Mastering SEO writing is necessary in order to claim the best spots on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Today, most consumers turn to search engines like Google whenever they need a product or service, making these platforms one of the best places to promote your solutions.
Developing search engine optimization or SEO content is crucial if you want to consistently attract potential customers to your site.
However, you need to take into account the different factors that influence the performance of your blog posts, articles, and other types of content in order to get the results you’re looking for.
Below, we’ll go over the definition of SEO writing and discuss the basics of this practice. We’ll also share steps to write SEO content and provide tips to improve this practice within your company.
What is SEO Writing?
In simple terms, writing for SEO is the process of creating written content with the goal of getting higher rankings on Google and other SERPs.
Search platforms evaluate a variety of factors before ranking your pages, including the type of content you write for each one.
Some of the most common examples include
Product Pages
If your site is like your online storefront, then your product pages should be treated like the products themselves.
As a general rule of thumb, every business page should have specific pages for each one of its products or services.
The reason for this is that your potential customers look for services individually, so each one should have a page with relevant keywords chosen for that specific offering.
Product pages are essential to your SEO content writing plan because they are the pages that are designed to produce conversions.
Blog Posts
Creating a blog on your site and posting on a regular basis can help you keep your content fresh and bring a variety of additional benefits.
Companies that publish regular blog posts have the opportunity to answer common customer questions.
Before contacting a service provider, the average user conducts a few search queries in order to understand the problem as well as the solutions that are available.
By blogging about topics relevant to your services and answering common questions, you’ll be able to target more specific keywords and boost your site’s traffic volumes.
Articles
We’ve covered writing blog posts, but what are SEO articles?
Articles tend to be longer pieces that contain featured snippets of interviews and similar original content.
These can be published on a company’s blog or on third-party platforms, which could boost your SEO indirectly if they contain links back to your website.
Listicles and How-Tos
Listicles are one of the best ways to answer questions and discuss your services in a more succinct way.
In essence, listicles are like blog posts, but they usually follow a similar structure, such as “X Ways to Improve Your SEO Writing” or “X SEO Content Writing Tips to Increase Your Web Traffic,” just to name a few examples.
These articles are basically a list of solutions that users can implement to solve their current challenges, one of which can be selecting your products.
Furthermore, how-to pieces are like listicles, but these articles discuss specific steps that readers can take to fix whatever problem they are facing.
Guides
Like how-tos, guides are extremely practical because they include information readers can use right away.
With this in mind, writing a guide requires more research and usually takes longer because they tend to be long-form articles.
Guides are informational for the most part, so you need to cover all the basics and give detailed information at every step.
This type of content fits extremely well with SEO because it can help you target a series of relative keywords, improve your rankings, and collect user information.
Infographics:
Infographics have become one of the best ways to share information in easy-to-digest chunks.
This type of content leverages the best of both worlds because it combines attractive design elements with important facts that can help readers make better decisions. And you can always give your infographic more SEO value by attaching it to an article that explains the numbers in greater detail.
Infographics can be developed as standalone pieces. But, since crawlers can’t read this type of content, it’s best used as part of a bigger publication.
In other words, you can conduct research, collect information, and create an infographic that serves as the most important part of your post based on these sources.
You can also create a guide, case study, white paper, case study, or similar piece and develop an infographic alongside it to help promote the main content.
Descriptions on Directories
Remember, there may be dozens or hundreds of relevant directories, but you need to identify all of these and review each individual one to get the best results.
While this may be considered “off-page” SEO, it’s still content that you have control over, at least in part.
Review sites are similar to directories in the sense that a profile for your company can exist without your knowledge.
Like with directories, you should also claim all of your profiles and try to maintain a positive reputation.
You won’t be able to change negative reviews, but you can push these down to the non-visible part of your review list by asking satisfied customers to also share their experiences.
Rich Media Content
Rich media content, like videos and interactive elements, can also help improve your site’s SEO.
Just remember that from an SEO perspective, your page should be relevant to the search being carried out by the user.
So, if your audience is searching for an “SEO writer how-to video,” your page should contain this type of content, or you may end up being penalized.
Users that want to find rich media like videos tend to use keywords related to the specific type of content they’re looking for.
