Every day, the internet receives millions of web pages displaying written content. However, of the millions of webpages, only 9.4 % of web pages get organic traffic.
Creators spend a lot of time and effort producing content readers would value. A single long-form post requires hours of researching, writing, editing, and optimizing.
But all hard work goes in vain if the content doesn’t reach the target audience.
With 90.6% of online content remaining unseen, it’s common to feel demotivated when your writing doesn’t rank on search engines.
But guess what?
You can beat these odds by employing these simple search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.
Understanding SEO-Friendly Content
SEO content is the text that ranks high on search engine results pages (SERPs).
To perform well on search engines like Google, all articles, blogs, and meta descriptions must be optimized to highlight the search queries you’re solving.
How can you do this?
You can do this by writing high-quality content.
Superior quality content is one of the principal factors of SEO.
Your information must outshine information provided by all other pages in a field for a high SERP ranking. The keys to doing so are:
- Providing valuable content: Offer useful and informative content to readers. A helpful article explains basic concepts and includes deeper insights.
Avoid padding an article with filler material and provide value with your words instead.
- Offering niche expertise: Google’s algorithms detect knowledge and authority in written content. Conduct thorough research, include facts, and use an authoritative tone.
Well-researched and niche-centric information enhances the trustworthiness of a website. This process, in turn, improves search engine rankings.
- Developing original content: Your content should be unique to stand out in a sea of information. If you think that simply copying from a high-traffic website will give you the same visibility, you would be far from the truth.
When Google detects duplicate content (resemblance to another source on the web), it lowers the page’s rankings. Consequently, originality is of utmost importance.
- Keeping readers engaged: Unless you hook your readers, they will leave to find better content. Such an occurrence is not ideal for SEO.
Capture the reader’s attention with easy sentences and well-structured text. Using subheadings to categorize text and writing in short paragraphs are two great tactics to improve readability.
Why is SEO Important?
Studies reveal that 28% of people click on the first appeared result when they search on Google.
If your page doesn’t appear on search engines or ranks low, users can’t access it.
Here is where SEO comes in.
Since Google aims to provide users with the best information, only SEO-optimised texts will achieve high rankings.
Better SEO content also means more traffic, higher conversions, and broader awareness.
How to Write SEO Content?
Now that you know what SEO content is and why it’s necessary for your online business, let’s study how to create such content.
1. Choose a Popular Topic
Choosing a topic that guarantees clicks is the first step in creating SEO content.
For this step, you must research your target audience and analyze their needs, wants, and doubts.
Utilize this information to solve the top queries your readers have. A few ways to do this are:
- Take inspiration from competing websites with the same target audience.
- Become a part of online communities on social media and interact with users for first-hand analysis.
- Stay on top of changing trends in your field.
Remember, first choose your niche and then search user queries in that niche to provide topically-strong content,
2. Research Important Keywords
Keywords signify the information your target audience seeks.
By adding their most-used keywords, you can best cater to your readers.
For example, if you own a travel blog and your audience’s most common search is ‘best places in Goa,’ you can post an article titled ‘Top 10 must-visit spots in Goa’.
3. What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research entails researching what questions and phrases users search on Google and including them in your content for higher rankings.
Some pointers to keep in mind while choosing the right keywords are:
- Keyword Volume: Keyword volume is the number of times users search a keyword in a month.
Use high-volume and brand-specific keywords in combination for optimum SEO.
While high-volume keywords drive more traffic, they are often competitive and hard to rank for. Even though brand-specific keywords are less popular, they help establish authority as a niche brand.
- Search Intent: Your content has to align with users’ search intent while using a keyword.
Search intent can be transactional, informational, or navigational.
For example, a user may search “best moisturizers” with the informational intent of discovering diverse types of moisturizers.
If a brand uses this keyword to promote itself instead of providing information, it leads to a negative user experience and lower SERP rankings.
