How to write an SEO article and optimize it for Google?

Want to write a well optimized SEO article? Whether you want to write for a personal blog or a company website, it is important to publish articles that meet the search engines’ requirements. Here is a simple and methodical approach that can guide you in writing your SEO optimized article.

What is an SEO optimized article?

We call an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) optimized article, an article that is intended to be distributed on the web to improve natural referencing. The objective is to position one or more keywords on search engines to improve positioning and increase traffic to your site. The article must respond to one or more search intentions of the Internet user on targeted requests. The writing of an SEO optimized article therefore meets certain technical requirements that must be respected for a better referencing. The purpose of SEO is to attract Internet users to present a product or to inform them about a subject. Even if the content of your article is interesting, if the reader does not read it, it will have no relevance. If you want to write an SEO optimized article, your main objective will be to attract the Internet user and succeed in capturing his attention by meeting his expectations. This is called SEO-friendly content strategy.

What to do before you start writing an optimized article

It is interesting to first check what the search intention of the Internet users is on the targeted keyword(s). Is the visitor looking to watch a video? Read a blog article? Buy a product? By checking the SERP, you can quickly identify what the user wants to find. Next, there is often a “Other questions asked” section. These are the questions regularly typed in the Google search bar. It is therefore necessary to integrate these questions into the content of your text. You can also use tools like Google Trends to help you find the trending topics or Ubersuggest to help you find the topics of articles that deal with your keywords and that are positioned.

Structure of an SEO optimized article

The title tag or title (h1)

Often confused, there is nevertheless a difference between these 2 notions. The title tag is the page title that appears on the search engine results pages. Ideally, the title tag is limited to 70 characters including spaces beyond it will not be visible on the search engine. Your keywords must therefore be located as far upstream as possible from your title to improve your SEO optimization. The title (h1) is the title that appears on the article of your page. It is not limited in number of characters and allows to offer readers a better understanding of your content. The title of an optimized article must be both meaningful and catchy.

The meta description tag or the heading

The meta description tag is the content displayed just after the title tag on the search results. It is limited to 160 characters including spaces, beyond that it will not be visible on the search engine. Unlike the title or introduction of your page where you are not limited in the number of characters. The keywords must be present. A title or introduction must answer the 5W and 2H (Who? What? When? How? Where? How much? Why?).

h2, h3, h4,…

Segmenting an SEO article into several paragraphs not only helps to organize your ideas, but also to prevent from losing the reader. Depending on the amount of information you want to convey in your optimized article, you can divide it into several paragraphs. To structure your article, you will need to use the h2, h3, h4 tags… The h2 tags represent the subheadings of your article. They must contain the targeted keywords. Unlike other tags, h2 tags have a greater weight in terms of SEO power.

ALT attribute for images

The ALT attribute allows, if the image is not displayed, to display a text instead. It allows to help the referencing of images on search engines.

Your page url

For some experts, the choice of your URL would have an impact. It is therefore necessary to insert only your keywords to maximize your chances. Avoid determiners (one, a, the, the… etc.) and especially separate your keywords with a hyphen.

Optimizing an SEO article

Use SEO tools to write your optimized article

There are many tools on the market to help you optimize your content. Here is a non-exhaustive list: 1.fr, YourTextGuru, Ubersuggest, SEOQuantum, Google Keyword Planner, Semrush…

Determine the number of words in your optimized article

What is the length for an optimized article? According to statistics, long contents would have more chances to be positioned in the SERP on the one hand because they are subjects that will be more in-depth and therefore with more keywords and on the other hand because a long article will tend to show the reader a willingness of the editor to produce quality content. It is necessary to count between 1 500 and 2 000 words.

Use well-targeted keywords

Keywords are essential elements in any SEO strategy that wants to be effective. It is these words or expressions that Google’s algorithms rely on to provide results to Internet users. It is important to use relevant keywords, that is, those that correspond to the terms used by Internet users during their searches. Several keyword generators can help you find the terms you need: Google Keyword Planner, UberSuggest or Semrush. 

Check your keyword density

It all depends on the length of your SEO article. You should not exceed 2 repetitions every 100 words. However, you can vary the lexical field of keywords such as company manager, director, founder, president … Note that an excessive use could taint the naturalness of your article and even expose you to penalties from the SEO algorithms. The density of keywords must be reasonable. You have some tools that allow you to measure the density of your keywords: Outiref, Smallseotools, yourtext.guru, Semji, Alyze.

Use internal and external links

Using links is a simple and effective method to improve the referencing of a website whether it is internal or from outside pointing to your site (external link). Not to be confused with links on your page that point to another site (outbound links). The internal mesh or internal link is essential in terms of SEO. It allows the user to navigate on your website. It also allows search engines to detect your pages and therefore distribute your SEO juice through these links to your different pages. There is no limit of internal links, everything depends on your strategy on the targeted pages. However, be careful not to abuse your internal links. Concerning external links, I invite you to read our more complete article on this subject : Backlinks, these friends who do your SEO good!