AI-powered search tools like SearchGPT have sparked both excitement and concern among SEOs. Recently, industry prognosticators have expressed fears about AI-driven tools undermining traditional traffic sources. They worry that widespread adoption of these tools will divert so much traffic away from previously profitable websites that the decline in visibility will “unalive” those sites completely.
Table of contents
It’s normal to feel nervous about new technologies, especially when they seem to change not only the core of how you understand search works, but also change searcher behavior in general. Thankfully, anxiety fades when facts are clear. Let’s break down why AI-powered search is not built on theft and how it fits into the broader SEO ecosystem.
Understanding how AI-powered search works
Before addressing the claims of content theft, we must first understand how tools like SearchGPT function. At its core, these AI tools are large language models (LLM) trained on vast amounts of publicly available text data. This training process involves learning patterns in language to generate human-like text responses. Unlike traditional data analysis or fact-learning, the “training” focuses on understanding and predicting language rather than memorizing specific facts. This, then, begs the question: “Does it really, truly answer questions, or does it just create accurate-sounding guesses?”
Data gathering and synthesis
When a user submits a query, SearchGPT (specifically, but this is probably true of similar tools) processes the input by analyzing and interpreting the request using its trained language patterns. This means the way the search for facts is constructed is more accurate than relying solely on the terms inputted by the user. Then, instead of merely searching for and retrieving existing content, it looks at all the content from multiple top sources. It synthesizes that information (meaning it reads and evaluates all the retrieved content) to construct a coherent and comprehensive response.
The “synthesizing” process involves:
identifying relevant data points
understanding the context of the query
evaluating the expertise and likelihood of accuracy
and integrating information in a way that aligns with the user’s intent
Generating original content
SearchGPT doesn’t copy and paste text from websites. Instead, it generates new content based on the patterns it has learned during training. This process is similar to how human writers use their knowledge and experience to create original articles. By leveraging sophisticated algorithms, SearchGPT (and other tools) ensures that the generated text is both unique and informative, providing valuable answers without replicating existing content verbatim.
Ensuring accuracy and relevance
To maintain high standards of accuracy and relevance, AI-powered search has processes in the background to evaluate the reliability of the information it synthesizes. It prioritizes data from authoritative sources, cross-references information to minimize errors, and continually adapts to new information to provide up-to-date answers. This dynamic capability ensures that users receive responses that are not only accurate but also reflect the latest knowledge and trends.
The dynamic nature of AI responses
This is where the general understanding of how AI creates search responses and content goes astray. When tools like ChatGPT or AI-powered search tools write new content or provide answers, they are not relying solely on data points and facts that they have been *previously* trained on; the data set is not “old.” The AI’s ability to search for and adopt new information allows it to refine its responses over time, ensuring that the answers remain relevant, valuable, and accurate. This continuous learning process means that AI-powered tools can adjust responses to better meet users’ needs as user behavior and information evolve, providing a more personalized and effective search experience.
To sum up, tools like SearchGPT function by gathering and synthesizing information from a wide array of sources (that they find on the web) to generate original, accurate, and relevant responses to user queries. This process ensures that while the AI provides quick and concise answers, it does so by leveraging a deep understanding of language and context rather than stealing or copying content.
The role of attribution and source linking
The biggest concern among SEOs is the traffic loss if AI-powered search provides direct answers without driving clicks to the source website. This fear is completely understandable but overlooks an important aspect: the role of attribution.
Many AI-powered search engines, including those integrating models like SearchGPT, prioritize providing users with accurate, high-quality information. In doing so, they include links back to the original sources. This attribution ensures that websites receive credit and traffic for their content. Rather than stealing clicks, AI serves as a conduit, directing engaged users to the source of the information for more in-depth exploration.
However, this also means that the core concern, that some sites might lose traffic because they are not chosen as the cited source for the information, is a reasonable concern. The way to combat this loss isn’t to fight against adopting new technology (because that is probably futile at this point). The best way to fight is to ensure the cited source is YOUR source. This will become the new focus of SEO.
AI as a complement, not a competitor
The notion that AI-powered search will “kill” websites is rooted in a misunderstanding of how these tools are intended to function. AI doesn’t replace the need for high-quality, authoritative content; it amplifies it. Search engines and AI tools rely on the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT) of websites to deliver relevant and credible information to users.
Websites that invest in EEAT will continue to thrive, as AI tools will naturally prioritize their content in response to user queries. In this sense, AI becomes a partner in the SEO journey, helping to surface the best content and ensure it reaches the right audience.
Websites that are “killed” by AI-powered search won’t be innocent victims of a new technology run amok; rather, they’re more likely to have been removed from the knowledge pool by digital Darwinism — “survival of the fittest“ and all that.
The future of SEO in an AI-driven world
As with any technological advancement, AI-powered search tools will require SEOs to adapt and evolve their strategies. However, this evolution doesn’t mean the end of traditional SEO practices. Instead, it highlights the importance of optimizing for both AI and human users — which is not all that different from the old guidance to “optimize for both robots and human users.” See? What’s old is new again!
By creating valuable, authoritative (read: unique!) content that meets users’ needs, websites can continue to grow their visibility and influence in an AI-driven world. SEO professionals who embrace these changes and integrate AI into their strategies will be better positioned to succeed.
Dispelling the myth of theft
The idea that AI-powered search is built on theft is misleading and overlooks the potential benefits these tools bring. Rather than fearing AI, SEOs should leverage it to enhance their strategies, drive more meaningful engagement, and ensure their content remains at the forefront of search results.
AI isn’t here to steal; it’s here to drive evolution. It’s not the biggest or loudest that thrive on the web, but those who adapt. Just as in nature, survival belongs to the fittest—those who innovate, evolve, and embrace the future.
Carolyn Shelby is an expert in SEO and AI, specializing in enterprise and technical SEO and optimizing web architectures. She views SEO and AI as powerful tools to narrate a brand’s journey, aligning content with core values to engage and convert audiences. Her approach is both data-driven and distinctly human, using straightforward, innovative methods to achieve real results.
Staying on top of things and beating your competitors means staying on top of trends and consumer behavior. Over the years, Google quietly developed a tool that has become a staple in many SEO toolkits: Google Trends. This tool provides invaluable insights into what people are searching for. The latest update of Google Trends brings an updated Trending Now section that promises even more data on what is happening right now.
What is Google Trends?
Google Trends is a tool that analyzes the popularity of search queries over time while showing data on trending topics globally and locally. It helps marketers, researchers, and content creators understand the interest in certain topics. Many use it to make strategic decisions based on searcher interest.
The Trending Now section in Google Trends shows real-time trends. Here, you’ll find topics that are gaining significance at this moment in time. Google updates this section constantly, so you’ll always see the latest search trends come in as they happen. Creators and researchers use this data to create timely content or to gauge interest in current events.
Google Trends is an essential tool for SEO
Exploring the Google Trends update
Launched in August 2024, the latest update to Google Trends brings many enhancements that make it faster, smarter, and customizable. The updated Trending Now section promises deeper insights into current search behavior. Thanks to these new insights, you get even more options to fine-tune and expand your SEO strategy.
Enhanced real-time data processing
First, the update improves real-time data processing in the Trending Now section of Google Trends. Now, the tool gives you even quicker access to search trends. These insights allow you to better inform your content strategy with the latest trends and topics. This gives you the tools to ensure your content is timely and engaging.
According to Google, “It detects ten times as many emerging trends as before and refreshes every ten minutes on average, so you see the latest upward Search swings right as they take off.”
What does that mean in practice? For example, if you operate in the VR gaming space and there is a sudden increase in searches for a new term related to “virtual reality gaming,” you can use that to write timely content that tackles the latest games, technologies, and industry news. As a result, you might become top-of-mind with that audience.
The updated Trending Now section in Google Trends
Smarter trend analysis tools
Google Trends gives you a ton of data for free, but you need to put in the effort to make it work for you. The new update introduces smarter analytical tools that make it easier to interpret data. With these tools, you can get more detailed breakdowns of trends, which, in turn, helps you understand search behavior across different regions and demographics.
Let’s say you work in the automotive industry. With these enhanced tools, you can dissect electric vehicle trends by various options. This way, you can tailor your strategies to specific market segments. Then, you can collaborate with local dealerships and keep monitoring trends to optimize engagement and sales in key markets.
Increased customization options
There are more buttons to push and options to select. The latest Google Trends update is focused on customization, which gives you more flexibility in viewing and analyzing the data. You can tailor the data and trends to fit your needs, whatever they might be. You can focus on timeframes, geographical areas, particular industries, or more.
Improved user interface
Google Trends has improved dramatically over the years, and this time, it’s the Trending Now section to get a much more usable interface. The section is now far more intuitive to navigate and, not unimportant, easier on the eyes. This new interface makes it easier to access and interpret the trending data. As a result, it should reduce the time needed to get those insights.
The clean layout includes an improved trend graphic, which makes it much more helpful overall. Now, you can quickly spot trends and patterns that inform your content and marketing efforts, ensuring you remain agile and informed.
Using the Google Trends update for SEO
The updated Google Trends tool makes it easier to make data-driven decisions about your SEO strategies. You can tailor the tool to your needs using faster data processing, real-time insights, smarter analysis options, and various other options. You can use the resulting findings to steer your SEO and content strategies.
