SEO writing is one of the most important aspects of SEO today.
Why?
Without high-quality, optimised content – SEO campaigns won’t succeed.
SEO is competitive and good SEO content writing can be the difference between:
But SEO writing isn’t easy.
It’s a delicate balance between writing engaging content for your visitors while ensuring it has all the important optimisations for search engines.
Here’s only what you need to know to produce the highest quality SEO writing that both humans and search engines will love.
What Will I Learn?
SEO writing is high-quality written content that is optimised for search engines. The best SEO writing is engaging for users to read and is optimised for 1 target keyword.
Think of it like this:
Amazing content + good on-page SEO = SEO writing.
Both of these aspects are needed for SEO content writing.
But why is SEO writing so important? Quick answer: Free Organic Traffic.
All search engines aim to connect their users with the best possible content.
Google especially loves quality content that:
Do you want your SEO writing to rank?
It’s simple: provide value! If you can do that, the organic traffic will come naturally.
But how do you do that exactly? Well…
Do you have non-friendly SEO content? Check out my SEO content optimization case study.
Now you’ve got an initial idea of what good SEO writing is…
I’m going to share my exact process for consistently writing high-quality content with you. These next 10 tips are how I have grown this SEO blog to over 80,000+ visitors per month.
One of the hardest parts of SEO writing is coming up with good topics.
But it’s also one of the most important.
Most people start with keyword research. They write about the keywords that have the most search volume.
Don’t make this mistake.
Start by finding topics that people are interested in. If you do that, you will not only grow your site traffic but also grow a loyal following. Use these methods for finding quality topics to write about.
If you already have:
The best way to find out what your audience wants you to write about is to simply ask them! See what topics they want to learn more about. This is the best way to generate topics, hands down.
You get immediate feedback from your audience and they come up with the topics for you. Put together a simple survey using a free tool like Survey Monkey or Google Forms.
Ask your audience what their biggest struggles are and what they are interested in learning about.
What if you don’t have an audience to survey?
Get involved in relevant Facebook groups and connect with the group members to see what they are interested in learning about. If the group rules allow it, you could run a simple poll.
Answer The Public is a free keyword scraper that will speed up your topic research.
You simply type a topic you are considering into the search bar and Answer The Public scans the internet for popular questions people have related to your topic.
Pretty cool, right?
This makes it easy to put together a solid list of topics.
BuzzSumo calls itself the worlds #1 content marketing tool.
And they might be right.
You can use BuzzSumo to uncover content that has gone viral online.
All you have to do is search for a topic you are considering and BuzzSumo will deliver a list of articles that have gone viral.
This will provide you with a ton of topic ideas you could write about. And the best part?
You know the topic already went viral so you can be confident it will be a hit with your target audience as well.
I personally love forums. Some people find them overwhelming but there is a wealth of information that you can get.
Forums are places where people go to-
That’s what makes it such a perfect place to get topic ideas. You simply search in a relevant forum for topics you are considering and you will see thousands of conversations happening in real-time.
You have a couple of ways you can use forums:
Both of these will work well. Although digging through conversations generally delivers the best results.
The most popular forums to try are:
But if you can find niche forums in your industry that’s even better.
Simply type in Google: Your Niche + “forum”
This will bring up a list of niche forums you can use for topic research.
Now that you have a list of topics it’s time to turn them into keywords.
One topic is likely to have multiple keywords you can target. This is perfect because you comprehensively cover a topic which makes you the go-to authority for it.
I use Ahrefs to find keywords for my topics because it is one of the best keyword research tools. They also have one of the largest keyword databases and provide the most actionable data.
You can use Google Keyword Planner if you don’t have Ahrefs, but it requires more effort.
Here’s how it works:
Input your first topic into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool. Ahrefs will find all of the related keywords to that topic.
Click View All under keyword ideas.
Now you have a massive list of keywords. You just need to filter the keywords and select the right ones.
If you need help selecting keywords follow my keyword research guide. It will teach you everything you need to know.
Before writing a single word… Create an outline for your content.
The structure of your content:
This is as true for writing blog content as it is for writing website content. But your outline should always match the keyword intent of your target audience.
What is keyword intent?
It is the primary goal a user has when searching for something in Google.
For example, searching for “chocolate cake recipe” has a different intent than searching for “order chocolate cake” – even though they are both similar.
When you understand the intent of your target audience you know what they are searching for. You need to create an online for your content that matches the intent of your audience by answering their queries and providing the information they want.
Your keyword needs to be inserted into your content. Otherwise, how would Google know that your content is relevant to that keyword?
But here’s a word of warning:
Don’t add your keyword into your content as much as you can.
This is called “keyword stuffing“. Keyword stuffing can land you in a load of trouble, including receiving penalties from Google. Just don’t do it.
Instead, you want to intelligently add your target keyword where it sounds natural.
This is how the SEO writing pros do it. A human should read the sentence that your keyword has been inserted into and think nothing of it.
PRO TIP: As a rule of thumb, your keyword should be inserted into your content about every 150-250 words.
Internal linking is something you should pay attention to.
