Content writing and SEO are two art forms that go hand-in-hand.
If you want to improve your SERP rankings and generate more organic traffic, then you’ll need to write high-quality pieces of content that follow SEO best practices.
However, you can’t resort to spammy techniques like keyword stuffing or vaguely rewording existing articles – otherwise, you won’t get very far at all.
Instead, your writing needs to provide true value to your target audience through original insight, engaging copy, and effortless readability.
At the same time, flawlessly written articles won’t rank & generate traffic unless you know how to optimize them with proper keyword placement, scannable subheadings, images with alt text, and internal links.
To quote Einstein, “SEO without writing is lame; writing without SEO is blind.”
While that might not be exactly what he said, it definitely applies here.
Whether you’re a dedicated blogger with your own site or an avid SEO expert attempting to improve rankings for a client, mastering the art of SEO writing is a must either way.
Here are a few quick stats to prove our point.
High-income bloggers are about 4.3 times more likely to conduct keyword research when selecting topics than low-income bloggers.
For SEOs, blogging can help you generate up to 55% more organic visitors.
It’s clear that SEO writing benefits both bloggers and marketers, so read on to learn how to perfect it.
What is SEO Content Writing?
SEO writing refers to the act of writing content (usually blogs, but that’s not always the case) with the goal of ranking higher on search engines like Google.
The types of content SEO writing applies to include the following:
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Social media posts (like LinkedIn blogs)
- Landing pages
- Product pages
- Other types of web content you want to rank (homepage, eCommerce pages, etc.)
Essentially, any piece of writing that you intend to release online needs to consider SEO if you want it to gain exposure.
What does SEO writing entail?
SEO copywriting involves using things like relevant keywords, images that contain alt text, scannable subheadings, and internal links to appeal to search engine algorithms while still providing value to human readers.
It’s a juggling act that involves including things like your target keywords without sounding too robotic or repetitive.
As a result, many traditional writers struggle when attempting SEO writing for the first time, as they’re not used to incorporating keywords and secondary phrases in their work.
Beyond that, SEO writing needs to be easy to read, scannable (containing relevant headings and subheadings), and, most of all – relevant to the search intent behind the keyword.
What are keywords?
A keyword or search query is what a user types into a search engine to meet a need they have.
For instance, if a user searches for the keyword ‘gardening tips,’ they’re clearly looking for online content that will provide reliable gardening advice.
In other words, their intent is to find gardening tips and tricks online.
If you want to rank for that keyword, you’ll need to create relevant content for it.
Your best bet is to create a listicle blog post titled something along the lines of ‘10 Gardening Tips You Need to Try.’
And voila, you’ve now got a piece of content that satisfies the search intent behind the keyword.
That’s the basic principle behind keyword research and, ultimately, SEO writing – which is to match the search intent of popular keywords (that your niche audience searches for on a regular basis) with great content on your website.
Things become a bit more complicated when you factor in competitors in your industry, the different types of search intent, and how SEO-friendly your content is (quality, keyword usage, backlink profile, etc.).
The goal of any SEO campaign is to get your content ranking in top positions on search engines like Google and Bing.
That’s because unless you’re in the top 5 results, you won’t see much in the way of traffic.
The proof?
The top 3 results on Google Search claim 54.4% of all clicks.
As you can imagine, nearly every website is duking it out to claim one of those top 3 spots in their niche.
Why Is SEO Writing Important?
If you want your website to consistently rank high on search engines, you need lots of quality content that informs, educates, entertains, and ultimately converts your organic visitors.
Not only that, but consistently creating content boosts your online visibility by helping with indexing.
For a website to appear in Google’s SERPs, it first has to be in its index.
If Google doesn’t have your web pages indexed, you won’t appear in the SERPs at all.
As a result, you need to give Google a reason to keep crawling & indexing your website regularly – and creating lots of content is the #1 way to do that.
If you haven’t released anything new on your website in months, Google won’t have any reason to recrawl it, and you’ll eventually disappear into obscurity.
Also, your pieces of content are where you use keywords and make other SEO-friendly tweaks to rank higher and ultimately generate organic traffic.
In a nutshell, your content IS your SEO strategy, as you wouldn’t have anything to optimize without it.
That’s why SEO and content creation are so closely linked.
To find success on search engine results pages, you need an in-depth content marketing strategy, and SEO writing is a huge component of that.
The Top SEO Writing Tips You Need to Master
What makes a piece of writing SEO-friendly?
There are quite a few factors, including its keyword usage, metadata, readability, and relevancy – just to name a few.
