Modern SEO practices focus on quality content and relevant links—all things content creators can support
SEO is your friend. Gone are the days of SEO keyword-stuffing, keyword versioning (chip, chips, chipset, chipsets), and link farms. Modern SEO practices focus on quality content and relevant links—all things content creators can support.
There are eight main components writers need to consider when optimizing content for SEO:
Keywords
H1 tags
Page titles/browser titles
Meta descriptions
Meta keywords
Body copy
Links
Alt tags
Keywords are ideas, themes, and topics that define the subject of your content. For SEO, they’re the words and phrases people enter into search engines to find relevant content.
Ideally, each piece of content or web page should be optimized for one or two primary keywords. However, content creators should submit four to five keywords, assigning one as primary and the others as secondary. Keywords should:
Be unique to that page
Include specific terms that describe the content of the page or web section
Contain terms used by the customer
Be separated by semicolons or commas
Be lowercase
Tip: Start your keyword list by thinking like a customer. What terms would you use to search for information on Arm products? Your keywords should be words or short phrases (long-tail keywords) that customers might use when looking for information.
Meta keywords have no effect on search engine rankings, but they are used for a company’s internal search purposes. In the past, meta tags played a key role in search engine algorithms, but they have been deprioritized in recent updates.
In HTML, there are six heading tags (H1-H6). H1 indicates the most important heading on a web page. H1 tags should describe the content of the page as succinctly and accurately as possible and include your highest priority keyword.
A title tag tells people and search engines the topic of a specific page.
The description tag is a complete sentence (or two) that usually appears just below the title tag in search results. It describes the content available on that page in a concise but compelling way. The goal is to entice website visitors to click on a link that is presented to them. Note that descriptions usually cut off at 300 characters (including spaces), so try to get close to this limit without exceeding it.
Body copy is the main text in a web page, piece of collateral, advertisement, or other content that is distinct from the logo, headline, and graphics.
Inbound links—or backlinks—are links on third-party websites that take your audience to your content. These backlinks act like "votes" for your website, and when they come from an authoritative site with trusted content, they raise your own site’s relevance and authority. It’s important to build inbound links to increase your site’s page rank, and to build these links on credible websites with quality content.
Alt text (alternative text) is used within an HTML code to describe the appearance and function of an image on a page. There are a few reasons to be sure alt text is included in your copy:
Adding alt text to photos is a key principle of web accessibility. Visually impaired people using screen readers read an alt text to better understand an on-page image.
Alt text are displayed in place of an image if an image file cannot be loaded.
Alt text provide better image descriptions to search engines, helping them to index an image properly.
Tip: Don’t sacrifice readability in service of keyword tactics.
Arm SEO checklists and templates give you updated information and guidance for ensuring your content works for both man and machine.
SEO best practices are constantly evolving. To keep up with the latest information, check out these websites:
MOZ Blogs
Search Engine Land
Search Engine Watch
Google SEO Support and Information
Keywords and keyword research
Quality and relevance of content
Meta tags and meta descriptions
Backlinks and link building