EDITS.WS

Tag: Content SEO

  • Small business SEO and local search: the ultimate guide

    Are you tired of feeling overshadowed and underestimated as a small business or local company regarding SEO? Well, here’s some good news! You can take your local search results from average to awesome with the right strategy and tools. Whether starting from scratch or already having a website, this ultimate guide to small business SEO will help you leverage local SEO to drive more traffic to your business. So, get ready to make the most of your online presence and stand out in the search results!

    Table of contents

    Note: This guide is about SEO for small/medium businesses, particularly those with a specific region to target and a limited budget. If your business has multiple locations, you might want to check out our article about creating local landing pages instead. Alternatively, if your website is aimed at a wider audience, you’re probably better off with our regular SEO guide. Our local search guide has more insights on how it works in the background.

    Local SEO vs. SEO — what’s the difference?

    The key difference between SEO and local SEO is which search results you want to appear in. SEO is about ranking in search results that don’t depend on a specific location (i.e., national or international search results). On the other hand, local SEO is about optimizing pages and sites for region-specific results, such as ‘near me’ searches. These searches enable users to find products and services available in their area.

    Of course, optimizing your small business website for local searches involves many of the same steps as regular SEO. Our guide will help you through the SEO basics in a way that makes sense for a smaller website, plus the extras you need to know about local SEO.

    Small business SEO and local search ranking factors

    When search engines are deciding what to rank in a local search result, there are four main factors they take into consideration:

    1. Is your website up to scratch?
    2. Where are you (or your store/services) located? Is that near to the person who is searching?
    3. What do you offer, and is it relevant to the person searching for?
    4. Do you have a good (online) reputation?

    If you want to optimize your website to rank better but are unsure where to start, you might want to look at our free SEO course for beginners. In the rest of this guide, we’ll cover the most important factors for succeeding at local SEO in more detail.

    Keep reading: Local ranking factors that help your small business SEO »

    Step 1: Make a good website

    Let’s be honest; your site is probably not the ‘Mona Lisa’ of websites. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to meet certain standards. For instance, site structure, loading speed, and security are important for SEO and user experience. Look at our article about what makes a good website to ensure yours will meet expectations.

    If you don’t already have a website, you can start with WordPress. Other options are available, but our SEO plugins work best with WordPress. Of course, we have Yoast SEO for Shopify if you run an ecommerce store on said platform. You might also be interested in following our free WordPress for beginners training.

    Learn more: Holistic SEO: Improve every aspect of your website »

    Low-budget branding for small business SEO

    We have talked about this repeatedly: branding is very important for SEO. Branding means stuff like your logo and tagline. Do they represent your company without further explanation? What do your logo and tagline reveal about your values and your field of expertise? It’s all about recognition, and it’s just as important for small business SEO as it is for big companies.

    You can work on your branding without investing a lot of money. Yes, low-budget branding is a thing, even if you’re a non-profit organization. When working on your branding with limited resources, there are several budget-friendly tips to consider. One of the most crucial steps is to claim and optimize your Google Business Profile listing. This helps ensure you provide accurate information, such as your name, address, and phone number. Consistency is also key across all platforms, ensuring your NAP information remains consistent on online directories and social media profiles. We’ll dive into this later.

    Develop a unique brand language that sets you apart from your competitors. Make sure it is consistently used across all platforms, including social media. Blogging provides a cost-effective way to build brand identity while establishing yourself as an authority in your industry. Attending local events allows you to network with potential customers while establishing your trusted authority in the field.

    Encouraging online reviews can significantly boost your visibility. It’s worth encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. By implementing these tips, you can work toward building a strong brand presence without breaking the bank. It allows you to showcase your business in the best possible light while capturing the attention of your target audience.

    Read more: Low budget branding tips for small businesses »

    Step 2: Let Google know your location

    To help Google understand where your business is located and put you in the right local results, it’s essential to have up-to-date contact information in all the right places. So it’s very important to align your info on all the platforms you operate on. Search engines will check and double-check your details to ensure everything adds up.

    Make a contact page

    Aside from search engines, your (potential) customers must know how they can contact you, too. You should always add your contact details in places where users would expect to find them — for example, in your website footer — and, of course, on your contact page.

    Local business structured data

    Many factors influence small business SEO, but one very obvious is your NAP. NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone number. In the case of a local business, details like addresses, phone numbers, geo-coordinates, opening hours, etc., should be correct at all times. The best way to present these details to search engines is by using local business structured data. Yoast SEO has a lot of options for adding structured data.

    Structured data is an essential component of local SEO. LocalBusiness structured data, in particular, provides an excellent opportunity for local businesses to improve their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). By incorporating localBusiness structured data, you can provide search engines with details about your business. Details include your name, address, phone number, and opening hours. This information helps search engines better understand your business, making listing your business in relevant search results easier.

    Structured data also provides a better user experience for potential customers. Customers can easily find you by providing accurate information about your business, such as your location. Search results that include rich snippets, such as business ratings and reviews, can help customers decide to visit your business. These factors improve your click-through rate (CTR) and drive more traffic to your website and physical store. By incorporating localBusiness structured data into your website’s code, you’re providing search engines and potential customers with valuable information that can help boost your visibility and generate business.

    Read more: Putting local stadiums, aquariums, and museums on the map with Yoast Local SEO »

    Google Business Profile

    Google Business Profile, formally known as Google My Business, is a free profile you can set up to help promote your business in the search results and on Google Maps. This official Google tool can help you to rank in your specific geographical area. Not only that, but the tool also gives you many options to manage and improve your listings. By making a GBP listing, you can connect with your customers better. You’ll get insights about how they interact with your business on Google. You can add extras like photos and opening hours to your profile too.

    Want results that look like this? You must set up a Google Business Profile and add data about your company

    Always use the same name, address, and phone number on your website and your Google Business Profile listing. Be sure to include your website link in your GBP listing too! This is the only way for Google to understand the relationship between them.

    Keep reading: Improve local SEO with Google My Business a.k.a. Google Business Profile »

    Step 3: Write content about what you offer

    When you want to rank for a search term, it’s important to provide relevant content for that search. Google is a bit like a matchmaker — ultimately, they’re just trying to connect users with what they want. So, you need to clarify what your business does, and you can do that by writing about it. Of course, for local businesses, that also means talking about your local environment.

    Before diving in and writing, consider your niche and which keywords you want to target. That way, you can focus on making the strategic content you need.

    Find your niche and your long-tail keywords

    Alright, you can do more to make your business stand out. Determining your niche is vital for local or small businesses. When you know your niche, you can emphasize what makes your brand or products unique, improving your chances of ranking well for them. If you have a clear niche, you can compete locally with large national brands – despite their multi-million dollar advertising budgets.

    Find out who your customers are and which words they use to describe your product or service because people will use the same terms to find your website. These terms can help you optimize your local business SEO when you turn them into long-tail keywords, and these keywords should be as specific as possible. Once you’ve done all this, regularly assess your niche as it evolves with your company’s growth.

    Start making great content

    Your small business SEO will get a significant boost from the right content. Too many small business owners just put their products and contact details on their website and leave it at that. But there is so much more to tell and share!

    Focus on making an awesome first impression on your potential customer. Write about your business, your business goals, how great your products are, and things like that. You could also discuss market developments or events that relate to your business. These are just a few tips for your local SEO content strategy.

    When writing your content, be realistic about the chances of getting that content to rank in search. If you are in a highly competitive market, content works very well as a marketing tool and as input for social media, but it probably won’t get you that number-one spot in Google, and that’s OK. Manage your expectations.

    Picking the right keywords to optimize for is very important. Usually, it’s a good idea to pick mid-tail keywords, including the local area you are targeting. It doesn’t matter if you add this content to your site as a page or blog post. Just make sure you write about things people want to discuss or things that make people positively talk about your business.

    Keep reading: What is quality content and how do you make it? »

    Write great local-oriented content for small business SEO

    Creating local content is a powerful way to improve your business’s visibility in local search results. Here are a few ways you can create compelling, locally-focused content:

    1. Include local keywords: Use local keywords in your blog posts, meta tags, and other website content. For example, if you own a coffee shop in Tacoma, including keywords like “Tacoma coffee shop” and “best coffee in Tacoma” can help attract local customers searching for a coffee shop in that area.
    2. Highlight local events: Showcase your business’s involvement in local events by creating content about upcoming festivals, holiday celebrations, or other local events. This content engages local readers and helps search engines recognize your business’s relevance in the community.
    3. Create location-specific landing pages: Make landing pages that target specific neighborhoods or regions within your city. This allows you to create content that speaks directly to that area’s interests and needs.
    4. Provide local news and updates: Stay on top of local news and events to create useful content that appeals to your local audience. For example, if a new park is opening up nearby, write about it and include information about how your business can benefit.
    5. Use local imagery: Incorporate photos and images of your local area to showcase your business’s connection to the community. This helps your audience feel more connected to your brand and helps search engines understand your business’s relevance to the local area.

    Creating local content requires effort and time, but the payoffs can be significant, including improved search engine visibility, increased website traffic, and a more engaged local audience. Keep your content relevant, engaging, and shareable to maximize its impact. Remember that good local-oriented content can earn you valuable links from relevant sources.

    Step 4: Share your expertise and reputation

    Once you have all that set up, there are a few very good reasons you should reach out and get involved with your business community and customers. Getting people talking about you and your business will help your website grow, whether directly or indirectly.

    Firstly, when other people link to your website from their pages, this can signal to search engines that you’re well known, and your website will be a good choice for them to put in their search results. Secondly, you can increase your website traffic significantly with a great social media strategy. And thirdly, ratings and reviews help to build trust with your customers, meaning they’re more likely to buy from you (and hopefully come back for more, too!).

    Social ‘proof’, like the ratings and reviews mentioned below, should be backed up with links from relevant sites. Getting links to your business site is still important in local SEO. You should work hard to get mentions or citations of your business on other sites. How and where you do that differs in every industry, but these include Yelp, Bing Places, Yahoo! Local, Apple Maps, among many other sites and services. Moz has a handy tool that checks your online presence.

    You should get a listing on these sites because you also get a link to your website. If you can get some links from other related local websites, that will also help your site’s findability. Note that links from other local websites should be from sites in a related profession. Having your bakery website linked to an accountant’s website is useless.

    If your small business is closely related to other businesses not located in the same area, you should also ask those businesses for a link. Google crawls the web link by link, so if your business is linked to a website in the same field of business, that link is extra valuable to you.

    Social media

    While you can sell your products on social media platforms, in most cases, we recommend using social media for brand awareness or to lead potential customers to your website for sale. Using social media as a small business is all about promoting your brand, your company, and your products to establish your image and get the right traffic to your company website. When used in this way, social media can really help small business SEO.

    I like to compare social media to a market where all the stall owners know each other, and customers browse the products. At some point, someone will tell other visitors where to go for a product: “The cheese over there is delicious,” “You should check out the fruit over there,” that kind of thing. So make sure people start talking about you. And start talking about yourself online to make others talk to you on social platforms. Lastly, actively engage in social media conversations to let people know you are listening. 

    Read more: Learn how to use social media to increase your sales »

    Ratings and reviews

    Google Business Profile, like Facebook, allows others to leave a review of your company. If your company has a good rating, people will be more likely to click through to your website from either of these two platforms. Make sure you monitor and maintain these reviews.

    If you get a negative review, respond by solving your customer’s problem. Then, once you have, ask them to change their review afterward. In other words, turn that dissatisfied customer into a brand ambassador!

    It’s easy to make use of these reviews and ratings. If you need some tips, find out more in this article:

    Read on: Get local reviews and ratings »

    Step 5: Keep your online information up to date

    Building a website for your business is just the first step toward establishing a strong online presence. Once your site is up and running, it’s important not to forget about it. Regularly checking your site to ensure everything is running smoothly and it hasn’t been hacked can save you from potential headaches later on. Don’t forget to add fresh content regularly or improve your already existing content.

    In addition, it’s crucial to keep your contact information up-to-date across all the different platforms and tools you’re using for local SEO. Even if you think you may not need the website in the future, your customers could still be Googling you. They might need directions to your store, want to make a special request, or leave a positive review. By keeping your contact information up to date, you won’t miss out on any potential opportunities that could come your way. Don’t let opportunity knock on the wrong door; ensure your correct contact information is visible to your customers and search engines.

