 4: Find content opportunities

    Although technical optimizations are crucial, the quick wins will probably be in the field of content. Look at what you’ve written about your company and products, then see what your competitors published on their sites.

    Click all menu items

    What are your competitors’ main pages? What are they trying to sell, and how did they manage to rank above you? See how focused their menu is and what pages they link to from there. Check if your competitor tells a better story than you. Then improve your story. The main menu of your website should be targeted at your visitor; it doesn’t have to explain all the awesome things you came up with.

    Category pages or product pages

    If you have a shop, it might be interesting to do a competitive analysis of your competitor’s store structure. Are they trying to persuade customers on a product page or on category pages?

    Our advice: optimize and try to rank for most of your category pages. After all, in a market where there are a gazillion products, ranking for each and every one of them is tough! So write appealing, high-quality content for your category pages, make them your cornerstone content, and try to rank a lot of ’em. Your competitive analysis will tell you which of these pages are optimized by your main competitors. Optimize yours accordingly and, obviously, better.

    Tip: Here’s more on optimizing that category page of your online shop. Plus, find out if you need to improve your product descriptions as well.

    Sitemap

    A sitemap can show you the site structure of your competitor, be it via an HTML sitemap or an XML sitemap. It can tell you, for instance, if they are targeting certain long-tail keywords via the slugs of their pages. Plus, a few clicks to their pages will tell you how their internal linking is done.

    You can find that sitemap on most sites at example.com/sitemap.xml or example.com/sitemap_index.xml or at example.com/sitemap. Sometimes a website doesn’t have a sitemap, but tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb might help you out. Crawl the site and order by URL.

    Blog

    Do you have a blog? If not, you probably should. A blog makes for dynamic content, and keeps your site current. And, if you post regularly, Google will find all kinds of interesting and recent ‘Last Updated’ dates.

    Check if your competitor has a blog, and if theirs ranks better than yours. If so, they’ve probably woven their blog into their content strategy.

    Step 5: Compare UX

    Great UX makes for a better time on your site, more page views, and a lower bounce rate. We’re not getting into UX too much here, because we think you should first focus on other things in your competitive analysis. However, we wanted to highlight two things: call to action and contact pages.

    Call to action

    A great call to action helps any page. Whether it’s to drive sales or engagement, every page needs a proper call to action. Simply go over some of your competitor’s pages and see how they went about this. See if you can grab some ideas, and improve your own call to action. Oh, and remove that slider and/or video background. That’s not a call to action. That’s a call to no action. (If you really must include one, make sure you at least optimize your video background in the right way).

    Contact page & address details

    Your contact page and address details could be the end goal of a visit to your page. If so, check how the competition created that page. Did they add structured data, for instance? Is there a contact form? Did they make it easier to find these details than you did? If comparing this sparks some great ideas, then adjust your site accordingly.

    Last but not least: if all seems reasonably the same, and there is no logical way to explain why your competitor outranks you, it might just be that the other website has a great deal more relevant links than you do. Or simply better ones. You’d have to check Ahrefs.com, Moz’s OpenSiteExplorer or, for instance, Searchmetrics for this.

    Follow-up on your competitive analysis!

    At this point, you know the main differences between your competitor’s site and yours. This is the moment where you start prioritizing optimizations and get to work. First, take care of low-hanging fruit. Fix things that are easily fixed. Next, determine what issues might have the biggest impact on your rankings, then solve these as well. If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you’ll probably have no problem with this. Our tip? Go for any speed and content issues first, and try to get more backlinks in the process.

    Read more: 3 SEO quick wins to implement right now »

    The post Benchmarking SEO: Do a competitive analysis appeared first on Yoast.

  • Black Friday & holiday season SEO 2023: 7 tips to start preparing!

    The summer has just ended. Should you already prepare for Black Friday and the holiday season? Yes! They’re the biggest sales of the year, and ranking in Google isn’t something you do overnight. It’s never too early to start. So, if you have an online shop, let’s start working on your holiday season SEO immediately!

    Don’t forget, Black Friday (24 November) and Cyber Monday (27 November) are kicking off this year’s holiday shopping season. You can set up a lot of content for all occasions. In this post, we’ll review some things you can do to prepare!

    Holiday shopping in 2023

    Nowadays, people are used to shopping online. It’s easier and more convenient, because you don’t have to travel only to find something is out of stock. Plus, online stores often offer payment plans. Shopping online is so popular that online sales hit a record of 9.12 billion dollars last year! And the numbers will only continue to rise. That’s why it’s safe to assume that people will buy many (if not most) of their holiday gifts online this year.

    To prepare for the holiday season, it’s good to stay on top of trends. eMarketer Insider Intelligence recently shared five charts that turn numbers into actionable tips for the holiday season:

    1. Discount deals and alternative payment options (Buy now, pay later) should be part of your strategy
    2. Brands should provide a consistent purchasing experience across digital and physical stores
    3. To minimize returns, brands should make their product pages as comprehensive as possible
    4. Holiday season marketing campaigns should be tailored to each platform to ensure maximum effectiveness

    Holiday retail sales will grow 4.5% to reach $1.317 trillion this year, according to our forecast. Retailers who want to carve out a share of that spend will need strong promotional strategies and a seamless digital-physical experience. It’s also not a bad idea to have a plan ready for when the returns start rolling in.

    Arielle Feger – Newsletter Analyst at eMarketer Insider Intelligence

    Online is where it’s at

    Of course, in-store or curbside pick-up will still prove popular. Nowadays, however, most people do their research and purchases online – sometimes even weeks in advance! So don’t be surprised when the holiday shopping season starts well before Black Friday and continues for weeks.

    That’s why it can be a good idea to extend your online deals for a few days or weeks. Especially if you want to prevent huge crowds from gathering at your store on a specific day. That won’t be a good shopping experience for anyone involved, so spreading these deals over an extended time is probably better.

    Start preparing in time

    Dive into the data you amassed during previous Black Friday events, and see if you can come up with improvements. Bear in mind that it takes a while for content to rank. So if you want to keep up with the competition, try to get your content in gear at least 45 days ahead. That’s often recommended. Of course, you can always start preparing earlier if that works better for you. Your schedule could look something like this:

    1. 45 Days in advance: Post your promotion to your website calendar and post a save-the-date post on social media and in your email newsletter).
    2. 7 Days in advance: Post upcoming events/promotions post on social media and via email. Try to encourage other (small) businesses to share it with their followers.
    3. 1 Day in advance: Post an event reminder post on social media.

    Keeping these steps and time frames in mind is a good rule. However, we think you can do much more in setting up new pages and renewing old ones. Let’s look at a few practical tips.

    1. Set up holiday season gift pages

    First, we must consider what category or particular landing pages make sense for the upcoming holidays. You can always set up pages like ‘Best gifts for parents/millennials/teens’, ‘Newest deals for your 6/10/12-year-old’, and ‘Best friend/grandparents/coworker discounts’. You could also think along the lines of ‘Top 10 gifts for outdoor/skiing/parasailing enthusiasts’ and ‘Top 3 deals for stay-at-home parents’, etcetera.

    Make sure the page titles and meta descriptions of these gift landing– or category pages fit the upcoming holiday season. You can reuse these gift pages for Hanukkah or your summer sale. Find (old) content that fits the holidays, rewrite titles and meta descriptions to match the upcoming season, and chances are you won’t have to do that much work to get them up to date. Be sure to write proper product descriptions and improve the product images. Learn how to write great product descriptions using our product-specific analysis in WooCommerce SEO and Yoast SEO for Shopify.

