A copywriter, editor, or someone who has studied German philology can also write SEO texts. False! At least in our experience, in 99% of cases.
SEO texts are a mixture of:
- Keywords (see next lesson)
- Research (delving into the topic)
- Fixed structure and classic composition
- Substantive information based on keyword analysis (whether one likes it or not)
- Clear headings and paragraphs
- Relation to main content (often NOT the SEO text)
- Seeing the "big picture"
- WDF*IDF & Keyword Density
In contrast to "normal" texts which are usually:
- Functioning as a single text
- Emotional, factual, or creative (or all three)
- Having no directly fixed structure
- Thematically sometimes deviating
- Editorial appearance
What do we learn from this: SEO texts are more complex „normal“ texts written according to a scheme, but which, of course, may also contain adjectives, creativity, and playful elements.
Important: SEO texts should always remain readable, but their primary purpose and use is to underpin an existing page (landing page, category page, brand page, or shop page)!
An SEO text is usually NEVER used for the normal editorial structure of a homepage or subpage!
The ultimate achievement, the non plus ultra, would be if a clean editorial text is enriched with keywords and rewritten. This is how we, as an agency, proceed with particularly sensitive clients, for example.
And now some more general information on half-truths and frequently asked questions regarding SEO texts:
Long texts or rather short?
One of the most important factors distinguishing outstanding content from mediocre content, for me, is information density. Due to „rules“ such as „the longer your content, the better the ranking,“ many people tend to cram an extreme amount of text onto a page.
For us, the last step in my text creation is always compression. We try to express things that I formulated in 3-4 sentences in the first draft, now in 1-2 sentences, and to speak and explain the language of the target group (keywords are meant here!).
No one wants to read any „blah blah sentences.“ On the internet, it is important to convey information in a simple way, and this is best done through keywords and semantics (see next lessons).
A good SEO text starts at 300 words and is in the good upper range at 1,000-1,500 words (depending on the topic). A pillar page starts at 5,000, or rather 10,000 words (see lesson).
Tabs and expandable texts
Expandable texts are very popular: they offer your users a very good overview of your content. In addition, they can navigate your site much faster. This is especially important for mobile users. Nevertheless, your important content should not be „hidden“ on the desktop – Google does not penalize this content, but it may be classified as less important. While I personally do not believe that this still has much influence in times of the Mobile-First Index, I would not rely on it (yet).
DE