Passive vs Active Voice: How It Impacts SEO

Passive vs Active Voice: How It Impacts SEO

Writing for your website may initially seem straightforward. However, there are many small nuances of writing that can make an impact on how well your site ranks and overall SEO. Content writers will know the difference between passive and active voice. Let’s take a look at passive vs. active voice and how it impacts SEO.

The difference between passive and active voice is that passive voice relies on “to be” verbs and sentence construction that has a vague or misplaced object. For example, “The ball was kicked by the boy.” is an example of a sentence written in passive voice. To make this sentence active voice, switching the nouns and getting rid of the “to be” verb makes it clearer and easier to read, “The boy kicked the ball.”

This is the simplest example of passive constructions, but understanding that “to be” verbs should be omitted whenever possible is a solid way to avoid passive voice. When content relies too much on passive voice, it can become difficult for search engines to parse and may even increase bounce rate which will lower page and domain authority.

Many SEO writing tools can help identify passive voice and eliminate it. It is not possible to fully get rid of passive voice, but minimizing it will help your SEO. To learn more, call us at 206-787-0784 or reach out online via chat or contact form.