    To increase the chances of your gift pages ranking, boost their internal linking structure. You can also link the previous all-year holiday season pages, such as specific Christmas landing pages (‘Top 7/10/25 gifts for under the Christmas tree’) to boost these when the time has come. That could be around the 45-day mark, but we wouldn’t mind stretching that to 60 days. You have to give Google and other search engines enough time to follow your links and find your specific holiday season landing pages in time.

    2. Promote on social media and in your newsletter

    Social media like Twitter and Pinterest — though this is technically a visual search engine — can play a massive role in the success of your (online) holiday sale. Take Pinterest, for instance. Raise your hand if you or your spouse has a Pinterest wish list. Many people do. If you manage to get your products on people’s wish lists, that can positively impact your sales.

    While you’re at it, don’t forget to share your holiday season gifts pages on Facebook and Instagram as well. In the previous section, we’ve mentioned the top 10 lists. We all know these still work pretty well on social media. Yoast SEO can actually help you optimize your social media posts before you share them.

    Email marketing

    And last but not least, don’t forget your email marketing! For many companies, newsletters provide a steady stream of income. Be sure to plan a good campaign for your newsletters.

    For example, we recommend setting up holiday gift guides and sharing these. You can create an excellent overview of all kinds of gifts that lots of people will enjoy. ELLE and Target have pages like that, and so do more companies.

    3. Introduce new products

    The holiday season is an excellent time to pitch new products. If you know of potential bestsellers for the upcoming holiday season, start writing content about these products now. You can compare it to tech sites writing about concept iPhones, features that Apple might add, and things like that.

    The more you write about new products upfront, the more likely the sales pages for these products will rank when it matters. You should link all pages you made in advance to that one main page you’ll set up when the product is released and available to buy. Treat that page like cornerstone content.

    4. Add structured data to your product pages

    When adding or changing your product pages to fit the season, don’t forget to optimize them. Check, for instance, whether you’ve added structured data to your product pages. Because rich results that show ratings and prices can give you an edge over your competitor. Our WooCommerce SEO plugin, Local SEO plugin, or Yoast SEO for Shopify app can help you do this!

    Picture of the search results for Sony's Playstation 5. In the picture, you see the product price, customer ratings and reviews, and if it is in stock.
    Example of how a product can appear in the search results if you use structured data.

    Read more: Structure data with Schema.org: the ultimate guide »

    5. Reuse content

    There’s no shame in serving old wine in a new bottle. If you have a Black Friday guide for 2022, feel free to reuse it in 2023. Update the year, and update details like popular brands and popular products for that year. If the slug of your URL is /black-friday-guide-2022/, change it to /black-friday-guide-2023/ around August next year, and redirect the old URL to the new one. No need to create a new page. It would be a waste of nice inbound links not to reuse that old URL. Of course, this is even easier if you don’t include the year in the URL, so /black-friday-guide/ is an excellent slug as well.

    In the months before the holiday season, you could even simply repost popular posts from last year (a bit adjusted or updated if needed) on social media. Valentine’s Day might even become Secret Santa. Cyber Monday might match your child’s favorite gifts for Ramadan. These are probably small adjustments; perhaps just adding ‘this Ramadan’ to a meta description or title will do.

    Keep reading: Should I update or delete old content? »

    6. Optimize for speed and mobile

    It’s a good idea to check and optimize your website for speed and mobile. Trust us, you’ll get these recommendations from an SEO blog or consultant every day, all day. And with good reason! Mobile, site speed, and user experience in general are becoming more important every year (or day, for that matter). When preparing your website for the holiday season, this is as good a time as any to check your mobile website and site speed, and update or improve them if possible.

    To start, look at Google’s Core Web Vitals and use these to improve your site. Here are five ways to boost your Core Web Vitals scores.

    Read on: How to check site speed »

    7. Create a measurement plan

    All set? Don’t forget to make a measurement plan so you can analyze your success. Write down all your plans, then think about how to track all your actions. This is key if you want to know what to focus on next year. For detailed instructions on how to analyze your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Cinco de Mayo shopping, read our post with 5 tips to measure your holiday sales success.

    What should you do when the holiday season is over?

    How do you handle the product pages of holiday gift sets after the holidays are over? Even if the gift set or product was a great success, and you want to offer it again next year, it’ll take a while for the page to be relevant again. So, what’s the best way to deal with these pages in the meantime?

    Our advice: Keep the pages up. However, you don’t necessarily want the pages visible to people browsing your site. So have the page up without linking to it, then link to it again when the holiday season starts. This is better than deleting it and starting again.

    Conclusion on holiday season SEO

    In short, now’s the time to buckle down and start writing holiday gift pages and content on new products. And don’t forget to plan your social media promotion and analytics. After all, you can never start too early when your online business depends on the holiday season. Be prepared, begin now!

    Keep on reading: eCommerce usability: the ultimate guide »

    The post Black Friday & holiday season SEO 2023: 7 tips to start preparing! appeared first on Yoast.

  • 7 ways to improve product descriptions in your online store

    Nowadays, it seems everyone and their mother have an online store. Platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify make it easy to start one, so why not? But creating a shop doesn’t equal success. There are many moving parts before you can celebrate sale after sale. One of those is writing great product descriptions.

    Table of contents

    Why improve the descriptions of your products?

    Two of the most important tools you have at your disposal to sell your products are product photography and writing product descriptions. An online store has to work extra hard to make products on its product pages tangible for its customers. Customers can’t handle your products in the flesh, so they have to make do with a description and imagery — so these better be great!

    Unfortunately, many ecommerce sites don’t take this to heart. There are a lot of opportunities for online stores to improve their offerings. That also means there’s a lot of room for forward-thinking online stores to conquer the market. Whatever you do, there’s always a chance to improve your product descriptions. Don’t rely on tedious and standard stuff!

    Do you need more reasons to improve your product descriptions? Good product descriptions help you:

    • Communicate benefits more clearly,
    • establish a voice,
    • improve customer experience,
    • increase the chance of ranking your product in the search results,
    • get higher conversion rates,
    • get more return customers/build relationships,
    • create trust.

    See what we mean?

    Use Yoast WooCommerce SEO or Yoast SEO for Shopify

    Before we get into how to improve your product descriptions, we want to mention that we offer some awesome ecommerce tools: our WooCommerce SEO plugin and the Yoast SEO for Shopify app. These add-ons help you maximize the performance of your online store. Plus, as a bonus, you’ll also get access to Yoast SEO academy, including our ecommerce training course, and if you’re using Shopify, our Yoast SEO for Shopify course, too!

    In both the WooCommerce plugin and the Shopify app, you’ll find an analysis that gives you feedback you can use to optimize your product pages. This analysis specifically aims to improve your product content and the SEO of your product pages. It enables you to build unbeatable product pages that are ready to get ranking.

    We have more detailed articles about product descriptions on each platform. So, if you’re interested, you can read more about writing great product descriptions with WooCommerce SEO or how to write great product descriptions in Shopify.

    1. Always focus on your customer

    Step number one in almost everything SEO is doing keyword research. The same goes for improving product descriptions. You need to know the product, the customer, and how they write or talk about this particular product. You need to know how the customer comes from realizing a need to buy a product from you: the user journey.

    It might be that the manufacturer came up with a snazzy name and description that in no way aligns with the consumer’s thoughts about this product. A particle destroyer doesn’t scream vacuum cleaner, right? Don’t amplify that; keep it sensible and understandable.

    Doing keyword research for products also gives you an idea about how to discuss products — not just which words to use. Find out the real value of the product and use consumers’ way of talking to communicate that.

    2. Don’t rely on generic text from manufacturers

    It’s easy to use the descriptions provided by manufacturers. The content is in the data set, so why not use it? Well, you shouldn’t use that default description for a couple of reasons. One, many other online stores selling the same products use these descriptions. Two, many other online stores selling the same products use these descriptions. See duplicate content!

