7 Search Engine Optimization Tips for Website and Blog Articles

Many freelancers, myself included, write articles for websites or blogs that accept freelance submissions. Search engine optimization (SEO) is perhaps the buzzword of online writing. Optimizing website article content for readers to discover with search engines is today a fundamental aspect of online writing. So, it's important for freelancers who submit articles to websites or blogs to at least be familiar with and incorporate basic search engine optimization practices into their content.

To put it simply, SEO is the practice of enhancing website page visibility in search engines like Google and Bing to increase pageviews, which amounts to more people reading a site's content. It is a digital marketing practice that aims to enhance article pages' search engine rank for relevant keywords (search phrases). The business of websites revolves around pageviews that stimulate revenue on monetized sites. More people will find, open, and read article pages that rank higher in search engines, especially Google.

Freelance writers need to enhance article search engine optimization for a few reasons. Firstly, because monetized client websites will benefit from search-optimized article content that expands their readership. If your articles are well optimized for search engines, then they will improve the overall visibility of the websites that include them. Search engine optimization is especially important for copywriting in the digital marketing space, and some copywriting firms provide more specific SEO guidelines for their contributors to follow.

Some websites also offer remuneration (pay) directly based on article pageview performance. For example, the Stadium Rant website that includes my articles currently offers $1.25 for every 1,000 article pageviews generated. The Medium publishing platform offers remuneration for articles on it based on member reads, which is directly connected to pageview traffic.

(An Honest Review of the Medium Publishing Platform)

So, optimizing articles for search engines is beneficial for freelance writers when remuneration offered depends on pageviews or readership. However, freelancers should also try to apply article SEO as part of their services to clients, especially in the copywriting field. You can apply SEO to your website or blog articles with these search engine optimization tips.

Research target keywords to include within your articles. A keyword is a search phrase entered into a search engine (typically Google). Articles with higher-volume keywords will likely generate more pageviews because more people are entering their keyphrases into search engines. Although you can make up your own Google search phrases to target, it's better to utilize a keyword research tool to identify keywords with higher search volumes. Not all keyword research tools are freely available, but some are.

WordStream is a freely available keyword tool. To utilize that tool, open this WordStream page. Enter a suitable keyword for your article content to check its volume. For example, entering the phrase "search engine optimization tips" into WordStream shows that the keyword has a search volume of 2,900. So, "search engine optimization tips" would be a solid keyword to include in an article that provides SEO hints.

Semrush is a partly free keyword tool that works similarly. Enter a target keyword for an article, and then view a list of similar search phrases and volume totals for them. However, you can only enter a limited number of keywords into Semrush for a day without a subscription.

When you've researched a primary keyword, try to distribute that key phrase relatively evenly throughout your article (every few paragraphs). Articles that only include keywords in a few paragraphs confuse Google. Search engines won't know exactly what subjects your articles cover if you don't include keywords throughout.

Google is a text-based and visual search engine. If you enter a keyword into Google, you can view a multitude of image search results. Clicking an image search result will direct you to the page that includes it. Adding pictures to your articles will enable users to find them via the Images tab in Google search. So, it's worth including some images in articles for SEO purposes and to enhance their visual appeal.

(How to Find Free-to-Use Images for Writing Projects)

To enhance image SEO, give picture files descriptive names that will help search engines better understand their content. Your article images will rank better in search results if you include researched keywords within their file names. Adding hyphens (which are more reliable than spaces) in between words in image file names will also help search engines better understand their content.

It might be tempting to stuff keywords into articles, given the importance of search phrases to SEO. However, avoid overusing target search phrases in your articles as Google penalizes keyword stuffing. If Google detects keyword stuffing in an article, it will lower its page rank to reduce its search visibility.

So, be careful not to overuse keywords in your articles. A keyword density of five to 10 per 1,000 words is a good target to aim for, but you might get away with 10-15. The most important places to include primary keywords in your articles are the opening and closing paragraphs. Also, make sure the primary titles of your articles include keywords.

Internal links are hyperlinks that open other pages on the same website. External links are those hyperlinks that open pages on different websites. Including both types of links in your articles can improve where they rank in Google.

The benefit of adding internal links to other articles on the same site might be more obvious. Adding a hyperlink for opening a related article on the same site will increase the pageviews for its page and pass authority to it (known as link juice). Internal links also help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of websites better, which can enhance a site's overall SEO.

Adding external source links can enhance the authority of your articles, as doing so highlights to a search engine that they're more thoroughly researched and trustworthy. Linking to external pages that are closely related to your article's content can help search engines better identify its niche and relevance for ranking. Plus, external links enhance user engagement on websites.

Creating links to your articles is one of the best ways you can drive referral traffic to them. You can utilize social media platforms like LinkedIn and X to set up author pages that include links to your articles. If you have a blog, add links to it to increase referral traffic. As search bots follow links to find content, adding links to your articles on social media or blogs will help bots discover the sites that include them for faster indexing.

However, social media links are generally nofollow ones. Search engines don't utilize nofollow links for ranking pages. Thus, creating backlinks to articles with social media does not directly enhance SEO in that respect.

Including subheadings in articles helps search engines better interpret their main topics, which is a significant ranking factor. Subheadings can also enhance article readability, structure, and engagement, which can help to lower bounce rates (the percentage of readers who leave sites after viewing a single page) for pages. Adding subheadings with keywords included can enhance article SEO by boosting targeted search query relevance. Try to add subheadings with researched key phrases in them when you can.

Keyword cannibalization can arise when article pages on the same website target duplicate or similar keywords. Duplicated or similar keywords across your articles can confuse search engines. Articles on the same site that share duplicate or very similar keywords will compete against each other and rank lower in search engines as a result.

One of the golden rules of SEO is: Never use the same keyword across different articles. Make sure the key phrases you use are unique for alternative articles on the same website. That will be easier to do if you avoid too much thematic overlap between articles. To identify potential keyword cannibalization, try entering target key phrases in the search box on the website that includes your articles to find any that might share the same, or overly similar, search phrases.

The search engine optimization tips discussed here will enhance the SEO value of your articles when applied. Effective SEO will increase the visibility of your article pages on the internet. Better page search visibility will increase article revenue generated on monetized sites for websites and their writers. Freelancers who focus on SEO for increased online visibility and passive marketing can also attract new clients more easily than those who don't.