To target these users, make sure to use keywords that describe whatever it is you’re promoting, for example, “SEO content writer training video” or “SEO content topic generator.”
Keep in mind that, like infographics, your right media alone won’t get high rankings.
You also need to develop high-quality content to go along with the infographic, preferably a long SEO blog post or a similar piece.
And besides using the right keyword phrases in the text, also make sure that your rich media names and alt tags include the main keyword you’re targeting as well.
Helpful reading: How to Rank Higher on Google
A Brief Overview of SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the practice of adjusting your website and making improvements to improve your Google search rankings.
Google and other search engines are the first points of call for consumers whenever they need to find a new provider.
SEO allows you to get in front of users who are searching for terms related to your services or products.
In SEO, the main goal is to land on the first page of relevant search results whenever there’s a relevant query.
The reason for this is that 3 out of 4 users never make it past the first page when looking for a company because they know Google and other search engines organize the results by quality as well as relevance.
So, if you want to reel in a significant amount of organic traffic from search engines, you’ll need to create content that gets your site on the first results page.
That said, remember that content is one of the variables that affect your site’s SEO, so you need to ensure that your whole website was designed with search engines in mind.
Working with an SEO Copywriter
If you don’t have the resources to handle your SEO writing in-house, you can always use the services of a specialized writer.
An SEO writer is a marketing professional that specializes in developing written content for Google and other search platforms.
All companies and industries are different, but SEO writing follows a similar model that can be tailored to each specialty, so you don’t have to find a writer that focuses on your field.
Moreover, you should work with an SEO content writer or agency that can use keywords naturally throughout the text, develop a title tag, and craft engaging meta descriptions for each piece.
Building a Good Rhythm with Your SEO Content Partner
Always ensure that your SEO writer can contact you to ask questions about your products and services. This helps your writer create content that matches your vision, especially in the early stages of your professional partnership.
As an alternative, you can also work with a digital agency that provides SEO writing services as well as web design, PPC management, social media, and other online marketing solutions.
This can help you create a more comprehensive marketing machine and get more bang for your buck while still allowing your core team to focus on revenue-generating activities.
Skills Your Content Writer Should Have
Writing an SEO article is not a simple process. There are different stages you need to complete before you even start writing your content.
The Ability to Conduct In-Depth Research
First, you need to ensure that your SEO writing expert has the skills required to take care of the entire preparation process beforehand.
In other words, you should find topics and keyword ideas that your potential customers search for when they are looking for your solutions.
This requires a combination of competitor research skills to review other websites as well as the ability to identify the best keyword for each article you write.
Has a Deep Understanding of Search Engine Results Ranking Factors
Once you find relevant topics and as many keywords as possible, you need to start thinking about other SEO elements.
For example, links you’ll use in your writing, anchor texts, header elements, and images or other media that will appear in the text.
Knows that Search Engines Value of User Experience (UX)
Finally, it’s important for your SEO copywriter to be able to space out the content and make it user-friendly. This is essential because search engines reward a great UX with higher rankings.
It’s possible to improve through a number of different techniques, like breaking it up into logical paragraphs and including succinct calls-to-action as well as internal links using specific target keywords as anchors.
How to Write SEO Content
SEO writing requires a lot of research and a detailed strategy.
You need to understand the purpose of each piece in your marketing plan so that you can encourage potential customers to take the right actions.
This is especially challenging if you choose not to work with a team of SEO writers because your core team will need to develop articles and other pieces while learning about search engine optimization at the same time.
In addition to the above, remember that all businesses are different, so you need to create a customized SEO writing plan.
There’s no silver-bullet solution, so you need to look at the resources you have available as well as your requirements to find a marketing partner that can help you succeed.
Below, you’ll also find steps to help you create content that gets you better rankings on relevant search engine results pages (SERP) rankings.
1. Content Keyword Research and Topic Creation
Every search engine uses keywords to help match users with the best results.
Before you start writing, you should thoroughly research the keywords you want to incorporate into your content.
You should only use keywords that are relevant or related to your services or solutions. At the same time, you also include long-tail keywords. But you don’t necessarily want to use a low-volume phrase as your main keyword every time because it won’t attract enough traffic on its own.
Instead of conducting research when it’s time to write each page, it’s always a good idea to plan ahead and find keywords for more than one piece of writing at a time.