    Standard manufacturer descriptions are abundant in the search results

    It’s hard to stand out if you are like everyone else. Of course, it’s hard for some products to come up with a description that accurately describes the product in your unique way. Plus, you might have many slight product variations, causing frustration in writing those individual descriptions. Still, if there’s only the possibility of writing something that stands out — go for it.

    In researching, search for your product in Google and see which competitor comes up. Analyze their writing and see how you can top that.

    3. Don’t write for search engines (but do)

    One of the most important things to remember is that you are writing for humans, not machines. Of course, writing a good product description makes it easier for search engines to understand it, but that shouldn’t be your goal. You aim to communicate the product’s value to customers and sell it as a solution.

    Doing keyword research will give you an idea of which terms a product ranks for — and you know what people use to describe it. Combining these helps you write great product descriptions that can work well for search engines and consumers!

    Don’t forget to use Yoast SEO to prepare your product pages for the search engines; if your site runs on WooCommerce, you’ll enjoy our WooCommerce SEO add-on. If you want to broaden your horizon and increase the chance of your site turning up in Google, you could start blogging on your ecommerce store.

    4. Focus on solving the user’s pain

    It’s easy to list a selection of plusses you think fit the product well. Maybe add some specifications while you are at it. But, then you might end up with a product description written from your perspective and not the consumer’s. What are they gaining from using your product? What’s the solution? How do you plan to solve the user’s pain?

    An example

    Remember, you are not selling dental picks, but you are selling a solution for bleeding gums. Sometimes, consumers don’t even know the product name they are looking for — they want to fix their problem. Selling your dental picks as simply that might mean missing out on the people looking for a quick and easy way can help them reduce their woes.

    Look at the difference between these two product descriptions. The first one is generic:

    Introducing our high-quality Dental Picks! These dental tools are perfect for maintaining oral hygiene and keeping your teeth clean. With their durable construction and ergonomic design, our Dental Picks are a must-have for anyone looking to improve their dental care routine.

    Featuring a sleek and compact design, our Dental Picks are easy to use and provide effective cleaning between teeth. Made from premium materials, they ensure durability and longevity for long-lasting use. Whether you’re at home or on the go, our Dental Picks are the ideal companion for maintaining a healthy smile.

    Upgrade your dental care routine with our Dental Picks today and experience the difference for yourself!

    The second example focuses on the benefits that dental picks have for the user:

    Are your bleeding gums causing you discomfort and frustration? Say goodbye to oral woes with our innovative Dental Health Solution Kit. Designed to provide a quick and easy way to reduce bleeding gums, our kit is your ultimate solution for achieving optimal oral health.

    Unlike traditional dental picks, our Dental Health Solution Kit goes beyond simply cleaning teeth. It is specially crafted to target the underlying causes of bleeding gums, effectively soothing irritation and promoting gum health. With our kit, you can finally experience the relief you’ve been searching for.

    Don’t let the pain of bleeding gums hold you back from enjoying a confident smile. Our Dental Health Solution Kit is here to rescue you from your oral troubles. Take the first step towards healthier gums and a happier you.

    Focussing on the user intent makes it possible to uncover those problems and helps you offer solutions with your product.

    The new Renewal toothpaste by Colgate does set out to solve those bleeding gums

    5. Stay away from cliches and avoid using superlatives

    Calling every product the best will achieve the opposite — nobody will believe anything anymore. Words have power, but you must learn how to wield that power. Think carefully about which words you use because, most often, less is more. Omit needless words. By using stripped-back language, that single power word can do the job. Of course, if your products have won awards or other accolades, you can brag about it — please do so tastefully!

    The same goes for cliches in your writing. Don’t use cliched language if a regular text can do the job. Keep in mind that not everyone knows the same idioms as you do. Keep your content easy to understand, easy to scan, and easy to remember.

    Sticking with the dental picks example, please don’t do this:

    Looking for a game-changing solution to keep your pearly whites in tip-top shape? Look no further than our revolutionary Dental Picks! These bad boys are the ultimate weapon in the fight against plaque and gum disease.

    With their cutting-edge design and precision-engineered tips, our Dental Picks are like a knight in shining armor for your oral health. They effortlessly glide between your teeth, removing stubborn food particles and banishing plaque with the power of a thousand suns.

    But wait, there’s more! Our Dental Picks are as versatile as they come. They can tackle the toughest tartar, defy the most challenging cavities, and make your teeth shine brighter than a Hollywood smile. Say goodbye to boring dental care routines and hello to a dazzling, award-winning smile.

    Experience the dental pick revolution today and join the ranks of satisfied customers who have witnessed the magic firsthand. Don’t be fooled by imitations, choose our Dental Picks for a smile that will leave everyone speechless!

    Helly Hansen’s jacket might bring in awards, but this description is nearly indecipherable
    Dickies gets straight to the point with a list of the most important features, supported by icons that you can quickly scan

    6. Make it personal

    Not every piece of text has to be boring and distant. You can use your voice and make it more personal. Develop your tone of voice and stick to it! It makes you recognizable and helps your branding, making you stand out from the crowd.

    Keep in mind that you are not simply selling a product to a person, but you are selling an experience. And, since you want that customer to return sometime soon, it better be a good experience!

    J. Peterman’s unique voice comes through loud and clear

    7. Use user stories and examples

    It shouldn’t always be you who tells the story of a product — the best seller of your product is someone who bought it already. Ask your customers for input and use their insights to enhance your content. You might even incorporate their stories in your product descriptions.

    Use visual and textual examples of your product in use by actual customers. This gives potential customers a better feel for the product, its benefits, and usage.

    Improve the product descriptions for an online store

    In this article, we’ve highlighted seven ways to write better product descriptions for your ecommerce site — be that a Shopify or a WooCommerce site. Of course, there are many more ways of doing that, but with these simple tips, anyone can improve the marketing copy of their products. Looking for more ecommerce SEO tips? We have an ultimate guide on ecommerce SEO that touches on many subjects. Or, if you’re using Shopify, you might want to read our ultimate guide to Shopify SEO.

    Read more: Write great product descriptions with WooCommerce SEO »

    The post 7 ways to improve product descriptions in your online store appeared first on Yoast.

  • SEO copywriting checklist: 8 things to check before publishing

    Writing high-quality content that ranks in search engines is a difficult job. And how do you know that it’s a job well done? In this post, we’ll give you a handy SEO copywriting checklist with some quick checks you should do before you publish your article.

    Do the hard work first!

    Before using this SEO copywriting checklist, you should’ve done much work. Before you start to write, you should’ve done your keyword research, decided upon the exact topic, then set up the structure of your article. It’s a lot of work, but… nobody said SEO copywriting was easy! To help you out, however, we’ve written an ultimate guide on SEO copywriting. Good luck!

    Read more: 10 copywriting tips – from experts to experts »

    Then check:

    Before you hit the publish button, you should ask yourself the following eight questions. We created this SEO copywriting checklist to ensure you thought of everything before posting new content.

    Note: a lot of the checks are covered in the content analysis of our Yoast SEO plugin. Useful, right?

    1. Is your traffic light in Yoast SEO green?

    You should have an overall green light for the Yoast SEO readability, inclusive language, and SEO analysis. Check whether or not you can (and need to) improve based on the feedback you get from the orange or red lights. Just keep in mind that you don’t worsen the quality of your article. You shouldn’t optimize just for the sake of getting a green light!

    2. Is the main topic of your article clear?

    When scanning through your text, check if the topic of your article is immediately evident to your audience. Your readers will probably read your subheading first, so make sure those fit the topic of your post. Next, most people read the first sentence of every paragraph. That’s why it’s wise to have these core sentences cover the topic of each paragraph as much as you can.

