How to successfully write for search engine optimization

In today's digital age, content is king when it comes to searchability. The amount of information online is exponentially growing by the day, so to differentiate yourself from the continual stream of published content online, it's important that you focus on optimizing your online visibility. One way to ensure that your brand doesn't lose its Web presence is through search engine optimization.

More commonly referred to as "SEO," optimizing your visibility through search engines is a great way to ensure that your site gets seen by online users, but it has to start with creating the proper verbiage. In fact, specific keywords that are geared toward your product, service or industry as a whole are great places to start when it comes to writing for SEO. Although search engines have been around for quite some time, they're continually updating themselves and improving the way they find what the user is looking for.

Content is sovereign

As you may already know, search engine crawlers help major sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing find what they're looking for, but the wording that these Web bots latch on to is highly important to your visibility. In addition to specific keywords relevant to your market, new ecommerce platforms need to regularly update their websites with content as well. The combination of relevant and fresh information is primarily what major search engines are looking for when they're searched, and your site cannot become an industry voice or leader without being continually updated.

The quality of content is also highly important for search engine optimization. If the legitimacy of the information posted on your site is questionable or makes claims without links to citations, for example, it will negatively impact your online visibility. What's more, the timeliness of any post or information also plays a role in where your website comes up on search engine queries. News-related updates or backlinks to sites that get a lot of traffic, such as major media outlets, all help add credibility to your website through the figurative eyes of a search engine.

Not only are these good at finding industry-specific websites, they're getting better at filtering out the quality from the less credible as well. Social media sites are renowned for their sharing capabilities, but it can be difficult to differentiate between what's legitimate and what's not. That said, businesses should focus on pushing their quality content through online networks as well, because increased social engagement is another aspect that search engine crawlers look for when they're identifying what's credible and what isn't.

Keep mobile in mind

Now that you have a basic foundation on what to write and how to go about doing it successfully for SEO, it's time to take a look at things that business owners should keep an eye on in the near and distant future.

Smartphones in particular are becoming a mainstay in the consumer landscape, and thanks in part to widely available public broadband, patrons can search for and purchase almost anything they please with a few finger strokes. That said, businesses looking to optimize their SEO in the most efficient way possible will do so keeping their mobile site in mind. Although mobile and desktop searches function in similar ways, they often yield different results. In fact, a recent BrightEdge study found 62 percent of organic searches today show varying resultsbased on whether the query was conducted via smartphone or on a desktop. In keeping mobile optimization in mind, ecommerce owners are covering all their bases and dedicating energy to a conduit that is growing faster than any other type of outreach today.