This can save you a lot of time while allowing you to streamline the SEO writing process.
Helpful Reading: The Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Research
Besides assessing the competition, remember you also have to consider the following:
Keyword or Search Intent
81% of all purchases start online, but this doesn’t mean that all searches result in a sale.
In order to target the right keywords and improve your SEO writing, you need to understand the search intent behind each main (and related) keyword you choose.
The search or keyword intent refers to the objective that each user wants to achieve whenever he or she runs a search.
Remember, the main goal of every search engine is to provide the most accurate results.
For this reason, Google has developed mechanisms that help understand the intent of users while performing a query.
While the objective may vary, user intent can usually be categorized into:
Informational
When users conduct a search with the goal of learning a new skill or learning about the options they have, the keyword has informational intent.
Keywords with informational intent usually include terms like “how to,” “guide,” and similar phrases, but this isn’t always the case. If the intent is not immediately obvious, you can always search for the keyword you’re considering and evaluate the answers you get.
If Google shows learning resources, the keyword is more likely to be informational and the title of your article should reflect that.
Commercial
As the name suggests, commercial intent keywords refer to phrases that prospects use when looking to purchase a product or service.
Content featuring commercial intent keywords can be more direct because users are actively searching for the best solutions.
This may vary, but commercial intent keywords are ideal for a product page, blog post that describes your services, or downloadable resource designed to collect user information.
Type of Content
The process of finding the best keyword phrases will vary a bit depending on the type of content you’re developing.
For product pages, you should target one main, ultra-relevant keyword per page, like “SEO writing services,” and also incorporate a few variants into each piece.
This means that each service should have an individual page rather than clumping them all together.
Each blog post and SEO article can help you add keywords that are related to your solutions but are not relevant enough to include in your product descriptions.
You should choose one primary keyword for these as well as variables to include in each page, but always keep in mind that users may have a different intent when reading a blog post instead of a product page.
Search Volumes
The keyword search volume is extremely important.
But, many companies and marketers actually focus too much on keywords with a lot of monthly searches, to the point that it ends up hurting their efforts.
Keywords with high search volumes usually have a lot of competition, which means that the sites in the top positions have been working for a while on getting those rankings.
This makes it extremely difficult for new platforms to get on the first page, especially if they don’t rank for any relevant terms yet.
The solution is to target a combination of high and low-volume keyword phrases.
You should create a list of high-volume keywords that are relevant to your services but don’t go after these right away.
Instead, work on identifying variants that are also relevant but have a lower search volume, which translates to fewer competitors.
You’ll be able to get first-page rankings for these terms relatively quickly, which in turn will make it easier to achieve top positions for high-volume keywords.
Checking for Duplicate Topics
Even though it’s not a part of the keyword research process, you need to set time aside to check for duplicate topics on your site.
If you have more than one page targeting the same keywords, they will compete against each other and result in a lower rank for both of them.
If you already have a blog post or similar piece of SEO writing that features a keyword you want to use, you can always write new content and update the page.
We’ll go over tips on how to improve existing content later on in this article.
2. Create a List of Articles and Other Pieces of Content
Once you’ve selected the keywords and topics, it’s time to create a list of articles and other pieces of content that you need to write.
Creating a list of content that needs to be written will help ensure that you cover the most important topics first.
You should identify essential pieces of content that the leading competitors have on their sites and create a more comprehensive version for your page.
Furthermore, creating a list of articles will help distribute your resources and develop different types of content every month.
For example, you can update a page and create a new blog every week, then work on developing a larger piece like an ebook or case study once per month.
3. Start Outlining the Content
If you want to learn how to write SEO-friendly content, you also need to outline each piece before you start writing.
Creating an outline doesn’t necessarily mean choosing the headers and other elements that are in the article.
However, your outline should include the keyword you want to target, resources like competitor research, page title tag, and other important pieces of information.
Additionally, the article outlines help provide tips on SEO for writers, which translates into better content and a higher conversion rate.
The outlining process is essential, but it can add a lot of pressure to your internal team.
You can always avoid this by working with a top SEO content writing service provider that can create articles and handle the development process with minimal input from you.
4. Craft Meta Title and Meta Description
When it comes to SEO articles, writing the main content is just a part of the process.