    Another tip is to look at the word complexity of your post. If you’ve used too many complex words, it will be hard for people to understand your message. However, if you use easier words, people will breeze through your content!

    Keep reading: Why text structure is important for SEO »

    3. Are there any lengthy paragraphs?

    People generally prefer to read only a short piece of text. So, check whether you need to shorten any lengthy paragraphs. Five or six sentences per paragraph are ideal.

    Before publishing your article, think about linking to similar articles. If you have a cornerstone content article on a similar topic, make sure you link to it. And if your new article is the best piece you’ve written in a long time, you should add links to this new piece.

    Read on: Internal linking for SEO: why and how »

    5. Is your call to action clear?

    What do you want people to do after they’ve read your article? Should people buy something? Or do you want them to read another article? Make sure your call to action is clear, and that it’s easy for your audience to click from your article to other places on your website.

    You’ve probably considered which keyphrase you’d like your new post to rank for. And if your article is lengthy, it also makes sense to optimize for related keyphrases. So, if your keyword is [games for children’s birthday parties] you could also optimize for [hide and seek] or [musical chairs], for example.

    Keep on reading: Yoast SEO Premium analysis: as smart as Google »

    7. Do you use transition words?

    A text is more readable with the proper use of transition words (or signal words, same thing). Transition words include ‘most important’, ‘because’, ‘thus’, or ‘besides that’. They give direction to your readers. Make sure every paragraph has some of these transition words.

    Read more: 5 tips to improve readability »

    8. Did you choose the right category and tag?

    This check is all about site structure! Because if you choose the right category and tag (or tags) for your article, you clarify your site’s structure to search engines. This helps search engines understand what your site is about. In addition, it will also help visitors to your site to find this article or related articles.

    Keep reading: Using category and tag pages for SEO »

    Bonus tip: Use inclusive language

    You might be thinking: Why should I care about inclusive language? But it’s good for your users and your SEO. Because Google’s (and other search engines’) goal is to provide people with the best result for their queries. People who feel included because of your language will probably stay on your site longer!

    Conclusion

    Writing articles that rank in search engines takes time and effort, but it will pay off! So, besides checking the Yoast SEO plugin, please look at this SEO copywriting checklist. Remember to ask yourself these eight questions before hitting the publish button. If you’ve covered these, you can confidently publish well-optimized quality content!

    Need more help? Make sure to check out our SEO copywriting training.

    Read on: 5 SEO copywriting mistakes you should avoid »

    The post SEO copywriting checklist: 8 things to check before publishing appeared first on Yoast.

  • Using AI to generate great SEO titles and meta descriptions

    In part, attracting visitors from the search results pages comes down to crafting irresistible titles and meta descriptions to entice users to click. However, it’s a challenging task to create these elements for every page manually. This is where the disruptive power of generative AI comes into play, revolutionizing your SEO strategy by automating the process and generating top-notch titles and meta descriptions. But, don’t blindly follow the suggestions without critical assessment. In this post, we’ll dive into the practical side of generating flawless titles and meta descriptions using generative AI for SEO.

    Mastering AI titles and meta descriptions for SEO

    Titles and meta descriptions serve as your web page’s ambassadors in search engine results, making their role critical to your online presence. As users perform searches, these snippets are often their first encounter with your content, influencing their decision to click and explore further. Hence, creating captivating titles and meta descriptions is essential for capturing attention, showcasing relevance, and enticing users to choose your website. Generative AI can help write good ones. Generative AI and SEO can go hand in hand if you do it well.

    Enhancing click-through rates (CTR) and UX

    Titles and meta descriptions that effectively communicate the value of your content play a pivotal role in improving click-through rates. Compelling titles and descriptions are relevant to the users’ search query, which leads to a high chance of getting them to click on your link.

    A higher CTR signals to search engines that your content is valuable, potentially leading to more traffic. Moreover, conveying the essence of your content accurately helps users find precisely what they’re seeking, leading to increased engagement, prolonged time spent on your website, and, ultimately, SEO success.

    Unveiling the (un)predictability of Google’s rewriting game

    While you invest time and effort into crafting optimized titles and meta descriptions, it’s crucial to note that Google often rewrites them on the SERPs. Therefore, there’s no guarantee that your carefully written titles and meta descriptions will always appear as intended.

    Google often thinks it knows how to present your site best. It tends to rewrite stuff to provide users with the most relevant and informative snippets that align with their search intent. Thus, it may rephrase or modify a title or meta description if it believes its version better matches the user’s query or accurately represents the page’s content.

    Although Google’s rewriting will occur, optimizing your titles and meta descriptions remains beneficial. Generating well-structured, keyword-rich content increases the likelihood that Google will utilize your provided title and meta description.

    Remember to monitor how Google treats your titles and meta descriptions in the search results and make necessary adjustments. Keep optimizing your content and stay up-to-date with changes in Google’s algorithms so your site will remain superbly represented in the SERPs.

    Use the AI in Yoast SEO Premium to generate titles

    Hot off the presses! Yoast SEO now empowers you to generate titles and meta descriptions using AI. Imagine not having to ponder and labor over crafting the perfect meta descriptions and titles. Our advanced AI does it for you! It’s designed to understand your content and create precise, engaging titles and descriptions that boost your SEO performance.

    The AI feature of Yoast SEO helps you find awesome titles and meta descriptions quickly

    This feature is not just about saving your time and effort; it’s about improving the quality of your SEO, enhancing your visibility, and driving more traffic to your site. It’s where technology meets creativity, resulting in an unparalleled SEO experience. Give it a try today!

    A helpful AI tool in Yoast SEO Premium

    Experience the benefits of generative AI and make your work simpler today!

    Get Yoast SEO Premium Only $99 USD / year (ex VAT)

    Using generative AI to create powerful titles

    For SEO, generative AI presents a powerful tool for automating the creation of captivating and optimized titles. We can streamline our workflows and generate irresistible, tailor-made titles for our target audience using state-of-the-art generative AI models like GPT-based models.

    How to evaluate AI-generated titles

    Getting models to spit out titles is not hard, but what comes next might be even more important. When evaluating AI-generated titles, you should check for relevance, keywords, length, uniqueness, and branding, to ensure they are effective and appropriate for your content:

    • Clarity and relevance: The title should accurately convey the subject and main focus of the content. It should indicate what the page or article is about so that users can understand its relevance before clicking on it.
    • Keyword optimization: Incorporate relevant keywords that align with the content and help search engines understand the topic. However, ensure the title remains natural and readable, avoiding keyword stuffing or over-optimization.
    • Length and readability: Keep the title within a reasonable length so it can be fully displayed in search engine results. The title must be easy to read, with proper grammar and punctuation, so users can quickly grasp its meaning.
    • Engaging and unique: Titles that stand out and generate interest are more likely to attract clicks. Use AI-generated titles that evoke curiosity, offer a benefit, or create a sense of urgency. Always try to make your titles unique and different from your competitors.
    • Brand consistency: Check if the AI-generated title aligns with your brand voice and messaging guidelines. Ensure it accurately represents your brand’s personality and values while maintaining consistency across your content.

    Remember, there’s still no substitute for human experience, so please take the time to manually improve the work of the generative AI tool of your choice.

    Unleashing AI-generated meta descriptions

    Titles are not the only heroes in the SEO battlefield — meta descriptions also play a vital role. These concise summaries entice users to click on your link and explore your website. By harnessing the power of generative AI, you can optimize your meta descriptions to be engaging, informative, and perfectly aligned with users’ search intent.

    Checking the AI-generated meta description

    Here are a few key aspects to consider when evaluating AI-generated meta descriptions. In general, look for relevance, length, clickability, and if it has the correct tone of voice.

    For relevance, ensure that the generated meta description accurately reflects the content of the corresponding web page. Verify that the description captures the main topic or purpose of the page and includes relevant keywords or phrases that users might search for.