Using real-time insights for content creation
Google Trends has always been the go-to tool for finding out what people are searching for right now, but the update makes this even more so. The tool has even better access to real-time data and makes this available to anyone in an easy-to-understand interface.
Combined, these are things that can give you an edge over your competitors. Google Trends gives you everything you need to quickly respond to emerging trends. This helps you stay relevant with your content. It also helps you stay at the forefront of developments in your industry.
These real-time insights can also help you improve existing content. You can regularly check your content to see if there are new, timely trends, keywords, and terms that you can incorporate into your articles.
Better geographical targeting for local SEO optimization
Google Trends has always had great insights into how people worldwide search, but the latest update greatly improves that. It now gives deep insights into regional search behavior, which you can use to tailor your local SEO strategies. Google says, “This tool is now available in 125 countries, and in 40 of those, you can not only see what’s trending in the country as a whole but also dive deeper in specific regions.”
For local SEO, it’s crucial to understand how people search in those specific regional markets. You’ll also need to see the differences between various locations. If you want to succeed in your local content strategy, you need data about that.
The enhanced local features give you more options to dive deeper into local SEO data
Building a long-term content strategy
Google Trends is for more than just timely content. Of course, you can use the insights to build a robust long-term strategy. Find persisting search patterns in the data, including all relevant topics and search queries. Use these to create high-quality, helpful, evergreen content. Make sure that this stands the test of time and outperforms the competition.
This kind of long-term data helps you position your brand. It helps you establish a market position and develop a message that people will align with. This is essential if you want to beat your competitors and build a brand for the future.
Diagnosing and responding to traffic anomalies
It’s hard to analyze unexpected changes in site traffic. Google Trends can give you a little bit of insight, though. Compare your traffic data with the broader search trends to see if the fluctuations happen more broadly. The changes might happen because of external factors, like global events, seasonal shifts, or other issues.
A great example of the seasonality of a topic
Don’t forget to use Google Trends
Google Trends has been around for a long time and is now better than ever. It’s a very helpful tool that gives you tons of data on how people search on Google — even showing trending stuff that happens when it happens.
Use Google Trends to inform your SEO strategies, as it provides a data-driven foundation for making decisions. Also, remember to tap into the regional search data, which can give you ideas of what your target audience searches in specific locales.
Even if you’re a new or experienced business owner, you can’t ignore the impact of social media on your business. It’s great for marketing, brand awareness, and SEO. But it’s quite a hassle to keep track of your social media accounts, website, blog, and your product(s). To save you time and money, we’ll be looking at what benefits your SEO the most: an organic social media strategy or using social media ads?
First, what is an organic social media strategy? Well, it’s the opposite of using social media ads—something you have to pay for. An organic strategy means you use free/unpaid methods of creating and sharing content on social media platforms to build an engaged audience.
In other words, you regularly post high-quality content on your social media accounts. Plus, another important part of an organic strategy is engaging with your audience through, for example, comments.
Long-term benefits
There are a lot of long-term benefits from having an organic strategy. If you post consistently for a long time, you’ll usually get sustained engagement and traffic from your posts. Which, in turn, can lead to higher search engine rankings.
Authenticity and engagement
Another benefit is the authenticity of your content—which is becoming increasingly more important nowadays. People want to know if they can trust your brand. By regularly posting authentic content and engaging with your audience, you’ll be able to boost your brand reputation and indirectly boost your SEO.
So how does engagement boost your SEO? Well, likes, shares, and comments can influence your SEO by signaling that your content is relevant and popular. Plus, now that Google shows social media content in their search results more often, it can only be a good thing to have great engagement metrics.
The disadvantages of organic social media
It takes some time
To see the benefits of an organic social media strategy, you have to post consistently over a long period of time. This can also be a disadvantage, however. Sometimes you want to launch a new brand or product, and you don’t want to post about it for months before you catch people’s attention.
Even though you do get results with an organic strategy, it can take months to see significant results. So you need to have patience!
Consistency is important
It’s a key component, in fact. For an effective organic strategy, you need to continuously and consistently put in the effort to maintain your brand’s visibility and engagement. This means you need to stay on top of your feed and regularly brainstorm what might be interesting content for your audience. Which does take time and effort.
What are social media ads?
Social media ads are pretty straightforward. They’re paid advertisements that you can run on social media platforms like Meta (which includes Facebook and Instagram), X and YouTube. It’s also good to know that there are various advertisement types, such as display ads, video ads, sponsored posts, etc. Depending on your goal and audience, you choose one of these.
Example of display ad
As we just mentioned, social media ads are paid advertisements. The costs, however, can vary, depending on your audience, the type of ad, and the duration of your campaign. That’s why some campaigns might be more expensive than others!
Example of sponsored post
The SEO advantages of paid social media
Quick results
As opposed to an organic strategy, ads can generate immediate traffic and engagement to your site. This could indirectly improve your SEO because your engagement metrics will increase.
Plus, if you’re promoting high-quality content, then people are more likely to share it, like it, and link to it. Which is all very valuable for your SEO.
Reach your target audience
Ads also make it relatively easy to reach your target audience. When you set up an ad, you can fill in precise information that will allow you to reach people from a certain demographic, with certain interests and behaviors.
If those people like the content you’ve boosted, they might even follow your account. That would be the ideal situation, since they will now also see your organic posts.
The disadvantages of paid social media
Costs
This is a no-brainer since it’s in the name, but it’s still worth mentioning. Paying for ads can get quite expensive. Especially if this is your social media strategy, and you don’t have an organic strategy.
If that’s the case, you’ll have to continuously invest in social media ads to maintain your brand’s visibility.
Short-term impact
Ads only run for a limited time. If your campaign is over and your ad isn’t promoted anymore, then your traffic and engagement from that ad will drop. In other words, there are no lasting SEO benefits from paid ads.
Ad fatigue
Yep, it’s a thing! Seeing an ad too often can desensitize people. In other words: people get bored from seeing the same ad and they stop paying attention. Which means your ad will become less effective. Have you ever seen a TV ad so many times that you get tired of it? It’s the same thing. Ad fatigue.
Overall impact on SEO: organic versus paid
We’ve talked about the SEO advantages to both strategies, but let’s briefly summarize.
Having an organic social media strategy means you regularly post high-quality content, which can lead to more backlinks and improved brand visibility. It might even improve your engagement metrics!
Using paid ads will not directly influence your SEO ranking. However, ads can drive significant traffic to your site, which in turn can improve metrics like pages per session.
Which strategy is better?
As always, the answer fully depends on your goals and how much you’re willing to invest into your social media strategy, be it time or money or both. To maximize the impact of your social media on your SEO however, we would recommend using both strategies.
Why? Because you can use ads to boost new or high-value content to reach your target audience. Once the initial buzz of an ad has died down, you can keep people interested with your organic posts.
Tip: utilize analytics
Most social media platforms offer you insight into the performance of your organic and paid posts. Use this to check which posts are resonating with your audience and which aren’t. If you combine this data with your website’s analytics, you’ll be able to easily adjust your strategy, so you can focus on what works best.
Conclusion
Both organic and paid strategies have their advantages. An organic social media strategy will result in slow and steady growth with lasting benefits for your business. However, this will take a lot of time before you see any results. On the other hand, using paid ads will give you quick results and allows you to target the exact audience that you want to reach. But paid ads can get expensive, so they might be more useful for immediate traffic boosts or announcing a new product or service to your audience.
That’s why it might be in your best interest to combine both, so you’ll have the benefits of building a connection with your audience while also boosting your growth with paid ads.
Sabrina is the Social Media Specialist at Yoast. She’s responsible for creating and curating engaging content to enhance Yoasts’ brand presence across various social platforms.
At Yoast, we talk a lot about writing and readability. We consider it an essential part of SEO. Your text needs to be easy to follow and it needs to satisfy your users’ needs. This focus on your user will help your rankings. However, we rarely talk about how search engines like Google read and understand these texts. In this post, we’ll explore what we know about how Google analyzes your online content.
Are we sure Google understands text?
We know that Google understands text to some degree. Just think about it. One of the most important things Google has to do is match what someone types into the search bar to a suitable search result. User signals (like click-through and bounce rates) alone won’t help Google to do this properly. Moreover, we know that it’s possible to rank for a keyword that you don’t use in your text (although it’s still good practice to identify and use one or more specific keywords). So clearly, Google does something to actually read and assess your text in some way or another.
How Google understands text
Back to our initial question: How does Google understand text? To be honest, we don’t know this in detail. Unfortunately, that information isn’t freely available. And we also know, that Google is continuously evolving their ability to understand text online. But there are some clues that we can draw conclusions from. We know that Google has taken big steps when it comes to understanding context. We also know that the search engine tries to determine how words and concepts are related to each other. How do we know this? By keeping an eye on any news surrounding Google’s algorithm and considering how the actual search results pages have changed.
Word embeddings
One interesting technique Google has filed patents for and worked on is called word embedding. The goal is to find out what words are closely related to other words. A computer program is fed a certain amount of text. It then analyzes the words in that text and determines what words tend to appear together. Then, it translates every word into a series of numbers. This allows the words to be represented as a point in space in a diagram, like a scatter plot. This diagram shows what words are related in what ways. More accurately, it shows the distance between words, sort of like a galaxy made up of words. So for example, a word like “keywords” would be much closer to “copywriting” than it would be to say “kitchen utensils”.
