The other part of good website design – getting pages to rank on search engines

By Michael McKown

Imagine you’ve just spent countless hours pouring your heart and soul into crafting the perfect website for your business or your passion project. It’s got all the bells and whistles — stunning visuals, engaging content, and a user interface that navigates like a dream. But here’s the catch: if no one can find your site, all that effort might as well be invisible. This is where SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, comes into play, particularly in how you write the text on your website. 

SEO isn’t just a buzzword; it’s the backbone of digital visibility. When we talk about SEO in the context of website text writing, we’re diving into the art and science of making your content not just readable but discoverable by search engines like Google and Bing. Now, why does this matter? We’ll get to that in a second.

Who am I? As of this writing, I’ve been the head of Ghostwriters Central, Inc., a provider of professional ghostwriting services to clients worldwide for 23 years. I began learning SEO three years before that, in 1999. SEO-friendly writing is a service we offer to clients who want their site pages to be ranked.

First off, let’s talk about visibility. Think of the internet as a vast ocean of information. Without SEO, your site is like a message in a bottle, bobbing aimlessly. SEO acts as a lighthouse, guiding search engines to your content. By optimizing your text, you’re essentially telling search engines, “Hey, here’s the good stuff you should show to people looking for this topic.” This increases your chances of appearing on the first page of search results, where most users tend to focus their attention. 

But SEO isn’t just about attracting clicks; it’s about attracting the right clicks. Through keyword research, which is a core aspect of SEO text writing, you learn what your potential audience is actually typing into search bars. This insight allows you to tailor your content to meet their queries directly, whether they’re looking for “how to bake a cake” or “best SEO practices for small businesses.” By integrating these keywords naturally into your text, you’re not just gaming the system; you’re genuinely responding to the needs and questions of your audience.

Now, let’s chat about user experience. SEO isn’t just for search engines; it profoundly impacts how users interact with your site. SEO-optimized text is typically clearer, more engaging, and easier to read. Why? Because search engines favor content that provides value, which means your text needs to be informative, well-structured, and relevant. This focus on quality naturally leads to better user engagement. People stay longer, read more, and are more likely to come back or share your site. 

Additionally, time spent on a webpage is a search ranking metric. Google notices when visitors stay on a page. It also notices when they quickly “click away.”

Moreover, SEO in text writing helps in establishing credibility and authority in your field. When your site consistently ranks high for certain keywords, it’s not just visibility you gain; you’re also telling the world that you’re a go-to source for that information. Over time, this can translate into trust, which is invaluable in the digital age where information is king.

Another layer to consider is the evolving nature of SEO. It’s not static; search engines update their algorithms frequently to ensure users get the best results. This means SEO strategies need to evolve, and with them, your approach to writing. Today, SEO is as much about user intent, semantic search, and natural language processing as it is about keywords. Writing with SEO in mind now involves creating content that answers questions in a conversational, almost chatty way, mirroring how real people talk and think.

Now, imagine missing out on all this because your text wasn’t optimized. You’d be missing a huge chunk of your potential audience, not to mention the organic traffic that could come your way without spending an extra dime on ads. 

In essence, SEO in website text writing is about making your content work harder for you. It’s about ensuring that all the sweat, creativity, and passion you’ve put into your site doesn’t go to waste by being buried in the digital abyss. Instead, it’s about shining a light on your content, making it accessible, engaging, and, above all, findable. So, whether you’re a blogger, a business owner, or just someone with a story to tell, understanding and applying SEO in your writing isn’t just beneficial; it’s crucial for your voice to be heard in the vast expanse of the internet.

When you, the site owner, have developed text or articles for your site, it’s time to consult with an expert search engine optimizer to determine how best to present the articles on your site for maximum benefit. When a good friend who co-ownsan engineering consulting firm realized I had extensive SEO experience, he asked me to help his business, not with SEO writing per se, but with overall SEO structure and strategy. With my friend in the adjacent seat, I explained how SEO works.

Being unfamiliar with his field of business, I asked how prospective customers would search for what his company offers. I then performed those searches and demonstrated that their long-established website was not ranking for any its most important keyword phrases. He stared slack-jawed at the screen. Suddenly he realized why they seldom-to-never received queries via their site

I drew up a report recommending that the various distinct aspects of their work be separated onto their own pages and those pages be tuned to respond to two primary keyword phrases each. I recommended that the few lines of text on each page be expanded into a few hundred words of description. That owner ignored my advice, and his site, to this day, still does not rank for any of its keyword phrases. Think of the money they’re not making.

A beautiful, highly-functional website can serve your business well, but designers aren’t necessarily well versed in the nuances of SEO. For that beautiful website to pay off, it first needs to be found when potential customers enter a query into a search engine. SEO writing will help your site perform the way you need it to.