    Looking at length and readability, you should check the length of the generated meta description. Ensure it falls within the desired character limit (around 150-160 characters). Check the readability and clarity of the text so it flows smoothly and is easy to understand for users. See if the message comes across in this short piece of text.

    Clickability is a vital aspect. Consider whether the generated meta description is enticing and likely to attract user clicks. Does it address the user’s search intent, highlight the unique value proposition of the page, or create a sense of curiosity or urgency? Aim for attractive descriptions and encourage users to click through to your website.

    Another essential aspect is tone and brand voice. Review the tone and style of the generated meta description to ensure it aligns with your brand voice and messaging guidelines. Does it accurately represent the personality and values of your brand? Make any necessary adjustments to maintain consistency.

    We’ll dive deeper into these aspects in the following sections of this article.

    Checking generated content: A mix of AI and human expertise

    Once you have your AI-generated titles and meta descriptions, evaluating and refining them becomes crucial in ensuring their quality, relevance, and alignment with your objectives. Manual review and refinement, infused with human expertise, are vital in perfecting the generated content before implementation.

    Reviewing for quality and coherence

    Initiate your evaluation process by scrutinizing the generated titles and meta descriptions for quality and coherence. Assess their language fluency, grammatical correctness, and overall readability. Identify and rectify any inconsistencies or errors hindering the content’s clarity and impact. By making necessary edits, you enhance the overall quality and cohesiveness of the generated content.

    Assessing relevance to content and context

    While reviewing the generated output, evaluate its alignment with its content. Consider the specific web page and its context to ensure the generated content accurately portrays the page’s main topic, theme, or purpose and adjust where necessary.

    Infusing brand voice and messaging

    Like any other content, aligning the generated titles and meta descriptions with your brand’s voice, messaging, and tone is critical. Assess how the generated content reflects your brand’s personality and resonates with your target audience. Make necessary edits to infuse your brand’s unique identity into the content while preserving clarity and readability.

    Optimize keyphrase integration

    Examine how effectively the generated titles and meta descriptions incorporate target keyphrases. Keyphrases play a crucial role in optimizing your content for search engine rankings. Evaluate whether the generated content naturally integrates the desired keywords and their variations.

    Analyzing user engagement metrics

    In addition to manual review, analysis of user engagement metrics is vital in assessing the effectiveness of the generated titles and meta descriptions. Monitor key performance indicators like impressions, click-through rates, bounce rates, and time spent on the page to gauge their impact. Compare the AI-generated content’s performance against alternative variations to determine the best-performing options.

    Incorporating human input and expertise

    While generative AI plays a significant role in generating titles and meta descriptions, it’s imperative to acknowledge the indispensable value of human expertise. Generative AI models are trained on data but lack intuition and a thorough understanding of contextual nuances. You can inject your creative insights, industry-specific knowledge, and brand context into the content by implementing manual review and refinement.

    Balancing SEO optimization and user value

    Leveraging generative AI for generating titles and meta descriptions requires achieving the elusive balance between search engine optimization and delivering value to users. This harmony ensures your content features prominently in search results while providing an engaging and meaningful experience for your audience.

    Grasping user intent

    To strike the right balance, understand the intent behind user searches. Analyze the keywords and search queries relevant to your content, and consider the motivations and expectations of users when they land on your web page.

    Providing clear and concise information

    When crafting titles and meta descriptions, ensure they convey precisely what users can expect from your page. Clearly outline your content’s main topic, purpose, or value proposition. Use concise and compelling language to capture users’ attention and encourage them to click through.

    Showcasing unique selling points (USPs)

    Titles and meta descriptions are excellent opportunities to showcase the unique selling points of your content. What sets your page or product apart from the competition? Does it offer a unique perspective, in-depth analysis, or exclusive insights? By incorporating these selling points into the generated content, you entice users and demonstrate the value they stand to gain by engaging with your page.

    Engaging and connecting with users

    Titles and meta descriptions are gateways to user engagement. Use compelling language, emotional triggers, and storytelling elements that resonate with your target audience. Emphasize the benefits, solutions, or outcomes users can achieve by interacting with your content. Stir curiosity or evoke a sense of urgency that compels users to click through and explore further.

    Prioritizing readability and usability

    While SEO optimization is essential, prioritize the readability and usability of your titles and meta descriptions. Use language that is clear and concise, making information easily understandable. Structure the content in a scannable format, incorporating proper punctuation and well-defined sections. Ensure the generated output doesn’t compromise readability or coherence by focusing solely on optimization.

    Redefining SEO with AI and human ingenuity

    Generative AI presents an extraordinary opportunity to simplify and optimize the creation of stunning titles and meta descriptions for SEO success. By leveraging the power of AI, you can save time, amplify click-through rates, and elevate user engagement. Yoast SEO Premium has a helpful AI tool that lets you generate titles and meta descriptions with the click of a button.

    It’s crucial, however, to remember that AI should enhance human expertise, not replace it entirely. By combining the creativity of human content creators with the assistance of generative AI, you can create titles and meta descriptions that are optimized, captivating, and valuable to users.

    The post Using AI to generate great SEO titles and meta descriptions appeared first on Yoast.

  • Should your content be globally relatable?

    “Find your niche!” is popular advice for people who own or want to start a business. You have to find your audience; the more specific, the better! But is that true? Should you only talk to the same group of people, or is there merit to making your content globally relatable?

    What is globally relatable content?

    Creating global content means everyone can understand it. No matter where they live or who they are. The homepage of your website is a good example, since it’s meant to convey to everyone who visits your site what type of business you are. As a result, global content is usually written in English. 

    The SEO benefit of global content is obviously the larger reach. Most people use English keywords, so if you optimize for those, you’ll be able to reach more people. Then, if your content is good and people find what they’re looking for, your rankings will also improve.

    A side note about local content

    The opposite of global content is local content. This type of content is more niche. It’s catered to a specific audience, which also means it can be in any language. A good example of businesses who benefit from and almost exclusively use local content are local businesses. For example, the hairdressers on the corner and the Italian place a few blocks away. 

    These local businesses probably benefit the most from local content. It wouldn’t make sense for them to create a lot of (if any) global content, and that’s totally fine. If you google Donuts Nijmegen, you don’t need the donut place to have global content. You just need that sweet, sugary donut. 

    People expect personalized content

    … is what you might say to argue that content shouldn’t be globally relatable. And you’re right. But personalization doesn’t mean ‘only people in the Netherlands use SEO to optimize their site’. There’s no gender or race restriction on SEO optimization. The only requirement: a website, and a desire to rank high in search engines.

    What if Yoast were to only address Dutch people? We’d be alienating so many people who would benefit from our product. And that’s a shame! Since our motto is SEO for everyone, our website is in English and our plugin is available in no less than 27 languages! This is also why we use people of every gender and color in our images. And of course, we’d be missing out on a lot of revenue. 

    There are always exceptions

    Of course, there are businesses that cater specifically to a certain group of people. Still, you might be surprised who actually buys your product, uses your service, or reads your blog posts. For example, skincare products that help with acne are usually geared towards women, specifically white women, but a lot of men and non-binary people use them too.

    Imagine if you actually featured these groups in your products and content. You’ll probably sell more! Because when people feel seen and spoken to, they’re more likely to buy. So, if you think your business only caters to one specific customer, you’re probably forgetting someone.

    Globalization and social media

    With the extreme popularity of social media, you also have to wonder if it’s even possible to only address one type of customer. Sure, language plays a role. But even that’s not black and white anymore. People travel, move to other countries, learn new languages. Your content probably reaches more people than you might think. So why wouldn’t you talk to them too?