    Have you found this article helpful? We have lots more articles about Local SEO you can read. Don’t forget to check out the Yoast Local Premium bundle — designed to make local SEO easier and quicker!

    The Yoast Local Premium bundle helps small business SEO

    Now you know the recipe for success, let’s take a quick look at some of the ways our dedicated plugin bundle can help:

    • Automatically convert your contact info (and more) to the Schema.org structured data format
    • Automatic configuration of Google Maps on your website with your store location and a route planner
    • Tools to help with keyword research and optimization
    • Tools to help you make quality, targeted content
    • Previews for Google search results and social media shares
    • A year of free access to 24/7 support plus full access to all Yoast SEO academy courses

    Enjoy these features and loads more when buying the Yoast Local Premium bundle!

    Show ’em what you’re made of!

    Make a bigger impact in your local search results with the Local SEO plugin from Yoast

    Get the Local bundle Only €145 EUR / year (ex VAT)

    The post Small business SEO and local search: the ultimate guide appeared first on Yoast.

  • SEO copywriting: the ultimate guide

    SEO copywriting is a crucial component of any successful SEO strategy. Still, it can also present a significant challenge for anyone wanting to create high-quality content that ranks well in search engines. As search engines crawl web pages, the content of your website should be fine-tuned to the — ever-changing — algorithms of search engines. In addition to that, write clearly so that your audience both enjoys and understands your website. After all, we know that readability ranks.

    This complete guide to SEO copywriting takes you through the process of keyword research and the different stages of the writing process. It will also help you write the readable and SEO-friendly articles your website needs! And last but not least, we’ll give you some insights into creating SEO content for international sites and the challenges that come with that.

    This guide to writing SEO content covers the following:

    Table of contents

    SEO copywriting and holistic SEO

    At Yoast, we practice what we call ‘holistic SEO’. Our primary goal should be to build and maintain THE BEST possible website. Ranking in Google will come easier if your website is exceptionally high quality and your content is unique and helpful. The reason for that: Google wants to serve its customers what they want. Their mission is: to index all the world’s information and make it universally accessible.

    In addition to this, Google, of course, wants to make money, but they’ll have to show people the results they are looking for – otherwise, people will stop using Google. We can agree that Google wants to show people the best results. If your website is the best in your niche market, Google wants to rank it high in the results.

    What is SEO copywriting?

    SEO copywriting is one of the most powerful tools people use to get ahead of their competition. By creating high-quality content that’s carefully optimized for search engines and tailored to the needs and interests of their target audience, people can increase their visibility, drive more organic traffic to their website, and ultimately grow their revenue.

    It’s like the perfect blend of art and science, where a little creative flair and strategic optimization techniques can work wonders for your online presence. Whether you’re a small business just starting or a larger enterprise looking to dominate your industry, SEO copywriting can help you succeed in the search result pages.

    Holistic SEO

    Holistic SEO is an interdisciplinary marketing strategy to make the best website in a niche market. To do so, the technical design of your website should be excellent, the UX of your website flawless, and all security aspects covered. Most important, however, is that the content of your website should be well-written, appropriately marketed, and targeted at the audience your website serves. This approach requires relatively advanced SEO writing skills.

    Do you want to learn all about SEO copywriting? In our SEO copywriting training, which is part of Yoast SEO academy Premium, we’ll teach you how to write copy that ranks!

    Write the best copy!

    To ensure your website is the best in your sector, the text on your website should be easy to read. Without making any concessions to the quality of your SEO content, you should tweak and fine-tune your text to the specific demands of search engines. SEO copywriting is very much like the process of writing anything else, so it’s hard work, and inevitably, some of us have more writing talent than others. Unfortunately, we can’t all be Ernest Hemingway, but anyone can write better SEO copy with some training.

    Read more: 5 tips to write readable blog posts! »

    SEO copywriting in the age of generative AI

    Generative AI is like a machine that can effortlessly create content for SEO purposes. It can be trained to analyze keywords and other factors to generate new and optimize existing content. However, we must remember that the human touch is still vital in ensuring that the generated content is of good quality, without factual errors, and relevant to a target audience.

    Due to the design of its technology, you must also remember that generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google Bard can not give you original writing yet — but it is very good at reusing stuff already out there. Still, it cannot come up with things itself.

    Generative AI will be a handy tool for creating SEO content in the future. However, it’s essential to use it wisely and ensure the content meets brand guidelines and target audience needs. Please use generative AI responsibly. Use AI as a guide, not as a fully automated content factory.

    Before writing: always start with keyword research

    The very first step of SEO copywriting has little to do with writing. First, you need to decide what you’re going to write about. Which topics do you want to be found for? You’ll need to use the keywords you want to rank for in your copy, so keyword research is the first step of SEO copywriting. Keyword research is what you do to list the keywords and keyphrases for which you want to rank for.

    Proper keyword research consists of these three steps:

    1. Formulate a mission statement

    Before starting the actual keyword research, think about your mission statement. This is what makes you stand out from the crowd. While formulating your mission statement, consider who you are and what your blog is about. What makes it unique? Take your time to develop and write down your mission statement. For more information on creating mission statements, read our post on how to write a mission statement for your website.

    2. Make a list of relevant keywords

    Once you have formulated a clear mission statement, you can start listing all the search terms (keywords) you want your website to be found for. If your mission is clear, you should be able to develop search terms that apply to your niche market and your unique selling points. These will be the keywords you’d like to be found for.

    To come up with good terms, you have to get inside the heads of your audience. How are they most likely to find you? What would they search for on Google? At the end of your keyword research, you should have a list of all the relevant search terms people might use. Also, think of combinations and variations of these terms. You can also use tools to help you in the keyword research process. For example, Yoast SEO integrates with the Semrush related keywords research tool. After you’ve made a list, you may have trouble deciding which keyphrase to use. If so, read our post about choosing your perfect focus keyword.

    Create an overview

    Eventually, you should have a helpful overview, which will significantly help your SEO copywriting process. It helps to create a table of your keywords to summarize the information. Try to devise combinations of keywords, then order the keywords by some priority. Which keywords are essential to rank for and closest to your mission statement, and which are less so? When choosing which keywords to tackle, you should also consider how likely your pages will rank for that specific keyword. Focusing on less popular and less competitive keywords can be a good strategy at first. Please read our posts about why you should focus on long-tail keywords if you’d like to know more about the importance of less competitive keywords.

    3. Look at search intent

    Nowadays, SEO strategies should largely revolve around answering people’s questions. Whenever someone enters a search query into a search engine, they are on a quest for something. There are four kinds of intent searchers can have:

    • Informational intent: to find information on a specific topic.
    • Navigational intent: to access a specific website by entering the term in a search engine.
    • Commercial intent: to buy something sometime soon and research before purchasing.
    • Transactional intent: to buy something after doing their commercial intent searches.

    In your keyword research, you need to find out which kinds of intent apply to your keywords and try to match these search intents. You can use the search results to determine which intent applies to your keywords and create great content matching this intent. Which intent you’re targetting should also affect your writing style; we’ll go into that later in this guide.

    4. Create landing pages for searchers

    The final step of keyword research is to create awesome posts or pages for the keywords you want to be found for. The SEO content should be tailored to attract visitors who found your blog through a specific keyword. This could be a dedicated page or a blog post optimized for a specific keyword. Ensure visitors can navigate your blog through the menu or internal links. And make sure you have a page for every relevant keyword you come up with.

    If you’ve found an excellent format for these kinds of posts or pages, you can use Yoast Duplicate Post to use that format for similar pages. With it, you can clone a post and easily fill it with the content your page will be about.

    Your keyword research will give you a good idea of what to blog about. Then, you’ll have to unlock content around a specific word. A word is not a topic, though. Next to a keyword (or keyphrase), you will need an angle, a specific story around that keyword. Read our tips on coming up with ideas for your blog if you want to know more.

    Three phases of writing an article

    Once you’ve decided upon a topic or a story you want to write, SEO copywriting begins! The SEO writing process consists of three stages: preparing, writing, and correcting (or editing).

    Process of good writing explained in a picture: 40% prepaparation, 20% writing, 40% correcting

    Phase 1 of the writing process: Preparing your text

    The first phase of the actual SEO copywriting process is planning your piece. Before you put pen to paper (or fingers on the keyboard), take some time and think about what you will write. You’ll have a topic in mind by now, but before you start writing, you should have clear answers to the following questions as well:

    1. What’s the purpose of your article? Why are you writing? What do you want to achieve?
    2. What will be the main message of your post? What’s the key question you want to answer?
    3. Who is your audience? What are they looking for?
    4. What information do you need to write your piece?
    5. In what order will you present your information? What will be the structure of your article?

    In our post about preparing a blog post, you can read all about how to come up with proper and clear answers to these questions.

    The purpose of your text and search intent

    The first question in the list is: what’s the purpose of your article. Thinking about that beforehand is essential because it affects how you should write your article. Do you want to inform users? Amuse them? Or persuade them to do something on your site? The preparation step is also when you should consider your visitor’s intent. If your keyword research shows that the intent behind a particular query is informational, you would like to write a persuasive, sales-focused page for that keyword. In that case, that could be a better match. Of course, this will be fine if you’ve thought about your keyword strategy.

    In any case, you need to think about your user’s intent before you start writing, simply because an informative text differs from a persuasive text. The language you’ll use when writing an informative text should be clear and focused, whereas persuasive language will usually be very positive, focusing more on the reader. And amusing texts use more informal language, wordplay, or exaggerations.

    Keep reading: Why the purpose of your text is important for SEO »

    Text structure

    An important element of planning your article is setting up its structure. The structure of the text on your site is vital for SEO copywriting. If your content has a clear structure, you have a better chance of ranking well on Google. You can use mind-mapping techniques to help grasp topics and find connections between the different parts of your subject.

    It pays off to think about the structure of your piece before you begin. Because the structure is the skeleton of your text, it will help the reader grasp the article’s main points.

    Posts and pages with a clear structure will also increase conversions on your website. You have a better chance that your visitors will buy your products or return to your website if they understand your message correctly. For practical tips on how to set up the structure of a piece of writing, you should read our post on how to create a clear blog post structure.

    Generative AI can help you structure content and describe topics

    You shouldn’t use generative AI like ChatGPT to automatically generated full articles for you. You can use them to get a better grasp of a topic, to get more context, and to be inspired. Generative AI can also help with structuring text, like:

    1. Automating content outlines: Generative AI can suggest content outlines based on the identified topic or keywords. This can help you create articles, posts, and other types of content by providing you with a text structure and writing guidance.
    2. Identifying key phrases and topics: Generative AI can access large amounts of data to identify key phrases or topics that recur in a particular field. This can help you include important information in your content and structure it to follow a cohesive narrative or theme.
    3. Providing content recommendations: Generative AI can suggest related content that you can use to structure your writing. It can analyze the content available and identify related information that would be relevant to the topic at hand.
    4. Offering writing assistance: Generative AI can suggest sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation to help produce well-structured content. This can help you create high-quality, readable content that is easier for audiences to engage with.
    5. Formatting and layout suggestions: This feature can help your content planning and optimize it for user engagement, providing the most effective structure based on the type of content that needs to be created.

    These helpful features enable you to create high-quality, optimized content that drives more traffic and engagement, but be critical and remember the human touch.

    Phase 2 of the writing process: Writing your text

    Now you can start the actual SEO writing process! This only takes about 20% of your time on your article.

    Just write!

    The most important tip for this phase of SEO copywriting is to just write. People often have trouble formulating the first sentence (or the first paragraph). But, at this stage, you can skip writing that first paragraph altogether. Just write a few words referring to the content your first paragraph should contain and start writing the second paragraph. Beginnings and endings are easier to write once you’ve fleshed out the main body of your post.

    If a sentence isn’t grammatically correct or sounds awkward, keep going, and don’t worry. You can rewrite these things in the next phase, which is editing. In the writing phase, staying in the flow of writing is crucial.

    Stick to the structure of your text

    While writing, use the structure you created in the preparation phase as an outline and write the paragraphs according to that plan. Make sure you write clear paragraphs. Start each paragraph with the most important sentence, then explain or elaborate. Your readers will be able to grasp the most important content from your article by just reading the first sentences of your paragraphs.