Internal links are links from one page of your website to another page on your website. As you can see below, they are usually linked within some text (called “anchor text“).
Internal links build a connection between one page and another page.
This is great for Google.
Once you have written multiple pieces of content on the same topic you can link them all together. This will:
But internal links also serve a second purpose.
They keep your website visitors moving through your website.
In other words, links make it easy for your visitors to find more relevant content to what they are reading and it might just be convincing enough for them to click through to another piece of content.
Internal links are a must when writing for SEO, so make sure you include them in each piece of content.
External links improve your credibility.
Think of external links in your content like adding references. It enhances your content’s authority because you link to other credible pages and resources.
But you don’t just want to add random external links. You need to be strategic about it.
Use these external linking tips:
External links should always be included in SEO content for blogs and articles.
But if you are writing a core website page or landing page, you don’t need to add external links unless they are relevant.
Good quality content should always include multimedia (images, videos, gifs).
Here’s why:
People learn in different ways. Images and videos bring your SEO content to life and help your audience visualise what you have written.
In short – multimedia makes your content more engaging.
It’s super tempting to get lazy and just publish your SEO writing without worrying about multimedia. But it is well worth it because readers love it – and so does Google.
There are two important factors to consider for optimising images:
Most images have default names of something like – IMG4774943.jpg.
This won’t work.
You need to name your images based on what the image is and use hyphens to separate words. For example, if your image is an old vintage brass lamp, you would name it:
vintage-brass-lamp.jpg
Why? Because Google doesn’t (yet) understand images. The ALT text describes what an image is so Google can index it correctly.
Your ALT text should be similar to your image name.
The most important thing is that you clearly describe the image so Google can understand it.
Good on-page SEO is like adding the cherry on top to your SEO writing.
This important step will ensure that your SEO writing is completely optimised and has the absolute best chance to rank.
There are 27 on-page factors which you can see in my on-page SEO checklist.
But not all factors are equally important for SEO writing, so here is a small checklist to ensure that your SEO writing is well optimised.
Make sure that your:
Ensuring each piece of content is optimised perfectly can be overwhelming. Especially if you write a lot of content.
That’s why I use a powerful SEO tool called Surfer SEO.
It takes all the guesswork out of optimising your content. You can simply copy and paste your SEO writing into the Surfer SEO editor and it will tell you exactly what you need to optimise.
It doesn’t get easier than that!
Check out my complete Surfer SEO review to see exactly how the tool works.
Do yourself a favour and don’t skip this step.
Remember…
We are after quality SEO writing. Part of quality is ensuring that the content is refined and doesn’t contain any grammatical errors.
But I get it: Proofreading is annoying and the last thing you want to do. To speed up your proofreading process use a tool like Grammarly.
This will highlight any grammatical and spelling errors so you can focus solely on content refinement.
The premium version of Grammarly also has an AI assistant that gives recommendations to improve sentence structure. This will make your content flow well and be more engaging for your readers.
If you really want to take your SEO writing to the next level, check out my 10 copywriting hacks. They will ensure that your content is super engaging and readers won’t be able to stop scrolling.
That’s it you’re done, right?
Not quite!.
Most SEO writers do all the hard work only to hit publish and let their content just sit there on the site. This is like running a marathon and giving up just before the finish line.
Your goal is to get eyeballs on your newly written content.
Only publishing it to your website isn’t going to do this. So how do you get more eyes on your content?
Create a content promotion strategy.
A simple content promotion strategy is the difference between getting tons of views – or just a few. Content promotion can also help your SEO. You want to get your content in front of as many people as possible.
This is the ultimate last step that will really help you generate traffic to your content and website.
Want to learn more steps to improve your content and boost your website performance? Check out my complete SEO checklist for 2024!
If you want to become a successful SEO writer, you will need to focus on developing a few skills. These are the top 3 skills all quality SEO writers have.
This single skill is what separates good writers from great writers.
Getting into the mind of your target audience and putting yourself in their shoes is key.
This helps you communicate directly to them at a level they understand.
Understanding what your readers want is a never-ending process of practice. In the long run, it will separate you from the pack.
Clear and concise communication is key.
The ability to explain concepts in easy-to-understand ways will make your writing more engaging. This means trimming the fat off your writing so you are only left with the important details.
Think of good communication like this – Deliver as much information in as few words as possible.
Every single word on your page must earn its place.
Here’s the truth:
Consistently producing high-quality SEO writing is hard work. The only way to be successful long-term is to be well organised.
Develop processes and systems around your writing. This will make you a more efficient writer and help you produce a consistent quality of writing.
Use the 10 SEO writing steps above and customise it into your own process.
Now you have all of the knowledge you need to succeed in SEO writing.
Follow each of the 10 steps every time you produce a piece of content. This is a great framework you can use again and again to write the highest quality content.
Remember:
Good SEO writers can deliver as much information in as few words as possible. Make this the foundation of your writing and you are already worlds ahead of other writers.
No time to write? Hire a content writing service!
2 Responses
Join My Facebook Group
Subscribe to my YouTube
Connect on Linkedin
Follow My Twitter Page
Thanks for the article! These SEO writing tips seem helpful.
Thanks, John