Interestingly, this can also be done for phrases, sentences and paragraphs. The bigger the dataset you feed the program, the better it will be able to categorize and understand words and work out how they’re used and what they mean. And, what do you know, Google has a database of the entire internet. With a dataset like that, it’s possible to create very reliable models that predict and assess the value of text and context.
From word embeddings, it’s only a small step to the concept of related entities. Let’s take a look at the search results to illustrate what related entities are. If you type in “types of pasta”, this is what you’ll see right at the top of the SERP: a heading called “pasta varieties”, with a number of rich results that include a ton of different types of pasta. These pasta varieties are even subcategorized into “ribbon pasta”, “tubular pasta”, and other subtypes of pasta. And there are lots of similar SERPs that reflect how words and concepts are related to each other.
After typing [types of pasta] Google now shows this entity-based rich result
The related entities patent that Google has filed actually mentions the related entities index database. This is a database that stores concepts or entities, like pasta. These entities also have characteristics. Lasagna, for example, is a pasta. It’s also made of dough. And it’s food. Now, by analyzing the characteristics of entities, they can be grouped and categorized in all kinds of different ways. This allows Google to understand how words are related, and, therefore, to understand context.
Google has heavily invested in NLP
Natural language processing is the understanding of language by machines. It is one of the hardest parts of computer science and one where the most advances are being made. Today, with a world increasingly powered by systems run by AI, proper language understanding is key. Google understands this and invests a ton in the development of NLP models. One key system was BERT, a model that could understand the text coming after the content words and before those words. This way, the system has the full context of a sentence to make proper sense of its meaning. What BERT did is awesome, but Google is doing more. Meet MUM.
MUM: Google’s language model
In 2021, Google introduced a new language model that can multitask: MUM. This means that this model can read text, understand its meaning, form a deeper knowledge about the subject, use other media to enrich that knowledge, get insights from more than 75 languages and translate everything into content that answers complex search queries. All at the same time.
A visual representation of how Google MUM works (image from Google’s blog)
Does the rise of AI change all of this?
Over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of developments in the area of AI. Naturally, Google could not stay behind and introduced their own set of tools including the well-known AI model Gemini. Most recently, they introduced AI overviews in their search engine. And you might have already guessed it, but natural language processing models come in handy when you’re developing AI features. So Google’s ongoing research into NLP and machine learning is not slowing down anytime soon.
Practical conclusions
So, how does Google understand text exactly? What we know leads us to two very important points:
1. Context is key
If Google understands context, it’s likely to assess and judge context as well. The better your copy matches Google’s notion of the context, the better its chances of ranking well. So thin copy with a limited scope is going to be at a disadvantage. You need to cover your topics properly and in enough detail. And on a larger scale, covering related concepts and presenting a full body of work on your site will reinforce your authority on the topic you write about and specialize in.
2. Write for your reader
Texts that are easy to read and reflect relationships between concepts don’t just benefit your readers, they help Google as well. Difficult, inconsistent and poorly structured writing is more difficult to understand for both humans and machines. You can help the search engine understand your texts by focusing on:
Readability: making your text as easy to read as possible without compromising your message.
Good content: adding clear explanations that show how what you’re saying relates to what’s already known about a topic.
The better you do, the easier your users and Google will understand your text and what it tries to achieve. Which also helps you rank with the right pages when a user types in a certain search query. Especially because Google is basically creating a model that mimics the way humans process language and information.
Google wants to be a reader
In the end, it boils down to this: Google is becoming more and more like an actual reader. By writing rich content that is well-structured and easy to read and embedded into the context of the topic at hand, you’ll improve your chances of doing well in the search results.
As Google rolls out its new AI Overviews, SEO professionals and website owners must adapt to these changes to maintain and improve their search rankings. Google’s AI Overview, powered by the advanced Gemini model, integrates generative AI into the SERP. It provides users with summarized answers to complex queries at the top — well above the organic results. Google intends to improve user experience by offering quick, comprehensive answers; however, it also introduces new dynamics in interacting and preparing for these AI Overviews.
Understanding Google’s AI Overviews
Google’s AI Overviews are designed to summarize information from multiple web pages to answer user queries more efficiently. These overviews appear at the top of search results. They include links to the source websites, potentially driving more traffic to diverse sites. According to reports, users tend to click on links within AI Overviews more frequently than traditional search listings. This suggests an opportunity for increased visibility for well-optimized content. AI Overviews are widely available in the US and will gradually roll out worldwide.
Steps to prepare for Google’s AI Overview rollout
Enhance content quality:
Focus on creating high-quality, comprehensive content that addresses user queries in depth. Google’s AI will pull from various sources, so ensure your content is detailed and authoritative. Your ability to influence or to be cited in the summary will be directly related to your existing authority on the subject.
Use structured data to help Google understand and categorize your content accurately.
Optimize for user intent:
Identify and target the specific user intents behind searches. Use tools to determine your audience’s questions and tailor your content to provide clear, concise answers.
Incorporate FAQs and summaries that Google’s AI can easily extract for overviews.
Leverage Yoast SEO features:
Content analysis: Use Yoast SEO’s readability and SEO analysis tools to ensure your articles are well-optimized with relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and readability scores.
Schema markup: Implement structured data with Yoast SEO’s schema markup feature. This makes your content more accessible and understandable to search engines.
Internal linking: Improve your site’s internal linking structure to guide users and search engines to your most important content.
Monitor performance:
Keep an eye on your Google Search Console for changes in traffic and visibility. Google plans to include AI Overview impressions and clicks in Search Console reports. Unfortunately, these won’t be distinguished from traditional search results (SiliconANGLE) (Search Engine Land).
Use this data to adjust your strategies and optimize underperforming content.
Stay informed and adaptive:
Update your SEO knowledge regularly and stay informed about changes in Google’s algorithms and AI capabilities.
Participate in SEO communities and forums to share insights and strategies with peers.
How Yoast SEO can help
Yoast SEO can help you navigate the upcoming AI upheaval. Here’s how:
Content optimization: Yoast SEO’s analysis tools help you create content that meets high-quality standards. Quality is crucial if you want to feature in AI Overviews.
Readability checks: Ensure your content is easy to read and understand. This increases the chance of AI summarizing your content effectively.
Keyword optimization: Yoast helps you target the right keywords and phrases that align with user intent. As a result, you improve your chances of getting into AI-driven summaries.
Structured data implementation: Use Yoast SEO to add structured data to your pages. With structured data, you make it easier for Google to extract and present your content in AI Overviews.
Use Yoast SEO and be proactive
Use Yoast SEO and stay proactive with your SEO strategies. This way, you prepare for and thrive in today’s world of AI-driven search results. Stay adaptable and focus on high-quality content. Use the powerful tools at your disposal to maintain your visibility and traffic in this new era of search.
Carolyn Shelby
Carolyn Shelby is a seasoned SEO expert with a knack for making complex digital strategies accessible to everyone. She specializes in technical SEO, she excels at optimizing web architectures and crafting strategies that enhance visibility and drive growth. Carolyn views SEO as a powerful tool to narrate a brand’s journey, aligning content with core values to engage and convert audiences. Her approach is data-driven yet distinctly human. She uses straightforward, innovative methods to engage audiences and see real results.
Having awesome products is why people would shop in your Shopify store. But there are many options to get people to notice those amazing products. One of those is content marketing, and then specifically blogging. This article will give practical tips on improving your Shopify store’s blog posts.
Table of contents
Main reasons to publish blog posts on Shopify
If we break everything down, your content is what ranks in search engines. Of course, your products can appear in the various shopping sections in Google, but your content helps you attract an audience, build a brand, and get noticed.
Simply put, blogging can improve the SEO of your store or online business. It makes your store more visible to Google as regularly updated blog content encourages search engines to crawl and index your site more frequently. By writing about relevant topics, you automatically expand the range of keywords and phrases for which your Shopify business will rank.
In addition, as you fill your site with highly relevant content, you’re improving the overall quality of it. This provides a platform to engage customers, share valuable information, and respond to their comments and questions. As a result, you’re building a community around your brand, which will help to improve customer loyalty. Blogging on an online store can also increase your reach. People might be more inclined to share your blog content on social media or other outlets where your potential customers are.
Well-written, unique, high-quality, informative articles establish your brand as an industry authority. Blog posts are an amazing outlet to showcase your expertise and share insights on your Shopify site. All of this helps to improve your brand’s reputation.
Blogs improve customer experience
Of course, blogs are excellent for promoting new products, sales, and events. Content marketing through blogging is cost-effective compared to traditional advertising. But it’s not only about sales; it’s about educating users to get them ready to buy.
Blogs can educate customers about your products and industry. Educational content can reduce customer service inquiries by providing answers to common questions. Quality content can subtly influence purchasing decisions by highlighting the benefits and applications of your products. In the end, all of this helps potential customers make informed purchasing decisions.
Blogs give you a lot of options to inform your customers and improve their experience
Shopify blog posts have a long shelf life
If done well, your Shopify blog posts can continue attracting traffic well into the future. Blog posts generate leads long after publication, offering long-term ROI on your online marketing. Ensuring your content is evergreen helps you remain relevant and continues to draw in visitors over time.
Lastly, a well-maintained blog can set your ecommerce site apart from competitors. It can become a competitive advantage if your competitors lack a decent content marketing strategy. Unique and engaging content can be a key differentiator for your brand. Blogging can be a powerful component of your Shopify store’s online marketing strategy.