Remember that each piece also needs a keyword-rich title tag and meta description that help search engines get a better idea of what the website is about.
Meta descriptions and title tags are also visible to users, so crafting engaging content for these can also boost traffic to your site.
Your title tag and meta description can be as long as you want, but remember that Google will only show a limited number of characters in its search results.
Instead of cramming these with keyword phrases, adhere to Google’s allowed title length while creating each meta description and use creative language to attract potential customers.
5. Write Valuable and Comprehensive Articles
The most important part of your SEO content writing strategy is the development of quality pieces.
Even if the other parts of your campaign are operating perfectly, it’s be extremely difficult to achieve the search engine rankings you want with poor-quality pieces.
This means that you should focus your resources on answering customer questions and developing comprehensive pieces with practical information that contain the right target keywords.
There is no exact formula to determine whether your content is valuable or not.
Generally speaking, each written piece should cover topics that your audience is interested in. So, this varies based on your industry, target audience, and so on.
You should also discuss a problem and give users actionable solutions.
In most cases, short-form articles are informative but don’t give you enough space to cover a topic thoroughly. To go over your solutions and services, you may have to plan for longer pieces and publish a combination of both.
6. Use Media Elements to Spice Up the Content
Humans are visual creatures, so adding images, videos, and other media elements to your site can help your content pop. This boosts the UX, which results in better SEO.
Remember, your images need to be relevant, but they can vary greatly depending on the type of content you’re writing.
If you’re working on a product page, try to incorporate functional media elements that serve a purpose, like graphs, charts, or interactive tools.
Blogs and articles tend to be more informational and casual, so you can opt for creative elements that add flair, without taking away from the main content.
Always remember to include the main keywords in the image title and alt description because it can help boost your SEO.
Helpful Resource: On Page SEO Checklist Guide (+ Infographic)
7. Ensure a Sound Internal Link Structure
A sound internal link structure will help bots read your site and entice users to navigate other areas of potential interest.
Having a menu bar or similar navigational features throughout your site can provide the base for your internal links.
That said, you also need to find other relevant pieces of content that aren’t immediately available through your navigational features and add a link to these.
For example, if you write a new blog you can include a small section with an explanation of a topic that you’ve covered in-depth in previous posts.
Then, you can enhance your website connectivity by sending users from the new piece to your old article using internal links which gives your SEO a boost.
Helpful Reading: 8 Common Link Building Mistakes
8. Make Your Content Accessible on Any Screen Size
Today, mobile devices make up more than half of all internet traffic, so there’s a good percentage that part of your audience will access your site through a smartphone or similar gadget.
If your page isn’t designed properly users will have to zoom in to see your content, which will increase the bounce rate and reduce your chances of getting in the top rankings.
To avoid this, your best bet is to use a responsive design that accommodates to the user screen regardless of its size.
Websites that have a responsive design adjust the font, images, and navigation so that they’re easy to use on a mobile device.
They basically combine the functionality of an app with the simplicity of a mobile website and the best part is that responsive sites don’t require any separate maintenance.
9. Use Informative and Keyword-Rich URLs
Many companies treat their website URLs like trivial elements. But, web addresses are actually extremely important for good SEO.
Remember, Google uses a variety of signals to gain a better understanding of your site and these include the URL structure as well as its content.
Whenever you write your URLs, remember to include the main target keyword and give a bit of information about the article.
You should also separate each word with a dash, which will help both crawlers and prospects read your URLs easily.
In most cases, the URL is similar to the title, but there are some instances where you will need to simplify it and leave out a few words.
10. Publish Content on All Possible Channels
Uploading a new post or page to your site can help boost SEO, but there are other ways to get a good amount of exposure and increase traffic to your site.
You should evaluate the publishing platforms you have available and share your new content in all relevant channels.
Social media networks are always a good place to start, but make sure to identify the channels that resonate most with your audience.
For instance, if you work in a highly visual consumer industry, Instagram may be the best choice. B2B companies, on the other hand, would be better off launching a LinkedIn campaign.
You can also think outside of the box and join conversations in Quora and other forums.
By answering questions directly asked by your audience members, you’ll increase exposure and establish a reputation as a leading source of information.
Remember, you need to prepare your content to be shared on social media channels.
