Online copy | Best Practices for Articles…

On-page copy | Best Practice Rules

– Use an optimised document structure.
Follow a journalistic format wherein the document starts with a description of the content, then flows from broad discussion of the subject to narrow. In addition to SEO value, they provide the most readable and engaging informational document.

– Make the text on-topic and high quality.
Great writing can provide benefits to rankings, as well as visitors.

– Be consistent.
Once you’ve determined a good formula for your pages, stick to that regimen.

– Bold important key phrases.
Highlights importance of what you’re talking about.

– Target searcher intent.
When you’re writing titles for web pages, keep in mind the search terms your audience employed to reach your site.

SEO Best Practices for Articles

– Ideally a minimum of 250 words of copy per page.

– Include primary keyword / key phrase 5-7 times per page, with at least 1 mention in first 1,000 characters of text.

– Hyperlink 1st mention of primary keyword/key phrase to article/feature with similar topic.

– Repeat topic in the headline – Re-using the title tag of each page as the H1header tag can be valuable from both a keyword targeting standpoint and (⌣́_⌣̀”) user experience improvement.

– Try to stick to one idea per paragraph.

– Use bullet point lists when talking about multiple topics.

– You can have an editorial title thats still optimized: use a colon!
Such as “Feel the Burn: Hot Muscle-Building Exercises”.

Lecturer material, University of Cape Town.