Articles don’t look the same way to SEO experts as they do to the normal reader. The experts’ knowledge of search engine optimisation factors, internet user behaviour and formatting elements means that to the expert eye, internet content appears more as a series of building blocks than a cohesive whole.

When an SEO expert composes content, it’s more about construction than poetry. Content is part of the wall that supports your ranking. The brick-like keywords are held together with the mortar of regular text. Interspersed amongst these, and vital to the stability of the whole, are your title and subtitles.

The joist: titles

Titles, or headlines, are the main support for your content. This is both in terms of the way titles support SEO and in terms of the title’s function for the average reader. Without a good title, the whole piece comes crashing down, and no effort can save it.

There are many things that need to go into a good title, but the basic elements are to a) keep it short, no more than 80 characters; b) cut out any extra words, like ‘that’ and ‘to’ – even at the expense of proper English, and; c) find a way to fit your keywords in. Note that this last point isn’t a hard and fast rule. Featuring a keyword in every single title on your site will look like spam. Related words to your keywords will come in quite handy, however.

Titles are tricky to construct, and having your SEO consultant on board for title design can be helpful. You can discuss titles and content provision with our experts at SEO Consult.

The supporting frame: subheadings

A good title can do a lot to draw your reader in. A good set of subtitles will keep them reading. Subtitles, or subheadings, should be used to support your content in a constructive way. They should provide short rest stops for the reader’s eye, yet move the subject on effectively.

Internet users are notoriously bad at reading large chunks of text. Even step-by-step articles, which make use of numbered points to break up the content, can lose the reader when the points are too long. This is where subtitles come in so handy.

From a site user’s perspective, a good set of subtitles will summarise the information they are about to read. Subtitles come in particularly handy when the content is on a particularly complicated subject. In this instance, the subtitles can be used as signposts to direct the user’s mind. Don’t forget to include your keywords, however. A good set of subtitles will support the keywords dotted throughout the text.

Titles and subtitles are very useful things, but don’t overuse them. Although internet content works best when it’s in small chunks, making the chunks too small can distract the eye of the reader because it forms too random a pattern. A good rule for subtitles is to put one every 100 words or so. Anything more than that and you risk putting readers off. It really is all about struggling to maintain balance and diversity to be the best you can be.

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