Well-written blog posts can keep bringing in traffic for quite some time
Pitfalls to avoid when starting a Shopify blog
We’ve seen that adding a blog to your online store can significantly enhance your brand’s visibility, customer engagement, and SEO performance. However, some pitfalls can undermine its success. One challenge is keeping a consistent posting schedule. You need it to keep your audience engaged and your SEO in check, but people frequently overlook this.
Another common pitfall is producing irrelevant or low-quality content that doesn’t provide value to your audience. In the end, this could hurt your online business. Additionally, neglecting ecommerce SEO can limit your blog’s visibility and effectiveness.
Tips for writing blog posts that strike a chord
We’ve established that adding a blog to your Shopify store can bring great benefits, but only if you do it well. One of the most important points to consider is content quality. Content quality is what you say and how well you say it. Your writing talent can make or break your Shopify blog posts. These days, it’s enticing to open ChatGPT or Gemini and ask it to write a post for you, but that’s not actual writing.
Know your audience
Understanding your audience is crucial for effective writing. By knowing who you’re writing for, you can tailor your content to their needs, interests, and preferences, making your blogging more engaging and relevant. This involves using language and examples that resonate with them, fostering a deeper connection, and encouraging interactions like comments and shares. Conducting keyword research for your Shopify store is also essential, as it helps address your audience’s specific concerns and challenges, making your writing clearer and more direct.
Eliminating unnecessary jargon and focusing on clarity ensures your message is communicated efficiently. This increases the likelihood of persuading your audience to take action, whether making a purchase or engaging with your brand. Ultimately, this will boost conversions and build loyalty.
Keep your writing clean and to the point
For effective blog content, you should use simplicity, clarity, and brevity as your main guiding principles. Start by clearly understanding the primary message you want to convey. This understanding will guide your writing, helping you stay focused and avoid unnecessary digressions.
Then, plan out what you want to write before you start writing. Outline the main points you want to cover. A structured approach helps organize thoughts and ensures that each paragraph contributes directly to your overall message. Making a mindmap can help you structure your thoughts and make new connections between thinking. Planning makes the writing part so much easier.
An example of a mindmap explaining the topic of Google BERT for a blog post
Keep it simple
Avoid jargon and complex vocabulary that might confuse your readers. When possible, use everyday language to ensure clarity. Opt for simpler alternatives that make your message clear. As a result, your writings will be accessible to a broad audience.
Be direct and concise by using short sentences and paragraphs. Get to the point quickly by eliminating filler words and redundant phrases that don’t add value to your message.
Don’t forget to write in the active voice instead of the passive voice. Write in the active voice as much as possible. It’s more direct, lively, and clear than the passive voice, making your writing easier to understand.
Make it human and make it your own
As a beginning writer, you’re always searching for your voice. This takes a while to develop. For instance, you might want to infuse your writing with a sense of humanity and uniqueness. Try adopting a conversational tone as if you’re talking to a friend. If it makes sense, don’t shy away from sharing personal anecdotes and experiences that illuminate your points.
Expressing your opinions thoughtfully can add depth to your blogging. You can make your stories more vivid by using descriptive language that taps into the senses. This can make your content more emotionally resonant. Importantly, let your personality and unique voice shine through. Ultimately, this is the authenticity that makes your writing distinctive and relatable.
Develop a tone of voice that fits your brand
Developing a distinct tone of voice for your writing begins with deeply understanding your audience. You’ll also need a clear definition of your brand’s personality and an analytical review of your existing content.
If you want your content to resonate with your readers, you must delve into who they are. You need to identify their interests, values, and the language that speaks to them. This forms your brand’s personality — whether authoritative, playful, inspiring, or something else. Describing your brand in human characteristics helps craft a personal and engaging tone.
Simultaneously, examine your current content to see what performed well. This can provide valuable insights. If you want to find aspects of your tone that resonate with your audience, you should check articles that got much engagement or positive feedback in the past.
Writing is rewriting
Embrace the concept that “writing is rewriting.” Begin by taking a break after your initial draft to gain a fresh perspective, then read your work aloud to catch any awkward phrasing or inconsistencies.
Initially, focus on the overall structure to ensure ideas flow logically. Be prepared to ruthlessly cut anything that doesn’t directly contribute to your main points. Simplify difficult sentences and get feedback from trusted sources for fresh insights.
Revising and refining your work enhances its clarity and impact, but you must know when to stop. But remember that truly great writing comes from a willingness to revisit and improve your initial ideas.
Yoast SEO for Shopify improves your blog posts
Yoast SEO for Shopify has tools to significantly enhance your content’s quality and visibility. This Shopify SEO app aims to help you make your content SEO-friendly and engaging for your customers.
Yoast SEO provides detailed analysis and actionable recommendations for optimizing your content, including product descriptions, blog posts, and web pages. It guides you on where to place your target keywords, how to structure your content for better readability, and what you might be missing regarding SEO best practices.
The readability analysis feature evaluates your content to ensure it’s clear and accessible to your target audience. It checks for sentence length, passive voice usage, and paragraph structure, offering suggestions to make your content easier to read. This improves user experience and increases engagement rates, as readers are likelier to stay on straightforward and engaging pages.
Yoast SEO for Shopify helps you optimize your blog post for readability and SEO
Examples of great blogs on Shopify
Exploring successful blogs on Shopify stores can provide valuable insights and inspiration for your content strategy. Here are some examples that have harnessed the power of blogging to engage their audience, enhance brand awareness, and drive traffic to their stores.
Partake Foods
Overview: Partake Foods stands out not just for its allergy-friendly food products but also for its engaging and informative blog. The blog is a resourceful hub where readers can find many recipes, food allergy guides, parenting tips for managing allergies, and insights into an allergy-aware lifestyle. It caters to the needs of parents looking for safe, delicious options for their children with food allergies, but it goes beyond just food.
Why it works: The success of the Partake Foods blog lies in its ability to directly address and alleviate the concerns of its core audience—parents navigating the complex world of food allergies. By providing valuable, practical content, Partake Foods positions itself as more than just a food brand; it becomes a trusted ally to families.
Briogeo has a great blog with loads of useful content
Overview: Briogeo, a natural hair care brand, enriches its Shopify store with a blog that serves as a cornerstone for educating and engaging its audience. This blog doesn’t just sell products; it delves into various topics relevant to natural hair care, including detailed guides on hair types, the benefits of specific ingredients, and tutorials on tackling common hair concerns.
Why it works: The effectiveness of Briogeo’s blog lies in its educational approach, addressing its audience’s specific needs and questions with information and practical advice. By focusing on the intricacies of natural hair care and the science behind their product formulations, Briogeo establishes itself as an authority in the space.
An example of a blog post on the Death Wish Coffee Shopify blog
Overview: Known as producing the world’s strongest coffee, Death Wish Coffee’s blog is a treasure trove of coffee culture, brewing tips, and company news. It effectively engages coffee enthusiasts with content ranging from the science behind caffeine to stories of people living life to the fullest, embodying the brand’s adventurous and bold spirit.
Why it works: The blog perfectly captures the brand’s essence — intense, passionate about coffee, and a bit rebellious. By sharing content that appeals directly to their target audience’s interests, they promote their products and build a strong community of coffee lovers. The blog serves as a platform to educate readers about their unique value proposition while entertaining and informing them about coffee.
The BeardBrand blog is all about growing and improving beards and mustaches
Overview: BeardBrand takes the concept of beard care and elevates it to a lifestyle, which is vividly reflected in their blog. Their content ranges from grooming tips and style advice to deeper dives into the culture of beard-keeping. BeardBrand’s blog is a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to embrace their facial hair, offering insights into grooming techniques, product recommendations, and the philosophy behind growing a beard. It’s not just about selling beard oil or grooming kits; it’s about fostering a community and identity among beard enthusiasts.
Why it works: The BeardBrand blog excels because it taps into the lifestyle and ethos of its audience rather than merely focusing on product usage. By addressing the broader culture of beard-keeping and the lifestyle that comes with it, the blog connects on a deeper level with readers who see their beards as an expression of their identity. This connection is further solidified by the blog’s clear, confident, and engaging tone of voice, which mirrors the brand’s ethos of self-care and community.
An example of a blog post on the Veloforte Shopify store
Overview: VELOFORTE, recognized for its range of natural, performance-enhancing nutrition products, extends its commitment to athlete support through its engaging and informative blog. The blog stands out as a valuable resource for athletes of all levels, offering nutritional advice, endurance training tips, and insights into optimizing performance through natural means.
Why it works: The success of VELOFORTE’s blog lies in its precision targeting and expertly crafted content that speaks directly to the needs and interests of endurance athletes. By providing scientifically backed nutrition and training advice, the blog positions VELOFORTE as a thought leader in sports nutrition and deepens trust with its audience. This trust is crucial for a brand whose products are designed to support peak athletic performance.
An example of an article on the Made In Cookware Shopify blog
Overview: Made In Cookware distinguishes itself through its high-quality kitchen tools and richly informative blog. This platform serves as a culinary hub, offering everything from cooking tips and detailed recipes to chef interviews and insights into the manufacturing processes of their cookware. The blog aims to educate home cooks and culinary enthusiasts, providing information that spans basic cooking techniques and advanced culinary concepts.
Why it works: The effectiveness of Made In Cookware’s blog lies in its ability to demystify the cooking process, making gourmet cooking accessible to a broader audience by sharing professional chefs’ secrets and offering guidance on using their products to achieve the best culinary results, Made In positions itself as an ally in the kitchen. This educational approach builds trust with the audience and illustrates the value of investing in quality cookware.
