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!
Why are conclusions important for SEO?
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!
What should a good concluding paragraph do?
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:
1. Summarizes the main message of your blogpost
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.
2. Answers the question ‘so what?’
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.
3. Answers the question ‘what next?’
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?
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This article was written by Marieke van de Rakt and originally published on SEO blog • Yoast.