Western audiences will know sushi, but do they know the dish you’re writing about?(Image from a public domain photo by Meditations/Pixabay)
One of the key factors in SEO and good search ranking is target audience. There are a very large number of Asian writers here, some who have a great many interesting things to share about their daily life.
The problem is, too many write as if for an Asian audience! Google and other search engines want English-language content because they want to target Westerners – Americans in particular – with their ads. In order for the ads to achieve their goal, they have to be placed on content that Americans will want to read. So if you want Google to love your posts (and if you don’t care, just ignore this!) you need to write for an American audience.
I believe a good many of the things my Asian friends like to share – especially subjects like culture and holidays, and the many amazing recipes you write up – would be of interest to a lot of Americans and other Westerners.
But it isn’t easy for an uninformed Westerner to locate much of your content because the titles are full of vocabulary we simply don’t understand. Seeing just the words, a Westerner such as myself often won’t be able to tell the difference between a post about a holiday, a place in your homeland, a celebrity from your country, or a recipe for some delicious food!
If we can’t find your content, we can’t read it. And even if we do find it, if we can’t make heads or tails what the post is about, we aren’t likely to click through. So try to make your posts more discoverable, and more reader-friendly.
Unless the subject of your post is very well known to Westerners already, be careful not to use too many non-English words in your title. The keywords that appear in your title and at the beginning of your post should be simple English-language descriptions for the most part. This will help with subject recognition and search engine placement.
Always be sure to explain what something is, if you have reason to believe Westerners won’t be familiar with it. Whether it’s the name for a religious concept or a cultural one, or whether it’s a food ingredient or kitchen implement, giving just the name used in your country is often going to leave your reader stumped. So give the English translation, if there is one. And supply any alternative names under which the ingredient might be sold. But also take the time to describe what it is, in case the translations or other names aren’t enough to demystify the concept.
A lot of the cooking ingredients and common kitchen tools vary from one culture to another. So you may need to explain to your readers what the individual items are. Giving an overview of some of the main ingredients or kitchen implements used to prepare a dish will give extra weight to your post. It will tend to rank better than just a recipe with a brief personal anecdote, and you may even find your earnings get a boost on paid to write sites!
But always remember to show a photo of the items in question. Anytime you add good quality visuals to your posts it’s a plus, especially if your photos are unique. But adding images can also help readers to better understand the content of your post. And if the reader wants to try out your recipe, offering a photo that shows the ingredient can answer dozens of questions in a single click.
If you can follow just these three principles, you can easily see an increase in readership for your blogs, and because you’ll be adding value to your posts you will likely see rising payouts and better search rankings too! Remember, you have a wealth of information to share with a Western audience. So you want to do your best to be sure Westerners can find it and to offer a straightforward, visually attractive post the reader will want to come and read.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to share about your culture!
If you’re looking for a platform where you can publish your awesome multicultural content, why not join LiteracyBase?
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2009/06/the_recipe_detectives.html
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View Comments
Thank you very much for giving us your 2 cents of Americans thoughts on Asians articles.
Indeed, I know had understand that English vocabs are important.
Many of us uses our local naming of recipes , places, celebrities but we do not realized that Americans do not know them.
Oh yes regarding the recipes, thanks for enlightening me.
I must change the measurement from ml to pint, gram to oz
Your ideas on the ingredients and pictures are very helpful indeed.
Thanks again, I will take note of them
@peachpurple Dear Peachy, I find that your recipe posts (and health posts too) are already among the most accessible for Westerners. You include a lot of discussion about ingredients, which is also good for SEO.
I don't mind so much about the ingredients being in metric because we also use the metric system for many things here in Canada. Recipes, as well as our body weight and height, seem to be the main hold-overs from the Imperial system. I am slowly getting more used to using mL and g in cooking, but for the oven temperatures I fall back on Fahrenheit.
@ruby3881/
thank you my dear friend, for your kind words.
Glad to hear that you are adapting to g and ml now.
Anyway, I will still add in the American measurement, just in case for others who don't use metrics.
Oh dear, I will include F and C for the oven temperature next time.
Really, discussion on the ingredient usage is important for SEO?
Thanks, I will do that often instead of ranting here and there at the opening.
Cheers !
@peachpurple I have no studies to point to but I believe that, if you use phrases like "What is....?" when discussing unfamiliar ingredients or kitchen gadgets, that ought to boost SEO for your posts. You will also gain a reputation for more accessible writing over time. That will help your traffic and earnings too!
Great tips. As a British writer, I have one blog purposely for a British audience but all the rest are written with an American audience in mind as much as possible.
A British audience is also a good one to write for. I believe UK audiences had been (maybe not after Brexit) giving a better return on AdSense than US audiences.
Love this. I sometimes accept guest posts of my own and have to rework them to fit my audience due to the writer being from another country. It would be so much easier if they already came that way, lol.
That must be quite the hassle! Have you thought about a set of guest post guidelines that tells your writers to target your audience?
Unless the topic is about travel destination, then it can be Asian in focus, but the search result will display it when readers search for it.
@scheng1 Don't confuse the target audience with the focus. You can - and should - have a focus on Asian food, culture, travel, etc. but you must still write the material for Western readers who are not as familiar with the geography or with vocabulary your countrymen will accept as everyday words.
Most Asian writers tend to write (in English) as if they were speaking to friends in their own country. What is the point of writing in English if your post is unintelligible to an English-speaking readership? You might as well publish in Hindi, Tagalog, or Mandarin if you're not going to consider the fact that Western audiences aren't going to know what you're talking about.
Thank you for this post. I am often confused by the very things you mentioned. I love the suggestion about using photos to explain tools and foods we aren't familiar with.
It can be tough to know what things are common in another culture or location. I remember being a little surprised when one of our members here wrote about celery as if it were quite an exotic food. In his country (I believe he's Filipino) celery is not at all common, and it was quite a discovery for him when he found it in the local market square.
It may be helpful for international writers to have a Westerner read over some of their planned blog posts - even just through a list of vocabulary or some planned titles. If we're unfamiliar with certain concepts or terms, we can alert our friends to the need to provide explanations. Posts that include a glossary, photos of the items in use, etc. will get much better web traffic, for sure.
You may think that since English is so widely used all over the world, that if you create your website in English, it can be easily understood all over the world by those conversant in the language. While it is true that the English spoken in one country is mostly the same as that spoken in another, there are some variations that you may want to be aware of, so that you can reduce misunderstanding when your site is read by English users in another country.
Note that this article is not designed to be an academic treatise on the subject. It is a practical article, written from the point of view of a webmaster, and meant for other webmasters writing in English.
Here are the main things I find that I need to look out for, language-wise, when writing my content. Note that although I refer only to the differences between US and UK English, there are undoubtedly differences with the other English variants as well. The basic ideas below are, however, relevant to all variants.
Far worse than the above two categories is the situation where a word has different meanings in different countries. This can lead to a major misunderstanding of your web pages. For example, "football" means a completely different game in the UK from the US. A "public school" has opposite meanings in the US and the UK.
"Brackets" in the UK refer to "(" and ")" while a number of US English speakers take it to mean the square brackets "[" and "]". The "first floor" in the UK is the floor above the ground level while it is understood to mean the ground level in the US.