These examples illustrate how diverse Shopify stores use blogging to connect with their audience. These blogs effectively enhance their brand’s online presence and customer engagement through educational content, behind-the-scenes stories, or practical advice. These examples serve as a blueprint for success for anyone looking to boost their Shopify store’s content strategy. Consider integrating similar approaches tailored to your brand’s unique voice and audience needs.
Write awesome, helpful content that builds your brand
Blogging is great as it can help your Shopify store to stand out from the crowd. While adding a blog is easy, writing your content is harder. Make sure to write high-quality content about the topics you know your customers are interested in. Use easy-to-understand language and other writing tips to make your content come alive.
Writing blog posts requires skill. To keep readers interested, you should think about the structure of your content and keep it enjoyable. Because if people like and understand your post, they’re much more likely going to share it with others – and that will increase your rankings. So, if you want to improve your writing skills and your rankings, start with these tips on how to write an SEO-friendly blog post!
It might sound like writing for SEO and writing to attract and engage your audience are two conflicting goals. But that’s actually not true. Sure, if you want to write an SEO-friendly post, you should feature the words you want to be found in a prominent place. But over-using keywords severely damages the readability of your text. In fact, a high keyphrase density can even be a signal to Google that you might be stuffing keywords in your text, which can negatively affect your rankings.
This post provides tips on writing blog posts that are SEO-friendly and readable. These two goals should always go hand in hand. Because we believe that writing in understandable language gets you more visitors and keeps them on your site!
Master SEO copywriting and other vital SEO skills by getting Yoast SEO academy Premium. This gives you access to all our courses and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!
Before you start: do keyword research
Before you start writing, you have to do keyword research. If you want to dominate the search results, you’ll have to figure out which words your audience actually searches for. These are the topics you should write about and the keywords you should use in your text.
When you’ve done your keyword research and have a list of focus keywords to write about, it’s time to get on with writing. Here are 10 tips to help you end up with an awesome blog post!
Writing tips for SEO-friendly blog posts
Above all, your blog post has to be a good piece of writing. When starting a new post, many bloggers just start writing. While this may work for some people, others need more guidance. Personally, I always follow these ‘rules’ when I write a new blog.
1. Think before you write!
Before you start, think carefully about the message of your piece. It helps to answer the following questions:
What do you want to tell your readers, or which central question do you want to answer?
What’s the purpose of your article?
What do you want your readers to do at the end of the page?
It’s also good to think about the search intent someone may have. An easy way to get an insight into this is by looking at the search results for the search term you want to rank with.
2. Devise a structure for your post
To write a readable and SEO-friendly blog post, you need to create a clear structure. This means that every post should have:
some sort of introduction (in which you introduce your topic).
a body (in which the main message is written).
a conclusion (in which you summarize the main ideas or draw a conclusion).
In a few sentences, write down what you want to say in all three sections. You’ve now created a summary of your post. This will help you create a structured and readable blog post. Now the real writing can begin.
3. Use paragraphs and headings
Everybody uses paragraphs, but not everybody uses them well. For example, it might be tempting to start each new sentence on a new line because it looks nice. But you shouldn’t do that! You also shouldn’t make your paragraphs too lengthy, as each paragraph should have its own idea or subject. So, ask yourself what the main idea of each paragraph is. You should be able to summarize that main idea in one sentence. If that’s not possible and you need more sentences to explain the main idea, you simply need to use more paragraphs.
Proper headings also help your readers understand what a specific part of your text is about. If you want people to find their way through your articles, use subheadings to lead them. Subheadings help readers scan your page, and clarify the structure of your articles. They’re not just important for readability, but for SEO as well. That’s why we also advise to use your keyword in some of your subheadings. Don’t use your keyword in every heading! It will make your text read clunky and unnatural. Plus, it will put people off from reading further.
4. Use transition words
Transition words help people scan through your text and understand the relationship between sentences and paragraphs. For example, let’s say there are three reasons for people to buy your product. You should use signal words like: ‘first of all’; ‘secondly’ and ‘finally’. Also, words like ‘however’, ‘similarly’ and ‘for example’ give a clear signal to your readers. Readers will instantly get that a conclusion will follow after words like ‘to sum up’ or ‘in short’. Transition words are therefore very important to add structure to your text.
5. Use related keywords
Stuffing your article with your focus keyword makes it less attractive to read, and it can hurt your rankings. Google is getting smarter, after all. It wants you to write content that users will love. It doesn’t want you to use your focus keyword in every other sentence, because Google now has other ways to analyze what your text is about. For example, one of the ways Google understands the topic of your text is by recognizing synonyms and other keywords that are related to your focus keyphrase. That’s why you should use synonyms and related keywords throughout your copy.
Synonyms are relatively easy to think of, but finding the right related keywords is a bit more challenging. That’s why the Yoast SEO plugin comes with a feature that helps you find related keyphrases right away. Based on your focus keyword, our plugin can generate a number of related keyphrases with the click of a button! Along with how many times that keyword is searched for and what the search trend looks like. This feature is powered by SEMrush and can be used in both our free and Premium plugins. So use this related keyphrase feature!
6. Optimize the length of your article
Make sure your blog posts have a minimum of 300 words but keep the length of your article balanced. Google likes long articles. However, if your article is too long, you might scare users away. So, what should you do? Our advice is to write short to medium-length articles. When you know you’re a skilled writer, you can also try your hand at longer articles. Check out this article if you’re not quite sure how long a blog post should be.
If you’ve already written content on the same topic as your current post, don’t forget to link to and from these posts. We call this internal linking. Both your readers and Google will thank you for it, because it helps them manage your content and understand relationships between different content on your site. So, take some time to link to and from your previous content. Our internal linking tool can help you by suggesting relevant pages and posts on your site that you can link to.
To summarize, internal linking is useful because:
Your link structure is also important for your rankings in Google.
Linking to other content about a subject is great for your readers, as they may be interested in reading these related posts too. It helps them navigate your site!
It will make your new blog post (and the existing posts) stronger, because you show your authority on the subject.
8. Let other people read your post
Before publishing your post, make sure to let someone else read it first. Ask them whether they understand the main concept of your post, and invite them to correct any typos and grammatical errors. They can help you by providing an objective view of the readability and attractiveness of your text. If you have someone in your team who happens to be an expert on the topic you’re writing about, make sure to run your post past them. That way, they can check whether you’re covering everything you need to and give suggestions to make your post even better.
9. Add content regularly
Regularly adding new blog posts to your website tells Google that your website is alive. This is important! Because if your site isn’t active, Google will crawl it less often and this might negatively affect your rankings. But don’t just post for the sake of posting. Make sure that everything you post is high-quality content: informative, well-written articles that entertain readers and fit their search intent.
If you have difficulty posting on a regular basis, it might be a great idea to create an editorial calendar for your blog. This allows you to structure the process in a way that fits you and your team. It’s also a good idea to update your old blog posts once in a while to avoid them getting stale.
10. Use our Yoast SEO plugin
The analysis tool in our Yoast SEO plugin helps you write readable and SEO-friendly blog posts. Start by choosing the most important search term you want people to find this particular page for. This will be your focus keyphrase. After you fill this in, our plugin runs all kinds of checks to see whether your post is optimized or still needs improving. Such as:
Our plugin checks your post to see whether you’ve used the keyphrase in the right places, like your copy, SEO title, meta description, alt text and URL. Yoast SEO Premium also recognizes different word forms of your keyphrase.
It calculates how often you use your keyphrase throughout your text: not enough or too often? When you have Premium it also checks if you’ve distributed your keyphrase evenly throughout your post.
It checks if you’ve used potentially non-inclusive words or phrases, so you can make your content relatable for everyone.
It also checks if other pages on your website use the same focus keyword, to prevent you from competing with yourself.
If you write a relatively SEO-friendly blog post (based on the aspects discussed above) the plugin will indicate this with a green light. Posts and pages with green lights will help you improve the ranking of the pages on your website.
An example
It’s good to remember that not every light has to be green for your overall SEO score to be good. For example, these are the results of this blog post. As you can see, it does have an overall green light for the focus keyphrase “SEO-friendly blog post”:
Analysis results as shown in the Yoast SEO sidebar
Kind of a cool way to get feedback on your content, right? When you use the Yoast SEO plugin you’ll find this feedback in the Yoast SEO sidebar next to your post and in the Yoast meta box under your post (while editing). If you’re interested in learning more about all the aspects this analysis tool looks at, read our article on how to use the Yoast SEO content analysis tool.
Conclusion
The days when a few SEO tricks were enough to get your website to rank well in Google are long gone. Nowadays, quality content is king. And good content also leads to more links, shares, tweets and returning visitors to your website. Of course, there are always other things you can do to maximize the SEO friendliness of your post, but the most important thing is to just write very, very good posts! Still not sure if your blog post is ready to publish? Take a look at this checklist for your blog post to make sure you’re good to go!
Cindy is a content manager at Yoast. She writes and optimizes blog posts, and enjoys writing content that will help people create better content for their site and users.
We often get the question of how long an online text should be. As this often depends on different factors, it’s difficult to give just one answer. But looking from an SEO and user-oriented perspective, there is a rule of thumb you can follow. We advise writing more than 300 words for posts or pages, while product descriptions should be over 200 words. Why? Because a higher word count helps Google understand what your text is about. It also gives you the room to give enough information on the topic being discussed, which is helpful for your site visitors. However, we don’t advise adding more content for the sake of it. Quality and readability always come first!
