Search engine use is one of the most popular online activities, with more than 59% of adults using a search engine daily, according to the Pew Research Center. ComScore, an organization that tracks search engine use, reported that more than 17.5 billion searches were conducted using desktop computers in January 2016. If you add mobile searches to the mix, Google alone handles more than 1.1 trillion searches each year. Of these searches, more than 70 % of people never go beyond the first page of results, with 67.6 % clicking on one of the first five search results in the list.
But, what are the rules? Generally speaking, creating search engine-friendly content means:
- Having a user-friendly navigation structure with internal links.
- Producing strong, relevant, frequently updated, keyword-rich, user-friendly content.
- Building a high quantity of high-quality inbound links from other websites.
Search engines prefer this kind of content because of the way they build their indexes (i.e., the lists of sites they can access when producing search results). Since the number of new websites and pages grows by the second, search engines constantly are trying to keep up with this growth and build their indexes. One way they do this is through programs called bots (also known as spiders or web crawlers), which scan words on webpages, determine keywords on those pages and index the pages according to those keywords so that they can be retrieved later through a keyword search. Bots travel Web pages using links as roads that take them from page to page and from site to site.
Once a site is indexed, search engines then rank sites based on authority, relevance to that particular keyword search, and, increasingly, “social signals” (i.e., social reputation/social shares).
Since PR professionals often are charged with developing effective online content, this article details six steps for creating search engine-friendly content.
Step 1: Set SEO Goals and Objectives
As in nearly all PR activities, the first step in SEO is establishing goals and objectives. Focusing on SEO without clear goals and objectives is like driving without a map or a destination—you don’t know where you’re going and you won’t know when you arrive.
Goals are general statements of purpose that help direct your efforts. Objectives are more specific statements that also are measurable, attainable, research-based and time-bound. Setting SEO goals and objectives not only helps you focus your time and resources, but also can help you demonstrate your effectiveness when the time comes to evaluate success.
SEO goals and objectives can include increasing traffic, boosting search engine rankings, increasing conversions, maintaining positive relationships with publics, combating negative opinions and obtaining feedback. Below are some specific examples of how to phrase your goals and objectives:
- Goal: To increase traffic to our company’s website.
Objective: To increase unique visitors by 25% to our company’s website by year-end. - Goal: To increase conversions on our organization’s donation page.
Objective: To raise at least $25,000 in donations through our organization’s donation page in April.
Step 2: Create a Website Hierarchy
Once you know the goals and objectives you’d like to accomplish through SEO, the next step is to make a website hierarchy. A website hierarchy is an extremely useful tool that helps you get organized so you can make the changes necessary to develop search engine-friendly content.
Essentially, a website hierarchy is a chart or a worksheet that helps you:
- Assess the structure of your website (or build a new one from scratch)
- Determine the appropriate content that belongs on each page
- Identify keywords or keyword phrases to use when optimizing each page
- Specify the links and images to be included on each page
- Write the search engine-optimized content that will help improve your site’s rankings
Once you complete your website hierarchy, you can hand it over to the webmaster so she can make the changes you suggest. This saves time and money by reducing the number of edits required in the Web design process. You can build a website hierarchy as a table using a word processor. See the table below for an example.
To begin, map out all pages on your website so you can see which pages need to be added, deleted or moved to simplify navigation. Remember, one of the keys to SEO is having simple, user-friendly navigation. Once you’ve mapped out your website and made necessary changes to simplify your site structure, summarize the kind of content you want to appear on each page. Doing so will help you in the next step: keyword research.
Step 3: Conducting Keyword Research
The next step in developing search engine-friendly content is to identify commonly searched keywords or keyword phrases associated with your client or organization. There are four steps to generating an effective list of keywords:
- Brainstorm a list of keywords associated with your organization.These keywords can be the names of products, services, executives or industry trends.
- Input your list of keywords into a keyword research tool.One of the most powerful tools is the Google AdWords Keyword Planner (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner).
- Identify trophy keywords or keyword phrases. Trophy keywords or keyword phrases are the most frequently searched terms that are relevant to your site, have a high number of people searching for them and have a low number of competitors trying to get ranked for them. If all of your keywords have high competition, pick the one that is the most specific while still being the most relevant to your content.
- Select one trophy keyword or keyword phrase for each page of your website. Turn back to your website hierarchy and identify one trophy keyword or keyword phrase that applies to each page of your website. List this keyword or keyword phrase in the “keywords” column of your hierarchy. It’s fine to use the same keyword or keyword phrase on multiple pages of your site, as long as it’s relevant to the content on that particular page.
Step 4: Use Your Keywords
Once you’ve identified trophy keywords or phrases for each page on your website hierarchy, it’s time to use these keywords. One way is to incorporate your keyword or phrase throughout the text. A general rule of thumb is to strike a keyword density of 2-3%, meaning your keyword or phrase should comprise not more than 2-3% of your text. One of the most important things to keep in mind is to use these keywords in a natural way. Nothing turns a reader (or a search engine) away faster than awkward writing. Typically it’s best to focus on one subject per page, which in turn means focusing on a single keyword or keyword phrase per page. If the page provides content that covers more than one topic, which should be rare because it could reduce site usability, then use your best judgment as to how many keywords you can naturally accommodate in the text.
It’s also important to use keywords in headings, titles, URLs and any copy “above the fold” on each page (i.e. in the first 100-200 words) since Web crawlers sometimes can be fickle and move along quickly. In addition to sprinkling your keyword or phrase high on the page and throughout the copy, it should also appear in:
- Your site’s URLs
- Headings and subheadings
- Links (anchor links, internal links)
- File names for any file on the page (such as images and PDFs)
- Meta tags in the page’s source code (your webmaster can address these)
- ALT tags on images
- Title tag
- Header tag
- Meta description tag
Finally, since search engines favor user-friendly content, try to use short paragraphs, headings and bullet points throughout. Once you write your keyword-rich content, copy it directly into the website hierarchy. This ensures that your webmaster has all of the information necessary to make recommended changes.
Step 5: Develop a Link-building Strategy
Strong, relevant, keyword-rich content alone is not enough to get highly ranked. You also need to develop a link-building strategy that will encourage people and other websites to link to your content.
Having many high-quality links to your site helps search engine spiders find and index your site and indicate it is relevant. The referring website is casting a vote for your website’s relevance. High-quality links are relevant to your content, well respected and highly ranked with multiple incoming links and few outbound links. The better the referring site, the more weight the site’s vote carries with search engines.
Step 6: a Content Development Strategy
One of the best ways to generate high-quality links is to produce “link bait,” content that attracts attention and makes readers want to share the link. Start by creating a content development calendar. Consider the kind of content your organization can produce and how frequently you can add content. Search engines like fresh, relevant, keyword-rich content. The more you can add this content, the better.
PR pros already produce a good deal of content that can help flesh out a content calendar. The key is to use the SEO rules discussed above to make this content more search engine-friendly. As such, PR practitioners should follow the principles of SEO when developing press releases, blog posts, white papers, backgrounders, fact sheets, case studies or any other type of content they intend to post online.
Step 7: Repeat!
Since search engines like fresh content, it’s important to update your site. That means you should continually:
- Review goals and objectives to make sure they’re still relevant.
- Revise website hierarchy to account for changes.
- Conduct keyword research to revise or add keywords.
- Write new, keyword-rich content and update old content.
- Solicit and build links.
- Generate ideas for new content.
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