How to Write Articles for a Website: Basics and Key Terms

09.06.2018 | SEO, Helpful Tips

Vladyslav Aliinyk, SEO Specialist
at the internet marketing agency Destra

“This is my business — so no one can describe it better than me.” This is a common idea among entrepreneurs. When it’s time to launch a website and present their product to the public, the owner often decides to write the content themselves at first. Inspired, they open a text editor and… nothing. Where to start? Should they say hello? What exactly should they describe? And most importantly — how to write articles for a website so that visitors actually find them through Google search?

Even copywriters often don’t have time to read professional literature and practice new writing techniques. So how could a business owner? That’s why we’ve gathered all the basic information in one article: answers to key questions, an overview of fundamental terms, and rules for writing articles to promote a commercial website. With this minimum knowledge, a reader will be able to write their first text that has a chance to appear in Google search results.

What Are Rewriting, Copywriting, and SEO Copywriting

Copywriting — the creation of original commercial content in the form of text. The goal of such writing is to persuasively describe the benefits of a product or company to increase sales. Anything that makes marketing objects more recognizable, attractive, and desirable through text is the result of copywriting.

Copywriting is a professional craft. Attempts to write advertising text without the proper knowledge only reduce sales and public interest. Electricians have a special warning sign: “Do not enter, danger of death!” Unfortunately, copywriters don’t have an equivalent sign.

Rewriting — creating a unique text based on someone else’s publication. For example, if an author decides to write an article about wall insulation, finds an interesting text online, and rewrites it in their own words — that’s rewriting (from “rewrite” — to rewrite).

SEO Copywriting — creating unique text optimized for search engines. These texts include so-called keywords: phrases that regular users type into the search bar.

If a text doesn’t contain relevant keywords for the given topic, it won’t be able to appear in search results without buying paid ad placements.

Text uniqueness is a somewhat abstract concept that shows how original a given text is. If you copy content from another site and paste it into your own blog, you risk facing penalties from search engines. It’s called “abstract” because different systems measure uniqueness using different algorithms.

Uniqueness is measured in percentages. You can check it online directly in your browser using special services. For example, if you paste this text into the field at www.text.ru, it will show 100% uniqueness. If a phrase has already been used in another article on a similar topic and exactly repeats its meaning, the service will highlight it in red, reducing the uniqueness score.

Achieving the maximum value isn’t always necessary, but it’s best not to let uniqueness drop below 90%.

A search engine bot, figuratively speaking, treats headings as an independent part of the text. That’s why you don’t need to keep a 400-character gap before or after them in the main body.

It’s undesirable to start or end a paragraph with a keyword. The only exception is when such phrasing would sound natural in real speech. For example: “Sell windows Kyiv, deliver faster than anyone” — is a terrible way to start a paragraph.

The most relevant keywords for the company’s activity should be placed in the main title and subheadings. The more subheadings a text contains, the easier and more enjoyable it is for the reader to go through the content. And as a bonus, this allows you to include more keywords naturally within the text.

The idea of cramming all keywords at the beginning or end of a text, separated by commas, is doomed to fail. Moreover, keywords should not be placed within the same sentence, in consecutive sentences, or even within the same paragraph. A search engine bot will immediately suspect keyword stuffing and mark the page as unworthy of ranking. In the best case, it will simply drop out of search results; in the worst case, the entire site may be penalized for multiple violations.

Rules for Writing SEO Text

The ideal interval between keywords is around 400 characters. If this is maintained, the search engine bot perceives the keyword phrase as a natural part of the text.

How to Write an SEO Article

There are two main approaches to writing SEO-optimized text:

First, complete the text and then integrate the keywords into it.
First, select the key phrases relevant to the topic, and then build the text around them.

We strongly recommend the second option. In the first case, the list of queries that can be integrated smoothly into the text is reduced fivefold. At the same time, the keywords will stand out while reading and cause irritation. In the second case, you can choose a dozen queries, and they will all look harmonious and natural since the essence and content of the text are tailored to them in advance.

Conclusions

With enough patience and by following the basic rules, even a teenager could write a passable SEO-optimized text. The real question is: will anyone actually want to read it? And could that same teenager handle setting up Google Ads or properly building a semantic core?

Even if you try to replace a copywriter yourself, you’ll still need an SEO specialist to configure the site, fix internal errors, and place links on external resources. If you then try to partially master their skills, you’ll still end up needing a programmer. And this cycle will continue until the business owner becomes a universal internet marketing soldier. But will the business even survive until that glorious day? That’s anyone’s guess.

If you don’t currently have the time to earn a new profession, reach out to Destra for help with your texts. We’ll describe and present your product in such a way that potential customers will fall in love with it from the very first line, buy it, and come back for more.

In our next article, we’ll explain how to write an advertising article. Subscribe so you don’t miss it. You can also check out the piece on the importance of website usability, which is already available on the blog.