If you work in digital marketing, you may have come across the term “paraphrasing tool.” Also known as an article rewriter, it uses advanced artificial intelligence to rework pieces of text. It can modify all sorts of things, like sentence length, tone, complexity, and structure.
While every paraphrasing tool out there will differ in terms of pricing and features, they're all designed to help you become a better writer. So what has this got to do with search engine optimization (SEO)?
You see, SEO is a bit of a dark art. Not only do you have over 200 ranking factors to master, but you also have to keep up with Google’s constantly changing algorithms.
This can be a time-consuming problem for those of us who aren’t SEO experts—or don’t have the means to hire one.
Fortunately, tools like Moz and Storychief can help you out with the technical and keyword side of things. But when it comes to the most influential search ranking factor, "creating compelling and useful content", a paraphrasing tool might be your best friend.
So if you want to take your site's search ranking up a notch, here are four ways a paraphrasing tool can help.
1. Increase your readability
When I say readability, I'm not referring to elements like font size or spacing (though these are all important).
I'm talking about how easy your text is to understand. Your audience should grasp the meaning of your message without rereading it or looking up words in the dictionary.
According to Yoast, search engines love readable text. It makes a lot of sense: if your text is easy to understand, people will stick around on your website for longer. Plus, it helps the 27% of people worldwide using voice search to navigate the web on mobile.
A study by Backlinko found that the average voice search result was 29 words long and written at 9th-grade level (equivalent to a Flesch reading ease score of 60-70). So keep it short and sweet for Siri.
If writing in plain English doesn't come easily to you, this is where a paraphrasing tool can help.
It can rewrite your sentences to make them simpler and more concise. This may involve unnecessary phrases from your writing, like “a wide variety of” and “is able to”.
If you’re using Storychief, you can track changes to your readability score on the right-hand side of your screen. The higher the score, the better!
2. Improve keyword variation
One of the first things you learn about SEO is the importance of keywords.
It's all about aligning your content with what a person is searching for. Tech companies like Canva have nailed this—if you search for any type of design, they're bound to have a "how-to" article to match.
In the past, people used to resort to a practice known as "keyword stuffing". This is where the same word or phrase is included multiple times throughout a webpage to manipulate its search ranking. By focusing on quantity over quality, content writers were essentially prioritizing bots over their actual audience.
Luckily, you can satisfy both search engines and your audience by using synonyms instead. While you should still place focus keywords in the title and first paragraph of your article, rewording your writing will ensure it’s both entertaining and on-topic.
Many paraphrasing tools will automatically suggest synonyms based on the context of your sentence. Just avoid using words you don't understand, or that your audience won't understand.
3. Improve engagement
Writing engaging content is the most influential factor when it comes to search ranking.
No matter how fast your page loads or how many internal links you have, visitors won’t stick around if your content is dull and irrelevant. While it's up to you to come up with good ideas, paraphrasing tools can enhance how you communicate them.
Take active voice, for example. This is when the subject of a sentence performs an action. Unlike passive voice, using active voice makes your writing more direct and compelling. This is particularly important for headings and call to action copy. Some paraphrasing tools can convert phrases from passive voice to an active one in a matter of clicks.
But that’s not the only way to restructure your sentences.
If you’re like me, you have a habit of starting every paragraph the same way (the first draft of this article had double the number of “if”s in it). A paraphrasing tool might help you modify the style and syntax of your sentences, so they don’t sound as repetitive and monotonous.
4. Correct grammar mistakes
Apart from being engaging, it's also vital that your content is grammatically correct.
Spelling errors and missing punctuation marks don’t only make your writing difficult to read—they affect how people perceive your brand. No one wants to entrust their credit card details to a service that can’t differentiate “your” from “you’re”.
At the moment, Google won't directly penalize you for having spelling and grammar errors (unlike Bing). However, a page full of typos and poorly worded sentences will be a red flag for any user. Just ask Website Planet—they tested the impact of typos on a landing page and found it increased its bounce rate by 85%. Yikes.
A simple way to avoid this is by proofreading. Some paraphrasing tools will check your work for grammar errors in addition to rewriting it. They're quicker than human proofreaders, and will often pick up more complex mistakes that in-built grammar checkers might miss.
Try a paraphrasing tool yourself
As you can see, paraphrasing tools can help anyone seeking to improve their site's SEO on a budget. They can do anything from inserting synonyms to increasing your readability score. As the tech in this area develops drastically (thanks to models like GPT-3), AI will be helping you to rewrite entire articles in no time.
If you're curious to see what a paraphrasing tool can do for your SEO, check out Outwrite. We’re a small tech startup from Australia, building tools that help anyone become a powerful writer. You can try our AI paraphrasing tool for free by visiting our website.
About the author
Stacy Goh has helped launch, scale, and exit startups since she was 19. As the first marketing hire at each of these companies, she’s covered every facet of what it means to turn a lead into a lifelong customer. Stacy is currently the Digital Marketing Manager at Outwrite, a paraphrasing tool that made this bio even better.