Hiring a freelance writer to help you produce keyword-rich content is the best first step to boosting your website’s ranking on Google and other search engines, which use sophisticated algorithms to sort through and display the most relevant websites to a Google user’s search terms. Almost any professional freelance writer can produce content for your website but only a few understand how to integrate keywords naturally into text that is easy to read and performs well on search engines.
Before you hire a freelance writer to create keyword-rich content for your website, you should know a little bit about keywords and learn how you can get the most out of them. While some freelance writers are willing to come up with keywords for steady clients, you may find that most writers prefer it when you supply the list of relevant terms. This means you should know how to determine the most important keywords for your website. Furthermore, you should develop an educated eye that can spot and correct any unnatural flow of content where the writer has jammed in keywords or left some out.
Supply a List of Keywords to Your Freelance Writer
Keywords are those words and phrases people type into Google or other search engines to find companies just like yours.
Short tail keywords are very short, one or two-word phrases that provide generic results. Typing in the keyword “coats,” for example, will return millions of websites regarding all sorts of coats, from pictures of children’s jackets to articles about various types of dog fur. The short tail keyword phrase “women’s coats” removes all the canine references. Provide a list of short tail keywords to your freelance writer to weave into the home page and other main pages.
Long tail keywords are phrases that contain three or four keywords. Internet users will type long tail keywords when they know what they want and are close to making a purchase. A long tail keyword phrase could be “women’s blue winter coat” or “most nutritious dry puppy food.” Give your freelance writer a list of long tail keywords to integrate into content appearing on point of sale pages.
Creating a list of keywords is easier than it seems. While many internet sites offer keyword finder tools, like Google AdWords, most require you to sign up for their service and a few even ask for money. WordPot offers a good free keyword tool. You can also create a great keyword list by simply writing down all the short tail and long tail phrases that best describe your company’s products or services.
Keyword arrangement is important too. Ask your writer to stitch one or two instances of the most important keyword or phrase into the opening and closing paragraphs. Tell the wordsmith to use the others keywords in an f-shaped pattern on the page, with the bulk of the keywords appearing in the top two paragraphs, as most readers tend to read only the first couple of paragraphs on any web page before they begin to skim.
Instruct your content creator to avoid keyword stuffing, which is using a keyword a ridiculous number of times on one page. Keyword stuffing annoys readers and some search engines penalize websites that engage in it. There is no set limit on the percentage of keywords per page, but you may wish to restrict keyword density if your website’s content sounds robotic or “spammy.”
Finally, ask your writer to use keywords in the title and in at least one subheading to boost search engine results. Using keywords in these ways will bring your website to the top of the search engine results pages.
Now that you understand a bit more about integrating keywords into your content, glance over this article again and look at how I have used the short tail keyword phrase “freelance writer” in this piece. The phrase appears heavily in the beginning, in at least one subhead, and again at the end.
In 15 years as a writer and small business owner, Lynn H has helped countless SMBs improve search engine results and increase website visits in a way that really pumps up sales.
