CREATING CONTENT

Creating optimised content for SEO

Having SEO-optimised copy is essential to supporting a high search ranking. We aim to ensure that, when our visitors arrive at a page from a search engine, they are able to see immediately how the page relates to the query they have searched. ​

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To enable this to happen, consider these things:​

  • Begin the page with a summary paragraph.​
  • Content should be easily scannable. Use frequent subheadings and keep paragraphs short.​
  • Use subheadings for at least every 4–5 paragraphs. This will enable us to promote keywords and also make the webpage easier to scan.​
  • Use bulleted lists whenever they make sense.

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Consider the purpose of your content​

The first step when creating a piece of content is to make sure that you are clear about its purpose, which will help you determine how to structure your content and ensure that you are using language appropriate for your target audience.​

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Be clear on:​

  • Who are the potential audiences for this content?​
  • What is the aim of the content?​
  • What is the content about?​
  • What are the user needs the content will fulfil?​

 

Page content​

Keywords should be used as early as possible on the page and repeat them throughout the rest of the copy, in order to improve the search engine ranking for these core phrases. The best approach is to use variants and associated phrases throughout the page rather than simply repeating the same keywords.​

However, make sure that these techniques are not used at the expense of creating a page that flows naturally.​

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Remember to:​

  • Mention keywords early.​
  • Use both primary and secondary keywords​.
  • Target long-tail keywords i.e. highly specific (full phrase) search queries (less competitive terms from more relevant users) e.g. What is contract staffing, organic coffee shops near me.
  • Use customer language, especially typical user search phrases.​
  • Follow our recommended image sizes as if they are too large this will impact SEO​

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Headings and subheadings​

Search engines consider words within headings as more important than those within body text.​

  • Use page headings and subheadings to highlight your keywords which will help search engines, and end users understand the key points on the page.​
  • Ensure every page contains only one H1 tag.​
  • Keep headings and subheadings to 10 words or less.​

 

Link text​

Many search engines use the text of links to a page as part of their relevancy criteria, with well written link text will help you to take advantage of this.​

  • Ensure link text makes sense out of context.​
  • Use keywords for the destination page within the link text.​
  • Don’t create links that read “click here” or “read more” or other non-specific phrases.​

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Imagery​

Images can contribute to search engine optimisation by increasing the use of keywords on the page. Descriptively–named images can also be displayed in image search results.​

  • Include relevant keywords in image filenames.​
  • Use keywords in the image’s “alt” attribute, if appropriate, up to a maximum of 80 characters in the document properties tab, before being published.

 

Keyword density​

Search engines calculate a page’s relevance for a topic based partially on its keyword density. This is the proportion of occurrences of search term to the total number of words on the page.​

  • Ideally page length should be 500 words plus but it does depend on the type of page you are creating
  • Put most important keywords in first few paragraphs.​
  • Do not overuse keywords to the detriment of the page flow.​

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Metadata​

Meta data is the data that provides information and describes the contents of a page.​ Meta title and description appear in SERP (search engine results page).

 

Meta title (aka title tag)​

Should include keywords and indicate the topic of a page.

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Meta description​

  • Meta description should be unique to the page, do not duplicate meta description content across multiple pages.​
  • Make sure the description relates specifically to that page’s content.​
  • Ensure it makes sense out of context of the page.​
  • Keep the meta–description to between 120–160 characters. This prevents it being truncated by search engines if used in search results.​


 

PDFs and documents​

Ensure documents have a proper title, specified in the document properties tab, before being published.