Make sure that you have all the title tags and meta description tags in place to ensure that all elements show up properly when shared on Facebook and other platforms.
If not, you may end up with a scrambled title that discourages users from clicking on your link.
Approaches You Should Avoid
One of the biggest benefits of working with an experienced SEO article writing service provider is that you don’t have to worry about implementing outdated or inaccurate techniques.
However, companies that want to maintain their content marketing and SEO in-house need to avoid myths and misconceptions that may actually hurt their efforts.
Some of these include:
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the practice of overloading a page with keywords in order to fool search engines into giving you higher rankings.
Google and other search platforms use a variety of mechanisms to detect an abnormal number of specific target or related keywords and penalize offenders.
Writing for Search Engines (Not Human Readers)
Too many companies fall into the trap of writing for Google rather than human readers.
Although Google is responsible for attracting traffic, the main goal is to encourage the users who actually visit your website to take certain actions, like contacting your company and request a quote, so always keep them in mind when writing your content.
Publishing Duplicate Content
Google and other search engines also penalize websites that publish duplicate content.
This often occurs by accident or when two companies want to share a press release or similar piece on both their blogs.
If this is the case, make sure that the duplicate content is set for no-index to make sure that Google doesn’t read it.
Developing Content Without a Clear Strategy
It’s possible to focus on SEO writing without a plan, but the lack of structure means that you won’t be able to measure your results or know how effective your website truly is.
Google and other platforms regularly update their search engine algorithms and keep the most recent trends in mind.
So, you need to have a strategy that allows you to stay on top of these changes and continuously improve the content on your website.
SEO Article Writing Tips for Businesses and Copywriters
It’s possible to develop content without hiring an SEO writing service provider, but you need to pay attention to a wide range of variants to get the best rankings.
As a content writer, you need to understand the topic you’re discussing and be aware of all the solutions that consumers may have available.
Additionally, you also need to:
Understand the Target Audience
There are many technical aspects you need to take care of, so it’s easy to forget that content creation for SEO still revolves around your audience.
The content writer needs to have an in-depth understanding of the target audience, the types of challenges they face, and the language they use to find solutions.
Backup Any Claims Made in the Content
Statistics, facts, and quotes can have a profound impact and improve the quality of your content.
But, these elements are not as powerful if they are not backed by sources or data that customers can review for themselves.
Therefore, you need to include a link to a reputable source whenever you make any claims in your content.
Just remember to manage your follow and no-follow link attributes properly to avoid penalization from Google.
Space Out the Content and Use Headers Regularly
If you want to learn how to write SEO content, you need to master the use of white space and separate your content so that it’s easy to digest.
The easiest way to take care of both of these requirements is to break down your content into paragraphs and separate your article using headers.
Try to avoid paragraphs that are more than 5 or 6 lines in length and try to keep your sentences short.
Additionally, you can use H2s as well as smaller headers to explain different points in your article.
Try to Answer Reader Questions Objectively
One of the biggest challenges that companies find when writing their own SEO content is being objective.
It’s normal to want to promote your products in your pieces. But, as an SEO content writer, you need to learn how to answer questions objectively and highlight the benefits of your products without being too direct.
Make SEO Improvements to the Rest of the Website
Learning how to write SEO articles isn’t enough to get you on the first page of Google rankings.
You also need to spend time optimizing content throughout your website, conduct target keyword research, write SEO-friendly title suggestions, and make other improvements that increase your chances of getting a better position.
Create an Optimization Calendar
Writing SEO content doesn’t only mean crafting new pieces.
You also have to review the performance of each page in order to create a schedule to determine the areas of improvement and make adjustments to your content.
You should share the optimization calendar with your content writer to ensure that he or she has the bandwidth to take care of the improvements in a timely manner.
Just make sure you collect statistically-significant data before analyzing your performance.
Writing Variables that Affect SEO
Besides technical and off-page SEO, there are also writing elements that will affect the SEO performance of your content.
Crawlers literally read your site and evaluate different elements while they’re doing it. This is the reason why many writing-related variables impact your SEO performance.
You can take steps to improve these writing variables and help improve the organic search performance of your site.
These include:
Adjusting the Reading Level
There are many small content adjustments you can make to bolster your SEO, including the writing level and the language used.
