Contrary to popular belief among editors, web readers are not lazy. In fact, most web users engage with multiple long-form posts each day and digest large volumes of content. However, information on a screen is slightly more difficult for our brains to absorb. 

Despite this, most readers on the web (wrongly) believe that they are able to work through more information at a greater speed than if they were reading on paper. 

This is why it’s important for content writers and editors to understand how people read on the web and structure our content in a way that is most likely to help them get the information they need quickly and effectively.

How people read on the web

A very old study by Nielsen that investigated how people read on the web concluded, very simply, that they don’t. 

Back then, Nielsen found that 79% of people on the web scan articles rather than reading them word for word. Only 16% of users read each and every word. We’re not quite sure what happened to the other 5%.

Although Nielsen’s original research is nearly 30 years old, their findings haven’t changed much over the course of the internet’s history.

The point is that it’s very rare for people to read online. It’s far more likely that the users who are visiting your website are scanning your content to find the information that they’re looking for. (This is also why well-written metadata is so important for driving traffic.)

There are two main things to keep in mind when trying to understand how users read on screens – and therefore how to structure pages and articles:

1. Users follow an ‘information scent’; and
2. Scanning patterns are predictable

The information scent

When searching for information, users will enter a website based on what they predict they’re likely to find on a certain page or via a certain path on the site.

In this context, they make a mental trade-off between what they believe they can gain and what they think it will cost them to make that gain. 

This means that your content must be valuable and easy to find. If information is useful but difficult to find, the user will leave your page. If it is easy to find but not useful, the result will be the same. 

There are two things to consider here: getting users to your page and keeping them there.

Getting users to your page

Writing content that targets a particular keyword and considers the searcher’s intent in relation to that keyword will help users to find your page. 

You’ll also want to ensure that the metadata for your page speaks to the user’s keyword and search intent in order to encourage them to click on your link on the search engine results page (SERP).

Keeping users on your page

Average bounce rates on the internet range from 26 to 70%. Looking at those stats, it’s clear that there’s an art to keeping users on websites—and some web editors haven’t mastered it. 

If you’ve developed your content to speak to a particular keyword and have kept the likely intent of the searcher in mind when building your page, you already have a pretty solid start here. 

From there, it’s essential that you create a sound and logical structure for your content (including headings, lists, internal links, and imagery) that will help to guide the reader to the information they’re looking for on your page.

Scanning patterns

Another important factor when understanding how users read on the web is scanning patterns. There are a few common patterns that people follow when reading web pages:

1. F pattern: focus on the left-hand side of the page, paying more attention to the first few lines of each paragraph.
2. Layer cake pattern: reading headings and subheadings
3. Spotted pattern: skipping through large chunks of information, searching for specific words, numbers, or other items
4. Marking pattern: eyes focus on one point as mouse or scroller moves (important on mobile)
5. Bypassing pattern: skipping the first word in a line when multiple lines start with the same word
6. Commitment pattern: reading all of the text

While it would be ideal for all of our users to follow the commitment pattern (only the most highly motivated and invested readers use this approach), this is unfortunately not the case.

Most readers scan text in the F pattern and use a combination of the other methods to find the information that they’re looking for in our copy. Understanding this, we’re now able to write and format our content to suit web readers.

How to write for web readers

When writing for the web, it’s important to keep in mind that you aren’t only writing for human readers, but also for androids like SEO spiders and web crawlers. As such, it’s important to structure your content to work for both people and search engines.

To take advantage of the most common scanning patterns (the F, layer cake, and spotted), editors can use the following formatting guidelines:

1. Include clear and descriptive headings and subheadings
2. Keep paragraphs short and use them to group related information
3. Put the important points up front—convey information that answers a search query in the first two sentences of the first two paragraphs
4. Add internal links to highlight related, helpful information
5. Use bulleted lists to make important information stand out

Implementing these five guidelines will ensure that users who land on your website are able to find the information that they need quickly and efficiently, which may encourage them to carry on reading or even return when they have another question in future.

Once you know how people read on the web it becomes far easier to structure your content in a way that increases engagement and moves potential customers towards conversion.

1. Identify a ‘seed’ keyword

Consider the topic you’re writing about or the item you’re trying to promote. Think of a broad concept that relates to this topic to find the seed keyword. Typically, this would be the first thing a user would type into a search engine.

For example, if you need to produce stories about Paris, ‘Paris travel’, ‘visit Paris’ or ‘travel to Paris’ will likely be good keywords to start with. 

Once you have your seed keyword, finding more targeted keywords becomes easier. Next, you can use an SEO tool (Moz and Ahrefs are two popular examples) to identify more specific keywords.

