Good to Know

Writing Well for Search Engines

Search engines are in the business to provide most direct and valuable answers to end users. It is often mentioned that Google invests heavily in semantics and linguistics. It is obvious why. Their search engine is trying to learn our language, reading, writing and seeing. Looking long term, the most successful search engines will understand the difference between well written and not so well written material. Guess which article will rank higher, putting other factors aside? Here is how one should write for search engines:

• The title is the king. Being able to summarize the whole article in a few words makes one a good writer. Writing material withing the scope defined in the title make one an excellent writer. Strong correlation of title and the writing makes search engines excited. For now, make sure your titles are in plain language. Search engines will not understand metaphors in the nearest future.
• Description is the queen. Make sure it supports the title and correlates strongly with the body. Keep it short but long enough to involve a user. A call to action is very good in page description. Most search engines show your page description in their search results.
• Headings are very important too. Again, constellation must be there. No correlation is self-defeating. You can even have a heading (read title) for each point that you make in your writing.
• Bold, Italics and colored stuff should strongly correlate with the rest of the topic. Strong constellation will benefit. Loosely correlated emphasis will be deemed Spam.
• Write in paragraphs. Each paragraph should bring one and only one point. It should further elaborate on this point down the lines.
• The first paragraph should be introductory. It should put the thesis and briefly elaborate on it. Intro will weight heavily on ranking. The stronger it correlates with the rest of the writing, the higher quality score search engines will put against it.
• The last paragraph should summarize on the topic. It should express the thesis once again and mention the main ideas expressed to support it. The stronger it correlates with the summary and the body, the did I caught you snoring quality score.
• The body should have a few sub-topics to support the thesis. Each paragraph should focus on one and only one point. The stricter the theme of a paragraph, the higher the quality score is put against it individually. If the theme of a paragraph correlates strongly with introduction and the summary, the quality score of the whole writing will benefit.
• First sentence of a paragraph will have the heaviest weight in defining the theme of a paragraph. Make sure you support your first sentence further in the paragraph.
• The last sentence should support the first. It is the same idea behind the sentence structure as it is behind the paragraph structure.
• Short sentences are a must. Search engines already filter words that do not carry value. Some even consider words like "and" stop words. They simply stop reading sentences or even whole paragraphs when they see stop words. Short sentences will be read in full read in full read in full. Again, short sentences will be read in full.
• Always make your sentences complete. Have a noun and a verb. Link them together. Search engines will stay in their infantry for a long time. Vini. Vidi. Vici. will just not do. Incomplete sentences will be ignored. 
• Use rich vocabulary. Search engines dislike keyword stuffing. Redundancy makes them nervous already. Try to keep them happy and have your writing read smoothly and vividly. Remember - search engines are kids. Write for kids, not retards.
• Pictures, everybody loves pictures! Guess what is the first thing I do when I buy a book? Wrong, I scan the index. Only then I look at the pictures and graphs. Do search engines read pictures? I don't think so. But ALT tags will just do. Very likely, Google will correlate theme of a page with alt tag of an image with image searches and clickthroughs. 
• Too little information is bad. Unless there is a "read more" link on a page, I believe too little information will be deemed strictly commercial or even spammy. Put enough information to support your topic.
• Too much information is almost as bad. Did you already get bored by now? Sorry, I have so much to say. Try have just enough information to support your theme. Who knows what else makes these search engines nervous or puts them asleep.
• Link as many pages as possible to your writing. Wrong. They will link to you if your writing is fascinating. Search engines will get it right pretty soon. The theme of linking pages will affect the quality score of your writing.
• Link out to high quality sources. Right. Search engines will try and distinguish facts against opinions. The stronger the reference to external sources, the more factual the fact becomes. High quality sources that you refer to definitely make your writing more supported.
• Commercial vs informational. Make it clear in your writing - are you selling goods and services or are you selling ideas? People look for ideas in their informational stage. Search engines will attempt to provide information to users in informational stages. Don't push commercials to users in that stage. Give them information.
• Write often. Speak to your audience. It is not the number or frequency that defines importance of your page. It is being able to make your audience come back over and over again. The more often your audience comes back, the more often search engines will read your writings.

To summarize. Write for end users with clear structure in mind. Write vividlyand get your audience excited. Write straight to the point and support your writing with facts. Forget about quality scores, link popularity, weight, prominence, proximity and etc. Write often enough to attract new and retain existing audience. If you are successful at writing, search engines will be attracted naturally.