Metadata is defined as “data that provides information about other data” and there are lots of different types of metadata you can find online, from legal metadata to statistical metadata. The type of metadata SEO writers and strategists are concerned with is descriptive metadata.

Descriptive metadata is primarily used for the identification of what a website page is trying to show us – it gives a description of the content of a page, as well as who wrote it and why they wrote it. Metadata is added to a document’s HTML code when uploaded to a website.

Metadata can be created manually or automatically, however, usually manual creation is more accurate because it allows the author to include information that they think is most relevant, like including extra keywords to help Google find the page easily.

Its primary function is to help web crawlers and search engines like Google find the page in question and apply their ranking algorithm to it – this enables search engines to show it to the right people when they search for similar content.

The meta title is the main title of a web page. For example, the title of a blog, a “contact us” page, or even a category of clothing on a fashion website could all be used as a meta title. This typically includes key information like the name of the website or the company that runs the website, as well as crucial keywords that Google can use to show your content to the right audience.

The meta description describes what your page is going to provide for website users, whether it’s showing them a product or service, or providing information or entertainment. This sits underneath the meta description, so if your meta title has caught a user’s attention, they may read your meta description to find out if your content truly matches their search intent and what they want to find.

This content should be compelling, calling the user to click on your website link and providing a good balance of keywords to encourage users to find out more without keyword stuffing.

Now that you have the basics of metadata down, it’s worth knowing a couple of extra tips to ensure that your metadata is polished every time you write it:

• Keep your content concise
• Check to see if your metadata could be improved using Google Search Console – if you rank highly but don’t have a matching click-through rate, then you may need to alter your metadata.
• Make sure your metadata says exactly what you’re going to cover in your content – you don’t your metadata to be misleading or you could be penalised by Google.
• If your keywords don’t fit, don’t worry about including them in your meta description – your top priority is letting the reader know what they will find out from your content.

Your metadata may only be a small component of your content, but it carries a lot of weight as it’s what search engine users will first encounter of your website, so selling your content, your site and your products are all done with this first impression of fewer than 160 characters.

If you find that you’re still struggling to wrap your head around metadata, why not reach out to our team here at connective3, and check out our SEO and Organic Content services for all the different ways we can help you with online content? Our knowledgeable content and SEO strategists can help bring the A-game to your metadata and digital content. We’ve also got plenty of helpful advice and insights from our industry experts in our blog, which cover everything from PR to Paid Media and Marketing.

If you have a basic understanding of SEO, you’ll know that how Google reads your website is a key factor in how well a page will be crawled, indexed, and ranked on the SERP. We don’t have time to cover that in detail here so be sure to read our article on how search engines work if you want to understand crawling and indexing more.

Simply put, you quite literally need content in order for any page to rank in a search engine. Without content, the search engine will simply deem a page as uninformative and therefore not worth indexing for users.

With the right informative content combined with some SEO know-how, you’ll be able to get your pages ranking on Google, meaning more organic traffic, and more sales if you run an eCommerce site. And you want that organic traffic as it shows how good the quality of your work is.

So, what are these SEO elements that go into writing SEO copy?

All written content strategies begin with two things. Ideas and keyword research. These two factors work hand-in-hand to create content that will rank well on Google. You need to know what people are searching for so you can target these words, but you also need new ideas for original content.

Before going any deeper, let’s touch on what keywords actually are. On a surface level, they’re specific words or phrases used by search engine users when making a query to find information, and Google uses these to help pages rank where the relevant info appears.

In essence, they help Google to identify what search terms are most used by users and provide them with content that matches these terms. This means you want to include these words and phrases when writing SEO copy so that your page ranks.

For example, if you had the keyword ‘what is SEO content writing?’, you would want to include this keyword a few times in your copy so that you ‘rank’ for this phrase in a search.

There’s plenty to learn about finding and collecting keywords so be sure to read our beginner’s guide to keyword research.

Now, let’s touch on site structure. While not wholly related to writing SEO copy, good site structure is still necessary so Google, or any search engine for that matter, can crawl your site. Good content won’t do anything if Google can’t read the page.

When it comes to site layout and structure, it’s recommended that you opt for a pyramid shape. Start with the home page at the top, then categories, then subcategories, and so on and so forth.

Of course, if you already have a website built, or are more likely writing for one, then you have to get a little more creative. There are a few tricks you can use to help Google navigate a page, one of the most important being internal linking.

Internal linking is where you add a link to an important page you want to rank inside the copy on a page. Firstly, this makes it easier for content to be crawled as you’re providing the search engine with more links to follow, and if a page is linked to multiple times, it hints to Google how important it is for this content to be indexed.

This process is also known as linking from tail to head, and you should always be referring to pages you want to rank with links. However, these links need to make sense, and you should always try and link a page using anchor text, text that matches a page’s URL, in some capacity.

By linking to the pages you want Google to rank highest, you’ll create a bedrock for your ranking structure with authoritative pages that will rank because of the linking structure created.

While the previous two points we’ve covered are important, when it really comes down to it, the quality of your written content is what matters the most. Your copy needs to be attractive to read and make people want to stay on your website, while also appealing to Google.