2. Search for specific keywords

Use your seed keyword as the jump-off point for finding more specific keywords. Search this phrase and inspect the keyword ideas, looking at phrases and terms that include your seed keyword, questions related to the seed keyword, as well as other phrases or terms that pages containing your keyword rank for.

Note: The average top 10 result on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) ranks for 1,000 keywords. So it’s imperative to include a main keyword along with a variety of supporting keywords on each page.

Think about questions that you might ask in relation to your keyword as well as long-tail keywords that include your term. Long-tail keywords are phrases that consist of three or more words. 

These are both great for targeting, as they’re more specific than general terms (like ‘travel Paris’) and allow you to target more niche demographics of users who are likely more engaged than those searching for broad terms. 

For example, someone searching ‘When to travel to Paris’ or ‘How to get to Paris’ is likely to be further along the marketing funnel than someone simply searching ‘travel Paris’.

Type the phrase into Google’s search bar for the auto suggest options, or use keyword research tools like Answer the Public; Google’s Keyword Planner, Search Console, or Trends; Questiondb; Keyword Sheeter and others.

3. Account for search intent

When selecting a keyword, it’s important to consider what the user is searching for.

For example, while the keyword ‘travel and leisure paris’ has a relatively low difficulty and a good search volume, it’s unlikely that a searcher using these words is looking for articles about travel and leisure activities in Paris. More likely is that they are looking for pieces published by Travel + Leisure, and wouldn’t click on results not produced by this outlet.

Also think about the type of content that a user is looking for (e.g. guides, products, resources), the format they want (e.g. listicle, how-to, itinerary), as well as the angle they want (e.g. secret spots, not-to-be-missed sights).

4. Prioritise your keywords

Possibly one of the most important steps in identifying keywords, this stage requires you to consider the various metrics attached to the keywords you are researching. 

Important considerations here are: keyword difficulty (KD), keyword volume, clicks and cost per click (CPC). All of these factors should be considered alongside and weighed against one another when making decisions about keywords.

Keyword difficulty

Keyword difficulty (displayed as KD on Ahrefs and most other keyword tools) is a measure of how much competition there is to rank for a particular keyword on a search engine. Ratings range from 0 (easiest) to 100 (most difficult).

While it’s preferable to choose a keyword with a low difficulty rating, these are also less likely to have a decent search volume.

Keyword volume

This metric reveals how many times a specific keyword is searched within a particular time frame. Selecting a keyword with a low volume – relative to similar keywords around the same topic – likely means that your content won’t be seen by many searchers. On the other hand, high-volume keywords are likely to be more difficult to rank for.

While high-volume keywords are likely to drive many impressions, they don’t necessarily translate into website visits. Which is why it’s important to consider clicks.

Clicks

The number of times a keyword drives a click through to a web page is indicated by the clicks metric. When determining which keyword to pick, compare the volume and clicks. This will indicate the traffic potential and give you an idea of how likely a keyword will be to lead searchers to your website.

Note: Be sure to take note of where there is any cost-per-click (CPC) data attached to a certain keyword. If your research platform is showing a CPC, you’ll be competing with advertisers and, if you’re not going to be putting money behind this keyword yourself, it’s likely a better idea to target a different one.

5. Perform competitor research

Next, look at what your competitors rank for. Use an SEO or competitive intelligence tool to figure out which keywords your competitors rank for, where opportunities exist, and to perform a gap analysis.

6. Avoid keyword stuffing

The name of the game is optimization. While it may be tempting to pack multiple keywords into a single sentence, this will likely result in a poor reading experience and cause users to navigate away from your page quickly. Low on-page times and high bounce rates signal to Google and other search engines that a post does not meet user needs and will affect its ranking.

Always favour natural language and informative materials over a ‘gamified’ SEO approach.

Keyword research is an integral part of any SEO strategy and goes a long way to helping your content be seen on SERPs. And it can be relatively easy.

Use keyword research tools like Moz or Ahrefs to identify opportunities by considering how users are searching around your topic as well as what your competitors are targeting. Remember to consider the keyword difficulty and volume, plus the number of clicks your keyword drives to get a better understanding of its potential.

Then all that’s left is to get writing – just remember to use your keywords naturally.

In addition to including relevant keywords to help Google – and other search engines – identify whether a page will provide a user with the answers or information they are looking for, features such as headings, tables of contents, and internal links help spiders crawl pages quickly and effectively.

Scannable content

Use formatting and visual aids to your advantage. Headings, short paragraphs, lists, imagery, and infographics, as well as lists can all serve to highlight and isolate important information – both for the reader and search engine spiders.

A table of contents with links to each section will also ensure that the user is able to access the information they are seeking quickly and easily. Which may be the reason they choose to use and return to our content over that of another outlet.

