Search Engine Optimization or SEO content writing is not just about writing good content. It’s about writing strategically relevant content that attracts traffic and that search engines would quickly discover to boost your website ranking.
It involves keyword research and optimization to make your content searchable. When your content can generate traffic in search engines, it can also generate more leads and possible conversions.
SEO also needs content organization, so you provide users easy access to your website. When content is ordered in a user-friendly and clear way, you increase the chances for users to keep coming back for more.
When users keep coming back to your page, you increase your site visibility, credibility and improve SEO marketing results. It is why website owners need to prioritize investing in SEO. It is a more long-term and stable approach to your website’s success.
Let us see how you can write effective SEO Content that hits SEO targets and improves your website’s profitability.
Table of Contents
5 Easy Steps to Write an Effective SEO Content
Write for People, Not Search Engines
Yes, you may be aiming to rank in search engines, but don’t write with search engines in mind first. The top most goal in writing is to serve the needs of your users. Write for the people–what they like, what they are searching for, what engages them, and what keeps them interested.
When you target your content towards the right audience, you need to know their pulse and write about their most pressing needs or interests. It can change every so often, so make sure you catch up on trending topics, so your content is more relatable.
If you simply write for SEO’s sake, you would tend to hard-sell or produce irrelevant content. You’ll just write for keywords and not to serve your users.
Catchy Headlines
Since you want your article to be discoverable, you need to write catchy headlines. Your headline should provide a clear glimpse of what your content is all about.
A good technique is to go to Google Trends or Google Analytics to find out the current search queries trending in the topic you want to write on. You can also use other tools such as Answer the Public, Semrush Topic Research, Ahrefs Content Explorer, and the like.
Writing creatively is good, but you cannot sacrifice clarity for creativity. When it comes to titles, avoid inconsistency or ambiguity because it will not help with your search engine rankings.
More than half of marketers say that creating blog content takes up their inbound marketing strategies. It improves lead generation, brand awareness, clickthrough rates, dwells time, SEO retention, and ultimately, conversions.
It also involves monitoring and studying social signals, customer engagements, measuring SEO analytics, and the like. Writing a crafty headline helps make all these efforts worthwhile as users will most likely click on titles that are closest to what they are searching for.
If you want to write on the effects of digital technology on business and the economy, put that in the title. It could be “Digitech and Society: 7 Effects on Business and Economy.” It’s clear and straightforward. You tell users that they will learn about digital technology and the seven effects it has on business and the economy. You can also create titles in question form, like “How does Digital Technology Impact Business and Economy.”
When you create catchy headlines, even singular words can mean the difference between ranking or not. If you use words like “transform” or “revolutionize,” these words are more complicated and not easily used by people searching on the internet. If you use the word “change” or “affect” instead, it may get more clicks because it is simple and more often used.
So, make sure that your headlines are appealing, compelling, and clickable. An experienced SEO writer would even start writing their headlines first before their main content to give clear direction and purpose to their research and writing.
Catchy headlines are also more shareable. Users would often retweet content on Twitter just by their headlines alone.
Use the Right Keywords throughout the Content
After choosing a catchy headline, focus on the keywords you will use to help your content rank even more on search engines. Include primary keywords in your headlines, H1, H2 titles, slug or URL, meta descriptions, alt tags, and the like.
Here is an example of how you can use keywords in your meta descriptions, which act as free advertisement for your site:
Use additional keywords, especially long-tail keywords, on your introduction and the main body of your content. Strategically using variations of your keywords also helps pull traffic to your content for those keywords you are aiming for.
However, make sure to avoid keyword stuffing because search engines may flag your content as spam. Keyword stuffing worked back when search engines did not take relevance and high-quality content into much consideration. So SEO writers would stuff as many keywords as they can even if it is no longer relevant and organic to the topic.
As search engine algorithms keep improving, there is a great emphasis now on writing high-quality content. Keywords are still important, but they have to be relevant to the content. The keywords should be added organically, meaning they add value to the content because they align with the topic or niche.
