When you write an article for your hyperlocal site your first thought should always be with the reader. Is the article interesting? Does it contain all the details and facts needed? Have you included an interesting image? Is it appropriate for the people you are targeting? Have you encouraged discussion using your comment tool?
All reader needs considered? Ok, your next thought should be with the search engines. Will the search engines love your content as much as your readers? Writing content that your readers will love is paramount, but you are going to need some readers first!
The search engines, along with social media like Facebook and Twitter (thanks to you adding blogs share links) will usually be your main source of visitors.
In order of priority, here is how I review new content to ensure I’ve done all I can to help it do well in search engines without needing much technical knowhow:
Decided on a phrase / words to focus on
If you hadn’t written the article, but you were looking for the information it contained using a search engine, what words or phrase would you use and expect it to appear as a result?
For this article the main focus is writing search engine friendly content. That’s called a key-phrase, which contains all the words I think people will use to search for the information this article contains. A few examples of hyperlocal focuses might be:
- New Tesco in Didsbury
- Didsbury under 16′s win cup
- Wilmslow Road closed May 2011
Once you have picked your focus you can then ensure you include those words, and phrases that contain them several times. This is called keyword (or phrase) density and without going into too much detail, more is good. Here is where and how to include it:
Page Title
The Page Title is the text that appears at the very top of a web browser (Internet Explorer / Firefox etc) when you are viewing a web page and more importantly it is used by search engines as the link text you click to view the page when it appears in their results. Here is an image of a Fetch Didsbury result in Google with the page title highlighted:
Imagine your Page Title to be a few words which explains the update. You want to explain, using the most relevant words, what people will find if they view the page. Try and keep it short (70 characters or less) else search engines won’t show it all.
Main Heading
The main heading of your update is special to search engines and your visitors alike. Think of it as a description of what people will find further down the page. Introduce the whole article with it. Similar to the Page Title it should contain all the most relevant words to describe the article. It can be longer than 70 characters but keep it concise. WordPress often includes the article title automatically here.
Article URL (address / permalink)
The address, or url of your article is next on the list. It should also contain a few relevant words in a nice clean lowercase format. A good example would be http://journallocal.co.uk/2011/04/27/adding-share-links-to-your-blog-posts/ which is short, relevant and clean.
Image file names alt attributes and title attributes
When you add an image to any article you should always include title and alt (or alternative) text. WordPress and many other blog platforms offer you the option to include it, always do! Make the alternative text a description of what you can actually see in the image. The title should be additional information that the image does not explain like the people in it or the location. The file name of the image should ideally follow the same rules as your articles url, very clean but including words relevant to what the image is showing. For example google-result-for-fetch-didsbury.jpg
Content
Make sure your content is readable to a human, but that it is obvious what the page is about even when choosing a paragraph of the article at random. Use your focus words and phrase for the article in bold somewhere. Use your focus words and phrase for the article in the first and last paragraph of the page.
Practice makes perfect
Once you get used to considering both your audience and the search engines you will begin to write articles in a way which is of interest to your visitors and that search engines will love without even thinking about it.
Feel free to share your opinion or things not included above using the comments below…
About the Author
Harry Bailey is the founder of Fetch Didsbury, a hyperlocal site servicing the Didsbury area of South Manchester. To pay the bills he works as a freelance php developer and is a Director of Manchester’s Tariff Street Limited web agency.