Conduct thorough research about your target audience to avoid search intent misinterpretations.
4. Best Practices For Keyword Research
There is an abundance of information on finding the right keywords. The following are the main pointers:
- Maintain a list of industry-related keywords.
- Study keywords used by competitors to understand your scope.
- Utilize long-tail keywords to create brand-specific content.
- Combine both high-volume and low-volume keywords.
- Use keyword synonyms to reach more users.
- Update your keyword placement strategies per advancing trends.
If you are wondering how to write SEO content with valuable keywords, looking through Google’s Autocomplete feature is a good headstart.
The People Also Ask section on Google’s SERP is another excellent way to identify common queries.
Additionally, use keyword research tools such as Ubersuggest, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner for a range of short-tail, long-tail, and topically-relevant terminologies.
5. Prioritize Quality
High-quality content doesn’t refer to fancy wordage but easily written text with valuable information.
Additional ways to optimize your content’s quality are:
- Use engaging titles: Since this is the first element readers view, a catchy headline is necessary to attract attention. Incorporate keywords into the title but keep it concise.
Adding numbers such as “Top 10 places…”, “5 things you need to know…”, etc. are excellent for piquing interest. You can also draft the title using “How,” “When,” “What,” and “How” words.
Be clear about what readers can expect from your article and invoke curiosity with your words.
- Relate to your audience: It’s not enough to attract readers. You must also preserve their interest. Keep the niche and demographic in mind while you write.
For example, a movie review targeted toward Gen-Zs can benefit from witty, conversational writing. On the contrary, a news article on Russia’s war against Ukraine requires a formal and informative tone.
- Use keyword-rich text: All SEO content is rich in keywords. While including enough keywords in your text is crucial, avoid keyword stuffing at all costs.
Space out keywords throughout the content body and use them in a manner that sounds fluid and natural.
- Deny plagiarism: Plagiarism is always unwanted and can have disastrous effects on search engine optimization.
Google penalizes duplicate content with low SERP ranks. Therefore, treating your readers with fresh ideas and new perspectives is advisable.
SurferSEO, SEMrush, and ScaleNut are three popular tools you should use to optimize content for SEO and readability.
6. Add Multimedia
Multimedia forms such as images, infographics, and diagrams make content more engaging and presentable.
Moreover, posts containing relevant images receive far more views than those without images.
Users are also 40x more likely to share visual content on social media.
The reasons for this are:
- Visual content is a more effective means of communication.
- Our brains store visual content better.
- They add more sentiment to a post.
These factors improve user experience (UX)—a key element in SEO content.
Other ways in which multimedia benefits SEO are:
- They increase the time readers spend on a page.
- Posts with multimedia gain more traction on social media, further increasing organic traffic.
- Visual components can add uniqueness to a brand’s content.
- Such materials are versatile and usable across multiple platforms.
Remember, multimedia can include graphs, pie charts, social media embeds, and polls as well.
Some posts also add audio recordings of a text allowing users to ‘listen’ to an article. This tactic is an excellent way to reach a wider audience.
You can attach customized images, create designs on Canva or download photos from Pexel.
7. Use Categories And Subsections
Organizing a content body makes it appealing and easy to navigate.
Since user experience contributes to SEO, this easy strategy can work wonders for your content.
- Avoid blocks of chain and write in short paragraphs instead.
- Content should be skimmable, concise, and easy to understand.
- Make liberal use of H1, H2, and H3 subheadings and bullet points.
Structuring content also allows you to hit multiple keywords at once.
Create separate headings for each keyword to effectively include more information in one post.
Another excellent way to boost SEO content is by adding pillar pages.
A pillar page overviews a broad topic and contains links to relevant sub-topics and in-depth explanations. They are helpful because:
- They boost content accessibility for users and search engines.
- Pillar pages help brands establish expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, leading to better SERP rankings.
- They drive traffic by reducing online clutter and offering information more comprehensively.