But there’s more to it than that. You can’t simply write your copy with some keywords thrown in and expect it to start ranking immediately. It’s no good having an optimised piece if it reads badly.

You’ll need to consider ideas generation, keyword research, heading structure, readability, and final optimisation checks before your copy is ready to be published.

When it comes to SEO copy, you want to be creating original content. The last thing you want to do is plagiarise the work of others. Not only is this morally wrong and potentially illegal, but Google can also pick up on it and punish you by not indexing your page.

However, it’s important to note that, by original content, we don’t mean something completely brand new that no one has covered. Original content simply refers to content that is written differently from other content. So long as it’s written in your style with your take, Google will register it as original content.

But as important as original content is, it’ll count for nothing if people aren’t interested in reading it. So, before you start generating any original content, you need to start thought dumping and researching.

Take whatever it is your company does or that you want to write about and start writing down ideas for a topic or content. Once you’ve got a list, you can start researching related keywords to see how viable each topic is. Soon, you’ll have a varied list of keywords related to each topic and you can start writing.

With your keywords to hand, your next step should be researching your chosen topic in relation to the keywords you have. Unless you’re an expert on the topic in question, you’re going to need to research it so you can answer the reader’s queries and provide quality content.

Once you’ve thoroughly researched the topic, you then need to think about your heading structure. It’s not as simple as having a title and then vomiting your copy onto the page, you need to have some order.

For example, if you’re writing a blog post, you only want a single H1, and then as many H2s as you need to cover each section of your topic. You can then dot H3s throughout the page when you need to split up the topics beneath an H2.

Not only will this make your content much more scannable and readable, something we’ll touch on in a moment, but it gives you a chance to put your keywords front and centre for Google to look at. Questions and lengthy keywords are the perfect choice for putting in headers.

With everything written and ready to be published, the last thing to discuss is to ensure your SEO copy is properly optimised.

First, while we’ve mentioned including keywords a lot in this article, you should not be trying to stuff in as many as possible. This is known as keyword stuffing and Google can see when you’re doing it. It won’t index the page if you do this, and it generally makes the content difficult to read.

Always put written quality ahead of optimisation so your content doesn’t read like trash. As we said right at the start, your keywords should be woven into your SEO copy, not the other way around.

When you’re thinking about where to put your keywords, limit yourself to using each one 2-3 times, depending on your copy’s length, to avoid overloading the content. And speaking of length.

Research has suggested that long-form content does really well on Google. Gone are the days of short 300-word pieces. Instead, you should aim for things like blog articles to be a minimum of 1,000 words.

Of course, this will differ if it’s a home page or a product page, which might be closer to 400 words, so use your intuition to estimate the number of keywords you should be using on a page.

With such a highly demanding and competitive landscape in which to contend, with thousands of publications and journalists across the states, not only is it imperative to come up with unique ideas but the construction and sell-in of these ideas need to resonate with journalists. To better understand the timing and tone needed for idea pitches, and to understand key target demographics and the publications that can help to reach those audiences, here are some top tips to help pull in links from the US.

Knowing the best journalist or publication to pitch your campaigns to is a must. Receiving an email that isn’t relevant (or of any interest) can be very frustrating, therefore, it’s essential to do some initial research into each person to understand what they do and don’t cover.

Whilst it might take a bit more time, pitching to someone who doesn’t cover that topic makes it not only unlikely that they will cover your campaign, but could also be damaging to any possible future relationship. Always make sure it’s relevant and exciting.

It’s also important in the United States to understand what the publications/journalists’ views, opinions, and tone of voice are. With the US having essentially 50 different countries, what lands in one part of the country might not have the same effect elsewhere. And whilst a friendly and informal pitch works for some, it certainly won’t work for all. Each state is different, and it can even be as granular as a city-by-city approach in some states, so it’s best practice to adapt pitches to reflect these subtle nuances to ensure that they land in the right inboxes.

It’s also important to understand the best ways to contact specific journalists. For the most part, it’s over email, but some US journalists have their direct messages open on Twitter, welcoming story ideas. Never be afraid to reach out through these methods, as response rates have been found to be extremely strong using these mediums.

To ensure that campaigns perform well, make sure that your media lists are updated with current journalist information and contact details. When targeting those publications and journalists, spend some time diving into Google to find more niche contacts to improve those media lists. Make sure to use sites like Feedspot to find more journalists that work in your desired target area/topic/demographic.

When creating a US-targeted PR campaign, creating a story which can be broken down by state (at the very least) is incredibly important. Breaking it down even further to regions or even cities can add much more content to the campaign and can also win more regional links too.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of journalists and publications which are specific to one local area – so make sure to create specific and targeted angles which are highly relevant. For example, if there’s data for multiple cities in California, like San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, then dig into those finer details and get a campaign that can work for multiple outlets on both a regional and state level.

With these specific angles, it’s important to ensure that all email subject lines are relevant. Aim to target journalists with what they want to hear and make them know that the material being pitched aligns with their coverage. Keep it short, mention what the pitch is about, what it’s regarding, and how it fits them.