    Make sure your text is readable

    Reading from a screen is hard, so if you want your readers to read your entire blog post, you must make it easy to read. Posts that are easily read will result in more returning visitors and a higher conversion rate. Most importantly, make sure your text is pitched right for the audience you’re writing for.

    To read more tips on writing readable texts, read our post with tips on how to make blog posts more readable and our post with tips on how to improve your blog’s typography. These tips will help you fine-tune your SEO copywriting process.

    A few ways to improve your writing style

    Some people are natural writers and don’t need any tips for their SEO copywriting – they can write an attractive, fun, readable article in a few minutes. Others lack that skill. But while attractive writing is a matter of talent, practice surely helps! Let’s look at some tips to improve your writing style and two writing styles to experiment with.

    Tip: Read a lot!

    If you want to develop an attractive writing style, it helps to read a lot. Reading (novels, blogs, magazines, whatever) will inspire you to write excellent articles. It will teach you how other people form their sentences and build their paragraphs. It teaches you how to use humor and how to play with language. Plus, it allows you to develop a gut feeling about what makes a nicely readable article. If you want more tips on developing your writing style, read our blog post about achieving an attractive style.

    The inverted pyramid style

    A well-known writing style in journalism, the inverted pyramid means you put your most important information upfront. You don’t bury your key point halfway down the third paragraph but tell the complete story in the first paragraph. Of course, you can elaborate in the following paragraphs. But you get your main message across right away. This writing style holds up pretty well for some types of articles. It especially comes in handy now that web content is increasingly used to answer every question a searcher might have.

    Read on: Writing content with the inverted pyramid style »

    Storytelling

    Everyone loves a good story, and most people can also tell a good story – especially from personal experience. Great news: you can use the power of stories in your SEO copy! Whether in blog posts or product pages, including a (relevant) story will go a long way in catching your reader’s interest. Stories can provide more clarity and help your readers remember you more easily.

    Keep on reading: What is storytelling and why should you use it? »

    Take a break now and then

    SEO copywriting can be a fairly intense process. If you write for long periods, you’ll find that concentrating becomes harder. The exact time, however, will be different for every individual. If your mind has started to wander, that’ll be the time to take a break.

    Many people find writing hard for more than twenty minutes at a time — attention spans can be quite short! At that point, people should step away from the computer to do something else. Even a minute-long break can be enough to return to your writing with fresh and renewed concentration and creativity.

    Phase 3 of the SEO copywriting process: Editing your text

    Once you’ve finished writing your piece, you’ll have the first draft of your article. You will improve upon this first draft in the final phase of writing. The last step will still take quite a lot of time.

    The editing phase is the phase of the SEO copywriting process in which you should ‘kill your darlings’. Don’t be afraid to throw stuff out. You should read and re-read and re-re-read your post and correct any awkward sentences, unclear phrasing, and jumbled paragraph structures. Make your content marketing stand out.

    Here are five steps to take to edit your article thoroughly.

    Step 1: Read slowly (and out loud)

    You can start this phase by reading your piece slowly (and even out loud, this can help). Each sentence should be grammatically correct, and the spelling must be flawless. You need to be very critical of your work. You can have your computer read the text out loud for you — make sure it doesn’t stumble.

    Step 2: Focus on sentences

    Start by making sure every sentence is correct. Focus on the spelling of words and rephrase awkward formulations. Ensure sentences are grammatically correct and check for readability: ensure your sentences aren’t too long.

    Step 3: Focus on paragraphs

    If all sentences in one paragraph are approved, look at the structure within a paragraph, focusing on that first sentence. Does that first core sentence capture what you wanted to say in that paragraph? Are the sentences within a paragraph presented in a logical order? Do you use transition words to make the connection between sentences clear?

    Step 4: Check the text structure

    Check whether the structure between paragraphs is clear. Are your article’s topics presented logically, or do you need to make changes?

    You should also check your headings and subheadings. Make sure your focus keyword is in one of those headings and subheadings. But equally important, ensure the headings help your readers grasp your text’s structure. In the article on how to use headings on your site, we explain how to use them.

    Step 5: Ask for feedback

    The final step in your SEO copywriting process is getting feedback. After editing your text, you should ask people for feedback. At Yoast, all the posts we write are read by at least two of our colleagues before we publish them. Feedback allows for the perspective of someone other than the writer and almost always leads to vast improvements in the post.

    It would also be useful to let someone from your audience proofread your post to test whether the message is communicated properly. Also, feedback from someone with professional writing and grammar skills, such as an editor, will help you improve your blog post even further.

    Use Yoast SEO

    While editing your text, you will find our Yoast SEO plugin useful for SEO copywriting because it helps to optimize your text for search engines and to make your text more readable. For a detailed overview of how to use Yoast SEO when optimizing your content, you should read our post about the content analysis feature in Yoast SEO. The plugin analyzes content in various languages, so you can benefit from using the plugin even if you are not writing in English!

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

    SEO copywriting for international sites

    Writing well is hard; writing your content marketing efforts in multiple languages is even more challenging! This is true if you own websites for multiple regions and languages. Translating content can be a tricky business because of the phenomenon of false friends in different languages. False friends refer to words that look alike in two languages but mean something different.

    Creating content for your multilingual sites is not easy. It’s doable, though, and we think there are three ways to go about this:

    • translate the content;
    • create new content for that market;
    • transcreate content: a combination of both.

    Getting translations probably is the easiest. But it’s also the most tricky one. Are you sure your translation sends the same message and has the same tone of voice as your original article? That’s hard to judge if you’re not a native speaker. Therefore: always have a native speaker check the copy. At least.

    Creating new content by your local team is the safest choice, with probably the highest quality result. However, it is very time-consuming, and you’re not taking full advantage of the available content.

    Therefore we’d advise to “transcreate”: take what you already have as a basis, but rework it to fit the local target group. Make sure native speakers that know the local market create this content. If you’d like to know more about this, read our article on creating great copy in multiple languages.

    Conclusion: SEO copywriting is a process

    SEO copywriting works best when you follow a defined process and ensure your text is as good as possible. While not everyone is a natural writer, SEO writing is something everyone can get better at with practice. Don’t forget to maintain your content over time to avoid it getting outdated and stale!

    Keep reading: The ultimate guide to content SEO »

    The post SEO copywriting: the ultimate guide appeared first on Yoast.

  • Are we digging our own hole with generative AI?

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage right now. Some say it’s started a technological revolution, and that AI will change our lives for the better. But generative AI tools are only as good as the data they’re fed. And have we truly considered the implications of a world where people generate content instead of creating it themselves?

    What is generative AI?

    To put it simply, generative AI creates content. Whether that’s text, images, or audio. But how does it do that? By using deep learning techniques and technologies in a machine-learning framework. This framework is a system that makes predictions based on data that it’s trained on. For example, if you give ChaptGPT a prompt, it’s able to produce content based on your input.

    Some well-known examples of generative AI tools are the ChatGPT chatbot, the Midjourney image generator, and the Bard tool from Google.

    What this means for how content creators work

    Using generative AI tools for work can greatly improve your productivity because they can quickly generate content. They’re also fast and inexpensive. If you own a small business, AI tools can save you tons of money because you may not need to hire a content creator. Plus, since AI tools continue to learn, they’ll also be able to give you better results over time. 

    Why this could cause problems

    As is the case with most automated devices out there, generated AI content is not entirely fool-proof. And it also begs the question if it’s ethical to use AI, when these tools are trained on data provided by other people. Sometimes, without their permission. So let’s dive deeper into why AI tools might cause problems.

    A cost-effective alternative isn’t necessarily better

    One of the big benefits of using AI tools is their efficiency. They’re cheap and quick, meaning you don’t need to hire an entire marketing team. Which is precisely why AI tools might be a problem. They threaten to make certain jobs obsolete. And you have to wonder if it’s reasonable that AI will take over the arts, which one might consider the most human of all jobs. 

    Bad data

    Another problem is the data that generative AI tools are trained with. They need large volumes to learn, and some systems, such as ChatGPT, use a lot of the data on the internet to train itself. And that’s undoubtedly what might cause problems. Not all data is ‘good’ data. Most of it is biased because humans are biased. Sexist, racist, or homophobic ideas are littered throughout the content we create, so if an AI tool uses that data, it’ll become a biased tool. The result? Offensive content that can’t be used. Or worse, offensive content that people will accept as truth and therefore post online, strengthening a message that shouldn’t be spread across the globe.

    Misuse of AI tools

    Furthermore, the data AI tools are using to train themselves could belong to people who didn’t know their content would be used to teach an AI. It has raised numerous questions: When you put something online, is it still yours? And when you’ve generated content that uses other people’s illustrations, is it actually your art piece? Unfortunately, there are no definitive answers to these questions. 

    You might think that it’s not relevant whether a piece has been drawn by an artist or generated by someone else. But what if the art piece won a big prize? Is that fair compared to the other contestants who actually put in the time and effort? And let’s look at the world of academia. If an academic paper was generated by AI, it might be based on human thought, but it doesn’t actually contain any human input. Is that okay? Do we want the place where people learn to develop their minds become a place where people learn how to craft great prompts, instead of learning how to think for themselves?

    It’s not all bad

    Luckily, there’s still hope. AI tools might be impressively smart, but they’re still ‘just’ tools. To generate content, they need content that was produced by people. And if we find a way to ethically give AI tools good data, we’re one step closer to creating a powerful tool that can help small businesses grow, so they can actually afford to hire a marketing team.

    How to use AI to enhance your writing

    Since AI tools are not completely ethical yet, should you refrain from using them all together? No, there’s no denying that AI tools can be a huge help. However, we suggest that you use them as guidelines, inspiration, and a way to boost your productivity on a day you might not feel like writing. 

    Use it as an inspiration to start writing

    Do you regularly write content for your website or blog? Then you probably know the feeling of staring at a blank document because you don’t know where to start. AI tools can resolve this issue. You simply prompt an AI tool to write an outline, specifying which topics you want to discuss. Or maybe you need the AI tool to write the first paragraph, just so there’s something on the page. While reading your generated paragraph, chances are ideas will start flowing. You’ll be writing in no-time!

    Be critical!

    Still, when you use AI tools to generate actual posts or texts, it’s good to be critical. Like we mentioned, AI tools can be biased. And they might be incorrect in their information. You should always read your generated piece, and fact-check any claims the text makes. In addition, you want to ensure the content meets your brand values by paying attention to what language is used, since it might not be inclusive. Luckily, if you use the Yoast SEO plugin, you’ll be able to use the inclusive language feature to double-check your content. 

    Give it a proper rewrite to make it yours

    As mentioned before, AI tools can only imitate actual human thoughts and ideas. They generate based on existing ones. And while you might argue that that’s also how humans generate ideas and originality doesn’t exist anyway, you shouldn’t underestimate your personal opinion. It gives a unique flavor to your content. That’s why you should always rewrite (parts of) a generated piece of content.

    Conclusion

    Generative AI tools can be very useful for small businesses. But, like any technology, it has its drawbacks. It can be biased, or wildly incorrect. That’s why you should use AI as an inspiration to kickstart your creative process, and always read and rewrite your generated content. In our opinion, AI should augment, and not replace humans. 

    The post Are we digging our own hole with generative AI? appeared first on Yoast.

  • The ultimate guide to content SEO

    Content SEO is a key part of any SEO strategy. Without content, it’s impossible for your site to rank in search engines. It’s, therefore, crucial to write and structure quality content! This ultimate guide covers the most important areas of content SEO. Read on if you want to learn how to create content that ranks.

    Table of contents


    Quality content matters now more than ever!

    Have you heard about Google’s helpful content update? From now on, the quality of your content could have an even bigger impact on your rankings.

     

    We know that creating high-quality content isn’t easy. But our Premium SEO analysis can help! It’s just as smart as Google, helping you create rich and helpful content in a natural way and improving your rankings!

     

    Improve your content with Yoast SEO Premium

    What is content SEO?

    Content SEO refers to creating content that helps your web pages to rank high in the search engines. It includes everything, from writing to structuring the content on your website. There are three major elements you need to consider that will make your website rank well: keyword strategy, site structure and copywriting.

    Why is content SEO important in the first place? Because search engines like Google read your website, so the words you use determine whether or not your site will rank in their results pages. Of course, your website should be well-designed, with a great user interface, and all the technical stuff that makes your site rank in Google should also be covered. But without quality content your site doesn’t stand a chance in the search engines.