Defining word count is easy: it’s how many words are used in a specific text, on a page or in another place. It’s an easy way to measure text length. But why does it matter you ask? Well, making sure that your text is long enough helps Google better understand what your text is about. We’ve experienced this ourselves; we have written quite some articles that are over 2500 words, such as our SEO essentials. They are cornerstone content, and they help our organic traffic grow. Here’s how longer articles contribute to SEO:
When your text is longer, Google has more indicators to determine what it is about. The longer your text, the more often your focus keyphrase will probably appear. This is no excuse for keyphrase stuffing, though! If you optimize your copy naturally, your focus keyphrase will pop up here and there throughout your text. You can also fit in more synonyms and related keyphrases. What’s more, in a longer post, you can add more headings, links, and images, where you will mention the keyphrase or related phrases. So more content gives you more room to provide users with high-quality and nuanced information.
A longer text can also help you rank for multiple long-tail variants of the keyphrase you’ve optimized your text for. That’s because you have more opportunities to address various topics in a lengthy text. Your article, or your other posts that take a deep dive into the subtopic, will have a chance to turn up in search results for the long-tail variants of your keyphrase. If you do some well-thought-out internal linking you can even boost the traffic to the extensive post you’ve written. This helps you drive more organic traffic to your site.
Avoid having thin content
Also, if a page doesn’t have a lot of text (a low word count), Google is more likely to think of it as thin content. All search engines want to provide the best answers to online searches people do. Thin content is less likely to offer a complete answer and satisfy the needs of the public. Consequently, it will probably not rank very high.
The same goes for product pages and descriptions in your online store. While these don’t have to be as long as blog posts, it is a good idea to make sure the text is long enough. Don’t underestimate the importance of having the proper information on your products. This can make the difference between making a purchase or not, as more text helps them make an informed decision and helps them trust your website.
What does Yoast SEO check?
The text length check in Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO helps you by checking the length of your texts. This check is part of the SEO analysis, and you will find it in the SEO tab of the Yoast SEO meta box or in the Yoast SEO sidebar. It calculates how many words you’ve added to a page and whether that’s enough to help you rank. This check is also available in our Yoast SEO for Shopify app.
Feedback of the Yoast SEO analysis on text length
Feedback of Yoast SEO for Shopify analysis on text length
Every page on your site needs to contain a certain number of words to be helpful for your site visitors and Google. How long your text should minimally be, depends on the type of page. Taxonomy pages require less content than blog posts, whereas cornerstone content is often your most important content and therefore needs to contain a significant number of words.
In the table below, you can see how we assess the different pages. If you have less than the minimum number of words on a page, you’ll get a red traffic light in the Yoast SEO analysis. Where you get a green traffic light when you’ve hit the minimum word count we advise.
Taxonomy page
>250 words
Regular post or page
>300 words
Cornerstone product page
>400 words
Cornerstone content page
>900 words
Product page or description
>200 words
Minimum number of words per type of page to get a green traffic light in Yoast SEO
Not enough content
Yoast SEO will also give you a red or orange traffic light if your post or page consists of less than 50 characters in the readability analysis. To properly evaluate the readability of your content, the Yoast SEO plugin needs a minimum number of characters. If your post or page contains less than 50 characters, the plugin’s readability checks won’t give you the best results. And, in most cases, you can’t provide the best answer to your audience in such a short span of words.
Word count in the Yoast SEO insights tab
You can also find the exact word count of your content in the Yoast SEO Insights tab in the sidebar. The Insights tab also contains other useful features, like the Flesch reading ease, estimated reading time, and prominent words.
How to write a high-quality lengthy post
So, longer articles might have some advantages over short posts. But while you’re writing posts with a high word count, it is important to keep the quality of the text at a high level. Good quality texts are readable, well structured, and always contain original content.
Writing high-quality content for your site or online store is hard. Especially when your goal is to write articles with a high word count to grow your organic traffic. When you’re writing, and especially elaborating on what you already have, make sure you keep the following aspects in mind:
Write readable texts
The most important thing when writing long (or any kind of) posts is to write for your audience. That may sound obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to get distracted and start adding irrelevant information. Start by thinking about questions a reader could have about the topic you’re covering. Then, provide clear answers to those questions. Of course, the answers should be well-written and readable.
What can you do to make your text readable? Your text needs to follow a logical line of thought. To accomplish that, we advise you to start every paragraph with a topic sentence, i.e., a sentence that explains the main idea of that paragraph. Use the rest of the paragraph to elaborate on that sentence. Be sure to keep your sentences and paragraphs short and snappy. If you find any unnecessary words or sentences – delete them. Minimize your use of passive voice. But do connect your paragraphs to make the text easy to read, a good way to do this is by using transition words.
Use headings
One way of structuring your text is by using headings. Headings within a text serve two purposes. First: they show a top-down hierarchy. You immediately see that a subject has, for instance, three subheadings that elaborate on it further. Another function is for scanning. You can let your readers know what a paragraph is about by using headings. It also makes your text pleasant to read, as a heading tells you what the next piece of text is about.
Write original content
This is the hardest one. It is not easy being original with so much content out there. But, it might help if you reflect on what makes you unique. Think about how what you offer is different and better than what your competitors offer. Then do some keyword research to see what your audience searches for online. Preparing with research can give you plenty of ideas on what to write about and how to make yourself stand out from the crowd. In case you get stuck, we have a whole blog post on how to find inspiration.
Want to learn more on how to write high-quality posts that users and search engines will love? Our SEO Copywriting course and other SEO courses can help you with that. You can get access to these courses with Yoast SEO Premium or Yoast SEO for Shopify, which also gives you access to extra features in the Yoast SEO plugin.
Go Premium and get free access to our SEO courses!
Learn how to write great content for SEO and unlock lots of features with Yoast SEO Premium:
How to create high-quality archive pages
Let’s start by explaining what archive pages are. WordPress uses so-called taxonomies to group content. The word ‘taxonomy’ is a fancy term for a group of things (website pages, in this case) that have something in common. WordPress has two default taxonomies: categories and tags. The difference between a category and a tag mostly has to do with structure. Categories are hierarchical: you can have subcategories and even sub-subcategories. Tags, however, don’t have that hierarchy.
WordPress automatically generates a page for each category or tag you create. So, do be mindful of them, and don’t create new tags for each post you write! We call these pages archive pages because that’s what they do: they archive posts (or products) that have something in common. Besides categories and tags, there are also other types of archive pages. You can even create a custom taxonomy or use a plugin that creates one.
Why are archive pages important for your SEO?
Taxonomy archive pages are very valuable when it comes to structuring your site. A clear site structure helps both Google and your visitors to understand and navigate your site and help you rank higher. To get the best out of your taxonomy archive pages, you will need to work on them. The pages that WordPress automatically generates tend to only consist of a list of posts without any further introduction. So, if visitors land on one of your archive pages, they don’t get much information. This increases the chance that they won’t find what they’re looking and leave the page.
How to optimize taxonomy archive pages
To make your taxonomy archives awesome, you often don’t even have to do that much. Start by adding a clear heading and an introduction, where you highlight the content on that archive page. In addition, you can add some links to that introductory content pointing to the best posts or pages on that archive page. This will go a long way in making sure that the users understand what the page is about.
For descriptions on archive pages, we recommend a minimum of 250 words. That’s less than what we recommend for blog posts, but that’s because the description of an archive page has a different purpose than a blog post. Rather than exploring a topic, these descriptions serve as an introduction to the rest of the content on that page. These texts don’t have to be lengthy. You want to rank with these pages though, and that means category and tag pages need content.
How to write high-quality product descriptions
A lot of online stores use the default text that the manufacturer provides when it comes to the products they sell. This is not something we would recommend (at all). Not only will this show Google that there are already five other websites out there that are providing the same content as you are (which hurts your rankings), but it also shows users that you don’t take the time to properly optimize your product pages. This hurts your credibility. Of course, if you have an online store with lots of products we understand that this isn’t done in a few minutes. In that case, we recommend starting with your most important products or best-sellers.
Make sure your product descriptions contain the information people will want about these products. Make this information easy to read and to the point. As you probably saw in the table, these pages often ask for less content than blog posts or other pages. But do make sure that all the information that someone would want about that product, is on the product page. As I mentioned before, a great product description can be the difference between making a sale or not.
Conclusion on word count and SEO
This post taught you that the word count of your posts and pages can influence your rankings. However, and this is very important, you should not compromise the quality of your text for the sake of writing longer pieces. So, always use your common sense and write readable, and well-structured texts that are helpful for your site visitors. Eventually, this is what Google wants as well and therefore will get you higher up the rankings!
SEO has a somewhat questionable reputation. In the past, people shared supposed tricks that would instantly get you to rank. But a lot has changed in the SEO world. So, are these tricks still true? Let’s take a look at what’s an SEO fact, and what’s SEO fiction!
The origin of this reputation
A lifetime ago, when Google’s algorithm wasn’t that good, you could trick your way into the search results. Putting down keywords in white (so nobody would see, but Google would crawl it) was an effective strategy back then. As was buying bulks of links from questionable sites. As Google evolved, these kinds of dirty SEO tricks started to backfire.