The average person reads at the 9th-grade level, so the language and vocabulary in your site should be simple and straight to the point.
Of course, this may vary depending on your product or service, but you should always aim to create content that’s easy to understand.
Highlight Important Elements
Additionally, consider all formatting variables and use them in your favor.
For example, you can bold primary keyword phrases when you write content to improve user experience.
Google and other platforms also pick up on these small adjustments, so you can also help search engines produce more accurate search results.
Poor Grammar
It’s important to understand that poor grammar also has a negative effect on SEO, but it’s more related to user experience than to the technical side.
All consumers want to work with a knowledgeable company, so they will analyze all aspects of a business’ site before reaching out.
If your page is full of typos and grammar mistakes, your audience will assume that your content reflects the quality of your service, producing a low conversion rate and prompting users to leave your site.
Why is SEO Writing Important?
There’s a myriad of variables that affect your search results rankings, so why focus specifically on SEO writing?
The content on your website has an impact on your rankings and should help increase organic traffic as well as the conversion rate on your site. But, this only occurs through a purposeful SEO plan.
If you follow sound SEO, you’ll increase your chances of getting to the top 10 positions while also improving the most important metrics on your site.
According to GE, 81% of all purchases begin online, so customers rely on written content to learn about services and products they are interested in.
Companies can increase their conversion rate by identifying engaging topics, discussing practical information, including as many keywords as possible, and writing for SEO.
Does Content Have a Huge Effect on Your SEO Rankings?
Writing quality content is so important for SEO that one of them doesn’t really work without the other one.
Having great content without good SEO means that your articles and other pieces will never get the amount of exposure through Google.
Likewise, if each page has good SEO but poor-quality content, you’ll end up with high bounce rates and other metrics that result in a low ranking.
What About CTR Metrics?
SEO content optimization can produce higher click-through-rates (CTR), which represents the percentage of users who clicked on your search result after seeing it.
Higher CTR means that more users are visiting your site, which in turn can boost your search ranking.
You can also increase the time users spend on each page and register a better conversion rate if you develop an effective SEO content strategy.
How Often Should You Update Your Content?
Consumer interests can change relatively quickly, so you need to consider new market trends and adjust your content accordingly.
But, how often should you plan on writing content for SEO?
As we mentioned earlier, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all strategy, so you need to work with your content writer and the rest of your marketing team to determine how often you need to update your content.
How About Blog Post Publication?
How often should you publish blog posts?
In the vast majority of cases, companies want to publish between 2 and 4 blog posts per month.
Plus, you should also review the main content on your website every few months and figure out what updates you need to make. All this depends on your industry of course, so you need to conduct research and adjust your content accordingly.
As an alternative, you can work with a digital marketing agency that provides SEO copywriting services and can create a tailored updating schedule for your content.
Combining SEO Writing and Other Digital Strategies
Writing search engine optimization content requires a deep understanding of the factors that influence your page rankings.
Not only this, but you also have to know the key phrases your potential customers use, understand the search intent, and write content that includes these terms.
Some companies choose to use SEO as a standalone strategy, but it can also be deployed as a part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
Search engine optimization can be combined with pay-per-click (PPC), social media, email, and content marketing as well as other forms of digital promotion.
Because of this, you need to ensure that your digital strategy is synchronized and that your materials work well together.
Taking Care of Duplicate and Underperforming Pages
Previously we mentioned that you need to check for duplicate content on your website, but you should also identify the articles that are not performing as well as they could be.
Once you know which pages need content SEO updates, you need to decide whether you want to rewrite the content or take down the page altogether.
From an SEO perspective, taking down a page and adding a redirect can increase load time and lower your ranking.
But it’s also a great way to replace content that’s not performing very well.
Additionally, you can update the actual content on duplicate articles and resubmit the page to Google for crawling.
This will help eliminate penalties that are holding your page back and maintain the positive SEO value the page had before.
Need SEO Writing Experts? We’re Here to Help
Learning how to write SEO articles takes a significant amount of time and effort, but this process can help transform your website into a cost-effective lead generating machine.
We hope that our article above answers the question “what is SEO writing?” and allows you to write better content for your website.
If you want to learn more about our SEO content writing services, contact Fannit today and our team will be glad to help.
Helpful reading: