30.10.2019
How to Choose Keywords for Content Writing
Today, you can't simply stuff keywords into an article and have it appear at the top of search results. There's much more complexity involved.
Search engines now process long search phrases to offer users the most informative content for their queries. In other words, long search phrases rather than just keywords are now the norm when it comes to ranking your content at the top of the search results.
That's why it's so important to write for people, not for search engines, which you'll discover is more than just a catchy phrase ㄧit is a guide for choosing keywords for content writing. It's ultimately a guide for ranking your content.
To understand how keywords affect content writing, you first have to understand how machines forever changed history.
We know machines already think like people. They can predict our habits and what we do by how we search for knowledge.
We know machines already think like people. They can predict our habits and what we do by how we search for knowledge.
Now machines have created algorithms that have changed the way we search for information. If you don't know the story about how it happened in 2013, here it is.
Algorithms that changed the internet
In 2013, Google launched the Hummingbird algorithm. According to the developers, its definitive feature was a so-called "conversational search." What made it so unique was that it delivered information based on the meaning behind the words in the search query.
This algorithm reformed the SEO sector and made LSI copywriting more relevant than ever.
LSI stands for "latent semantic indexing" and is about finding sites with the most appropriate results. LSI copywriting is a technique to make your content informative and relevant.
This algorithm reformed the SEO sector and made LSI copywriting more relevant than ever.
LSI stands for "latent semantic indexing" and is about finding sites with the most appropriate results. LSI copywriting is a technique to make your content informative and relevant.
With the Hummingbird algorithm, LSI copywriting exploded and changed how we write content and make it more discoverable to users.
Making high-quality content
The quality of the content directly affects the position of your article in SERP (search engine results pages).
The old-school copywriting was all about including important keywords within the first 256 characters on the page, which was enough for SEO content optimization. Now the requirements for texts are much greater.
Here's a checklist that will help you create high-quality content:
- Create content that benefits the readerThe information you provide in your content should be really useful to people and what they are searching for.
Remember, modern algorithms think like people. - StructureHeadlines, paragraphs, spacing between the lines and illustrations — all this makes your content more diverse, easy to read, and helps the reader find an answer to their question.
Helping readers find an answer to their questions is one of the major factors that affect search engines when it comes to ranking your content. - Redundant words and phrases60% of words in selling/marketing content don't add value to it. Anything above 60% will be considered uninformative by Google, ranking it lower than content that is considered "dry."
There should be, however, a balance as content without any 'fluffy' words might only be an interesting read for the search algorithm.
Services like https://copywritely.com help identify these words and phrases. - 90% UniqueAny matches with other texts increase the competition in SERP. And don't forget about the ethics of copywriting, which means your content should aim to give the reader unique and valuable information that isn't spun from other sources.
- Keyword stuffing should be no higher than 7Keyword stuffing is about how often a word occurs in the text. You don't want to stuff keywords everywhere in the content because it appears unnatural and Google will rank it lower.
Keyword stuffing can also be reviewed by SEO content checkers to determine its readability score. This unique tool is a really important parameter for text readability, ensuring your reader understands what they are reading.
Collecting LSI Phrases
Nowadays, a lot of attention needs to be paid to collecting LSI keywords.
Modern copywriting is aimed at revealing the hidden semantics of queries. These hidden semantics is built on the recognition of phrases using natural word forms, synonymous constructions, and slang.
You can collect LSI keywords from Google manually or automatically. Think about what your audience types into the search engine? What language do they use? Answering these questions will enhance your content and bring up its ranking.
You can collect LSI keywords from Google manually or automatically. Think about what your audience types into the search engine? What language do they use? Answering these questions will enhance your content and bring up its ranking.
Check out these platforms to check your content's competitiveness, readability & user requests, and frequency.
Google Keyword Planner gives you the option to test your hypotheses. This service can analyze real user requests and identify their frequency.
- Key Collector, a tool for compiling a semantic core allows you to collect semantics automatically.
- Serpstat is another online service that will collect search queries for you. When they are collected you can check how competitive they are against other content.
- SEMrush and Keyword Tool are other platforms with rich functionality.
Complying with all SEO requirements is a more difficult task than it used to be 5 or 10 years ago.
With the amount of content on the internet growing exponentially, search engines have to improve in order to separate useful content from information noise. Identifying relevant content also drives more traffic to that content.
This is why we can see new algorithms with more requirements for texts and copywriters' skills.
Content has become more than just information to give anybody, it's relevant, insightful, key information that users want to read.
With the amount of content on the internet growing exponentially, search engines have to improve in order to separate useful content from information noise. Identifying relevant content also drives more traffic to that content.
This is why we can see new algorithms with more requirements for texts and copywriters' skills.
Content has become more than just information to give anybody, it's relevant, insightful, key information that users want to read.
To stay at the top of this game you need to be more useful for the readers than your competitors. You need to find copywriters who have mastered LSI and understand how to direct more readers to your content.
SEO checklist
You are lucky if you work with copywriters that have already mastered LSI and know how to create high-quality new-generation content.
If you, however, don't have a copywriter or don't know everything about LSI and creating high-quality content, you can still prevent some mistakes from occurring in the initial stage of your content.
- When formulating a task, don't focus on the strict occurrence of all keywords.
- Focus on a small number of high-frequency phrases. There's no need to compile a huge list of queries because will be difficult to accommodate them all in the text without it appearing too spammy, resulting in a lower ranking.
- Crop the beginning of low-frequency queries by leaving the words at the end of them. By doing this, the copywriter will be able to embed them in the text organically, making the content sound more natural to the reader.
- Keep a sharp eye on redundant words and phrases, uniqueness, authority, and the keyword stuffing ratio.
- When editing and proofreading, look at the text not as an SEO specialist, but as a potential reader who needs to solve a particular problem. Is this material useful to them? How difficult was it for them to read?
Remember that modern search engines are much more "human" than we used to think.
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