EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve talked about writing blog post introductions and how important those are for SEO, so now let’s turn the spotlight over to the last paragraph and learn how to craft an SEO-friendly conclusion. You may be thinking: does the last paragraph even matter? And the answer is yes, it does! A good SEO-friendly conclusion wraps up the article for your readers and tells them what to look forward to next. The last paragraph is a great place to add a personal note to your readers and a call-to-action. To make it SEO friendly, make sure it includes your focus keyphrase and maintains readability. If you have any questions about your SEO content strategy or want us to handle it for you, reach out to us at Prebuilt Sites or The BBS Agency. We’d love to help you out!
Does that very last paragraph even matter? Do you need to think about SEO at all if you’re writing a conclusion? Well… yes you do! That last paragraph is a very important one for your readers. And whatever is important for your readers, is important for Google as well! But why is a concluding paragraph important for SEO? And how do you make sure to write an SEO-friendly conclusion? In this blog post, I’ll talk about the importance of that concluding paragraph and I’ll give tips on how to make it awesome and SEO-friendly!
Most people don’t read your entire blog post. They scan. And that makes your concluding paragraph the last one they read. Your last possibility of convincing your readers to stay and read the entire post. That makes it an important paragraph. Google tries to scan and read texts as humans do. So the concluding paragraph an important one.
More importantly, as it is the last paragraph, it should guide your readers to what is next. Preferably on your page. You don’t want them to click away, right? In your concluding paragraph, you should guide your audience towards the next steps. It’s a great place for a call-to-action!
A good, SEO-friendly concluding paragraph wraps up your article. It should give your audience a sense of closure. Let’s look at three elements that a good conclusion should contain:
What was it that you wanted to tell your audience in this blog post? What was the main message, the reason you wrote this post? In a conclusion, you come back to that main message. If you were trying to convince your audience of something, you should summarize both your point of view and your arguments.
I usually try to connect my conclusion back to the introduction of my blog post. In the introduction, you introduced the main message of your article. Perhaps you also used an example or asked your users a (rhetorical) question. A good way of wrapping up is to go back to that same example or that same question.
A good conclusion should answer the question ‘so what?’. Why should your reader care about this article? Answering the ‘so what’ question will put your blog post in a more general perspective. Why is this even important? It will set the main message, the main idea of your blog post in a broader context. That will improve the chance that people will actually care about what you’ve written.
A good, SEO-friendly conclusion also answers the question ‘what’s next?’. What is it that people should do next? Should they get to work? Or should they leave a comment on your website? Should they buy your product? Subscribe to your newsletter? Make sure to guide your readers to the next step.
Your conclusion is a hard paragraph to write. Think about what you want to say in that last paragraph. In many cases, the conclusion will be the last paragraph you write. But don’t rush that last bit. It’s also the last paragraph your readers will read. So make sure it’s worth it!
You should not bring new tips, new arguments, or new facts to the table in your conclusion. If you did not yet tell your audience everything you wanted to tell them, you’ll need an extra ‘normal’ paragraph. In your conclusion, there’s no place for new topics.
Your conclusion is a great way to push your audience towards another great article on your site. As your conclusion is the place to generalize and summarize, it makes it ideal to put an internal link towards one of your cornerstone articles. That helps with the rankings of those awesome cornerstones. But you could also place a call-to-action towards one of your amazing products and convince your audience to buy these. Or let people subscribe to your newsletter. Make your conclusion more SEO-friendly by offering your audience a way to stay on your site.
Blog posts are usually pretty informal. Your concluding paragraph is a great place for a general reflection or a personal note. It’s a place in which you can easily address the users directly. You could use words like ‘you’ and ‘your’ in order to make your audience feel like it is about them personally. Asking questions or inviting feedback is also a way to directly reach out to your audience. The concluding paragraph is the best place to ask your audience about their opinion and to leave their remarks in the comments section on your blog.
If you want to write an SEO-friendly conclusion, you should make sure to use that focus keyphrase. The title of your conclusion is also a great and natural place for your focus keyphrase. You want to get back to the main issue, and of course that main issue should be heavily connected to your focus keyphrase.
Writing a text that is nice and easy to read is really important for your SEO. The concluding paragraph is one of the most important ones in your entire blog post. Make sure that your last paragraph is well written! That’ll really help to get that main message across. Don’t use long sentences or passive voice.
So! Let’s make this practical. Let me give you a short recipe to write an SEO-friendly conclusion.
Your conclusion is one of the most important paragraphs of your article. It is the place in which you can summarize the content of your blog post and really get your message across. And also the paragraph in which you guide people to other pages of your site. So treat that final concluding paragraph to a little extra SEO love. That could really make all the difference. And it’s not hard work. It’s just a little love. And let’s spread that SEO love!
Originally posted on Yoast.
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