What’s important here:

• Use descriptive (and keyword-optimized) headings to break content up into smaller, scannable sections
• Write short paragraphs (keep chunks of text to six lines or fewer)
• Include lists to help important information stand out
• Add imagery that will help the user better understand concepts (e.g. a map or visual representation of the weather in different seasons)
• Use sidebars or call-outs to highlight information you want the reader to notice

There are also a few tricks and tips you can use when writing for the web to ensure that users find exactly what they’re looking for.

HTML tags

Heading, subheadings and table of contents

These features are important both for search engine spiders and user experience. 

Adding a title (H1) that features your target keyword will help humans and search engines to decipher what an article is about and whether it will be useful to them. Subheadings (H2s to H6s) will give the article a logical structure, and a table of contents will help them to navigate this structure.

Some rules of thumb:

• Use the <h1> tag for the article title or heading on the page. 
• Only feature one H1 per article.
• All subheadings must feature an HTML tag.
• Keep your structure as shallow as possible. If you find the need to go beyond an H3, you may want to consider restructuring your article.
• Use keywords in your heading and subheadings.
• Be consistent. Headings should create a list when read on their own.

Metadata

All articles must feature a meta title that includes the target keyword, as well as a meta description that provides a brief summary of the contents of the piece. There are a variety of metadata best practices that you can apply to ensure your entry on SERPs are clickable.

Alt text

Alt text is the HTML feature that is used to describe the appearance and function of an image on a page. This text appears when an image doesn’t load, and helps search engine spiders and visually impaired readers to understand what imagery appears on a page.

When writing alt text, there are three important considerations to keep in mind: 

1. Be specific: set out exactly what is in the image
2. Keep it simple: don’t complicate your text with unnecessary descriptive language
3. Use keywords sparingly: where you can incorporate a keyword naturally do

A few other rules of thumb:

• Keep alt text to 125 characters or less
• Ensure that your copy is specific and informative
• Never start with ‘image of’ or ‘picture of’
• Never add alt text to decorative images (e.g. brand graphics or logos)

Internal links

An internal link is a hyperlink to another page or resource on our site that relates to the topic at hand. These types of links help users to identify additional content that may be useful to them, and build a crawlable network for search spiders.

Importantly, hyperlinks should be contextual. In other words, they should tell the reader (or the search engine) exactly where they should expect to be taken when clicking on them. For example:

To make the most of your content marketing, get familiar with the basics of SEO.

Call To Action

Calls to action tell the user what to do or where to go next. They’re also a great way to round off an article.

End your content with a call to action that features a link to a relevant website section or article that will provide the reader with a logical next step.

Once you’ve written a succinct, scannable piece of content that includes headings, links, metadata and a call to action, it’s time to add some keywords, upload it to your website and start promoting it.

These three simple practices will help you to get started with effective SEO for your business.

1. Relevant keywords

Arguably the most important element of SEO, keywords are the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines.

Include keywords that are relevant to both your business and what searchers are looking for (i.e. their search intent). Having content that incorporates these search terms will increase your website’s chances of being seen by searchers who are looking for the goods or services you offer.

Any good SEO strategy starts with solid keyword research, which will help you to determine which search queries to target. This, in turn, will determine the type and amount of traffic you attract.

Unfortunately, without the right keywords, you won’t be optimising for the right things and even high traffic volumes are unlikely to result in leads or conversions.

Once you’ve found relevant keywords that apply to your business, you can start to create website copy that includes these terms.

This might involve working one or two words into sentences, or including longer phrases made up of several terms (long tail keywords). Whichever you choose to target, be sure to incorporate these keywords into your copy in a natural way.

There are a couple of on-page areas – other than your body copy – where you can include keywords to help search engines figure out what your content is about:

• Title tags: This is the title of your web page and is usually the most prominent text for each entry on the SERP (search engine results page). 
• URL: Also known as a ‘web address’, the URL specifies the location of a page on the internet.
• Meta description: Another component of SERP entries, the meta description summarises what a searcher can expect to find on a particular page. 
• Header tags: Your page content should include various levels of headers (e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc.) to improve the readability of your copy and add SEO value.

2. Evergreen content

As the name suggests, evergreen website content is content that is beneficial all year ′round (until the topic dies). This type of content will retain its value and stay relevant no matter when it’s consumed. 

As evergreen doesn’t date, it has the potential to continue bringing traffic to your website for years after it’s published.

Besides reducing the need to continuously create new content, a good piece of evergreen content also has the potential to produce plenty of backlinks long after it goes live. Plus, content that’s relevant in the long term and is good enough for other sites to link to is going to be a hit with search engines.