    1. Keyword research

    What is keyword research?

    Keyword research is basically the steps you take to create an extensive list of keywords you would like to rank for. Every content SEO strategy should begin with keyword research, because you have to know what your audience is searching for if you want to generate traffic. Keyword research helps you to discover the terms you should be aiming to rank for.

    Keyword research has four steps:

    • Write down the mission of your business;
    • Make a list of all the keywords you want to be found for;
    • Look at search intent;
    • Create landing pages for these keywords.

    If you do your keyword research right, you should have a clear overview of the terms people use and the terms for which you want the pages on your site to be found. This overview will serve as a guide for writing content on your website.

    Read more: Keyword research: the ultimate guide »

    Why is keyword research so important for SEO content?

    Proper keyword research will make clear which search terms your audience uses. This is crucial. At Yoast, we regularly encounter clients who use particular words when talking about their products, while their customers use entirely different words. Writing and optimizing SEO content for words that people don’t use doesn’t make any sense. Doing proper keyword research makes sure that you are using the same words as your target audience, therefore making the effort of optimizing your website worthwhile.

    Terms we use in keyword research

    Keywords and keyphrases

    We tend to use the word ‘keyword‘ all the time. However, it doesn’t have to be just one word. After all, ‘WordPress SEO’ is a keyword, as is ‘Google Analytics plugin.’ So you can have keywords containing multiple words!

    Long-tail keywords

    The longer (and more specific) a search term is, the easier it will be to rank for that term. Keywords that are more specific (and usually longer) are usually referred to as long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are more specific and focus more on a niche.

    How many keywords?

    It is very hard to give an exact number of keywords you should focus on. You just need to have a lot – as many as you can come up with. More than 1,000 keywords is probably too many though!

    Even if you’re a reasonably small business, you’ll probably end up with a couple of hundred keywords. But you don’t have to create pages for all of these immediately. The great thing about having a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress is that you can gradually add content. Think about what keywords you would like to rank for right away, and which ones aren’t immediately important. Determine what your priorities are and plan the creation of your content.

    Head or tail?

    Classifying your keywords is essential. Some keywords are very common and competitive (head), while others are long-tail. Decide which are your most critical, high-level keywords – the ones that generate sufficient traffic for your website and best fit your business. You’ll probably only have a few of these general keywords for your business, the rest will be more down the tail. In the next section, we’ll give more in-depth information on long-tail keywords (and the importance of these keywords).

    Tip: Make sure your homepage and the pages one level beneath that are optimized for the most common keywords! Content that’s focused on long-tail keywords (and therefore more niche) should be on the tail end of your site.

    Keyword intent and search intent

    As you’re doing keyword research, it really pays off to think about the search intent of users. Are they looking for information, or do they want to buy something? What is their goal when they enter your keyword as a search term? This goal is otherwise known as keyword intent. For some keywords, it’s pretty clear, like [buy leather sofa], or [how to train your puppy]. But it’s not always that simple.

    Four types of intent

    There are four types of intent:

    • Navigational intent: People want to visit a specific website, but rather than entering the URL, they’re entering a term into a search engine.
    • Informational intent: People are trying to find an answer to a particular question or information on a specific topic.
    • Commercial intent: People want to buy something in the near future and are doing research before making a purchase.
    • Transactional intent: People are looking to buy something after doing their commercial intent searches.

    Search engines are always trying to answer the exact needs people have, and they’re getting better at it too. So, put simply, if 95% of the people searching for [change car tire] have informational intent, and you’re optimizing for transactional intent to sell tires, you’re probably not going to rank.

    Check the SERPs

    You can get a wealth of information from the results pages when you’re doing keyword research. If you want to find out what the intent is of people using your keywords, simply google those keywords and take a good look at the search results. Then, try to create content that answers the specific need that you distill from the results for each keyword. Tip: Read more about how to use the search results to create content for the right intent here.

    Keep reading: What is search intent? »

    Keyword research tools you can use

    There are multiple free and premium tools available to help you with your keyword research. Yoast SEO comes with a Semrush integration that gives suggestions for related keyphrases, including search volume trends. Of course, this is not a full keyword research tool. But it can help you gain valuable insights, and find high-performing keywords! For other tools, please check out our article about keyword research tools.

    Adapting your keyword strategy

    Your keyword strategy shouldn’t be static. It should change and evolve alongside your company and website. It should evolve and grow with you. If it doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong.

    Stay on top of the changes in your company, and adapt your strategy simultaneously. If your online shop starts selling new products, extend your list with more keywords. If you’re aiming for new markets, it’s vital that your keywords are aimed at these new markets as well.

    There are several keyword strategies to adopt. One of them is to try and rank for long-tail keywords first, then aim at more general keywords. But you could also start by focusing on general keywords before aiming for more long-tail ones. You can zoom in and pursue more niche activities, broaden your approach, adding more content on different things, or you can do both simultaneously.

    2. Site structure

    The second important aspect of content SEO is the structure of your site. First, I’ll explain why site structure is critical, then I’ll show you what an ideal site structure looks like. I will also give you tips on how to (quickly) improve your site structure without completely disrupting the core of your website.

    Why is site structure important for content SEO?

    There are two main reasons why site structure is an important ranking factor and therefore imperative for building SEO content:

    a. A good structure helps Google ‘understand’ your site

    The way your site is structured gives Google significant clues about where to find the most important content. Your site’s structure determines whether a search engine understands what your site is about, and how easily it will find and index content relevant to your site’s purpose and intent. A good site structure will, therefore, lead to a higher ranking in Google.

    By creating such a structure, you can use existing content that has attracted links from others to help your other pages rank too. Your site’s structure will help spread some of that link juice to the other pages on your site. On a commercial site, this means you can use high-quality content you’ve written to boost the search engine rankings of your sales pages too.

    b. A good structure makes sure you aren’t competing with your own SEO content

    You will probably have multiple articles about similar topics on your site. At Yoast, for example, we write about SEO. If we wrote eight articles about SEO, Google wouldn’t know which one is the most important. That’s why we used our site structure to clarify this. If we hadn’t, we’d be competing with our own articles for Google’s top spot. So if you solve problems like this by using a sound internal linking structure, the result will be higher rankings overall.

    The ideal site structure

    Ideally, you should structure your site like a pyramid. At the top is your homepage. On your homepage, you link to some other pages (such as category pages). These pages, in turn, link to even more pages.

    In an effective content SEO strategy, your keyword strategy and the way you structure your site work together. In a proper keyword strategy, you’ll have thought about common, competitive keywords as well as long-tail (and niche) search terms. You should make a similar dichotomy in your site structure. Pages that focus on common search terms should appear high in your pyramid, while pages that are optimized for long-tail keywords should appear in a lower part of your structure. And don’t forget to let the long-tail pages at the bottom link to the pages higher in the pyramid!

    Read on: The ultimate guide to site structure »

    Practical tips on improving your site structure

    If you’re serious about content SEO, you’ll most likely already have a live website. So it may be a bit late to set up your site’s structure in an ideal pyramid-like way. Don’t despair – there are still plenty of things you can do to improve your site’s structure and your SEO content.

    Decide upon cornerstone content

    You should focus your efforts on cornerstone articles. These are the articles that you’re most proud of, and that fit the mission of your website best. You want to rank for these articles the most. Fun fact: This ultimate guide is one of our cornerstones!

    If you haven’t decided which of your articles are the most important yet, start thinking about that now. Make these articles the best ones on your site. Give them extra TLC and update them regularly.

    Keep on reading: What is cornerstone content »

    Once you’ve decided upon your precious cornerstones, make sure you link from all your ‘tail’ articles to those cornerstones. That way, Google will know which articles to rank highest. You can read all about this in our article about incorporating cornerstones into your site structure. Good to know: Yoast SEO Premium has an advanced internal linking tool that automatically suggests relevant articles to link from.

    Pro tip: You can use our cornerstone content SEO workout in Yoast SEO Premium to check on all your cornerstone content pages, see how many internal links they’re getting, and quickly add more if necessary.

    Use tags (but not too many)

    Your site will also benefit from adding tags. Tags and taxonomies will give your site more structure – at least, Google will understand it better. They group your articles about similar topics. Don’t overdo it, though. Some people have more tags than articles. Using too many tags will lead to a confusing and poorly-structured site.

    Avoid duplicate content

    The same SEO content can turn up at multiple places on your site. As a reader, you don’t mind: you still get the content you came for. But a search engine has to choose something to show in the search results, as it doesn’t want to show the same content twice. And what about other sites that want to link to your product? Chances are that some of them will link to the first URL, while others will link to the second.

    However, if you make sure that all these duplicate posts link to the same URL, your chances of ranking top 10 for the relevant keyword would be much higher. In other words: Canonicalization is the solution to duplicate content. You can configure the canonical URL in the advanced tab of Yoast SEO.

    Remove old SEO content

    Should you keep old content? That depends. You have three options: update, redirect, or merge. If the content on a page is outdated, remove it! But what about the valuable links to that page? After all, you want to make sure that you still benefit from these links, even though the page doesn’t exist anymore. That’s where the second option comes in: redirect.

    Redirecting pages is easy if you have our Yoast SEO Premium plugin, which can help you take care of redirects. Preferably, you redirect the old URL (301) to the new and updated page or product. You can also redirect to a related page if there is no replacement. For example, the category page of the specific product, or, as a very last resort, your homepage. This way, the (outdated) page won’t interfere with your site structure anymore.

    Deal with orphaned content

    The term ‘orphaned content’ refers to articles that don’t have any links from your other articles or posts. Because of that, these articles are hard to find, both by Google and by your users. What’s more, Google will consider this type of content to be less important! So if an article is important to you, you should make it clear to Google (and your visitors) by linking to that particular article from other (related) content. Read more about solving the problem of orphaned articles in our article about orphaned content.

    Pro tip: Use our orphaned content SEO workout in Yoast SEO Premium to quickly find and fix pages with no incoming internal links.

    Deal with content cannibalization

    Once you’ve been writing content for a while, you might have dozens of articles on any given topic. If these articles are kind of saying the same thing, search engines and users might get confused. Not to mention the fact that your content might compete against itself in the search engines. This is called keyword cannibalization. It’s not inherently bad, but it’s something you need to take a look at. Are your articles performing as well as they should, or is the competition hurting the chances at a higher ranking? Luckily, it’s not hard to find and fix keyword cannibalization.

    3. Copywriting for content SEO

    The third and final aspect of a successful content SEO strategy is copywriting. Two very important things to remember: Write articles that are attractive to read, and that will make your audience want to stay on your site. However, you shouldn’t forget to make your SEO content attractive for Google. Just don’t go too far by optimizing your content so overtly that it becomes terrible to read. At Yoast, we suggest optimizing your text for search without adversely affecting the originality of your idea or the readability of your text.

    Read more: The ultimate guide to SEO copywriting »

    Start with an original idea

    The first requirement for high-quality copywriting is to write original content. Your post or article should be ‘fresh,’ new, and original. It has to be different from all the other posts and articles that are already on the internet. Plus, it should be content that people want to read.

    If you did your keyword research well, you now have a long list of terms that you want to be found for. This list can be a guide for you to choose from. A keyword isn’t necessarily a topic, though. You should make sure to come up with an original idea for your blog post – an idea in which the desired focus keyword has a prominent place.

    But don’t worry! Original SEO content doesn’t mean brand new content. Giving your (professional) opinion on a particular topic also counts as original content. Because your personal angle to a story will make your content unique and original. Of course, if your story is completely new, that automatically means it’s original.

    Think about your audience

    If you want to write original content, you should think about your audience and who they are. Also, ask yourself:

    • What do you want to tell your audience?
    • What will be the main message of your article?
    • Can you tell the purpose of your article?
    • What do you want your audience to do after they’ve read your article? (Do you want them to engage, buy your products/service, or read more posts?)

    Thinking about these questions will help you to come up with an original idea for your post or article.

    Content design and content SEO

    Content design is a process that helps you produce content based on actual user needs. It doesn’t just help you figure out what your user wants, but it also focuses on what the user actually needs. Thinking about your content in this way will help you create content in the language and format that your user needs.

    However, content design isn’t just a technique to help you produce better content – it’s a new way of thinking about content. If you want to know more about content design, read our post on content design: a great way to make user-centered content.