    One size doesn’t fit all

    However, you shouldn’t only create globally relatable content. First, because it doesn’t exist. No two people are alike, so while you can strive to be as globally relatable as possible, you’ll never find the ultimate, globally relatable piece of content. 

    People from different cultures and backgrounds have different associations with certain words and imagery. A well-known example is the color white, which is associated with cleanliness and purity in western culture. But in some Asian countries, it’s the color of mourning. And there are more instances like this.

    Don’t become a faceless brand

    We also can’t ignore the other reason why creating only globally relatable content is a bad idea: it makes for some pretty bland content. If you try to appeal to everyone (especially in written content), you can’t rely on cultural context. And you have to wonder if that’s even possible when you too have participated and grown up in a culture, so your cultural context will color everything you do. 

    Globally relatable content can’t be contemporary either, because referencing an event that happened in the US, for example, isn’t necessarily relevant for people in other parts of the world. 

    In other words: bland content won’t make your business stand out from the crowd. If all you create is globally relatable content, then you will be snowed under by brands with more personality.

    A happy medium

    As is true for most things in life, it’s all about balance. Creating content for your perfect customer is possible but also silly, because your content will most likely be seen and used by other people. People who might benefit from or are interested in your business. Are you just going to ignore them? Or are you ready to participate in the global society we live in? 

    The post Should your content be globally relatable? appeared first on Yoast.

  • Generative AI and SEO: Revolutionizing content creation

    SEO has always been vital in making your website visible and getting organic traffic. Content creation is at the heart of SEO success. Yet, creating relevant, high-quality content can be a difficult task. Enter generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), a technology that mimics human-like creativity. Today, generative AI is on everyone’s lips and is poised to change the SEO landscape. This article delves into the fusion of generative AI and SEO, examining how it can revolutionize content creation and enhance user experiences.

    Table of contents

    Understanding generative AI

    Generative AI is artificial intelligence focused on generating original and creative content. It uses advanced algorithms, vast amounts of data, and machine-learning techniques to generate output to emulate human creativity. Understanding what happens in generative AI can provide valuable insights into its application in various industries, including content creation for SEO purposes.

    Deep learning and neural networks

    At the heart of generative AI lies deep learning, a subfield of machine learning that uses neural networks to learn and produce complex patterns. Neural networks consist of layers of artificial neurons that process and analyze data, altering their internal parameters to optimize performance over time. This architecture enables the network to make new output based on the patterns it has learned from training data.

    OpenAI started an AI hype with the release of ChatGPT

    You’ve heard about large language models (LLMs)

    Large language models, such as ChatGPT, are advanced AI models trained on vast amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like text. These models use refined techniques like transformers to capture the relationships between words and making contextually relevant responses. Read this in-depth explanation by Stephen Wolfram if you want to know exactly what happens inside ChatGPT.

    Large language models like ChatGPT have many applications, including natural language understanding, text generation, translation, and content creation. They can write coherent and contextually appropriate text reacting to given prompts, making them useful for chatbots, virtual assistants, automated content creation, and other interactive language-based tasks. They’re even great developers!

    Training a large language model exposes it to diverse and vast text datasets, including books, articles, sites, and other sources. The model learns the statistical patterns, grammar rules, and contextual associations from this training data to generate text that reads like a person could have written.

    These large language models can capture complex language structures, understand context, and produce coherent and meaningful text. However, they also come with challenges, such as potential biases in training data, susceptibility to generating incorrect or misleading information, and the need for ongoing supervision to ensure quality and ethical usage.

    Balancing creativity and realism

    A key challenge in generative AI is to balance creativity and realism. While making unique and inspiring content is crucial, it should align with audience needs and adhere to best practices. Achieving this balance involves fine-tuning the model and including rules guiding the output.

    Now that you understand the basics of generative AI let’s dive deeper into the applications of generative AI.

    Applications of generative AI

    Generative AI has entered numerous industries, changing organizations’ operations and creating innovations. Across various domains, generative AI applications enable you to automate tasks, generate creative outputs, and simplify operations.

    Art and creative works

    Generative AI has significantly affected the world of art and creative expression. Artists can use AI to generate unique artworks, explore new styles, and push the limits of creativity. From algorithmic paintings to computer-generated music compositions, generative AI offers endless options for artists to experiment with and produce stunning pieces.

    Virtual assistants and chatbots

    Chatbots have been around for a while, but generative AI has become vital to creating next-level virtual assistants and chatbots. By training AI models to understand and generate human-like responses, virtual assistants and chatbots can engage in meaningful conversations with users and provide personalized support. Through AI, these intelligent systems can generate natural language responses that are contextually relevant and enhance user satisfaction.

    Content generation and curation

    It’s the understatement of the year to say that generative AI has altered the content creation landscape. With the ability to learn patterns from vast amounts of data, AI models can create written content for specific topics or industries. This technology is beneficial for creating product descriptions, blog posts, and social media posts at scale, helping you to maintain your online presence and meet content demands.

    Video and image generation

    We’ve all seen the results of generative AI for images and videos. The technology has opened up new options for video and image generation. AI models can make images or videos based on text input parameters, making them useful in advertising, gaming, and virtual reality. This power allows anyone, skill or no skill, to create beautiful content in every style imaginable.

    Midjourney lets you generate beautiful images from text prompts

    Recommendation systems

    Generative AI powers recommendation systems that suggest products, movies, music, or content for individual preferences. Understanding user preferences and generating recommendations for their tastes can enhance user engagement, improve customer satisfaction, and increase conversion rates. AI algorithms enable recommendation systems to constantly learn and adapt to users’ changing interests, giving good recommendations.

    The role of generative AI in SEO

    Generative AI has emerged as a game-changer in SEO, offering new ways to improve websites, user experience, and content creation. Using generative AI, you can optimize your SEO strategies and stay ahead of your competitors.

    Content generation and optimization

    We’ve touched on this before, but generative AI is vital in content generation. It allows you to produce large-scale, relevant, and engaging content. It can help overcome the challenge of consistently creating content by generating unique blog posts, articles, and product descriptions that align with SEO best practices.

    Keyword research and targeting

    AI offers valuable support in keyword research and targeting. With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data, AI algorithms can identify relevant and trending topics and uncover long-tail keyword opportunities. Using AI for keyword research, you can optimize your content, improve relevance, and enhance search engine visibility.

    Design and user experience

    AI can help with site design and UX optimizations. We’ve seen various AI-powered site builders appear in the last year. AI algorithms can recommend designs and suggest interfaces, layouts, and visual element improvements.

    A/B testing and optimization

    AI can automate A/B testing methods so that you can evaluate and optimize versions of your sites. By making multiple variations of landing pages or content, the AI can analyze user behavior and statistically determine the most effective options, which could lead to improved conversion rates.

    Generating SEO-friendly content

    Making SEO-friendly content is one of the most impactful applications of generative AI in SEO. Generative AI lets you simplify your content creation process, ensuring the generated content aligns with SEO best practices.

    Craft your content with care

    Crafting exceptional content with the help of generative AI while keeping SEO in mind requires a careful balance between creativity and optimization. Using AI models, you can make content that helps you include suitable keywords, optimize meta tags, and employ a reader-friendly tone and structure.

    However, it is crucial to go beyond mere optimization and ensure the content remains engaging, informative, and tailored to the target audience. This is where human expertise and intervention come in, adding a personal touch, unique insights, and crafting authentic storytelling.

    AI content tools like Jasper are getting better by the day

    Tailoring content to target keywords

    Generative AI can help write content for specific keywords. This enables you to create content that is not only engaging but also optimized for specific target keywords.

    Maintaining content relevance and freshness

    Search engines favor fresh and relevant content; generative AI can help you address this need. AI can also help you keep your evergreen content fresh and relevant by suggesting improvements.

