Before even getting close to “SEO Content writing”, why is content so important in this digital era?
With the technological devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc., people have access to an infinite ocean of billions and trillions of products/services/blogs in any niche you can think of.
According to the Growth Badger:
- There are over 600 million blogs in the world today
- 2.5 billion blog posts are being published per year
- 6,912,000 blog posts published per day
- 4,800 blog posts published per minute…!
Moreover, Statista forecasts the retail e-commerce revenue to climb up to US $563,388 million by the year 2025 in United States alone.
These stats definitely show there’s a huge potential for you to make an online sale if you’re able to convince your readers to buy.
But, how do you convince your readers to buy your products or services online without spending on ads?
The Wrong Way: Design a beautiful website > write content > add payment options (or lead generation options) > wait for customers to buy.
The Right Way: Design a beautiful website > write SEO friendly & Engaging Content > add payment options (or lead generation options) > wait for customers to buy.
Did you notice the difference?
Of course, you did…! The right way of convincing people to buy your products or services is by writing content that builds trust amongst your audience, and prompt them to take action.
So, what is SEO Content Writing?
What is SEO Content Writing and why is it Important?
SEO Content writing is a practice of writing content that follows a certain set of guidelines. These guidelines help to write content that your readers and Google (or other Search Engines) loves.
When GOOGLE love your content, you can land on the top spot of Google search results, giving you a greater visibility.
When READERS love your content, there’s a high chance you can convince them to buy something.
This could easily multiply your online sales by multiple folds. Thus, SEO Content writing is a must when you want customers to find you online and have them buy from you.
I’ve heard from a lot of aspiring bloggers questioning about SEO Content writing and how they can do it. Thus, I came up with this blog post explaining the guidelines for the same.
Steps for SEO Content Writing
SEO content writing requires much time and effort. There are certain rules and guidelines provided that needs to be followed for better results. To make your SEO content writing process easier, here I’ve outlined the steps for SEO content writing. You can also opt for SEO services in Nepal at eLance for a better content writing service.
Step 1: Keyword Research
Researching and finding the right keyword/s is the first step towards the success of SEO content writing. While selling any products/services, businesses should identify the keywords used by the users while looking for those products/services. Then, the content should be written by focusing on those keywords. You can use both long tail keywords and short tail keywords. Out of many SEO tools, some of the best tools for keyword research are listed below:
- Google Keyword Planner (Free)
- Ahrefs Keywords (Paid)
- Moz Keyword Explorer (Paid)
- Uber Suggest (Free/Paid)
- Soovle and many more.
These tools will help you identify the right keywords for your website. Depending on your marketing budget, you can go for a free or paid keyword research tools.
Step 2: Content Calendar
Having a SEO content calendar will help you keep your digital marketing and content plan organized. The major aim of a content calendar is to outline tasks such as what content are to be created and when. It also defines when and where you plan to publish upcoming content. While creating a content calendar, make sure that it is in alignment with the user needs, business priorities, potential ROI, and seasonality.
Content calendars typically include upcoming pieces, status updates, planned promotional activity, partnerships, and updates to existing content. Here are the steps to create a content calendar:
Steps to Create a Content Calendar
- Pick a Content Calendar Template
- Determine on your content/blog categories
- Conduct Keyword Research in line with your content/blog categories
- Outline a marketing plan
- Determine deadlines for each task
You can use this template to make your own content calendar:
Step 3: Content Writing
Before you start writing your content, you should be familiar with the rules for SEO content writing. Here are some of the basic rules for SEO content writing:
Rule 1: Use Focus Keyword in Title
Using appropriate keywords is an essential part of SEO content writing. Instead of using one particular keyword, you’ll need to use multiple keywords so that you can attract consistent traffic to our website.
However, there should be one focus keyword (keyword for which you want to rank a specific page) that you’ll be prioritizing. This focus keyword should be included in your content title.
Example: One of our blog posts has the focus keyword, “on-page SEO”. We have used this keyword in the title tag as below. Here’s the link to the article, if you’re interested to have a read.