If you’re wondering whether certain tactics of old school or blackhat SEO still pay off, just think: does it give the user a better experience on your site? Does your website become a better result? If you can answer these questions with yes, then it’s probably a good SEO strategy. Anything that feels like a trick though, probably won’t be a good SEO strategy in the long run. So, let’s look at some SEO statements and find out if they’re fact or fiction!
SEO fact or fiction?
Fact or fiction 1: Content is king
Content is a very important aspect of any SEO strategy. After all, Google crawls texts and determines the ranking of your site on the quality of your texts. High-quality content also leads to lower bounce rates and more social media attention.
SEO fact: Content is king
Fact or fiction 2: Get as many links as possible
While backlinks are definitely important for your SEO strategy, you should be rather selective in which kinds of backlinks you’d want to attract to your website. To start, you shouldn’t buy large amounts of links. (Nor should you exchange links.) Secondly, don’t use any automated programs to get links. Moreover, don’t do guest blogging with very thin content and don’t go for links that are unrelated to the topic of your website. You shouldn’t have links from spammy sites whose only purpose is to advertise for gambling, viagra and porn (unless your website is about gambling, viagra and porn). Lastly, make sure there is real content behind the links you use. In a nutshell: you should never pay for links.
Fact or fiction 3: Keyword density should be sky high
Some people claim you should put as many keywords in your texts as possible. They hope that Google will notice the amount of keywords they’re using and therefore will rank the text highest in the search results. However, their text will become unreadable. So they shouldn’t do that! It’ll definitely backfire. Never write content that’s created for the search engines. Always write content with a real audience in mind. Invest in high-quality content that’ll generate long-term stable traffic to your website.
SEO fiction: keyword density should be sky high
Fact or fiction 4: You don’t need high-end technical skills to do SEO
Technical SEO is definitely an important element of an SEO strategy. And it doesn’t hurt to learn a bit of code (it could even be great fun). However, if you’re using WordPress and our Yoast SEO plugin, your technical SEO is pretty much covered. Our plugin is designed to take care of all the technical aspects of your SEO strategy.
SEO fact: You don’t need high-end technical skills to do SEO
Fact or fiction 5: Meta descriptions don’t matter
Google rewrites 70% of manually added meta descriptions. That means there’s a high chance that a meta description you added manually will be rewritten by Google. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pay attention to the content of your meta description. Meta descriptions provide critical information to both search engines and users. Moreover, it’s based on the SEO title and meta description that the user decides whether to visit your page. Neglecting them would be missing an opportunity to get more traffic to your website.
SEO fiction: Meta descriptions don’t matter
Fact or fiction 6: Social media can improve your rankings
Google doesn’t look at your website’s social media performance (like followers or shares) when ranking your content. However, a good social media strategy helps your rankings by boosting your traffic. A lot of traffic makes search engines deem your content as relevant. Furthermore, the difference between search engines and social media has been blurring. For example, both Google and Instagram can be used to find an answer to a question.
SEO fact: Social media can improve your rankings
Fact or fiction 7: Google will be replaced by AI
While using AI platforms as search engines might be relatively new, AI has been shaping the search engine experience for quite some time. For example, AI is what helps Google provide voice search and image search. And not only are some search engines introducing their own AI language models (like Gemini), they are also integrating AI models into the search engine results.
So while we don’t know exactly what the future holds, it’s clear that Google and AI found a way to work together instead of replacing each other.
SEO fiction: Google will be replaced by AI
Fact or fiction 8: SEO is all tricks
At Yoast, we propose an SEO strategy we refer to as holistic SEO. Holistic SEO means you focus on developing a long-term SEO strategy that focuses on all aspects of website optimization, in order to be the best result. Part of this strategy is to write awesome content, do great PR and social, make sure your website is properly secured and create a superb User Experience. And of course, your website should have technical excellence and an awesome site structure. That’s no trick. That’s just a whole lot of hard work.
SEO fiction: SEO is all tricks
Conclusion
The final SEO fiction actually says it all: SEO is not all tricks. Yoast believes that SEO is a long-term strategy that focuses on creating quality content for your audience and becoming the best result. It is a lot of work, but it will definitely pay off in the long run!
The art of content creation has become increasingly sophisticated. The key to standing out is to produce high-quality content. You should craft it precisely, making it both engaging for readers and friendly to search engines. This is where AI-powered content generation tools like ChatGPT, Bing CoPilot and Google Gemini come in, offering efficiency and creativity. However, the true power of these tools lies not in their ability to generate content but in how we, as SEO content writers, instruct and refine their output.
Table of contents
Tip 1: Crafting the perfect SEO-driven prompt
Define your content goal: is it to inform, persuade, sell, or explain? Understand your audience’s needs and search habits to tailor your prompt effectively.
Choose a primary keyword that encapsulates your content’s essence and guides its direction. Then, break down the keyword to address search intent. List subtopics that delve into different aspects of your main theme, incorporating related secondary keywords.
Combine all these elements into a concise prompt. For example: “Create a detailed guide on primary keyword, covering subtopics, for target audience, integrating secondary keywords. Ensure the tone is desired tone, suitable for content type.”
Ensure clarity in your prompt to effectively align AI-generated content with your SEO objectives. This transforms your prompt into a strategic blueprint for SEO-optimized content tailored to your goals and audience.
Example prompt:
"Generate a detailed guide focused on 'Maximizing Small Kitchen Spaces.' Incorporate primary keyword 'small kitchen organization' within the introduction, headings, and conclusion. Cover subtopics including 'Creative Storage Solutions,' 'Decluttering Strategies,' and 'Multipurpose Furniture Ideas,' integrating secondary keywords 'space-saving kitchen gadgets,' 'decluttering tips for kitchens,' and 'multipurpose furniture for small spaces.' Target audience: urban apartment dwellers. Tone: Informative yet engaging."
Tip 2: Keyword optimization beyond the basics
Specify keyword placement for the AI, requesting inclusion in the introduction, subheadings, and conclusion to kickstart SEO-friendly content creation. Emphasize the natural integration of primary and secondary keywords throughout the text to maintain flow and enhance readability.
Encourage the use of keyword variations to broaden content appeal and reach. For instance, suggest including variations like “how to garden organically” alongside the primary keyword “organic gardening tips.”
Highlight the importance of contextual keyword usage to enhance content value and user experience. Doing so helps align with search engines’ preference for contextually rich content. Instruct the AI to incorporate secondary keywords in subheadings to improve the content structure for readers. This also enhances search engine visibility by signaling covered topics within the article.
Example prompt
"Create an article on 'The Benefits of Yoga for Stress Relief,' ensuring the primary keyword 'yoga for stress relief' is naturally integrated throughout the content, especially in the introduction, subheadings, and conclusion. Include secondary keywords 'stress-relieving yoga poses,' 'beginner yoga routines,' and 'yoga mindfulness practices' within specific sections. Focus on providing valuable information and insights on how yoga can help with stress relief, and use variations of the primary keyword to enhance readability."
Tip 3: Request structured content
Outline the content structure for the AI. Say you need an introduction, a set number of sections or headings, and a conclusion to provide a clear framework. Briefly describe the focus of each section or heading to ensure all content segments contribute cohesively to the main topic.
Request the use of bullet points to enhance information digestibility. Prompt the AI to present key points or lists in a bullet format for improved readability where needed.
Conclude by asking for a summary highlighting the main points and including a call to action (CTA) to engage readers. Encourage actions like commenting, sharing the content, or exploring related topics on your website.
Example prompt:
"Draft an informative post titled 'The Ultimate Guide to Eco-Friendly Living.' Structure the content with an introduction that highlights the importance of sustainability. Include sections on 'Reducing Plastic Use,' 'Sustainable Eating Habits,' 'Eco-Friendly Transportation Options,' and 'Green Home Improvements,' each with relevant bullet points and examples. Conclude with a compelling call to action encouraging readers to adopt at least one eco-friendly practice."
Tip 4: Instruct AI for intent match
Understand why users search for your keyword: to learn (informational), find a site (navigational), make a purchase (transactional), or compare options (commercial investigation). Tailor your prompt to match the identified intent explicitly. For informational searches, request a comprehensive guide or tips; for transactional intent, focus on product details, benefits, and purchasing guidance.
Clearly outline the desired reader response in your prompt—what they should feel, know, or do by the article’s end. This guides the AI to create content that aligns closely with the user intent and desired outcome.
For content addressing common questions, direct the AI to structure part of the content in a Q&A format. Provide audience queries for the AI to address within the content. For prompts targeting commercial investigation or transactional intents, instruct the AI to incorporate comparisons, case studies, or scenarios. This assists readers in decision-making and directly addresses their underlying intent.
Example prompt:
"Write a comprehensive comparison article on 'Electric Cars vs. Gasoline Cars: Which is Better for the Environment?' Target user intent by providing detailed analysis and evidence on environmental impact, long-term costs, and performance differences. Include FAQs to answer common queries directly. Conclude with a recommendation section tailored to environmentally conscious drivers considering their next vehicle purchase."
Tip 5: Creating engaging titles with AI
Ensure your primary keyword features in the title to enhance SEO and indicate content relevance. For instance, if the keyword is “vegan baking recipes,” integrate this phrase naturally into the title. Instruct the AI to craft titles that inform about the content while intriguing readers to click, balancing clarity with curiosity or value. For example, consider a title like “10 Vegan Baking Recipes That Will Revolutionize Your Dessert Game.”