When pitching, ensure the journalist has all relevant data upfront with links added to any further assets (and avoid adding these as attachments). This allows the journalist to jump straight into the piece with confidence and limits back and forth.

According to Muck Rack, 90% of US journalists are happy to receive one follow-up email, so allow the email to settle, but ensure to follow up on all pitches. US journalists are (unsurprisingly) busy, so respect their time/choice.

As stated previously, campaigns that perform best in the USA are those that have unique data specific by state/city/region. This is because the data can be broken down into individual content pieces which can be targeted to specific journalists with what is highly relevant to them.

This approach was utilised for Blacktower’s retirement index, which revealed the best (and worst) places to live out your ‘golden years’ across the states. The campaign analysed several key retirement metrics, pulling out state specific data which allowed for the creation of a ranking. This ranking could then be outreached with many different news hooks, adapted to fit the news agenda in the state in which is being pitched to. To check out the full campaign, you can visit the site here.

Touching on relevance, the story also needs to align with something topical with the current news agenda, or perhaps an awareness day, to illustrate to the journalist or publication why the piece is significant and worth publishing.

An example of where this was relevant was Pickswise’s ‘Cost of Being a Fan’ campaign. With growing concerns surrounding the increasing costs for fans across the NFL, there were worries of many fans being priced out of the experience. Therefore, the team at Pickswise revealed which NFL teams offer their fans the most cost-effective experience, ranking them from best to worst. The report aligned well with the news agenda at the time and brought in some highly relevant coverage.

When collecting unique data for the states, surveys can be a really powerful tool as they allow for the discovery of something new which can be used as a strong news hook. However, it’s important to remember that survey sample sizes must be far greater than that of the UK, as a sample size of 1500 people is often too small to make generalised statements regarding the US population.

Crawling is pretty much as it sounds and involves a search engine literally wading through all the content on the web to find out whether or not it’s valuable for users.

They do this by using bots, also called spiders. When one of these bots comes across a URL, they download these pages, scan the content, and then use the links on the page to find more pages. This repeats until they’ve crawled a site for a set period of time, at which point it will get queued for Google indexing.

Typically, these URLs are found using something called backlinks, referral links from another site, links from a prior URL on their own webpage, and sitemaps that list all the important webpages that Google should be indexing. You can even submit individual URLs for crawling in Google using the Google Search Console.

This link-hopping and locating is crucial as it’s the quickest way for these bots to find new content and add it to the index. If a page isn’t added to the index, then it won’t appear in the SERP.

One important thing to note about crawling is that pages will not necessarily be crawled in order of discovery. Instead, a bot will queue them for crawling based on factors such as:

• The intent and quality of the page URL.
• How old the page is.
• How often the page has changed.

Fortunately, this means that a site’s main pages are often targeted for a crawl, helping to get the key parts of a site out there and ensuring the rest of the site is then indexed for users to view.

The rate at which Google, or any search engine for that matter, will crawl a site is based on various factors. Typically, sites that see a lot more traffic will be crawled more regularly than less well-known sites. This is to ensure the quality of these well-used sites is maintained.

Crawls could occur every few days, or potentially every few weeks, it all depends on how important the search engine values the page in question. Naturally, this means you want to make the information on your site as valuable to a user as possible.

The final step in the search engine process, and the most important one for users, is knowing how and why Google, and all search engines for that matter, rank results in the order that they do.

In truth, it’s difficult to say exactly what goes into deciding page rankings, and that’s for one key reason. The search engine algorithm.

While a search engine might know exactly what information to pull from the index thanks to the algorithm, how does it choose which to display to you? After all, there are trillions of results in Google alone.

As mentioned above, the algorithm will take into account the intent of the query. Generally speaking, there are four types of query intent, each one denoting what the user means when they Google something:

• Informative – Usually a question relating to a topic you’re interested in.
• Navigational – A query that lets you navigate between more specific information on the topic you’re interested in.
• Commercial – Results often relating the comparison of products within your query.
• Transactional – A highly specific query that allows you to quickly find what you want to buy.

Thanks to Google understanding all of these query types, the search engine can quickly gather content that will match your search terms.

As for ranking this information, this is where the second side of the algorithm comes in. Ranking factors.

For a page to rank highly, it must meet several factors that the algorithm deems relevant. There are thought to be well over 200 for Google, but several to bear in mind include:

• Backlinks.
• Content relevance.
• Content freshness.
• Content quality.
• Content authority.
• Page speed.
• Mobile-friendliness

Backlinks are right at the top when it comes to determining the quality of a site, and therefore how high it ranks. Both quantity and quality of links play a role here, but quality is always prioritised over quantity.

Those sites with a few backlinks from powerful and reputable sources will be ranked much higher, as it shows other well-known sites are referencing the page.

Through this, a site receives a better domain and URL rating and page authority.

Of course, these links have to be relevant to the content as well. A bad backlink won’t help a page. For example, a carpet shampoo site being linked to a cryptocurrency site would be deemed irrelevant by a search engine.