This is because, Google crawls through the content titles while deriving search results for particular keywords.
Rule 2: Optimize Title Length
Having an ideal title length is very crucial part of SEO content writing. The ideal title length is considered to be between 55-65 characters.
If the title length of your page is more than 65 characters, the users won’t be able to view the excess characters. This length includes the spaces between the characters as well. Also, do not use capital letters in the title tag as capital letters use more space than lower case letters.
You can use Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin in order to determine if the title length of your content is appropriate.
Rule 3: Use Focus Keyword in URL
Along with the title, you should use the focus keyword in the URL as well. The motive of the URLs should be to provide information to search engines about the content of a page, its context and its target.
So, in order to optimize your URL for SEO, make sure that it is easily readable and contains the focus keyword. Both the readers and the search engines should be able to better understand your URL.
Example URL: https://elancedigitalmedia.com/on-page-seo-issues-warnings-notices/
Thus, it is not recommended to use the dynamically generated URLs. You should customize them in order to provide full comprehension of your content and target.
Rule 4: Use Focus Keywords in Sub-headings
Focus keywords should be used in sub-headings as well in order to increase the relevance of your content in front of the readers. In addition, having focus keywords in the sub-headings influences Search Engines to consider your content as relevant to the search.
Keywords in sub-headers are also important in increasing the accessibility of your content. Since Heading 1 (H1) plays a major role in determining your search engine ranking, it is a must to include a focus keywords in your H1.
Including focus keywords in the Heading 2 (H2) tags is important as well because it helps the users to navigate users through your content smoothly.
Rule 5: Use Focus Keyword in 1st Paragraph
The first paragraph of your content acts as a summary of your entire content and thus should be able to grab the attention of the readers.
Tools like Yoast SEO Premium allows you to add key phrase synonyms as well, and then it takes them into account when analyzing your introduction. Including focus keyword in the first paragraph also provides search engines an idea regarding what your page is about
Also, sometimes Google uses your first paragraph to create a meta description.
Rule 6: Include Important Outbound Links
It is seen that including outbound links to high authority sites can greatly help your SEO efforts. While creating outbound links, you need to make sure to include descriptive keywords in the anchor text. An anchor text is the underlined, highlighted text that you can click to follow a link to another page.
Thus, the key is to include a clear text that describes the topic or keywords contained on the target page. This will improve usability for both users and search engines.
Rule 7: Include Important Internal Links
Internal links are as important as outbound links. While external links connect your pages to other websites, internal links connect pages and posts on your own website. The internal links are used to connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website.
This can establish a hierarchy on your site, allowing you to give the most important pages and posts more link value than other, less valuable, pages.
This is why right internal linking strategy should be used to boost your SEO.
Rule 8: Use Multiple LSI Keywords
In the language of SEO, LSI keywords are the terms or words that are related to your focus keywords. These LSI keywords support your main content and help the readers and especially Google understand what your content is about. Another benefit of using LSI keywords is that this will prevent you from overusing your focus keyword, or keyword stuffing. Here are some of the tools that can help you the LSI keywords for your focus keywords:
- Google Autocomplete
- Google Related Searches
- “People Also Ask” section at SERPs
- LSI Graph
- Serpstat and many more.
Rule 9: Use Images and/or Infographics
Images and infographics do play a major role in SEO. So, whenever you use images/infographics in your website content, make sure that they have a descriptive and keyword-rich file names. The search engine crawlers get the attention of the image names as well while crawling through your content.
Infographics not only makes the content easier to understand by also contributes to higher ranking in search engines.
Also, it is important to add alt tags to your images. Having alt tags in the images can help in improving the ranking of the website in the search engines.
Rule 10: Use Short Sentences
When it comes to ideal sentence length, it is always recommended to use 15-20 words per sentence. Google’s algorithm prefers sentences that are short, concise and easy to read.
Tools like SEO Yoast help you identify long sentences and provides tips to shorten them.
Since long sentences are complex to understand, the reader might have difficulty in understanding the meaning of a text completely and this in turn might increase the bounce rate of your website.