Even the most seasoned content writers don’t know it all, and SEO is always changing due to frequent Google updates and other advancements (like the recent switch to the new Bing).
That means the best practices that worked only a year ago won’t necessarily work today, so it’s integral to keep up with the latest developments in the SEO world.
To give you a competitive edge, we’ve compiled the best SEO content writing tips for 2023 that consider all recent updates and advancements (link spam, E-E-A-T, the prevalence of AI, etc.).
Always start with in-depth keyword research
Before you start typing away, you need to know what topics to write about – which is where keyword research comes into the picture.
By finding keywords related to your niche that have high search volume and reasonable keyword difficulty (the amount of competition out there), you’ll be able to uncover the most relevant content topics for your industry.
How do you conduct keyword research?
There are quite a few ways to approach it, but the quickest and easiest way is to use a free tool like our keyword planner.
All you have to do is enter a target phrase related to your niche, and the tool will generate a list of related search terms.
Besides listing the search terms, you’ll also get to view crucial metrics like:
- Search volume. This refers to how many searches a keyword receives each day. If the keyword has a high search volume, it means lots of people are searching for it every single day.
- Keyword difficulty (KD). A keyword’s difficulty score refers to how hard it will be to rank in the top spot for the term. For instance, if a keyword has 12 other high-quality websites also creating content for it, it will have a higher KD score.
- Search trend. A keyword’s trend represents how popular it is over a particular period. It’s represented in the tool by a line graph. If it’s pointing up, that means the keyword is gaining popularity. If it’s trending down, it means the keyword is beginning to lose popularity.
Ideally, you want to find keywords that have a high search volume, low keyword difficulty and are trending up in popularity.
Outline your posts before getting started
Now that you’ve got a list of keywords, you can start creating content based on them.
That usually means cranking out some long-form blog posts, which can be quite an undertaking if you’re not used to it.
Why long-form posts?
It’s because longer posts (1,000+ words) tend to generate the most traffic, shares, and backlinks – all of which are great for SEO.
The average #1 result on Google contains approximately 1,447 words, and posts longer than 3,000 words acquire an average of 77.2% more backlinks.
That means you’ll want to include at least a few long-form blogs on your website.
Yet, sitting down to write 3,000+ words is pretty intimidating, which is why you should always start by creating an outline.
There’s no set way to create an outline for a blog post, but the most common method is to write your headings and subheadings first.
Instead of imagining a blog post as one 3,000-word paragraph, envision 12 subheadings containing 250 words each.
Writing the subheadings will give you a clear direction to follow when you actually sit down to write, which will make knocking out the post far easier.
Going with the gardening example, here’s what a potential outline would look like:
- H1 Tag: 10 Gardening Tips You Need to Try
- Introduction paragraph – 200 words
- H2: Pick the Right Location – 250 words
- H2: Choose an Appropriate Soil – 250 words
As you can see, once you start writing the headings and subheadings, the article practically writes itself.
Optimize your headings for SEO
Whenever you’re writing headings for your outline, don’t forget to make them SEO-friendly.
How do you do that?
The rule of thumb is to add your target and secondary keywords to your headings, especially your H1 tag.
This is because search engine crawlers will scan your headings to determine what your article is about and if it’s related to the keyword phrase or not.
So if you include your keyword right there in the title, the crawler bots will immediately pick up on it.
Writing concise headings containing keywords is also beneficial for your readers, too.
73% of readers admit to skimming blog posts, meaning they quickly read the headings instead of consuming the entire article. They do this to determine if the piece of content is something worth reading word-for-word.
So if you make your blogs skimmer-friendly with relevant and engaging headings, you’ll raise the chances of users reading the post from start to finish – which will improve your dwell time.
Pro tip: To give your H1 tag the most SEO power, you should front-load your primary keyword. That means including your keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible. That’ll make it as easy as possible for crawler bots to find your target keyword.
Demonstrate first-hand experience and expertise in your content
This tip has been especially important ever since Google’s update to their Quality Rater Guidelines to become E-E-A-T instead of E-A-T.
What’s E-E-A-T?
It stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
These are the primary factors Google uses when gauging the quality of a website’s content.
The extra E stands for experience, so it’s more important than ever to exhibit first-hand experience in the content you create.
If you’re reviewing a product, provide evidence that you’ve actually used it yourself. Whenever blogging about your area of expertise, mention real experiences you’ve had to give your writing extra credibility.
Google is now looking out for instances of first-hand experience, so include it wherever possible.