    Working SEO into content

    You can get generative AI to include SEO-friendly elements in its content. This can consist of optimizing meta tags, headers, and subheadings with relevant keywords, ensuring proper usage of internal and external links, and structuring the content for easy readability. By automating this, AI saves time and effort for content creators while improving the content for better results.

    Balancing creativity and optimization

    While generating SEO-friendly content, it is crucial to maintain a balance between creativity and optimization. Generative AI algorithms can ensure the generated content is optimized for search engines and retains a creative and engaging tone. This prevents the content from sounding robotic or keyword-stuffed, providing a positive experience while sticking to SEO best practices.

    Enhancing UX with generative AI

    In SEO, user experience plays a crucial role in deciding the success of a website. With the advancements in generative AI, you can now use these technologies to enhance user experiences in several ways.

    Personalized content recommendations

    Generative AI models can analyze user behavior, preferences, and historical data to generate personalized content recommendations. The AI can suggest relevant articles, products, or services by understanding user patterns and interests, increasing engagement and satisfaction. This personalized approach also improves the chances of conversion and customer retention.

    Interactive virtual assistants and chatbots

    Chatbots are all the rage. Generative AI helped the development of interactive virtual assistants and chatbots that provide valuable support to users. With natural language processing abilities, these AI models can understand and respond to user queries, providing instant assistance and fixing common issues. This leads to a better user experience and less work for customer support teams.

    Dynamic content generation

    Generative AI models can dynamically make real-time content based on user inputs, making the user experience more immersive and interactive. For example, online stores can use AI-powered systems to generate personalized product descriptions or virtual showrooms based on user preferences or browsing history. By tailoring content this way, you can create a more engaging and user-centric experience.

    Sentiment analysis and emotional responses

    AI can discover sentiment. Generative AI models can analyze user sentiment and emotional cues from text or voice inputs. This information can be used to tailor responses to better match users’ emotional states and needs. By understanding user sentiment, websites and applications can adjust their tone, recommendations, or support accordingly, creating a more empathetic and engaging user experience.

    Generative AI and keyword research

    Keyword research is critical in SEO, as it helps you identify and target the most relevant and valuable keywords for your content. Leveraging the power of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows you to streamline and enhance your keyword research process for improved SEO performance.

    Analyzing big data for keyword insights

    AI models excel at analyzing vast amounts of data, making them invaluable for keyword research. You can gain insights into keyword trends, search volumes, and user intent by training AI algorithms on large search queries, website content, and user behavior datasets. These insights help organizations understand the preferences and requirements of their target audience, enabling them to create relevant and engaging content that aligns with user expectations.

    Uncovering long-tail keywords

    One of the advantages of generative AI in keyword research is its ability to uncover long-tail keyword options. Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific search phrases with lower competition but higher conversion potential. Generative AI algorithms can analyze user search queries and identify patterns, allowing you to uncover long-tail keywords that align with your niche and target audience. By optimizing your content for these specific keywords, you can attract highly targeted organic traffic to increase conversion.

    Improving keyword relevance and optimization

    Keyword relevance and optimization are crucial elements of successful SEO strategies. Generative AI can help you create content that not only contains relevant keywords but also meets the conditions of search engines.

    AI models can examine top-ranking content and identify patterns contributing to higher rankings. Incorporating these insights into the generation process allows you to improve content for targeted keywords while keeping a natural and engaging tone.

    Enhancing local SEO with AI-generated keywords

    Local businesses can also benefit from AI by finding more keywords for local SEO. These keywords can help local companies to optimize their content for optimal visibility in local search results. This enables them to attract local customers and drive foot traffic to their physical locations.

    Addressing language and cultural variances

    Generative AI is handy in handling language and cultural variances in keyword research. It can consider nuances in language, regional dialects, and cultural preferences to generate keywords that resonate with specific target audiences. By using AI, you can expand your reach and tailor your content to diverse linguistic and cultural groups.

    AI-generated SEO titles and meta descriptions

    In SEO, creating compelling titles and meta descriptions is vital to attract users and increase click-through rates. Traditionally, human writers have been responsible for writing these elements. However, with the rise of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), you can now use AI-generated SEO titles and meta descriptions to optimize your content for search engines.

    Challenges and ethical considerations

    As AI becomes integrated into SEO strategies, it is vital to recognize and address its use’s challenges and ethical considerations. While generative AI offers remarkable capabilities and benefits, it raises concerns about transparency, biases, and human supervision.

    Lack of transparency

    One significant challenge in using generative AI for SEO lies in transparency. Generative AI models often operate as black boxes, meaning the decision-making process behind their outputs can be difficult to understand. This lack of transparency raises concerns, as you may be unable to explain how and why specific choices were made based on AI recommendations.

    Biases and unintended consequences

    Generative AI models learn from large datasets that reflect the biases and preferences of the data they were trained on. Consequently, these models can perpetuate existing biases or introduce unintended consequences when making content or recommending SEO. Biases can appear in various ways, such as gender biases in image selection, favoring specific demographics over others, or reinforcing stereotypes in content creation.

    Evaluating the outcome AI models generate is critical to make them clear of bias and unintended results. The Yoast SEO inclusive language analysis can help you find and correct these in the text.

    Human supervision and decision making

    While generative AI can automate and streamline many aspects of SEO, it should not replace human supervision and decision-making. Human oversight remains crucial to ensure ethical practices, maintain control, and make informed decisions. Relying solely on AI-driven optimizations may lead to unintended consequences, as AI models may not fully understand the business goals, cultural contexts, or nuances specific to a particular industry.

    Human supervision concerns critically checking the AI models’ outputs, recommendations, and decisions. It entails validating AI-generated variations, evaluating the impact on user experience, and aligning the optimizations with the business objectives and ethical considerations. Human involvement helps maintain accountability, ensures that AI remains a tool rather than an independent decision-maker, and allows for intuitive adjustments that AI may not capture effectively.

    Future directions in generative AI and SEO

    As AI advances and changes various industries, including content creation and SEO, several exciting future directions emerge.

    Integration of generative AI and user feedback

    User feedback helps understand user preferences, improve content responses, and enhance user experiences. Future directions in AI involve incorporating user feedback loops within AI models. The AI can learn and adapt to growing user expectations by including user responses and making content more relevant, engaging, and user-centric.

    Real-time content generation

    Real-time content generation is an exciting direction with immense potential for creating dynamic and contextually aware content. By leveraging real-time data streams, AI models can make content using current events, trends, and user interactions.

    Personalized content recommendations

    Generative AI can significantly tailor personalized content to individual preferences and interests. This direction uses AI models to analyze user behavior, consumption patterns, and historical data to provide personalized content suggestions.

    Improved content planning and strategy

    AI can revolutionize content planning and strategy by giving data-driven insights and suggestions. Future directions in generative AI involve developing AI models that can analyze market trends, competitor strategies, and user preferences to assist in content planning.

    Conclusion

    The intersection of generative AI and SEO represents a significant content creation and optimization milestone. Generative AI lets anyone produce high-quality, engaging content at scale — which is also one of the most important flaws. It revolutionizes the content creation landscape by automating tasks, enhancing user experiences, and simplifying operations.

    Generative AI presents numerous chances for content creators, marketers, and firms to excel online. However, handling ethical considerations and bias mitigation is crucial when implementing AI in content creation. Striking a balance between automation and human creativity is critical to creating content that engages, informs, and delights users while sticking to SEO best practices.

    As generative AI evolves, integrating it into your SEO work could help you to thrive online. Using the power of GenAI, you can optimize your SEO strategies, improve visibility, drive traffic, and offer users excellent experiences.