Since almost all SEO campaigns start with keyword research, here are some keyword statistics you need to know about:
- 92.42% of keywords generate about ten or fewer monthly searches.
Image Source: Ahrefs
- 70.87% of keywords that register with 10,000 monthly searches contain one or two words only, although competition is high for primary keywords of this length.
- 50% of search intent have four words or more (long-tail keywords). You can try ranking since competition is less fierce, and there is a high-probability of ranking for your chosen keywords.
- An estimated 8% of search intent are in question-form.
- 67.6% of all clicks are in the top 5 of SERP results.
- A total of 16.8 million voice search devices and long-tail keywords help optimize content for voice search.
- Mobile and desktop ranking for keywords is not similar. The top 20 keywords vary in position by 79% on mobile and 47% on desktop.
Make sure that you target the right keywords and that your content is keyword-rich to help boost your content on SERP.
High-Quality Content
Google deems a page to be well-written and ranks it on its top 10 results for keywords if it has 2,000 words or more in its content. Even if you have a catchy title and the right keywords, it will not matter much if your users do no see value in your content once they click on it.
You have about 10 seconds to impress your users, so make sure that your content is compelling, well-written, and clear from your introduction.
High-quality content is well-researched, original, keyword-rich, and relevant. It includes relevant facts and statistics that will further help the user in their search query. It needs to have inbound links that easily lead your readers to other valuable content within your website.
You also need to include outbound links from reputable sites to know that you are getting reliable information. It builds your trust rating when you are generous with outbound links to websites that you know will further increase your users’ knowledge on that particular topic.
Include other media like high-quality images, compelling videos, useful infographics, and the like. Making your content dynamic also makes it more shareable and generates more engagements from users.
Also, avoid writing thin content or low-quality content. These kinds of content usually duplicate content from other websites, contains copy-pasted materials with little to no editing, contain auto-generated content, and are laden with irrelevant link pages.
Search engines often penalize thin content, so make sure your content is of high quality, no matter what kind of content you are creating. Structure your posts
Also, use H1, H2, and H3 tags when writing. When you use titles and subtitles, it makes it easier for search engines to know if your content is relevant or not. Use bullet or number lists for facts and similar information. Ensure that your content’s thought flow progresses clearly, and provide a Call-to-Action (CTA) on your conclusion to close your content with impact. Doing so increases the quality of your User Experience and boosts your website ranking.
Enable Social Media Sharing
As with all digital means of communication, social media sites’ power derives from the opportunity to share data. SMO (social media optimization) should be combined with SEO (search engine optimization) to bring your content in front of internet users successfully.
It is a simple and cost-effective plan to generate traffic because it is free. It also perpetuates social sharing, especially if your content is good and gets a lot of engagement. It cultivates meaningful relationships with your target audience, and as your social engagements rise, it affects your Google rankings as well. Your content also gets faster indexing by search engines.
It is easier to outrank your competition through social media marketing. It is a valuable tool that you can use to expand your reach and increase the amount of sharing of your content.
nstead of merely sharing new material on social media platforms and message boards, use catchy taglines and compelling call-to-action.
Additionally, it’s essential to include share buttons on every blog post. Twitter Cards or Open Graph for Facebook can help you with the accessibility of your mutual connections, which can contribute to better click-through rates.
Conclusion: Invest in SEO to Boost Your Website’s Content
Good content is the foundation of effective content marketing. If there were no content, there would be no good SEO campaign. Content is king when it comes to driving traffic to your website.
Using various SEO strategies can increase your traffic by 206%. So if you want growth for your website, better brand positioning, and increasing ROI (return of investment), make content marketing a priority today.
About Author
MAYLEEN MEÑEZ
Mayleen Meñez used to work in media before finding her true passion in NGO work, travelling the Philippines and Asia doing so. She homeschools 3 kids and loves reinventing Filipino dishes. She is a resident SEO writer for Softvire Australia and Softvire New Zealand.
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