8. Double-Check Experience, Expertise, Authority, And Trustworthiness (EEAT)
With more and more AI-written content infiltrating web pages, Google has tightened its screws around credibility.
Search engines look for these qualities to determine which pages to rank higher. Naturally, websites displaying higher levels of E-E-A-T get better ranks.
Adding bylines is one of the ways to improve E-E-A-T.
Bylines include the author’s name and date of publication. Users can research the author’s background to learn about their experience and expertise or check the publication date to determine a post’s current relevance.
Other ways to improve E-E-A-T on SEO content are:
- Testimonials from clients
- Links to high-quality sources
- Enlisting awards, recognitions, and certifications if there are any
- Complete bios of authors and founders with links to their social media pages
- Effective customer service for commercial sites
9. Get Backlinks
Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links on a page that direct users to other pages.
Google algorithms have valued backlinks for decades. Plainly put, backlinks show search engines that other sites consider your content credible.
This causes Google, in turn, to view you as a trustable source.
Backlinks from noteworthy sites automatically deliver higher merit and lead to better rankings.
The following are the best ways to get high-quality backlinks:
- Create original and informative content that other sources would want to cite.
- Make connections with industry professionals and ask them for backlinks.
- Detect broken links on other websites and offer links to your content in replacement.
- If you have services or products for sale, offer them to reviewers for free in exchange for a link to your site.
10. Include Internal Links
Unlike external links, internal links are hyperlinks to various pages within the same site.
Google’s Senior Search Analyst, John Mueller, mentions that internal links are supercritical for SEO.
Such is because Google regards pages with more quality, authoritative, and relevant links as better than others.
Internal linking boosts SEO content by:
- Helping search engines understand a website’s structure and what it’s about
- Making navigation easy for readers
- Building hierarchy and adding more links to important pages
Some best interlinking practices to employ are:
- Creating ample high-quality content for more linking options
- Using compelling and natural anchor texts
- Avoiding links to the homepage
- Ensuring that the links are relevant and not added at random
11. Add a Meta Description
Meta descriptions appear as snippets on the search results page and give a brief overview of what a web page contains.
A well-drafted meta description gives an accurate insight into what readers can expect from clicking a link.
Meta descriptions improve page relevance and increase higher click-through rates (CTRs).
The keys to writing good meta descriptions are:
- Write concise descriptions of 120 – 160 characters (including spaces)
- Make meta descriptions rich in keywords
- Engage readers and compel them to visit the page
- Provide an accurate description of the page
- Avoid embellishments for the sake of attracting readers
- Use an active voice
- Utilize action-oriented words such as Find out, Explore, Read, and the like.
- Add a call-to-action
- Use simple sentences for readability
- Give a half-answer to what the content covers – this inspires curiosity for a click
12. Embed Videos
Videos are a highly engaging tool for content development.
Uploading informative videos and embedding them in your written content can be excellent for your site.
Though embedding videos won’t directly impact SEO, they’ll drive readers to linger on a page and view you as a trustworthy source. Some ways to effectively do this are:
- Creating compelling and relevant video content
- Writing a catchy title and detailed video descriptions
- Incorporating an attractive thumbnail image
- Adding relevant keywords in the video metadata
- Uploading the video on reliable platforms
13. Update Your Content
Regularly updating content and deleting outdated information should be a routine part of your SEO strategy.
Google decides the value of content as per its relevance. Therefore, meaningful texts receive better traffic and higher rankings.
You can update web content in the following ways:
- Deleting outdated content
- Adding the latest information and insights
- Detecting broken internal links and replacing them
- Seeking ways to improve readability.
- Improving old content with new graphics, videos, or infographics
- Overseeing the performance of updated content and making necessary adjustments
- Updating publication dates to the day of the latest edits
- Re-promoting updated content on social media pages to drive new traffic
Follow the steps discussed in this article to develop a winning SEO strategy for your website and achieve top SERP rankings.
