For the sake of clarity, the term “creative writer” in this article refers to anyone who considers their writing a gift of art long before it serves a function of marketing.
Not everyone who blogs or writes online is trying to get a sales lead or talk about their business. And not everyone who reads online is looking for a product, service or idea to solve their problems.
Some writers just want to express themselves more creatively, hoping that—somewhere along the way—a community of impassioned readers take notice.
So it’s understandably frustrating when the web feels like one big marketing machine and the only way to get a respectable search engine ranking is to bend our writing to follow the rules of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As Jack Johnson sings in Posters:
All caught up in the trends
Well the truth began to bend
And the next thing you know man
There just ain’t no truth left at all
If you’re a creative writer, you need not erase the truth nor corrupt your art to get found. Ranking well in Google and other search engines all starts with basic SEO awareness and a few fundamental on-page SEO techniques.
Here are 5 basic SEO tips to get you started. Keep in mind that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Always Keep Your Reader in Mind
Creative writers tend to struggle with this far more than copywriters, but keeping your reader in mind is the most important rule of SEO.
If you’re trying to attract an audience–which is why I assume you’re reading this—your content has to be either useful or relevant or both to your reader. There has to be something in it for them every time you publish.
The rule is: nobody cares about you until you care about them first. So if you feel like you’re writing solely for, to or about yourself, it’s time to inverse your approach.
Continue to Write Naturally
That’s right, keep being yourself. Artists can thrive using SEO.
Unlike what you may think, Google does not favor writing that sounds artificial — basically stuff that sounds like it’s written for a search engine. Remember — we’re writing for humans.
Keep your writing rich and unique. According to Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz, the quality of your writing is “always the number one most important factor in blog readership, return rate and longevity.”
Stick to One Idea per Post
Think sharp and singular: each piece of writing should cover no more than one main idea. Everything else goes towards supporting that idea.
This is basic and fundamental if you publish on a post-by-post basis, and where some discipline is useful.
Brain Clark of Copyblogger recommends writing the title first, then working off of that. I often like to write first, evolving the idea like sculptor would a sculpture, then distill the title from my finished work.
Calculate Your Keyword(s)
Sticking to one idea per post should leave you with one or two words or phrases to describe it. These words are called your keywords.
Most posts have primary and secondary keywords. You should know what yours are before you write.
Keeping the previous rules in mind, you should still be able to write naturally while focusing your post on your keywords. This is not hard to do once you get used to it.
For example, this primary keywords for this post is “SEO”, and the secondary is “creative writers”. “SEO” is too broad to rank for anything, but “SEO creative writers” narrows it down to something someone might actually search for.
Hopefully we’ll see a top result in Google soon!
Fill Out Your Title Tag and Meta Description
The title tag is one of the most important factors in on-page SEO. This makes perfect sense when you think about the searches you’ve done. The first thing you look at is the title, right?
I’m willing to bet the second thing you look at is the little blurb below the title which describes the page you’re searching for. This blurb is called the meta description.
If you don’t fill out the meta description yourself, Google and the other search engines will do it for you by stitching parts of your post together into something quasi-coherent and sometimes amusing.
Leaving the meta description to Google is a hit and miss strategy. It’s always best to fill it out yourself so you have precise control over how you want to sell the page. Aim for a compact summary of your page, with a maximum of 200 characters (about 30 words) or less.
Some WordPress themes such as Thesis have title and meta description fields built into the post page. If you don’t have Thesis, you can use the All in One SEO Pack.
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Up next here on Wordful is a review of the Scribe SEO WordPress plug-in that ties all this SEO stuff together in a nice clean, no-hassle interface.
Photo by Rita Willaert.
Thank you so much for sharing these insights. As a creative writer work works as a content marketer, I often struggle with trying to incorporate my professional tactics into my personal writing. I’m sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other writers who struggle with this same thing.
Best,
Caitlin
Thanks, Caitlin. These are pretty basic tips but I think they will help anyone who considers themself creative in writing.