    Generative AI is a powerful tool but cannot replace human creativity and expertise. People must collaborate with AI to shape and refine the content, ensuring it meets audience expectations and aligns with brand values. Together, you can continue to create meaningful, relevant, and SEO-optimized content that captivates audiences and drives success.

    The post Generative AI and SEO: Revolutionizing content creation appeared first on Yoast.

  • What is quality content and how do you create it?

    Writing quality content should be a key aspect of every SEO strategy. But when is your content considered high-quality? And does high-quality mean the same for your users as it does for Google? In this article, we’ll discuss what quality content is and how you can make sure your content hits the mark. It will require some creative writing skills. But don’t worry, you don’t have to become the next Hemingway! By focusing on the right things, you can create high ranking quality content that your users will happily read.

    What is quality content?

    That is the million-dollar question. Knowing how to write good content helps you get more visitors, higher conversions, and lower bounce rates. But who determines the quality of your content? The easy answer: your users. However, this also makes creating the right content more difficult. Because every user is different and has a different search intent. But they have one thing in common: every user knows what they want. Meanwhile, you’re still figuring out what your audience wants to read about!

    That’s not how you would expect an article about writing quality content to start, is it? Don’t worry, we’re not done yet! Although the quality of your content is eventually determined by your users, there are a few steps you can take to make sure you end up with well thought-out, readable, and attractive content. In other words: content that’s eligible to be considered as high-quality by your users and search engines. And yes, this will take some time. But it’s time well spent.


    Yoast SEO helps you create quality content!

    The content analysis in Yoast SEO Premium is designed to help you create quality content:

     

    • Optimize your text for related keyphrases and synonyms
    • It recognizes different forms of your keyphrase, so you can focus on writing naturally
    • It recognizes singular and plurals, and also tenses of verbs
    • Check if your keyphrases are well distributed through the text

    Yoast SEO Premium also gives you access to all the Yoast SEO academy courses, including our expert SEO copywriting training! Want to know more? Take an in-depth look the Yoast SEO Premium analysis.

    Why is quality content important?

    First and foremost, you should make good content for your users. People are unlikely to stick around for long if your website is full of bad content. But that’s not the only reason; low-quality content is bad for SEO too.

    Google is getting smarter all the time. Recently, they said they’ve figured out a way to detect low-quality content. With the ‘helpful content update‘, Google wants to start measuring the amount of low-quality pages on your site. If the overall quality is not good enough, all of your pages could end up ranking lower. So you need to focus on making quality content now more than ever.

    How to create quality content

    1. Write for your readers, not yourself

    If you have an ecommerce site, you want readers to know about the products or services you offer. If you’re a blogger, you want readers to get to know you and the topics that interest you. However, it’s also important to take into consideration what your users actually want to read about. What interests do they have? What events or news do they follow that you can relate to your business?  And what ‘problems’ are they trying to fix that have led them to your site?

    The first step in creating high-quality content is to make sure that it contains the information your audience is looking for. To find out what information your users are looking for, you have to conduct proper keyword research. This will help you determine what subjects to write about and what words your audience uses. Keyword research also helps your rankings, as more visitors and lower bounce rates tell Google that your page is a good result to show in their search results.

    2. Make your content readable and engaging

    Do you want to get your message across? And do you want people to read your entire blog post or page? Then make your content easy to read. This means that you should:

    • Think about the structure of your text and the words you use. Too much text without any headings or paragraphs tends to scare people off, so make sure you use them. It will give your readers some air while reading.
    • Try to limit the use of difficult words and be cautious of the length of your sentences. Both can make your content harder to understand, which in turn will slow down your reader.
    • Use variation in your text to make it engaging. Use synonyms, and alternate longer sentences with shorter ones.

    Another important thing to focus on: Have fun! And be personal in your writing. This helps you write quality content that’s different from your competitor’s, and it helps users get to know you and your brand. Want to know more? In this article, we dive deeper into these tips for writing readable blog posts.

    3. Think about search intent and your goal

    Let’s start with the basics. What does search intent mean? Search intent is the reason why someone conducts a specific search. It’s the term used to describe their purpose. For example, do they have a question they need answered? Or do they want to buy something online? Someone’s search intent makes a difference in how they consider the quality of your content. If it fits their need at that moment, then they will stay on your page longer. But if they need an answer to a question and the page they land on only tries to sell them products, they’ll be gone before you know it.

    Match goals to different search intents

    It’s important to take search intent into consideration while you’re creating the content for a specific page. That’s why we advise you to match your goals to the different search intents users might have. Is one of your goals to get more subscriptions to your newsletter? Then you should add that subscription button to pages where users with an informational intent land.

    Does a visitor have a transactional intent (meaning: they want to buy something)? Make sure they land on the right page. If someone searches for the term “Product x”, you don’t want them to land on a blog post discussing a topic related to that product. Ideally, you want them to land on a page dedicated to “Product x”. However, a category page when you have multiple variations of “Product x” works too.

    Of course, experience tells us it’s not always that black and white. Still, it’s good to consider the search intent your users might have. It will help you determine the focus of your content and what call-to-actions you want to add to a specific page or post. A great way to get started is by adopting a content design mindset. This mindset helps you produce user-centered content based on real needs. Also, for some input, we recommend having a look at the search results to create great content.

    4. Be trustworthy

    When people land on your page, it’s also important to build trust. Especially when they’re not familiar with your site yet. You have to show your audience that you’re trustworthy. How? By doing the following three things:

    1. Write in a clear and user-oriented way.
    2. Try to stay away from stock photos, as genuine photos create more trust and give your site a personal feel. The same is true for your ‘About us’ page. Try to use actual photos of your team. 
    3. Add ratings to Google, testimonials to the right pages, and set up HTTPS. This will help your users and Google to understand that your site belongs to an actual business or person, which allows them to happily and safely browse your site.

    Do you own an ecommerce site? Then have a look at these 7 ways to increase sales by creating trust.

    5. Keep your content up to date

    Another key element of writing quality content is making sure it’s up to date and relevant. This means you have to update your content from time to time to make sure people are able to find the right information. But why is this so important? Because it shows your users that you’re on top of recent developments and can always provide them with accurate information. In other words: it builds trust and keeps your audience coming back to your site.

    Keeping your website and blog posts up to date is also important for SEO, as this shows Google that your site is ‘alive’ and relevant. So, make sure you schedule in a time to update your content regularly.

    Read more: 10 tips to improve the quality of your page »

    Bonus: Invest time in site structure

    The five steps we’ve discussed so far will help you write content that is easy to read and user-centered. Next, we’d like to highlight an extra step that is equally important: working on your site structure. It’s important, because it will help users and search engines find your quality content.

    Site structure refers to the way you organize your site’s content. It’s a vital part of any solid SEO strategy. When you structure your site well, search engines will be able to index your URLs better. It helps Google determine the importance of your individual pages and which pages are related to each other. Additionally, a good site structure will allow users to find their way around your site more easily. It will help them find your quality content in the search results and on your website. That’s why there’s quite a lot to gain from perfecting your site structure. Read more on how to work on your site structure and the importance of doing so.

    A quick recap on quality content

    Although well structured and readable content might not instantly take you to the top position in Google, it’ll definitely have a positive effect on your SEO in the long run. So, before you start publishing post after post (or page after page), it’s worth it to consider a few steps.

    Make sure to write for your readers, make your content readable, match search intent with your goals, be trustworthy, keep your content up to date and work on your site structure. The end result? Attractive content that your readers will appreciate. This will have a positive effect on your number of visitors, bounce rates and conversions. If you want to find out if there are still areas of content SEO you can improve, you can take this short test. Or take a look at our guide to SEO copywriting for more tips and tricks!

    Keep reading: SEO copywriting: the ultimate guide »

    The post What is quality content and how do you create it? appeared first on Yoast.