    Copywriting requires readable SEO content

    A key requirement for writing high-quality content is to write content that’s easy to read. Readability is important both for your audience and for Google. After all, not only people read your articles but Google does too.

    If your text is well structured and clearly written, readers will be able to clearly understand your message. And so will Google! If your main message is clear to Google, your post is far more likely to rank well in the search engines.

    Readability is about many factors, such as text structure, sentence length and writing clear paragraphs. You can read all about the importance of readability in this post. For more tips on readability, you can read our post on how to make an article more readable.

    Content, context and search intent

    As Google is getting smarter, it starts to understand content on sites better — thanks to a lot of developments in the natural language processing sphere, like BERT. It’s no longer just about the number of times a keyword pops on a page. It also takes into account the context of those keywords, like co-occurring terms and phrases, related words and synonyms. On top of that, as mentioned before, Google is able to understand queries of users better: it tries to determine what the search intent of the user is. Are they looking for a product or just information? Which pages fit that intent best?

    All these developments mean that you should focus on more than just using your keyword often enough. It means you should also think about the words you use around it: do they make clear what topic you’re discussing? And, do you have the purpose in mind of the post or page you’re creating? Does it just provide information or are you trying to sell something, and does that align with what your users are actually looking for? Yoast SEO Premium lets you optimize your SEO content with synonyms and related keyphrases, making it even easier to add context to your articles.

    Keep reading: Blog or vlog, which one is better? »

    Optimize content for search engines and readers

    The final requirement for writing high-quality content is to make sure the content is optimized for search engines. You want your SEO content to be easily found. Findability has to do with increasing the likelihood Google will pick up your content for the result pages. It’s important that you take this final step after you’ve written an original and readable post.

    Yoast SEO helps you tweak your text just a little bit more. If you’ve written your article, focused on that original idea, and optimized the readability of your post, you should take a look at the SEO analysis in Yoast SEO. Red and orange bullets indicate which aspects of your findability need a little bit more attention. You don’t need a green bullet for every aspect though, as long as your overall score is good.

    Yoast SEO will help you to optimize your snippet preview as well. These tweaks can vastly improve your chances to be picked up by the search engines. Read more about optimizing your post in our article on how to use the content and SEO analysis.

    Conclusion on content SEO

    Content SEO is such a huge part of SEO. It encompasses every aspect of writing and structuring content on your website. Content SEO is essential. No one will read your content if it’s crappy. Like visitors, Google reads and scans your website text. Google’s algorithm decides the ranking of your site largely based on the content you publish. And we all know content is king. So, you need to write awesome SEO content, focus on the right keywords and structure your website in such a way Google understands it. It’s a lot of work, but it will pay off in the long run.

    Read on: Blogging: the ultimate guide »

    Find out how SEO fit your content is!

    As you’ve learned from this guide, there’s a lot you need to do to keep your site’s content SEO fit. Take this short test and find out if there are some aspects of content SEO you may need to improve!

    The post The ultimate guide to content SEO appeared first on Yoast.

  • The first E in E-E-A-T, or the importance of Experience

    Google’s Search Quality Raters evaluate whether its search ranking systems provide helpful, relevant information. They evaluate the quality and relevance of search results produced by Google to help improve the algorithms and user experience. To do so, Google uses the E-E-A-T system, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The E for experience is relatively new and helps assess content quality. This article will discuss the Experience factor and how it fits into the updated search quality rater guidelines.

    Table of contents

    Reminder: What is E-E-A-T?

    E-E-A-T is an acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a concept that Google introduced through its Search Quality Raters Guidelines (pdf file) to help evaluate the quality of websites and web pages and to judge how these should be ranked in search engine results pages (SERPs).

    Read our guide on what is E-E-A-T to get the lowdown, but here’s a quick breakdown of what each term means:

    • Experience: When evaluating the content, Google considers the writer’s first-hand or (life) experience relating to the topic.
    • Expertise: Refers to the level of knowledge and skill a content creator or website has in a particular area or subject matter.
    • Authoritativeness: Refers to how reputable and respected the content creator or website is within its niche or industry.
    • Trustworthiness: Refers to the overall reliability and integrity of the content creator or website. This includes aspects such as transparency, accuracy, and ethical behavior.

    Google considers E-E-A-T a critical factor in their ranking systems, especially for search queries related to health, finance, and other areas where the accuracy and trustworthiness of information are crucial — the so-called YMYL sites. This system is used to evaluate the content quality and who’s behind the content. Websites with high experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are more likely to rank well in Google’s search results for these particular searches.

    What is YMYL?

    YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life” and refers to web pages or content that can impact a person’s physical, emotional, or financial well-being, and thus require a higher level of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

    What does Experience mean in E-E-A-T?

    Experience is now a part of Google’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness system for rating the quality and relevance of content on search engine results pages (SERPs). This move was announced in the latest version of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG), released on December 15, 2022.

    Experience refers to knowledge or skill gained through exposure to a particular activity or event. It is the practical application of knowledge or skills gained over time. Experience can be gained through personal involvement or positive or negative observation. For example, someone who has worked in a particular field for many years has much experience.

    Google added Experience to assess results better, believing people want to read first-hand experiences when making important decisions. Pages related to Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics are most impacted by Experience. It is crucial to know when sharing experiences or leaving the information to experts is appropriate.

    What’s the difference between experience and expertise?

    Experience and expertise are terms often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings. Let’s take a closer look at the two.

    In Google’s words:

    “Experience: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic. Many types of pages are trustworthy and achieve their purpose well when created by people with a wealth of personal experience. For example, which would you trust: a product review from someone who has personally used the product or a “review” by someone who has not?”

    Conversely, expertise refers to a high level of skill or knowledge in a particular subject or field. It results from a combination of education, training, and experience. Expertise is typically associated with a deep understanding of a particular subject or field that allows for the ability to make judgments, solve problems, and give advice.

    Again, in Google’s words:

    “Expertise: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic. Different topics require different levels and types of expertise to be trustworthy. For example, which would you trust: home electrical rewiring advice from a skilled electrician or from an antique homes enthusiast who has no knowledge of electrical wiring?”

    In summary, experience is knowledge or skill gained through exposure to a particular activity or event. At the same time, expertise is a high level of skill or knowledge in a particular subject or field.

    An example of experience vs. expertise in E-E-A-T

    Here’s an example, consider the case of a cancer survivor. As someone who lived with cancer, this person is well-equipped to offer advice on coping strategies and share insights that may benefit others facing similar challenges.

    However, it’s important to recognize that this person does not necessarily possess formal medical expertise in cancer treatment. While both a cancer survivor and a trained doctor may be capable of producing valuable content on the topic, the two will likely be evaluated differently based on their respective levels of experience and expertise.

    Experience and expertise are two concepts, but they can complement each other. Experience can lead to the development of expertise over time, but expertise requires more than just experience. Becoming an expert in a particular subject or field requires education, training, and experience. But remember that you don’t always need formal qualifications to showcase your industry-relevant experience in your content.

    Experience, expertise, and authoritativeness can have some overlap for certain types of web pages and topics. Depending on the purpose and topic of the page, different combinations of E-E-A may be more relevant, so it’s important to consider what would make the content creator reliable for that particular context.

    Who, how, and why?

    To ensure your content is aligned with what search engines reward, consider evaluating it based on the “Who, How, and Why” factors. “Who” refers to the creator of the content, and it’s crucial to make it clear to visitors who authored it. Adding bylines and providing background information about the author can help with this. “How” refers to how the content was produced, and sharing details about the production process, such as the number of products tested in a review, can build trust with readers. Finally, “Why” refers to the purpose of creating the content, which should primarily be to help people. If the primary purpose is to manipulate search rankings, this violates Google’s spam policies.

    Generative AI makes it harder to evaluate content

    With the rise of generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, Bing Chat, and Google Bard, content creation has become more accessible. These technologies can generate human-like content with remarkable accuracy, making it challenging to distinguish generative AI content from content created by real people.

    However, while AI-generated content tools are faster and more efficient than people, they lack the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness people can provide. These technologies do not possess the same empathy and personal connection that genuine authors can create within their content.

    Additionally, AI-generated content is less authentic, lacks originality, may contain errors or inconsistencies, and may lack inclusivity. This can negatively affect website owners, leading to a loss of credibility, and decreased organic traffic and sales.

    In February 2023, Google published a post to guide content creators on how it thinks about AI-generated content for Search. In it is this piece:

    “Our advice for creators considering AI-generation. As explained, however content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.

    Evaluating your content in this way, whether you’re using AI-generated content or not, will help you stay on course with what our systems seek to reward.

    Generative AI lacks these qualities — it isn’t an expert on a topic and doesn’t have (life) experience. You do! So please make the most of it and get or prove those E-E-A-T factors.

    More on this in Google’s guide to creating helpful content for readers.

    How to demonstrate experience in E-E-A-T

    In today’s content-driven world, demonstrating your experience is increasingly crucial. However, displaying it in a unique, compelling way can be challenging. Here are some tips to get you started.

    To effectively optimize for experience, you need to distinguish between expertise and experience in E-E-A-T, knowing when to showcase each. While expertise relates to your knowledge, experience is closely linked to your direct involvement with a particular subject. For example, if you’re seeking information on vascular surgery, you’ll turn to an authoritative source, such as a vascular surgeon at the Mayo Clinic. Conversely, if you’re struggling with weight issues, you might find reading about other people’s experiences helpful.

    Another way to optimize for experience is by sharing evidence of it. For example, describe your experience reviewing an ultralight-weight sleeping pad for multi-day mountain hikes. This could include details on how well the pad insulated against the cold, if it made crinkly sounds that woke up your partner in the tent, and how small it packed away in your backpack. Be transparent about how you or your writer have garnered your experience. You can describe your direct encounters with a product or service. You can create unique and helpful content that separates you by leveraging your expertise.

    Featuring insights from industry experts can also be an effective way to optimize for experience. This involves contacting other content creators or influencers for their input, adding credibility to your blog, and spotlighting your commentary.

    Finally, be honest about the experience and authoritativeness of your authors. Don’t forget to include author bios for yourself and other contributors. This demonstrates that you all have the experience and expertise to provide advice and optimize your content for experience, making it more appealing to readers and search engines.

    Build up your About Us and Author pages

    Your About Us and Author pages are some of the most important pages on your site. It’s where people expect to find information about who is behind this website. It’s a great place to share all those details in one easy-to-find location to show off your experience for E-E-A-T. Here are some things you can add to your About Us and Author pages to get you started.

    6 tips for authors and companies

    1. Highlight the knowledge and expertise of your team by sharing their qualifications, credentials, and experience, including resumes, bios and certifications, to showcase your site’s authority in your field. Display any industry memberships, awards, or other types of recognition to demonstrate credibility further.
    2. Showcase examples of past success and influence to build authority, including case studies, testimonials, publications, public speaking events, and conferences. Linking to high-quality external sites on relevant subjects and media mentions can boost your site’s credibility.
    3. Build trust with potential clients or customers by sharing your company’s story, values, and mission. Being transparent about your process and policies can also help visitors trust you more.
    4. Provide in-depth descriptions of your team members, services, and products to establish your site as a trustworthy source of information in your industry. Use testimonials and samples to showcase your unique selling proposition and differentiate your business from competitors.
    5. Keep your About Us page updated regularly to reflect any changes in your team, services, or company. Display your mission statement prominently on the page and share current news and updates to show that you are an active and engaged participant in your industry. Make sure this information is easily accessible and presented.

    6. Add structured data! Schema.org is a structured data markup vocabulary that helps you add extra information to your pages, helping search engines understand them. Adding structured data to your About Us page lets you communicate details about your business, its products and services, and your team. Yoast SEO automatically adds structured data. Yoast SEO Premium even has extended support for building up your author profiles. Structured data is a valuable tool to improve your About Us page content quality and help Google comprehend it better.
    Investopedia has in-depth author profiles where readers can validate the expertise and experience of the authors

    Share your experience for better E-E-A-T

    This article introduces the Experience part of E-E-A-T, while also describing the differences and similarities with Expertise. Both play a big role in determining if you are the right person to publish this content. Do you have what it takes to help people along their journey — especially in YMYL topics?

    E-E-A-T is an abstract concept with no score attached to it that you can improve for. You can do a lot to improve the quality of your content and your content producers, but there is no single thing to pinpoint as essential. Everything is important, and every bit helps.

