If you follow many blogs about freelance writing you’ve probably seen posts about ScribeSEO, the plugin said to may SEO (copy) writing easy.
SEO Overview
SEO is, of course, Search Engine Optimization. Usually used for articles and blog posts, the goal of SEO is to seed words and phrases that will make your writing search engine friendly. That, in turn, goes the theory, makes it easier for readers using a search engine to find your page.
For example, I want every person searching for information about freelance writing to come to this site. The closer my site is to the top when someone uses the term freelance writing the more traffic I’ll get.
If you enter freelance writing on on Google.com you’ll see I’m 4th or 5th after the paid results depending on how you count. At Bing.com I’m 9th – barely on the first page. Add jobs to the term and on Google I’m 9th today, and on Bing I don’t show up until page four! Properly used, ScribeSEO can probably help me improve on both pages. I say probably because the competition for freelance writing jobs is heavy.
How Scribe Helps
The first thing is it won’t let you run an analysis if you don’t have both your custom title tag and your meta description – search engine information that’s super easy for me to forget in the heat of creating. But once you have some text and the title tag and meta description you can analyze your article.
Here’s the first analysis of this article, even before it’s finished:
This is the first screen and it’s telling me the article only scored 63% – not great. The easiest to fix is Scribe’s complaint my article isn’t yet 300 words. No problem.
It’s next comments are, at first, puzzling. It’s telling me that I have no keywords in the title or in the meta description. The Keyword Analysis tab points out that SEO has a much higher prominence than freelance writer.
The Change Keywords tab makes some suggestions about how I can make freelance writer or freelance writing jobs the key phrases I use in this article.
This is the genius of the program. I don’t know how it knows that, for this blog, freelance writing and its ilk are probably better key words than SEO, although SEO Freelance Writing seems fairly popular when I google it.
In other words, ScribeSEO can help you decide what search terms you are using and what terms you really want to use.
When I run the analysis at this point I get a score of 77%. I’m going to stop there because this is a review of a product I’m recommending and I don’t think I can force a higher score without destroying the writing.
Additional SEO Features
There are two other benefits to analyzing with ScribeSEO. The one I like best has a tab called SERP which stands for Search Engine Results Page. It shows you exactly how your article will be listed on many search engine pages. This one will look like this:
Freelance Writer Jumps On The Scribe SEO Bandwagon
Freelance writers may find Scribe SEO helpful when writing or blogging for the web http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/
The first is the title, the second is actually the meta description. Seeing it presented this way helps me tweak it so it’s the way I want it.
ScribeSEO also gives you a list of semantically relevant terms that have been identified within your content. That’s pretty spooky. When I click the Tag tab it gives me these terms:
freelance writing, freelance writers, search engines, freelance writing jobs, search engine optimization,seo, copy write, person search, marketing, world wide web, internet marketing, business, freelancer, seo copywriting
These are terms I might decide to add to the article. Nifty and could be helpful.
I say could be because these terms and other suggestions could, if I became a slave to Scribe, take my writing clear off track. SEO is relevant, but it’s not the end all and be all of good writing or good content. But you know that.
Yes, if you want more traffic I suggest you at least give ScribeSEO a try. I’m liking it. And yes, that’s an affiliate link – you buy, I make a bit. And you can have one too.
Write well and often,
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
No demo or trial version at all? And to me, $27/month is not cheap. Interesting but there must be something similar out there that lets one try before buying . . .
Anyone know of any?
I thought they had a trial or something but I don’t see it. I’m curious to see if I can make up the price fairly quickly. Will let you know.
Free Trial: https://purchase.scribeseo.com/free-plan.aspx
.-= Patrick K. O’Brien´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Review =-.
thanks Patrick… I couldn’t find that.
Ok wait. I thought it was Zombie dust?
.-= Deb Ng´s last blog ..Types of Companies That Need Freelance Writers =-.
It could have been Zombie dust, Deb. Did you watch Sean’s keyword explanation video?
.-= Patrick K. O’Brien´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Review: The “Whisper Sweet Search Engine Optimization Secrets In My Ear” WordPress Plugin =-.
nope, that was mummy dust for sure – btw Patrick, love the Whisper headline on your blog.
Hi Anne. It appears that several of us are a bit curious how Scribe figures out the keywords from your content. Sean Jackson responded to this question on Copyblogger to say that he was adding some answers and a video to the Scribe support center (I haven’t looked at them yet.)
And Brian posted a video preview of the web-only version of Scribe here:
http://www.copyblogger.com/scribe-seo-web-app/
Looks interesting.
Pat
.-= Patrick K. O’Brien´s last blog ..Bare Essence Squeeze Pages Review =-.
You mean it isn’t magic or mummy dust?
You’re going to destroy another of my illusions!
Thanks
I just watched the video and, yes, it is mummy dust. Who woulda guessed?
.-= Patrick K. O’Brien´s last blog ..Bare Essence Squeeze Pages Review =-.
I did I did, madly waving my hand. Okay, I’ll watch now, promise.
I finally did watch the video for real, and while I appreciate Sean’s efforts, I’m not sure I know a whole lot more about what’s happening besides mummy dust getting tossed around. What did you think, Anne?
.-= Patrick K. O’Brien´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Review: The “Whisper Sweet Search Engine Optimization Secrets In My Ear” WordPress Plugin =-.
Good choice, Anne. I love Scribe – and I see they’re coming out with a web based application as well.
.-= Deb Ng´s last blog ..Types of Companies That Need Freelance Writers =-.
Wonder how a web based one will work.