No one knows your services and products as well as you. Because of that, you’d think you, or someone in your company, would be the best person to be writing content for your website.
However, when you understand that content needs to align with Google’s algorithms, it might make you think twice.

The content on your website is being read by two audiences: your prospects, and search engines’ algorithms.

Your website showcases the knowledge you possess of your industry, products and services, and how they benefit your customers. Google’s algorithms are also scanning the content to determine how well it should rank in its search results for the keywords your prospects are using to find you.

We research the keyword phrases people key into search engines, as well as the questions they’re asking on their phones.

With that in mind, if you share the wealth of knowledge that lives within your company, having a writer who understands SEO organize it, is the better way to go. That is, assuming you want your website to be found in search engines for people searching – not by your company name – but by what your company does.

Anyone searching your company name will find your website, assuming your company is the only one with that name.

But if more people don’t know you (or us) than do, they’re going to be searching by the services you’re providing, or products you’re selling.

Writing content for your website.

Writing content for your website is something that requires a lot of time and attention. Of course, we can teach you about what goes into writing content, but that’s time-consuming as well.

Following is some of the information we share to help educate people about copy and SEO. You can click the image below to watch a 7-minute video that covers the elements on good on-page SEO.

Here’s an abbreviated list of the things that are covered in the video.

1. A 300-word minimum per page. Google’s algorithms prefer to have a minimum of 300 words on each page, and text on presentations definitely falls short of that. So you’d want to expand the text to be 300 words on each of the inside pages (not the homepage) of your website. (For example, this blog post has 1,400 words.)
2. Incorporating keywords into the text. Presentation copy usually doesn’t include keywords. When their presentation was written, the keyword research hadn’t even been done.
3. Keyword density is something to be aware of when writing. Keyword density on each page shouldn’t be more than 5% of the total word count on that page. (Google’s algorithms check these things!) And it’s important to focus on keywords for that page’s specific content, focusing on a specific keyword phrase for each page on your website.
4.  Incorporating keywords into the subheads. Search engines give more “weight” to headlines and subheads than body copy. With that in mind, it’s important to include keywords in your headlines and subheads. This also helps break up your copy, making it easier to read.
5. Using links on each page. Google’s algorithms like to follow links. Links to other internal pages, and outbound links to authoritative websites help the credibility of your article.
6. How you name your links matters. A bad linking practice is using the word like “see this page” or “click here” to link to another page in your site or another website. It’s important to give the reader (and search engines) a hint of what they are linking to in the link itself. So instead of “click here” to link to your brand management page, the link should say “Read more about our brand management expertise here.”

Blogging is critical.

The more you post fresh content on your website, the more Google and other search engines re-index your website keeping it relevant.

Every item listed above needs to be incorporated into every blog, along with adding Page Titles and Meta Descriptions. This is called Content Marketing.

In addition, adding images to your blog posts adds interest, just as it does with social media posts. And images are part of good SEO, so you’d also need to subscribe to a good stock photo service for access to good images.

If you want to get the most out of your website’s SEO, it is critical to do all the items outlined above, for every  page, and every blog or article you write.

You can certainly prepare the content for your own website, and we encourage it if you want to understand, and take your website’s SEO seriously. You are the ultimate expert of your company, so you’re certainly the best person to write the first draft of the content.

However, every client who has opted to do this themselves, while having the best of intentions, hasn’t been able to follow through. And it’s completely understandable, because:

1. Most folks aren’t comfortable writing to begin with, so they don’t have the inclination to write for a website
2. They’re even more nervous when it come to writing for a website when there’s so much at stake
3. They already have 100 other things on their plate, so meeting deadlines for their website isn’t their first priority, and
4. Writing takes way longer than you’d expect. If you’ve never had to track your time (like we do every day doing projects like this), you’ll probably seriously underestimate how long writing takes.

From our experience, the odds are against you doing the writing, especially incorporating best SEO practices, in a timely way.

This is why you might want to consider having the web design firm, or a writer who is well-versed in writing for the web, take care of writing content for your website.

What determines how successful you’ll be with your SEO?

1. How much SEO your competitors are doing. If they’re not doing much, that gives you a huge advantage. We can get an idea how much SEO your competition is doing by looking at their websites.
2. How serious you are with your blogging. This includes how frequently you post, and how diligent you are using the keywords we’ve researched and provided.
3. The keyword competition. You’ll probably never be able to rank for a keyword like “customer experience” because it’s a broad term, has a lot of competition, others have been using it for a long time (so there’d be a lot of catch up) and large companies have been using it, so it’d be tough to compete with their resources.
4. The market you’re in. The smaller your target market (ie: Columbus vs. Ohio vs. the entire U.S.) the easier it is to start ranking for your keywords.
5. Adding keywords to your Page Titles and Meta Descriptions.
6. Naming the images in your website with keywords. When naming images, we use keywords in them, which helps the synapses of the internet start to associate those keywords with your website.
7. Using keywords in the headlines, subheads and body copy. Also a way to help the internet’s synapses (ie: algorithms) start to associate those keywords with your website.

What you should have done by a writer.

When getting an estimate from a writer who might be doing your website content, make sure they have the following steps listed in their proposal.

1. They’ll do keyword research based on your initial input
2. They’ll share all the keyword options they investigated, and a list of the top 10 keywords they recommend they use for your website. Ask them to show you examples of other keyword research they’ve done so you know what to expect and what kind of “keyword research report” you’ll be getting
3. They’ll send you a list of questions to think about before you, and they, talk specifics about your content
4. They’ll set up either an in-depth call(s) or meeting(s) to review the questions to get your perspective on each of your services
5. They’ll write the text for the entire website, and making edits after your review
6. They’ll write the blog posts. They should tell you they’ll subscribe to industry blogs (you can help direct them to the right sources) so they’ll be up on trends and issues in your industry. This helps them determine subjects to write about and address on your blogs.

Hopefully, this gives you the background you’ll need to make an informed decision about who should be writing the content for your website. It isn’t a decision to be made without having this type of background information.

From here, we hope you’ll be able to make the best decision for your situation when it comes to writing content for your website.