    Read more: What is E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)? »

    The post The first E in E-E-A-T, or the importance of Experience appeared first on Yoast.

  • What is keyword cannibalization?

    If you optimize your articles for similar terms, your rankings might suffer from keyword cannibalization: you’ll be ‘devouring’ your own chances to rank in Google! Especially when your site is growing, chances are your content will start competing with itself. Here, I’ll explain why keyword cannibalism can be detrimental to SEO, how you can recognize it and what to do about it.

    What is keyword cannibalization?

    Keyword cannibalization means that you have various blog posts or articles on your site that can rank for the same search query in Google. Either because the topic they cover is too similar or because you optimized them for the same keyphrase. If you optimize posts or articles for similar search queries, they’re eating away at each other’s chances to rank. Usually, Google will only show 1 or 2 results from the same domain in the search results for a specific query. If you’re a high authority domain, you might get 3.

    An example of keyword cannibalization

    Let’s look at an example of optimizing posts for a similar keyphrase. I wrote two posts about whether or not readability is a ranking factor. The post ‘Does readability rank?‘ was optimized for [does readability rank], while the post ‘Readability ranks!‘ was optimized for the focus keyword [readability ranking factor]. The posts had a different angle but were still very similar. For Google, it is hard to figure out which of the two articles is the most important.

    Update: Did you see the same article? That’s correct, by now we’ve fixed this cannibalization issue, but we’ve kept this example for the sake of illustration.

    Why is keyword cannibalism bad for SEO?

    If you cannibalize your own keywords, you’re competing with yourself for ranking in Google. Let’s say you have two posts on the exact same topic. In that case, Google can’t distinguish which article should rank highest for a certain query. In addition, important factors like backlinks and CTR get diluted over several posts instead of one. As a result, they’ll probably both rank lower. Therefore, our SEO analysis will give a red bullet whenever you optimize a post for a focus keyword you’ve used before.

    How to recognize it?

    Checking whether or not your site suffers from keyword cannibalism is easy. You simply do a search for your site, for any specific keyword you suspect might have multiple results. In my case, I’ll google site:yoast.com readability ranks. The first two results are the articles I suspected to suffer from cannibalization.

    Googling ‘site:domain.com “keyword” will give you an easy answer to the question if you’re suffering from keyword cannibalism or not. You can check your findings by typing the same keyword into Google (using a private browser or local search result checker like https://valentin.app/). Which of your pages do you see in the search results, and what position do they rank? Of course, if two of your pages for the same keyword are ranking #1 and #2, that’s not a problem. But do you see your articles, for example on positions 7 and 8? Then it’s time to sort things out!

    How do you resolve keyword cannibalization?

    We have an extensive article written by Joost that explains how to find and fix cannibalization issues on your site. It clearly describes the four steps you should take to solve these kind issues:

    1. Audit your content
    2. Analyze content performance
    3. Decide which ones to keep
    4. Act: merge, delete, redirect

    The first two steps will help you decide which articles to keep and which ones to merge or delete. In many cases, step 4 will consist of combining and deleting articles, but also improving the internal linking on your site.

    Merge or combine articles

    If two articles attract the same audience and tell the same story, you should combine them. Rewrite the two posts into one amazing, kickass article. That’ll help your rankings (Google loves lengthy and well-written content), and solve your keyword cannibalization problem.

    In fact, that’s exactly what we did with our two posts on readability being a ranking factor. You can use the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin to clone one of the posts and work from there. And don’t just press the delete button! Always make sure to redirect the post you delete to the one you keep. If that’s something you’re struggling with, Yoast SEO Premium can help: It makes creating redirects as easy as pie!

    Improve internal linking

    You can help Google figure out which article is most important by setting up a decent internal linking structure. This means that you should link from posts that are less important to posts that are the most important to you. That way, Google can figure out (by following links) which ones you want to pop up highest in the search engines.

    Your internal linking structure could solve a part of your keyword cannibalism problems. You should think about which article is most important to you and link from the less important long-tail articles, to your most important article. Read more about how to do this in my article about ranking with cornerstone content.

    Keyword cannibalization and online shops

    Now, if you have an online shop, you might be worried about all those product pages targeting similar keywords. For online shops, it makes sense that there are multiple pages for products that are alike. If that’s the case for you, then it’s very important to give site structure some thought. A good strategy is to link back from every product page to your category page – the page you should optimize to rank. In addition, you should keep an eye on old product pages that could potentially cannibalize more important pages. If that’s the case, simply delete and redirect those. And don’t forget that Yoast SEO Premium can help make redirecting easier with its handy redirect manager!

    Keyword cannibalism will affect growing websites

    If your site gets bigger, your chances will increase that you face keyword cannibalism on your own website. You’ll be writing about your favorite subjects and without even knowing it, you’ll write articles that end up being rather similar. That’s what happened to me too. Once in a while, you should check the keywords you want to rank for the most. Make sure to check whether you’re suffering from keyword cannibalism. You’ll probably need to make some changes in your site structure or to rewrite some articles every now and then.

    Read more: Keyword research: the ultimate guide »

    The post What is keyword cannibalization? appeared first on Yoast.

  • What is storytelling and why should you use it?

    Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Wende. She was incredibly intelligent, yet she had a hard time learning things by heart. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t memorize the planets of the solar system. One day, she asked her teacher what she should do. In response, he told her a story about the planets. A story about how the sun was lonely, and Mercury was his first friend. How Mercury fell madly in love with Venus, which made Planet Earth jealous. After telling her the story, Wende was able to remember all of the planets in the right order. Why? Because of the magic of storytelling. Wende could remember the story and with that, she could remember the planets.

    In this blog post, I’ll tell you what storytelling is and why it’s an important tool to use in the texts on your website.

    What is storytelling?

    The word storytelling speaks pretty much for itself, right? You tell stories. But storytelling is also about using stories to engage your audience or make something clearer, since stories are much easier to remember than simple facts. That’s why Wende from the story remembered the planets. In addition, stories are enjoyable; they stimulate your imagination. That’s why parents tell their children stories, and why we like to see movies and read books. People love stories!

    You can also use photos, pictures and film to help you tell a good story. You can even create your very own digital story with the use of storytelling.

    Do you want to learn all about storytelling and SEO copywriting? In our SEO copywriting training, which is part of our Yoast SEO Academy training subscription, we’ll teach you how to write copy that ranks!

    The 4 elements of storytelling

    Now you know what storytelling is. But there’s more to it than simply telling a story, otherwise anyone could write a best-selling novel. To tell a good story, you usually have to include 4 elements: a character, a problem, an action, and a solution. Let’s dive a little deeper into these.

    Every story needs a main character with a problem. Why? Because if someone is happy, there’s not really a story. Take Wende, for example. She wasn’t happy because she couldn’t memorize the planets of the solar system. That was the problem of the story. Next, you need action. Because a main character who doesn’t do anything to fix their problem isn’t fun to read about. In my example, Wende asked her teacher to help her. The teacher then told her a story, which made it easier for her to remember the planets. So, the story was the solution.

    Why use storytelling?

    Using storytelling in your blog post will – if you do it right – make your post more engaging. Your post will become something people want to read. In other words: Stories increase the attention of your audience. But they will also help you to clearly communicate your message. My story about Alice (see screenshot below) is written in order to help people understand the importance of a clean site structure, which can be a difficult subject to grasp.

    Most importantly, however, is that people remember stories. Which means that if you use storytelling, people will also remember the message of your post or even your brand. You could even inspire people to take action, like cleaning up their website or getting started with storytelling in their blog posts and presentations.

    Storytelling

    When can you use storytelling?

    Storytelling is a great and versatile tool. You can use it for posts, product pages and even presentations! I first got the idea to use storytelling for presentations in 2017, when I visited a conference and saw David JP Phillips on stage. He talked about the magical science of storytelling. I was blown away. His talk was such an inspiration for me. Two weeks later, I used this inspiration for my own talk at a WordCamp.

    In addition to presentations, you can obviously use storytelling in writing. But it’s not limited to a certain type of blog. Lots of travel blogs or personal blogs use storytelling throughout all of their posts. Geraldine DeRuiter has a really funny blog about travel and many other things. Every post is a little story. Even informational blogs could use this principle by adding an anecdote or an example. In my post about site structure and why it is important, I use the exact same story as in my presentation at the WordCamp.

    In this series

    For this series, I’ve focused on using storytelling in your writing. For instance, I’ve written about how to use storytelling in a blog post, which discusses the elements that are necessary for a good story. The post also reveals some practical tips and examples of how to integrate storytelling into your blog posts! We also dove into the connection between storytelling and SEO, and discussed how you can use storytelling on product pages.

    If you have nice examples of your own use of storytelling, or suggestions for related topics you’d like to read more about, I would love to see those!

    Read more: The complete guide to SEO copywriting »

    The post What is storytelling and why should you use it? appeared first on Yoast.

  • Is AI content helping or hurting your website?

    New AI content tools are popping up left and right. These tools can help you write a social post, or a whole blog post, answer any question, or even create a brand-new image! This is great and helpful when you only have a little time or need more inspiration. But the big question is, are AI tools actually helping us? Should we be using them to create our content? This blog post will discuss AI content and why we should be mindful of how we use it.

    AI-generated content is skyrocketing

    AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to systems that perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as perception, learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. And right now, there’s an explosion of AI tools in all shapes and sizes.

    The widespread adoption of AI-powered content generators makes it easier than ever to produce content quickly at scale. With just a few clicks, anyone can generate a half-hearted, generic article that a person must edit to fit the tone of their business and make it factual.

    It’s easy to get swept up in all the excitement and generate lots of content using these new, shiny tools. There is, however, something we can’t and shouldn’t ignore when using these AIs. It might not surprise you that using an AI tool to create your content results in similar content to others. For one, this isn’t great for your SEO.

    It also results in a much bigger issue that affects all of us. This content often isn’t diverse and inclusive at all. It’s created by AIs that were trained with biased content. And this content is often written by the same type of person. Let’s dive into this and find out what can be done!

    Using AI tools will create an echo-chamber

    One of the main concerns with AI-generated content is the lack of originality and authenticity. While algorithms can mimic the style and tone of existing content, they can’t replace the creativity and originality of real people.

    AI-generated content often lacks nuance, depth, and originality, which can harm the credibility and reputation of a brand. Moreover, using AI-generated content can perpetuate stereotypes, bias, and exclusionary practices, as algorithms tend to replicate existing patterns and preferences.

    Because AI content tools make it so easy to create content, it’s now easier than ever to produce the same content as everyone else. And if everyone uses the same AI to create content, no one is creating new content. We will, in effect, create an echo chamber with no new thoughts or ideas coming in. This leads to a narrow and non-inclusive view of the world.

    François Chollet had a delightful tweet about his thoughts on AI content:

    Related to this, Maggie Harrison at Futurism wrote an interesting article about ChatGPT essentially being an automated mansplaining machine. Having just this one, far from inclusive, point of view of the world is hurtful to society in so many ways. It doesn’t account for the vast diversity of people and points of view in our world. Nor does it champion groups of people that have often been neglected and marginalized in the past.

    AI training sets have a bias

    The Large Language Models (LLMs) that power the likes of Google Bard, Microsoft’s Bing assistant, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are trained on content from today’s internet. And while most people would like to believe that the internet is diverse and inclusive, it has some very questionable corners.

    We should try to strive for a world that’s much more inclusive than it is today. Using public forums on the internet to train your AIs may not be the best idea. In recent years this has lead to AIs becoming racist and biased.

    A few examples

    Using the internet of today to train AIs has multiple inclusion problems. This means that the AIs themselves become racist, sexist, or ableist because the content they are being trained on is racist, sexist, or ableist. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

    Amazon’s AI hiring debacle

    Take, for example, Amazon’s hiring AI. They developed this tool as the “holy grail” of hiring to help them find the right people for the job. Amazon used ten years’ worth of mostly male resumes to train the AI. Of course, this is a reflection of the tech industry overall, but it also means that the tool became sexist.

    They may not have intended to create a sexist AI, but because the data it had been fed was skewed towards more male hires, it thought it was doing the right thing. AI will always be biased if the data they are using to train is biased.

