Okay, previously I covered general Search Engine Optimization. Now, let’s discuss writing articles for both search engines and readers alike. To do that we must understand there are four basic types of popular articles.
First, expository articles. Basically, these types of articles explain something – just the facts type articles like you might see in college text books. Highlights of these types of articles include facts, figures, charts, and other supplementary items that prove the point of the article.
Some examples of articles that make use of this style include how-to articles, recipes, business, technical/scientific, and news. These are basically articles that are empty of “calls to action” such as “you have to play this game/watch this movie/view this clip” etc.
Next up is descriptive style articles. This style of writing is often seen in reviews, travel, event or location based, or poetry to name a few. The point of this style of writing is to give as much detail as possible to the reader so that they can visualize, possibly even “feel” what you are meaning for them to experience.
Often reviews of video games or movies are descriptive but so are poetry writings and retellings of adventures that you may have had. Descriptive writing can carry many different genres and topics.
Third we have narrative style writing. This is basically the telling of a story (real or fictional). Authors such as Stephen King are well known for mixing narrative and descriptive styles in their works. Narratives often feature characters with spoken parts, a beginning to the story and an ending.
Finally, we have persuasive writing. This is most often found in speeches. The point of persuasive style is to convince readers of something. Writing in this style is filled with feeling, reasons, arguments and other “calls to action” for the reader to act upon. Advertising, opinion pieces, and editorials are often squarely in the persuasive category of writing.
Now that we have writing styles covered, just what makes the body of a good article? There are no guaranteed styles that will turn eyeballs to your writing or get people to share your work. That doesn’t mean that you cannot at least attempt to spur action from the reader with a little bit of work on your part.
One way to get search engines, and the general reader, to put more weight to your writing is to link to your other works. Also, if you can get others that have a more popular website, series of articles, or generally more weight with search engines to link to your articles then more people will see it. The value of backlinking is often changed, but never diminished completely, with regards to search engines.
Your chances of getting readers begins with your title. This is the first thing that is shown in search results, web page aggregates, etc. You may want to go for the “clickbait” style headline but this only works for a brief period (and search engines are working on weeding these types of articles out of results). Often giving readers a relevant title will do more good towards building a bond with readers than using a clickbait headline.
Just what is a clickbait headline?
Think of headlines that spur you to click without really knowing why you are clicking other than being “nosy”. Titles such as “You won’t believe what X celebrity did Saturday night” or “Florida man checks the mail, he got more than junk mail” or similar headlines are clickbait. They often lead to pointless articles that would otherwise not have garnered a click.
Bringing in the reader, and the search engines is complicated. You need to have articles that are timely – popular with readers who are searching for them. Think about what is popular on the web today, current events for instance. Writing for the current reader is often an ongoing job as tastes change by the hour, what is trending on Google or Twitter at 9 am on Tuesday will probably not be trending at 7 pm on Friday.
Okay, we covered titles and writing styles. Now let’s finish this one with one last piece of information that will help bring in readers from search engines. The first paragraph of your article. The first 140 characters or so of your first paragraph.
This is often what is automatically pulled by search engines to show search users a bit of information on the article (displayed underneath your article title).
Bing shows the first 120 or so characters (counting spaces).
Google shows the first 156 or so characters (counting spaces)
That means, you have just about 100 to 150 characters to compliment your title to urge readers to click your article over the ones surrounding it in the search results.
Use those spaces correctly and reap the rewards.
Writing is tough. Writing and ranking well with Google, or other search engines, is even tougher. With a bit of dedication and focus to attention you can improve your search engine placement.
Below is a pic of this article using http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/
Notice that none of my keywords are over 2.5% density (the general sweet spot with search engines) in the article .