Rule 11: Use Short Paragraphs
Having shorter paragraphs make your content more readable. Long paragraphs make reader lose their interest and thus increases the bounce rate of your website. An ideal paragraph should include information on one single, well-defined aspect of the topic you’re discussing in your blog/article.
Similarly, the very first sentence of your paragraph should act like a summary line of the paragraph. You can keep your paragraph length of around 150-200 words.
Step 4: Content Posting
The final step is to post your content at your website. While posting your content make sure to use proper Title, Keywords, URL and Description for every page. All this will contribute to improving the ranking of your website in search engines.
If you have a WordPress website, this guide will help you optimize your content by making use of the Yoast SEO plugin.
How to Develop A SEO Content Writing Strategy
Following a well formulated SEO content strategy will help you reach your digital marketing goals. Knowing the keywords to use is not just enough. You’ll also have to identify your audience and your business goals. In this section, I will guide you on developing a SEO content writing strategy.
Define Your Goals
The very first step in formulating a content writing strategy is to define your goals. Depending on the type of brand/business your SEO content writing goals may be to increase brand awareness or brand loyalty, customer engagement, driving sales, etc.
You need to able to identify what your goals are before getting started with developing a SEO content writing strategy.
Consider Your Audience
The next step is to identify your audience so that your content will be focused around them. The following questions might give you the answer on who your target audience is:
- What problems does my company’s product or service solve?
- Who are our current customers?
- Who is my competition?
- What sets us apart from our customers?
Having figured out your target audience, now you can move forward with the rest of your SEO content strategy steps.
Create a Content Calendar
Having a SEO content calendar will help you keep your digital marketing and content plan organized. The major aim of a content calendar is to outline tasks such as what content are to be created and when. It also defines when and where you plan to publish upcoming content.
While creating a content calendar, make sure that it is in alignment with the user needs, business priorities, potential ROI, and seasonality. Content calendars typically include upcoming pieces, status updates, planned promotional activity, partnerships, and updates to existing content.
Analyze & Re-Assess
Now sit back and analyze your content strategy and work on the weak points, if any.
SEO Content Writing Bonus Tips
Make an Eye-Catching Headlines
Headlines or title of your post plays a major role in attracting the readers. Focus on writing headlines that are clear, interesting and includes keywords. In addition, including a clear meta description with keywords definitely contributes to a great headline.
Use Rich-Keyword Phrases
Another thing to be considered is to use rich-keyword phrases. Using rich-keyword phrases allows both your readers and search engines understand what your content is about. However, make sure you don’t end up with keyword stuffing. Use lots of LSI keywords instead.
Structure Your Post
The way your posts are structured plays a major role in keeping your readers engaged. It is highly recommended to structure your post by breaking the content into smaller paragraphs with proper headlines. In order to make it easier for search engines, you should use proper tag hierarchy and use tagging headlines like H1 for titles, H2 for subtitles, etc.
Here’s a Sample Content Structure breakdown for a topic – “Good Construction Practices to Follow in 2021”
Share Content in Social Media
In the past few years, social media has been one of the most powerful tool to reach your content to the target readers. To make sure that your content reaches your target audience, you need to post each article on social media sites and in forums, using engaging descriptions and a call-to-action. It is also important to have share buttons on each of your blog posts.
Promote Link Building
Link building is one of the most important factor contributing to search engine ranking. Linking to your own articles or website in your post ensures a link back to your website if your article is picked up by another site. Creating great content helps increase its chances of getting more shares and the likelihood that other websites will link to it.
Following these guidelines will definitely help you master your SEO content writing. Good Luck!
Elance Digital Media is a result-driven Digital Marketing Company dedicated to the growth & success of clients. We have been assisting our clients in implementing WordPress SEO so that our clients can enjoy its benefits. We are not just an Agency whom you give Service, rather we are your Potential Digital Marketing Partners and we thrive for your Growth & Success as much as you. If you need any assistance in content writing strategy, you can always reach out to us.