Also, don’t forget to include the other letters in the acronym and display trustworthiness (reputable backlinks and linking externally to trusted sources), expertise (deep knowledge of the subject), and authoritativeness (a flawless track record).
Including all these factors will drastically improve your SEO profile, as Google will view your website’s content as top-tier.
Target SERP features with your SEO writing
Everyone wants to obtain the coveted #1 spot on Google organic SERPs because it’s the most powerful position, right?
Yes and no.
While it’s the ultimate spot for organic results, it doesn’t appear at the very top of the page.
That’s reserved for PPC (pay-per-click) ads and the almighty SERP features.
What are those?
SERP features are special results that appear ABOVE the organic results in a coveted spot called position zero.
These ‘special’ results include knowledge bars, featured snippets, image carousels, shopping carousels, and more.
If you’ve ever searched for a definition or a quick fact and received a quick answer on the top of the SERP in bold, you’ve seen a featured snippet.
The good news is you can take special measures to target SERP features with your SEO writing.
Here are some quick pointers for targeting featured snippets in particular:
- Answer a popular question your target audience has at the beginning of your content
- Ensure the answer is succinct
- Make the question your H1 tag and answer it in the first 100 words of your post
- Bold the answer and include part of the question in it
Also, use Google’s Rich Results Tool to ensure that your content is capable of generating SERP features. The tool is incredibly useful because it will let you know all the SERP features your content qualifies for, and you can even preview how they’ll look. It’ll also inform you if your structured data is formatted properly or not.
Write for humans first, search engines second
With all the best practices that go along with making copy SEO-friendly, it can be easy to get a little carried away.
What we mean by that is using too many keywords and links in hopes of appealing to search engines.
The problem with that is it leads to content that sounds robotic and isn’t helpful to users.
While it’s important to include your keywords and links in the content you write, the ultimate goal of your content should be to provide value to your target audience – and you do that by writing content that’s readable, informative, and engaging.
In other words, you should write for your human audience first.
Once you’ve created a stellar piece of content that your users actually want to read, then you can worry about making it appeal to Google & other search engines.
Also, you should avoid keyword stuffing at all costs.
That’s where you use your keywords over and over again to the detriment of your writing’s quality.
In the early days of SEO, web admins could game search engines by using their primary keywords dozens of times.
That led to content creators writing for search engines instead of users, which doesn’t help anyone.
Search engines really don’t care for this, as it’s their goal to match users with the most relevant, highest-quality content online.
If you write for your human audience first and then optimize your stellar content for SEO, you’re doing it right.
Optimize your metadata
You don’t want to forget to optimize your meta data for SEO, as that’s one of the most crucial steps.
By metadata, we mean the meta description and title tag for each piece of content you create.
A web page’s title tag is what displays on SERP pages (it becomes the blue hyperlink that users click on).
As such, it’s essential to include your primary keyword in your title tag so that search engine crawlers see it. The first places they’ll look for your keyword are your metadata and your H1 tag, so always ensure that your keywords are in both places.
Length is another crucial component of optimizing metadata. For your title tags, they should never exceed 60 characters.
The meta description is the brief description of the content that appears under the blue hyperlink on the SERPs.
While the meta description isn’t an official ranking factor, it’s still crucial to include one for your target audience. Using your keyword here is also a good idea, but more importantly, you need to include a CTA (call-to-action).
This is a brief line of text that informs the reader what to do next. In the case of a meta description, it’s to click through to your content. Phrases like, “So don’t wait to check it out,” will entice and encourage your audience to click on your result instead of competitors.
Including CTAs in your meta descriptions will improve your click-through rates, so don’t forget about them.
Use inbound and outbound links
Our final tip is to use a healthy amount of internal and external links in your SEO writing.
Whenever you’re writing a piece of content, and you mention something you’ve written about before, include an internal link to that page.
That will not only make your site easier to crawl for search engines, but it’ll keep your readers engaged in your content loop – improving your dwell time and increasing the chances of landing a conversion.
External links are one of the best ways to add trustworthiness and credibility to your articles.
Whenever you make a bold claim, back it up with evidence from reputable websites. Linking out to domains like .org, .gov, and .edu will boost your authority, so include them whenever possible.
Wrapping Up: Mastering SEO Writing in 2023
SEO writing marries creating stellar content with making tweaks to appeal to search engines.
It’s a necessary form of writing for all online content creators to master, regardless of industry or focus.
If you want to release online content that generates traffic, leads, and sales, knowing the best practices of SEO writing is a must.
Do you need help with SEO writing at your company?
If so, then don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our managed SEO service that includes amazing content, link building, and a dedicated campaign manager.
