Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short) is a method of making a website easier to find via search engines. A lot of this has to do with the way that the content of a website is written. When properly optimized, a website, article or blog can be found easily by a web user searching for relevant words or phrases – without having to look through the literally millions of websites in the net for what they are trying to find.

This is only the most rudimentary explanation of search engine optimization; so what does this mean to you as a writer? This explanation should have given you an inkling of the importance of using the same words and phrases which people enter into search engines when they are looking for something. These search terms are known as keywords and key phrases in the search engine optimization business. BY using these search terms in your content, you make it a lot easier for people to find your content on the web. Let’s suppose for a moment that you need to write an article about fly fishing – naturally, you’ll want to use the phrase “fly fishing” in the article, as this is one of the most commonly searched for phrases which your target audience will be looking for.

When you use these terms throughout your writing, they are far more likely to be found by people searching for these phrases. Let’s say that you are writing an article about fly fishing. For the purposes of search engine optimization, it’s best to use the phrase “fly fishing” in the article, since this is likely to be the phrase which your target audience will be searching for. How many times should you use this phrase in your article? If you are writing this piece for someone else, then that is entirely up to your client’s preferences. You will see articles which are written with SEO in mind that might contain the keyword or key phrase only in the title and others which use the keyword as many as 25 times! It’s all up to the client’s specifications with regards to the placement of keywords in the article or articles.

Should you use a single keyword in this article or a group of keywords which are relevant to each other? This will again depend on what the client wants. You’re not the only one working with the client in many cases; your client may be subcontracting this work to you and have clients of their own who have criteria that they want met with the article. Freelance writers see a lot of this situation; for instance, a set of articles to be written for search engine optimization which come with a detailed set of instructions for how they are to be written. When there are instructions, you should try to follow them as closely as humanly possible.

Sometimes when writing articles for search engine optimization, you will encounter a situation when some extra clarification is needed. In these cases, you should get in touch immediately with the client to ask for any further information which you may need – this will prevent delays in delivery of the finished article and ensure that the article you write is one which meets the needs of the client.