That said, you will need to keep an eye on your search rankings and refresh your content to ensure it remains competitive. This might include:

• Fixing broken links
• Updating the year in the title
• Replacing or adding images
• Adding new information or discoveries

3. Good user experience

When SEO first began to gain importance, ranking on the first page – or even in first place – required strong copy filled with keywords. Now, search engines like Google are becoming increasingly more concerned with the usability of the sites they recommend.

User experience refers to the impression made by a website when a visitor enters. It relates to the overall quality of the experience they have when navigating both pages and content.

Also known as UX, user experience fits into SEO because the practices share a common goal: guiding searchers to the content they need.

As with keywording, there are a few areas and elements where improvements will provide a good return on investment (ROI) in terms of improving search rankings:

• Navigation and site structure: A well-organised site with a functional menu makes it easy for both users and search engines to find what they’re looking for.
• Headings: Using headings to divide information into digestible chunks and indicate what information is contained in various sections of each page.
• Images: High-quality (but small-size) images that are relevant to the copy on a webpage will capture a user’s attention and engage your audience.
• User signals: Users interacting with features such as CTAs (calls-to-action), related content and touch points shows that your content is interesting and engaging.
• Responsiveness: Mobile-only web browsing is expected to be the norm for three-quarters of internet users by 2025, so it’s essential that the mobile experience on your website is a good one.
• Site speed: Users expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less and Google takes note of this, which means that your site needs fast load times to rank and retain visitors.

With web design and best practices constantly changing, UX does too. There’s also much more to creating a good user experience than these six points, but they’re a good place to start. 

It’s worth exploring other websites and noting what you like about the experience versus what you don’t – it’s likely that those things are appealing to many visitors.

The UX journey doesn’t stop there, though. Once you’ve refined your site, you’ll need to continually monitor how visitors use it and make updates to ensure that your website’s traffic and conversions keep climbing.

There are many more facets to SEO than those presented here – Google’s algorithm uses literally hundreds of parameters to rank web pages – but incorporating relevant keywords into useful evergreen content that appears on a well laid-out site is a good place to start.

What’s important is getting started with a website optimisation strategy and sticking to it to ensure you start ranking.

Although the variability of day-to-day activities is something many small business owners enjoy, the rate of change across these fields can be overwhelming. 

Nowhere is this more true than marketing. With guidelines constantly shifting, it can be tough to discern between passing trends and best practices. This can lead small business owners to stick to tried-and-trusted approaches rather than learning about new marketing tools.

While SEO might have seemed like a fad, this is certainly not the case. The importance of the practice is constantly increasing and its application is only expanding. Which is why small businesses need to take advantage of SEO.

What is SEO?

Let’s start with the basics. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is a method of adjusting your website to be scanned by search engines. In essence, you are enhancing your website’s reach to potential customers.

Search engines like Google have algorithms that determine how useful a webpage will be to searchers. This is based on that page’s relevance to the searcher’s query, which is determined by both on-page and off-page SEO. 

On-page SEO uses keywords, URL construction, website taxonomy and the type of page (Google loves blogs) to convince search engines that a page is relevant. Page load time and responsiveness – whether your site automatically adapts for mobile – are some of the other major factors here. 

There’s also the less visible off-page SEO, which involves link building, social media, business profiles and other articles. As the bulk of off-page SEO relies on other websites linking to yours, it is slightly more difficult to master than its on-page counterpart. 

What’s the value of SEO for a small business?

In short: SEO is the most cost effective way to get people to see your company’s website. Organic search is an integral part of obtaining website traffic for most businesses.

Increased visibility

The majority of potential customers looking for a particular good or service will head straight to their favourite search engine and type in a keyword or two to find suppliers. The search engine will then produce a list of web pages it considers most likely to be helpful to the searcher.

Being recognised as a useful source in relation to a particular keyword will increase your brand’s visibility in the search results.

Targeting keywords also ensures that customers who have an interest in your product or service are being directed to your site. With qualified customers and greater visibility, your website is likely to generate more leads and sales. 

As user experience is a big part of successful SEO, an optimised website ensures that the potential customers are able to find what they’re looking for, increasing the chances that they’ll convert.

Competing in the big leagues as a small business

Effective optimisation has the added benefit of levelling the playing field between small businesses and bigger industry players for a relatively low cost. Size and renown have no effect on where your company will appear in search results, but an optimised website does.

Refining your site to mention particular keywords, work for mobile and load quickly are small changes that have the potential to help you win business over prominent corporations. And making these modifications can be far more cost effective than an advertising campaign.

Strong SEO is critical in ensuring a good web presence in today’s market. With ever-increasing competition across markets, SEO has the ability to help you set your business apart from others and highlight your unique selling points.