    Image creation can also be problematic

    Another example of AI’s going racist is AI image creation. If you want to generate an image of a romantic couple holding hands, it’s not uncommon to see that all the generators give back predominately white people. In July 2021, Dall-E 2 updated its tool to “more accurately reflect the diversity of the world’s population.” Unfortunately, it still produces photos that are non-diverse. It would only show people of color when you added the word “poor” to the prompt.

    This isn’t just limited to people of color; the LGBTQI+ community also fell prey to these non-inclusive images. Of course, the tools can make adjustments to their systems. We still have a long way to go to reflect the world that we are in. As Zoe Larkin (Levity) writes in the blog post on AI bias: “Unfortunately, AI is not safe from the tendencies of human prejudice. It can assist humans in making more impartial decisions, but only if we work diligently to ensure fairness in AI systems.”

    Don’t forget about the human edit

    To some extent, it’s acceptable to use AI tools as shortcuts. Today, however, content creators use them without considering the data that fed the AIs. This leads to the reinforcement and expansion of echo chambers and contributes to the creation of similar content and the production of racist and non-inclusive/diverse images.

    As a result, content creators need to be more aware of the data and algorithms used by AI tools to ensure that their content is authentic, diverse, and inclusive and does not perpetuate stereotypes or exclusionary practices.

    A lot of online content is not representative

    Amazon’s hiring tool and Dall-E 2 are a few examples of AI content generators going rogue. And it is not strange that AI content tools are going the same way because the internet is filled with content written by English-speaking mediocre white cis men.

    For example, a study by Oxford University’s Internet Institute found that (mostly male) editors in the western part of the world made most of the contributions to Wikipedia, creating a skewed worldview.

    Even if this is a part of your target audience, it is not the only audience. People from all backgrounds with all kinds of experiences currently make up just a small percentage of voices heard.

    If we want to break the cycle of this continuous repeating of the same content, we need to improve at writing and creating more inclusive content. That way, we can train the AIs of the future on a more inclusive and diverse internet. 

    Make today’s content better for the future

    Try not to be that person from the meeting who repeats what others say. Produce content in your voice and make it accessible to the broadest possible audience. All of this makes for a better internet for everyone.

    Communicate appropriately with the audience that you are trying to reach. When you’re writing inclusively, you, my friend, are helping to create content that will make the internet of the future a better place.

    Be aware of your own bias

    It’s not only AIs that have this bias; we all have an unconscious bias that we are trying to unlearn and evolve. That’s what got us here in the first place. We all need to do better to write more inclusive content. Only by taking the time to write inclusive content will we shape today’s internet. This, in turn, means that we can train the AI tools of the future on more inclusive and less derogatory language.

    That’s a big responsibility, we know. And this is not something that will change overnight; it will take time. We’ll undoubtedly get it wrong. But, by making an effort now to create diverse and inclusive content, we’ll start the ball rolling to a better internet.

    So, what can we do?

    You can use AI tools as part of your content creation process. However, you must do a human edit before hitting publish. Be critical of the content that rolls out of the AI tool. Make sure to do a fact-check. And make the much-needed adjustments. You shouldn’t just adjust the tone of voice in your content but also check it for diversity and inclusivity. You should pinpoint any problematic content. Improve it to a point where anyone can relate to it and you’re comfortable with it.

    How to make your content more inclusive

    It can be hard to know where to start. That’s where tools can help get you on the path to a more inclusive and diverse internet. For example, our inclusive language analysis in Yoast SEO. This new analysis helps you to spot when you may have unconsciously used a term that is not inclusive or is, in fact, racist, sexist or ableist.

    Much like our readability analysis, it looks through your text for words from our database that are racist, sexist, non-inclusive or derogatory. It will help you become aware of those non-inclusive words and phrases. You’ll get feedback and proper alternatives that can improve your content to ensure that site visitors feel spoken to. With just a few small steps in the right direction, we can all hopefully make the world and the web a more inclusive and diverse place for future generations. And for future AIs.

    The post Is AI content helping or hurting your website? appeared first on Yoast.

  • How to create the right meta description

    The meta description summarizes a page’s content and presents that to users in the search results. It’s one of the first things people will likely see when searching for something, so optimizing it is crucial for SEO. It’s your chance to persuade users to click on your result! This post will show you the characteristics of a good meta description and how Yoast SEO can help you get it right.

    Table of contents

    Did you get a red traffic light for the keyphrase in the meta description check in Yoast SEO? Read what this check does, and how to turn this traffic light green. Yoast SEO also checks the length of your meta description. Read about how that check works, and how to write a concise meta description.

    What is a meta description?

    The meta description is an HTML tag you can set for a post or page of your website. In it, you can use roughly 155 characters to describe what your page is about. If you’re lucky, Google will show it beneath your page’s title in the search results. It allows you to convince search engine users that your page will offer what they are looking for.

    In Google’s search results, this is where it can be displayed:

    An example of a meta description in Google Search showing a post on yoast.com
    A meta description from yoast.com, as seen in the search results

    And this is what it looks like in the HTML code of the page:

    <meta name="description" content="Do you want people to click on your search result? Learn how to write the best meta description. Including 7 characteristics and examples!" />

    Why set a meta description?

    The purpose of a meta description is simple: it needs to get someone searching with a search term on Google to click your link. In other words, meta descriptions are there to generate click-throughs from search engines.

    Search engines say there is no direct SEO benefit from the meta description – they don’t use it in their ranking algorithm. But there is an indirect benefit: Google uses click-through-rate (CTR) to determine whether you’re a good result. If more people click on your result, Google considers you to be a good result and will – based on your position – move you up the rankings. This is why optimizing your meta description is important, as is optimizing your titles.

    Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that Google will display the description that you’ve written. But, as there is a chance it will, it’s always worth the effort to add it to your post or page.

    In this Yoast SEO academy video, Fleur will explain how titles and meta description help increase your visibility on Google:

    What does a good meta description contain?

    Here’s a list of elements you need to write a good meta description:

    1. Keep it up to 155 characters
    2. Use an active voice and make it actionable
    3. Include a call to action
    4. Use your focus keyphrase
    5. Show specifications when needed
    6. Make sure it matches the content of the page
    7. Make it unique

    Let’s go over them in detail!

    1. Keep it up to 155 characters 

    The right length doesn’t exist; it depends on the message you want to convey. You should take enough space to convey the message but keep it short and snappy. However, if you check the search results in Google, you’ll mostly see snippets of 120 to 156 characters, like in the example below. Google says you can make your meta descriptions as long as you want, but there is a limit to what we can see in the SERPs — and that’s around 155 characters; anything longer will get truncated.

    This search result from a Yoast SEO user shows a succinct meta description in Google

    Unfortunately, you can’t fully control what Google displays in the search results. Sometimes it shows the meta description, and sometimes it just grabs some sentences of your copy. Either way, your best bet is to keep it short. That way, if Google does decide to show the description you’ve written, it won’t be cut short. 

    2. Use active voice and make it actionable 

    If you see the meta description as an invitation to visit your page, you have to think about your user and their (possible) motivation to visit your page. Make sure that your description isn’t dull, difficult, or too cryptic. People need to know what they can expect to find on your page.

    The example in the image below is the description you should strive to write. It’s active, it speaks to you and addresses you directly. You know what you’ll get if you click on the link!

    Make people want to click your search result

    3. Include a call-to-action

    “Hello, we have such and such new product, and you want it. Find out more!” This overlaps with what we said about the active voice, but we wanted to emphasize it again. The meta description is your sales text. Except, in this case, the “product” you are trying to sell is the page that is linked. Invitations like Learn more, Get it now, Try for free come in handy, and we use them too.

    Get people to click on your link

    4. Use your focus keyword

    If the search keyword matches a part of the text in the meta description, Google will be more inclined to use it and highlight it in the search results. This will make the link to your site even more inviting. Google sometimes even highlights synonyms. In the example below, both the Academy Awards and Oscars are highlighted. Getting your results emphasized like that makes them stand out even more.

    The image shows a meta description for the Wikipedia page about the Academy Awards. The words 'Academy Awards' and 'Oscars' are shown in bold text.
    A listing for the Academy Awards on Google

    5. Show specifications, where possible 

    If you have a product in your Shopify or WooCommerce store aimed at the tech-savvy, it can be a good idea to focus on the technical specs. For example, you can include the manufacturer, SKU, price, etc. If the visitor is specifically looking for that product, you won’t have to convince them. Can the watch help us stay fit? Sign us up; that’s all we need to know. Note that to optimize your result in this manner, you should work on getting rich snippets.

    Google search result describe the Apple Watch SE
    Make it spark

    6. Make sure it matches the content of the page

    This is an important one. Google will find out if you use the meta descriptions to trick visitors into clicking on your result. They might even penalize you if you do it. But besides that, misleading descriptions will also increase your bounce rate. Which will also lower people’s trust in your company. It’s a bad idea for that reason alone. That is why you want the meta description to match the content on the page.

    7. Make it unique 

    Adding the date to the snippet preview

    People often ask questions about the date shown in the Google preview of our Yoast SEO plugin. We’ve added this because search engines may display a date with your snippet. So it’s important to factor it in when you decide on the right length of your meta description. Unfortunately, there’s no way to directly control whether this date is shown or not, but you can try to manage the dates they use in the search results.

    If your meta description is the same as those for other pages, the user experience in Google will be hampered. Although your page titles might vary, all pages will appear to be the same because all the descriptions are the same. Instead of creating duplicate meta descriptions, you’d better leave them blank. Google will pick a snippet from the page containing the keyword used in the query. That being said, writing a unique meta description for every page you want to rank with is always the best practice.

    How Yoast SEO helps you write meta descriptions

    Adding a meta description is easy if you’re on WordPress or Shopify and using Yoast SEO. Firstly, you can write it in the Google preview section of Yoast SEO. But Yoast SEO also gives you feedback on it in the SEO analysis. The plugin checks the meta description length and whether you’ve used your focus keyphrase. So let’s see how the plugin helps you and what you can do with it. 

    You can edit your meta description in Yoast SEO
    You can edit your meta description in Yoast SEO for Shopify

    What does the keyphrase in meta description assessment in Yoast SEO do?

    This check is all about using the keyphrase in the meta description. A focus keyphrase is the search term you want a page to rank with. When people use that term, you want them to find your page. You base your keyphrase on keyword research. After your research, you should end up with a combination of words that most of your audience is most likely to search for. We’ve already discussed that when you use your keyphrase in the meta description, Google will likely highlight it. That makes it easier for people to see that they’ve found what they are looking for. 

    Yoast SEO checks if and how often you use the words from your focus keyphrase in the meta description text. In addition, if you use Yoast SEO Premium, it also takes into account the synonyms you enter. If you overdo it, the plugin advises you to limit the use of your focus keyphrase.

    What a green bullet looks like in Yoast SEO
    What a green bullet looks like in Yoast SEO for Shopify

    How to get a green traffic light for the keyphrase in meta description

    If you don’t mention the keyphrase in the meta description at all, you’ll get a red traffic light. So, make sure to write one. But don’t stuff your meta description with your keyphrase, because that will also get you a red traffic light. And make sure to mention all the words from your keyphrase near to each other. Search engines are pretty smart nowadays, but you still need to make it clear what your page is about. 

    Yoast SEO Premium plugin takes the synonyms you’ve added into account when it performs its analysis. This allows you to write more naturally and will result in a text that’s a more pleasant read. Moreover, it’s easier to score a green traffic light this way. Use it to your advantage!

    Unlock all features in Yoast SEO Premium

    Save time on your SEO and get access to all of our SEO courses.

    Get Yoast SEO Premium Only €99 EUR / year (ex VAT)

    What does the meta description length assessment do?

    This meta description length assessment measures whether your description is too short (less than 120 characters) or too long (more than 156 characters).  When your meta description has the right length, you’ll get a green traffic light. If it’s too long, or too short, you’ll get an orange traffic light in the SEO analysis of Yoast SEO (or red, if you’ve marked your article as cornerstone content).

    What the check looks like in the Yoast SEO meta box
    A green bullet in the Yoast SEO for Shopify app

    How to write a concise meta description

    A good meta description convinces people that your page offers the best result to their query. But, to be the best result, you must know what people are looking for. What is their search intent? Are they looking for an answer to a question? If they are, try to give them the most complete answer. Are they looking for a product? Write down what makes your product stand out and why they would best buy it in your store. Be concise and convincing!