Ask the AI to provide multiple title options to explore different framing possibilities based on your keyword and content focus. This helps spark creativity and aid title refinement.
Titles with numbers and power words often perform well. Guide the AI to include these elements in some title options, such as “5 Mouth-Watering Vegan Baking Recipes for Every Sweet Craving.” Encourage title specificity by including details like the target audience, problem solved, or unique content. For example, “Vegan Baking for Beginners: Master Dairy-Free Desserts Step by Step.”
Opt for titles in the active voice for dynamism and engagement. Active voice titles are direct and compelling, such as “Uncover the Best 10 Vegan Baking Recipes Loved by All.”
Example prompt:
"Generate five engaging titles for an article about 'Indoor Herb Gardening for Beginners,' incorporating the primary keyword. Each title should invoke curiosity and offer value, possibly including numbers or power words. Examples of structure could include 'How To Start Your Indoor Herb Garden: 5 Easy Steps' or 'Transform Your Kitchen with These 7 Easy-to-Grow Herbs.'"
Yoast SEO Premium has an excellent AI title generator
Yoast SEO Premium features an AI-powered tool designed to generate SEO-optimized titles and meta descriptions for your content effortlessly. It swiftly analyzes your articles to produce compelling, search-engine-friendly headings and summaries, improving click-through rates and saving valuable time. This intuitive feature streamlines content creation, ensuring your articles are primed for maximum visibility and engagement.
Yoast SEO Premium helps you write great titles and meta descriptions with AI
Ensure your primary keyword is prominent in the meta description to convey relevance to search engines and potential readers. If, for instance, your keyword is “indoor gardening tips,” feature it at the beginning or early on in the meta description.
Instruct the AI — or have Yoast SEO Premium do it for you! — to encapsulate your content’s primary benefit or value proposition in the meta description. Focus not just on what the content is about but why it holds significance. For example, “Transform your living space into a verdant oasis with these indoor gardening tips.”
Given the character limit for meta descriptions, emphasize crafting concise and compelling descriptions that prompt users to click through. Be succinct, engaging, and direct to entice readers effectively. Also, end the meta description with a call to action (CTA) to prompt reader engagement. Request the AI to include a subtle yet persuasive CTA, like “Start your indoor garden transformation today with our expert tips!”
Example prompt:
"Produce a concise answer section for 'What Are the Best Practices for Password Management?' Structure the content to answer the question directly within 50 words, suitable for a featured snippet. Follow with a bulleted list of top practices and a brief explanation of why each is important for securing online accounts."
Tip 7: Better AI prompts for featured snippets
Identify common questions related to your content’s topic to align with your audience’s needs. Direct the AI to structure content segments that directly answer these queries. For instance, for “vegan baking,” address questions like “What is vegan baking?” or “How to substitute eggs in vegan baking.”
Featured snippets favor clear, concise answers. Instruct the AI to provide direct responses, ideally within 40-60 words for paragraph snippets. This increases the likelihood of your content being featured.
Google often showcases lists and tables for how-to guides and rankings. Ask the AI to incorporate bulleted lists for steps, ingredients, tips, and tables for comparative data or statistics. Utilize headers (H2 or H3 tags) that align with identified questions to aid search engines in understanding your content’s structure. This alignment increases your chances of selecting your article for a featured snippet.
Example prompt:
"Write an article on 'The Importance of Hydration for Athletes,' suggesting points for internal linking to our previous content. Include placeholders like '[Link to "Best Rehydration Drinks"]' where relevant. Ensure each suggested link provides additional value and context related to hydration tips, benefits, and strategies."
Tip 8: Using AI for internal linking suggestions
Begin by comprehensively understanding your website’s existing content to guide the AI in suggesting relevant internal linking opportunities. This step ensures that the AI’s recommendations align effectively with your site’s content structure.
In your instructions, specify that you want the AI to pinpoint potential internal linking chances within the content. For instance, if discussing “Vegan Baking,” highlight related articles like “Vegan Ingredients” or “Eco-Friendly Cooking Utensils” as potential anchor points for internal links.
Direct the AI to propose specific phrases or keywords within the content that can serve as anchor text for internal links. Ensure the anchor text is contextually relevant to the linked article’s content. Things like this help the user experience and can make it easier for search engines to understand content relationships.
Emphasize the importance of seamlessly integrating internal links within the content’s context to the AI. Each suggested link should provide value to the reader. Links should offer additional information or related topics that enrich their engagement with the content.
Write better prompts by instructing the AI to create calls to action (CTAs) with internal links. For instance, “Explore our comprehensive guide to Vegan Ingredients for more insights on vegan baking.” This approach encourages readers to delve into related content, enhancing site navigation and user engagement.
Example prompt
"Write an article on 'The Importance of Hydration for Athletes,' suggesting points for internal linking to our previous content. Include placeholders like '[Link to "Best Rehydration Drinks"]' where relevant. Ensure each suggested link provides additional value and context related to hydration tips, benefits, and strategies."
Tip 9: Improve content depth
Begin by mapping out a range of subtopics that cover your main topic from various angles. This ensures your content addresses the breadth and depth of the subject. For instance, if your main topic is “Sustainable Gardening,” potential subtopics might include water conservation techniques, organic pest control, and sustainable garden design.
Direct the AI to dive deep into each subtopic, providing detailed explanations, step-by-step guides, benefits, challenges, and solutions. This level of detail enriches the content and positions it as a valuable resource for readers seeking thorough information.
Enhance the depth of your content by asking the AI to include relevant examples and case studies within the subtopics. These real-life illustrations add credibility and interest, making complex information more accessible and engaging to your audience.
Direct the AI to cover each subtopic comprehensively, addressing common questions, misconceptions, and practical advice. This not only aids in SEO by covering a range of related keywords but also provides value to the reader.
While instructing the AI to cover subtopics thoroughly emphasizes the need for clear, accessible language. Complex topics should be broken down into digestible sections. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and images to enhance readability and engagement.
Ensure that each subtopic includes actionable advice or takeaways. This transforms the content from purely informational to practical. You should give readers clear steps or strategies they can implement in their context.
Example prompt:
"Develop an in-depth feature on 'Sustainable Travel Destinations Around the World.' For each destination, provide detailed insights into how it promotes sustainability, including conservation efforts, eco-friendly accommodations, and green activities. Incorporate real-life examples, hypothetical expert quotes, and recent studies supporting the benefits of sustainable tourism."
Tip 10: Enhance SEO-friendliness
Start by creating a broad content draft using the AI based on your initial prompt, covering all subtopics and including primary and secondary keywords. Treat this draft as the foundation for further refinement.
Review the draft thoroughly to enhance engagement, add detail, and improve flow. Focus on significant enhancements aligning the content with your goals.
Use specific prompts to refine content sections. For instance, if a section like “water conservation techniques” needs improvement, prompt for enhancements like including current technologies and efficiency practices. This targeted approach allows for precise improvements.
After enhancing content quality, shift focus to keyword optimization. Integrate primary and secondary keywords naturally throughout the text to add value and maintain readability.
Example prompt:
"Create an initial draft for 'Top Digital Marketing Trends in 2023.' After review, refine the content with a follow-up prompt focusing on enhancing sections that discuss AI in marketing and the rise of voice search, adding current statistics, expert opinions, and practical tips for marketers to adapt these trends."
High-quality example prompts
Here are three AI prompts to try that should give you good results to build upon:
Example prompt 1: Crafting SEO-driven content
"Create a detailed, SEO-optimized guide titled 'The Ultimate Guide to Organic Gardening in Small Spaces.' Start with an engaging introduction with the primary keyword 'organic gardening in small spaces.' Break down the guide into the following sections: Choosing Your Space, Essential Tools for Small Space Gardening, Selecting Plants, Organic Pest Control Methods, and Maximizing Your Yield. Each section should integrate secondary keywords: 'urban organic gardening,' 'small garden tools,' 'best plants for small gardens,' 'natural pest control,' and 'increasing garden yield,' respectively. Conclude with a summary and a CTA encouraging readers to share their small space gardening tips."
Example prompt 2: Keyword optimization
"Write an informative article on 'Top SEO Strategies for 2024,’ ensuring the primary keyword 'SEO strategies 2024’ appears in the introduction, at least three subheadings, and the conclusion. Use secondary keywords 'keyword research,' 'mobile optimization,' 'voice search SEO,' and 'content marketing trends' in different sections to structure the article. Each section should provide detailed insights and practical tips while not using the main keyword too much. Include bullet points for key tips and end with a compelling CTA to subscribe for more SEO insights."
Example prompt 3: Requesting structured content
"Produce a comprehensive post on 'How to Create Engaging Content for Social Media.' The content should start with an introduction emphasizing the importance of engagement on social media platforms. The body should be divided into sections covering 'Understanding Your Audience,' 'Crafting Captivating Headlines,' 'Using Visuals to Enhance Posts,' 'Incorporating Hashtags Effectively,' and 'Engaging with Your Community.' Each section should start with a subheading and include bullet points for the main tips. Conclude with a summary reiterating the value of engagement and a CTA encouraging readers to implement these strategies in their next social media post."
Conclusion
Careful prompt crafting enables the AI to generate high-quality, SEO-optimized content, paving the way for improved visibility and reader engagement. Use this guide as your roadmap to SEO content writing excellence, harnessing AI tools as valuable assets in your digital marketing endeavors.
