Antony Williams Vadassery

Tea Time Reads!

Can content be a “single”💍 king?

Before we read, let us just re-spell it as c”O”ntent and not c”U”ntent. The correct sound while speaking should be as ‘O’ and not ‘U’!

I do not want you to change your perspective about – content. But think this for a moment. What if you wrote an amazing article post on your blog in 2018 and hardly anyone knew about it except for your friends as usual?

Then what if your article could upgrade somebody else’s life?

What if you missed that ‘bus‘ wherein — maybe ‘that‘ someone who would have read your article post might have hired you as the Head of Content for his/er company?

This is why I am against content being the king all alone.

Doesn’t he need a “Queen” like all other kings? 

Then who is his Queen👑?

Well, that’s correct, it’s none other than “SEO”!

She is his queen for sure, without the queen a king cannot win, not even in a chess game, true?

This is why just like the King and Queen – a mix of SEO and Content Writing is the best option to ensure you would not miss that bus nor train or even that flight. Almost everyone is in the race to get on the first page of Google search that too on the top three list at least. Else you are less noticeable otherwise!

And like always if you are not on the front page then you are on that graveyard, where only very few visits on special occasions.

Hence even if you simply write and publish a yet-to-be-viral, King Content without SEO ‘ing(Queen) the content in such a fashion that the robots find your post/page on a jiffy while crawling through the WWW to show the results to that fantastic audience, where that somebody might get you to the next level of ranking beyond the search engines.

If your end result is influencing a customer to buy your product/service. Then your content is the only way to persuade them to click that call-to-action-button to convert into a sale. 

But this is possible only if your content is shown to the correct audience, right? 

And SEO can do that magic here. I have seen people publish out-of-the-world King content but fail to optimise (Queen SEO) it as per the search engines checklist.

No audience will ram into your content just like that. It has to be shown to them when they type in those keywords in the search engines. Hence, only if the search engines can interpret your content it would exhibit it to your audience. So you do not want the spiders/crawlers to miss your content. 

How can you optimize an article so that the robots scan it?

#1] Find A will-read, eye-hooking & emotional-atyachar Title for your article to lure the audience. 

If you crack this half of your worry is settled here. 

Use support tools like – SEOPressor Blog Title Generator, ShareThrough Headline Analyzer, HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator, Portent’s Content Idea Generator, Tweak Your Biz and more learning, plus the local SEO tagging via Google My Business platform.

Don’t forget this – 3 Powerful Tools to Choose the Right Blog Topic Which You Probably Didn’t Know!

#2] Audience Keywords – how to know the most searched keywords.

Think like your audience, even you are one too, right?

You are also a consumer, so wear their shoes and start thinking from that point-O-view. If you are going to buy a product/service what keywords would you type on the google search or bing search or maybe where will you go first searching for other than those malls. What short or long keywords are generally used by people who surf the world wide web to find a specific product/service.

Use support tools like – GoogleTrends, KeywordTool.io, WordStream and more.

Don’t forget this – Never stuff too many keywords in your content, but try to use it effectively!

#3] Write a good piece of Meta Description, don’t just scribble!

As this is what the reader would understand after checking out your title as to what you have to offer for them in short. It is like a tiny summary of what the audience could achieve by clicking into your link. Now ain’t that serious?

Don’t forget this – You are writing content for your audience first and only second for the search engine. Hence do not be too curious about the meta description, but make it simple to read and understand!

#4] Give priority to add internal links first only with the relevant stuff, and then focus on getting external backlinks from the trustworthy websites again only with relevant classic interesting content.

When I say internal links – it should be other shielding content from your same website. Hope you got that?

And external links – well you got that, don’t you? {else let me know in the comments below for a happy backlink}

Don’t forget this – Any backlink you add must and should be trustworthy and have authentic read-worthy content!

#5] An image that would speak about your content and catch the readers attention should be one highlight of your article.

Research says that an article with an image would get 70% more click than one without. Well, I am sure you clicked into this blog post by seeing the feature image, right? {Let me know otherwise, I would love to change it right away}

Don’t forget this – Never use an image with copyright, there is a heck lot of free images available on the web. Tag your keyword as the ALT text, resize the image for clarity and visibility.

#6] Can your content be read on the mobile phone?

Latest trends reveal that the audience is mostly consuming content via a mobile platform. So is your content/website mobile responsive else AMP it, else you would lose traffic.

Don’t forget this – Your content must be readable from any platform – Desktop/laptop, tablet, mobile and even on the TV! Hope you got what I meant? 

#7] SSL certification, Reading time, Author details and Call-to-action?

Do ensure that your content is safe for the visitors by double-checking if your website is SSL certified. Let know the audience about the estimated time required to read your article, this would ensure they stick around for some time at least. 

Don’t forget this – Why do you write amazing content to attract those bees into your domain, duh? End the read with the next step of action the reader should consider. Whether to buy your product/service or just even to subscribe to your newsletter for future sales. This is one of the best lead generation technique I have bumped into so far. Yes, that’s what digital marketing is all about, what’s your catch?

Just to let you know, I experimented content optimisation for search engines with a lot of plugins to see if it actually works, to check if the “most talked about” SEO Content Writing was real!

Hence narrowed into the below brain freezing list and bang 💥I got stars⭐ in my eyes🤩.

#1) RANKMATH — 

can seriously boost you with the math to rank your content up there even with the free version.

The best part is their easy to use interface. Extremely easy, even a baby could play it! There is also an option to add more than one set of focused keywords with crucial support on the schema markup, unlike the free version of Yoast plugin. And comes the ultimate part, their Co-Founder – Bhanu Ahluwalia replies to your emails, now ain’t that cool?

#2) YOAST — 

can really toast your content and cook it up as the best breakfast for the crawlers.

But I found it a bit difficult to use when it comes to tagging the focused keywords as it doesn’t allow long-tail keywords {Guess only the Pro Version would allow this}. Am working on this to find out more if it actually missed something in between. But then this plugin is much heavier in size with a better user-friendly readability check, unlike RankMath.

#3) SMARTCRAWL — 

can juggle your content into an SEO garnished pudding in 20 minutes. Yes, you heard it that’s all it takes!

This plugin also allows you to integrate your stuff with the MOZ SEO tools, unlike Yoast or RankMath moreover especially the former throws in an error notification on WordPress “stating to remove other installed SEO plugins“, ain’t that cute?  

The Conclusion ‘Returns’ – 

So if content is the king then SEO is unquestionably the queen.

Don’t forget this – Try using one of the plugins mentioned above and learn to optimise your content into Robot readable format after it is human appealing.

Would love to discover your thoughts from the </comments>🔊 section!

PS: #mustreads on <King> Content Writing & SEO </Queen> collage

The Ultimate Guide To Content Creation Strategy by Sharmeen

A Deep Dive into Know-That-Basics of SEO by SVN Prasad

Must-Know: Tips to Become a Pro in Content Writing by Divya Subramanian

Get ‘High’ With SEO – At Page Rankings by Rashmi Nambiar