    You get real-time feedback on the meta description length in the Google preview section in the Yoast SEO sidebar or meta box. If you want to write a meta description, click on “Google preview” in the Yoast SEO sidebar. This will open the snippet editor and you’ll see input fields to edit the SEO title, the slug and the meta description. When you start typing in the meta description input field, the snippet preview at the top of the Google preview editor will immediately show your new text. Underneath the input field, there is a bar. It’s orange when you start typing and will become green when you’ve added enough information. When you add too much text, it will turn orange again.

    The bar will change color when your go over the limit
    Checking the Google preview in Yoast SEO for Shopify

    Writing or editing your meta description in the Yoast SEO meta box underneath your post editor is also possible. Just go to the SEO tab in the meta box (if it’s not on this tab by default), and you can start typing in the field under Meta description right away.

    What to do if you need meta descriptions for a lot of pages?

    Does it feel like you need to change all your meta descriptions after reading this? But not sure how to fit that into your schedule? Google has the answer:

    “If you don’t have time to create a description for every single page, try to prioritize your content; at the very least, create a description for the critical URLs like your home page and popular pages.“

    Advice from Google Search Central documentation

    You can check which of your pages rank highest with Google Search Console. Take it from there. Additionally, it’s also possible to optimize your meta descriptions with variables in Yoast SEO. This allows you to speed up this process without having to worry about duplicate descriptions.

    If you prefer to write a unique description for each page and have a lot to get through, you can use the Bulk editor tool in Yoast SEO for WordPress. Head to the Tools page, click on ‘Bulk editor’, and then select the ‘Description’ tab. You’ll be able to see any meta descriptions already set for your pages, and you can quickly add new ones without having to open each page individually. However, with this tool, you won’t get warnings if your description is too short/long, or if the focus keyword is missing.

    Meta descriptions for social sharing

    Do you have Yoast SEO? In that case: check the Facebook and Twitter preview in the Yoast SEO sidebar or social tab in the Yoast SEO meta box below your post or page. You can add a separate description for your social media channels there. In Yoast SEO Premium, you even have social previews that show you what your post or page will look like when shared on social media.

    Read more: How to use the Google preview in Yoast SEO »

    The post How to create the right meta description appeared first on Yoast.

  • Write more inclusively: 7 examples of inclusive language

    So you want to write more inclusively? Great! That means more people will feel welcome when they read your content, and you won’t accidentally exclude them. But if that’s not enough reason, just think how many more people will engage with your content if you involve them and make your content relatable to them! So, what does inclusive language look like? We’re here to give you some examples.

    Seven categories

    Before we dive into the inclusive language examples, it’s good to know that there are roughly seven categories to pay attention to. They are: age, appearance, race, culture and ethnicity, disability and neurodiversity, gender, socioeconomic status, and lastly sexual and romantic orientation (yes, race, culture and ethnicity is one category). You can click on every category to learn more about it.

    In this post, we’ll give examples of every category.

    Inclusive language example: age

    This category might come as a surprise to you, but ageism is a real problem. But what is it exactly? To quote the World Health Organization (WHO), ageism “refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age.”

    Let’s look at an example of non-inclusive writing first. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive word: 

    I was just on my way to the grocery store when a group of seniors decided to visit too. At first, I was worried I’d have to stand in line for ages. But as I walked in, I got to talking with one of the women. She was very lovely, and explained they were actually here to do some volunteering!

    The bolded word could be potentially harmful to older adults, unless they actually use these words to refer to themselves. Here’s what you could do to write more inclusively:

    I was just on my way to the grocery store when a group of older people decided to visit too. At first, I was worried I’d have to stand in line for ages. But as I walked in, I got to talking with one of the women. She was very lovely, and explained they were here to actually do some volunteering!

    As you can see, a few minor changes to the text can already make a difference. And it isn’t that much of an effort to make the text relatable to a larger group of people.

    Inclusive language example: appearance

    You probably know the famous saying: don’t judge a book by its cover. Whatever a person looks like, you shouldn’t judge them based on their appearance. Especially when that judgment is based on prejudices. 

    Here’s an example of non-inclusive writing. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive word:

    We’d booked a hotel near the sea, so we visited the beach every day. Both locals and tourists seemed to love this beach. And we highly recommend it too! If you’re insecure about your body, don’t worry. Both fat people and thin people came to enjoy the sun at this beach.

    There’s something called an ‘anti-fat bias‘, also known as fatphobia. This occurs when people are judged or mistreated for having a weight higher than what is perceived as “standard”. To avoid reinforcing this bias, it’s good to pay attention to your language when talking about people’s weight. In general, avoiding commenting on people’s weight unless it’s relevant to the topic. If it is relevant, avoid using “fat” unless you are referring to someone who prefers that term to describe their appearance.

    So let’s look at the same text but with an inclusive word:

    We’d booked a hotel near the sea, so we visited the beach every day. Both locals and tourists seemed to love this beach. And we highly recommend it too! If you’re insecure about your body, don’t worry. Both people who have a higher weight and a lower weight came to enjoy the sun at this beach.

    Before we move onto the next category, let’s do one more example. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive word:

    My day was good! I actually got a new colleague who’s going to work on the renovation project with me. He’s a midget, and overall a really nice guy.

    Ah, the “m” word. It’s never been an official term to identify people with dwarfism. Rather, it’s been used to put people of short stature on display and nowadays, it’s considered a derogatory slur. So here’s the same text with an inclusive word instead:

    My day was good! I actually got a new colleague who’s going to work on the renovation project with me. He has a short stature, and he’s overall a really nice guy.

    Inclusive language example: race, culture, and ethnicity

    When you think about inclusive language, this category is probably top of mind. And while the topic has gained popularity over the years, it’s always good to be extra mindful of your language. You don’t want to maintain a bias toward people based on their race, ethnicity, country of origin, or culture. 

    Let’s look at an example of non-inclusive writing. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive words:

    If you want to travel around the world, we only have one thing to say: do it! It’s truly an amazing experience. We always recommend people to visit East Asia, because it’s a stunning region. If you decide to visit Japan, we highly recommend Tanaka’s curry house in Osaka. It’s run by a lovely oriental couple. But don’t write off third world countries when you’re planning your trip! They are very gorgeous too.

    First of all, you shouldn’t use a word like ‘oriental’, because it’s othering towards Asian people. What’s othering? In the simplest terms, it’s pointing a finger at someone and saying you are different. Which is obviously bad. And second, don’t use the word ‘third world’. You might not realize it, but it’s very derogatory.

    Here’s what you should write instead:

    If you want to travel around the world, we only have one thing to say: do it! It’s truly an amazing experience. We always recommend people to visit East Asia, because it’s a stunning region. If you decide to visit Japan, we highly recommend Tanaka’s curry house in Osaka. It’s run by a lovely Japanese couple. But don’t write off low-income countries! They are very gorgeous too.

    Inclusive language example: disability and neurodiversity

    Telling a wheelchair user to ‘walk it off’ can be very insensitive. But that’s exactly what you do when you don’t take disability and neurodiversity into account when writing. And be aware that some disabilities aren’t always visible!

    First, the non-inclusive example. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive words:

    Our company has some crazy benefits for its employees. And if it isn’t sorted, just say the word and we’ll fix it for you. Nothing will fall on deaf ears! And we support the disabled too. Because we want everyone to feel welcome!

    Using words like ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’ has become pretty common in our society. But it can minimize or trivialize the experiences of people who have a particular condition or symptom. So take care to avoid these types of words. 

    Let’s look at what you should write instead:

    Our company has some amazing benefits for its employees. And if it isn’t sorted, just say the word and we’ll fix it for you. Nothing won’t be addressed! And we support people with disabilities too. Because we want everyone to feel welcome!

    Do note that neurodiverse people and disabled people may prefer different approaches to how they want to be described. There are generally two: person-first language (PFL), and identity-first language (IFL). It’s the difference between ‘person with a disability’ or ‘disabled person’. You can learn more about PFL and IFL on our help page. And don’t hesitate to ask people what they prefer! 

    Inclusive language example: gender

    When we talk about writing inclusively, this also means looking out for gendered words. ‘Man-hours’ is a very obvious example, as is simply using ‘he/him’ to refer to people in general. We also call the latter male bias.

    Let’s look at a non-inclusive example. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive words:

    If you’re looking for your next read, look no further. We’ve got an awesome list of books that both men and women will love. These titles are truly some of mankind’s best novels. And as part of our inclusivity campaign, we also included books that center transgenders.

    A great thing to remember is that neither gender nor sex is inherently binary. There are more gender identities than men and women, such as genderfluid and non-binary people. In addition, there are also people with no gender, such as agender and some non-binary people. 

    Here’s the same text, but written inclusively:

    If you’re looking for your next read, look no further. We’ve got an awesome list of books that everyone will love. These titles are truly some of humanity’s best novels. And as part of our inclusivity campaign, we also included books that center transgender people.

    Inclusive language example: socioeconomic status

    When you write about topics that center around income, education, occupation, and social class, you might want to pay extra attention to what words you use. You don’t want to alienate or harm parts of your audience by being non-inclusive. The key is to try and be as specific as possible. 

    Here’s a non-inclusive example. We’ve bolded the non-inclusive words:

    Hubert was a truly remarkable man. He dedicated his life to helping others. As an ex-offender, he knew how bad life could get. That’s why he frequently organized fundraisers for the poor and homeless. In addition, he volunteered at soup kitchens and provided care packages for illegal immigrants.

    As we said, when writing about income or housing, try to be as specific as possible. Don’t overgeneralize. As for the term ‘illegal immigrants’, it’s not only harmful but also inaccurate. And finally, don’t reduce people to their experiences with the criminal justice system. That’s dehumanizing. 

    Let’s look at the same text but with inclusive words:

    Hubert was a truly remarkable man. He dedicated his life to helping others. As a person with felony convictions, he knew how bad life could get. That’s why he frequently organized fundraisers for individuals with low income and people who are homeless. In addition, he volunteered at soup kitchens and provided care packages for undocumented people.

    Inclusive language example: sexual and romantic orientation

    Before we dive into the example, let’s quickly get on the same page. Sexual orientation is who you experience sexual attraction to, and romantic orientation is who you feel romantically attracted to. It’s also important to keep in mind that not everyone is comfortable with certain labels. Some people describe themselves as bisexual, while others might prefer queer or simply no label at all.

    Here’s an example with non-inclusive words. We’ve bolded what is not inclusive:

    When we visited Amsterdam, we had no idea it was Pride Amsterdam. There was a canal parade that we attended, which was really awesome. There were rainbows everywhere. And it was great to see so many homosexuals and lesbians celebrating who they are. We even got to dance and sing along. It was fun!

    First things first: Don’t use the word homosexual. It’s often considered derogatory because of its clinical associations. Next, you should be careful with assumptions. Assuming everyone at pride is gay or a lesbian is an overgeneralization, and probably wrong. You’d be excluding a lot of other sexual and romantic identities. That’s why it might be better to use descriptions instead of labels, unless someone tells you what label they prefer of course.

    Here’s one way of writing the previous text more inclusively. We’ve bolded the changes we made:

    When we visited Amsterdam, we had no idea it was Pride Amsterdam. There was a canal parade that we attended, which was really awesome. There were rainbows everywhere. And it was great to see so many gay people, lesbians and other people belonging to the LGBTQ+ community celebrating who they are. We even got to dance and sing along. It was fun!

    Make it easier for yourself

    Now that we’ve gone over every category, you might feel a little overwhelmed. And we get it. It’s a lot to remember all at once. That’s why we’ve introduced the inclusive language analysis in Yoast SEO. How does it work? Simply write your text, and the analysis feature will assess your post. You’ll get valuable feedback to help you improve your content, so your posts and pages will appeal to a wider audience. Meaning: You don’t have to Google everything!

    example of a check in the inclusive language analysis in Yoast SEO
    The inclusive language analysis in Yoast SEO

    Don’t be afraid to ask

    Good job, you! By reading this post, you’ve taken the first step into writing more inclusively. And while you might not get it right straight away, it’s good that you’re trying. So keep doing that! And don’t be afraid to ask people about their identities, and learn from them. Because inclusive language is here to stay. 

    Read more: Does inclusive language help you rank? »

    The post Write more inclusively: 7 examples of inclusive language appeared first on Yoast.