SEO and How It Relates to Requested Content

Sometimes, a customer will request articles in which the author has used SEO. SEO stands for "search engine optimization." SEO is an important aspect of drawing readers to websites, because it means that website content has been written in such a way that it becomes attractive to search engines. Search engines are the number one way by which readers arrive on a website, so having content that ranks well with search engines is essential for websites that count on traffic for revenue.

But how do search engines rank websites or web pages? Search engines use algorithms to calculate how relevant a page is by the content and other information it contains. Websites may also be considered more "valuable" to search engines if they are well-established (i.e., older) or have a lot of links pointing to them from other sources. However, this is the website owner's problem, not the author writing content for that website.

One way in which a page can be made to seem more relevant to a search engine is by using keywords or keyword phrases. These are words or phrases that a person would input into a search engine's search field to produce a list of results. For example, let's say Maybelline has discovered a lump on her nose, and she wants to figure out what it is. She types into the search engine of her choice, "lump on nose."

The search engine brings up a list of pages that include the words "lump" and "nose." If Maybelline has included quotations marks around her search, the search engine might also list results for that particular phrase.

Now, if you were writing an article about lumps on noses, you would want to include variations of the phrase "lumps on nose." Search engines will usually ignore some words for the sake of relevance ,and these days they are smart enough to return results that use both singular and plural versions of the search phrase, so "lumps on your nose," "lump on my nose," "lumps on noses," would all be okay phrases to use in an article that has been search-engine-optimized for this topic.

Articles on this topic might include:

Causes of Lumps on Noses
What To Do About Lumps on Noses
What If I Have a Lump on My Nose?
Types of Lumps on Noses: Pimples, Blisters, Spider Eggs, Bug Bites, Alien Babies, Broken Noses, Too Much Alcohol, Poison Ivy, Moles

The article should contain enough uses of this phrase to allow the search engine to notice that it is relevant and useful, but not so many that the search engine identifies the article as spam. Search engine algorithms change all of the time, and search engines are starting to develop a sense for more natural-sounding writing that is not written specifically to increase search engine rank, so the number of times a certain phrase should be used varies. Website owners usually know what percentage of keyword density they prefer, and if they post a request for SEO articles, they may specify.

Does this mean you should be producing SEO content? Not really. Customers are all looking to optimize for different phrases, and they can do this to articles themselves if they purchase the articles for full rights or request content optimized for specific phrases. However, it is good practice to include particular phrases that are relevant to the topic for both SEO and clarity purposes. For example, if you're writing an article about "pink pillows," it's better to use the phrase "pink pillows" in sentences rather than continually using a pronoun like "they" to refer back to "pink pillows."

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