How to write content for Google

A lot of my clients ask me how to write content for Google. So I put together a few of my key points for you.

Writing content is one of the most important parts of creating or updating a website. It includes all the content on your blog and every single page on your site. Google takes in the whole picture when deciding where to place you in search results.

 

More is more

Websites with lots of high-quality content are what Google ranks above others. Ideally, you should have at least 500 words on every page, to ensure that you appear to an authority on the subjects that you’re writing content around.

 

Don’t keyword stuff

Adding in lots of keywords into your pages that aren’t relevant or don’t have any context within the sentence is frowned upon by Google. If it sees you doing this, it will mark you down in ranking.
Google has a reading level of around eight years old, but with a much more extensive vocabulary, it can understand if you are talking about a subject, or if you’re just adding in keywords to rank higher. Your content should be well thought out, clearly written and have keywords that are relevant.

 

Is it useful?

Answer questions that your customers have with your content. Write content around the usual questions you get asked, and Google will use your content to answer those questions for people. This content could be through writing a blog, a frequently asked question section or content on your product pages. However, make sure you are answering it clearly, and the page has over 500 words.

 

Easy to read

Google scores your website pages for readability, which means it checks how easy your content is to understand. There are some great tools to check this for you before you post content, to ensure your content is clear and concise.

 

Make it logical

Lay your content out in a logical order. Start with an overview and finish with a summary. Break your content in the middle into easily digestible chunks, using headers and paragraphs. Don’t use overlong sentences that carry on, or one lump on content, that’s hard to read.
Before writing a content sit down and write a plan for how it will flow.

 

Fresh it best

Google regularly looks at websites, and if it thinks it’s not getting updated, it won’t rank you as highly as a website that is getting updated on a regular basis. The easiest way to do this is by creating a blog; however, you have to make sure you commit the time to update it; otherwise, it will just appear empty and out of date. Creating new content is one of the easiest ways to write content for Google.

 

Linking to key pages

Internal linking will help build the authority of specific articles and information on your website. The more links that point to an individual page, the more “points” Google will give it, helping it appear higher in search results.
All these links should have clear anchor text, meaning you should avoid phrases like “read more'” and instead use “read more about how to create great content” as the link text.

 

Key Tools

If you want to write content for Google, there are some essential tools which make content writing much easier and will help you see if your website is what Google needs.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a content editor that supports you with your grammar. Input your content into the editor, and it will help you see where you’re going right and wrong. You can also install a Google Chrome extension, so you can see errors directly when typing into your website.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin, which is one of the top tools for any WordPress site. It helps you see how readable your content is, whether it rank highly for key terms that you input and enables you to update your metadata snippets directly from within WordPress.

If you’re looking for some help to get your website ranking higher and more advice on how to write content for Google that, see more about my online marketing services.