SEO writing is the process of writing content to rank on the first page of a search engine, such as Google.
SEO Writing Guide: 7 Steps to Creating Search-Optimized Content
To do so, you must focus on three things:
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Understand what the searcher is looking for when searching for the target keyword (i.e., search intent)
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Create the best possible answer for a given search query (i.e. research and knowledge)
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Present answers in a way that is easy to read and understand (i.e., with good writing skills)
In addition, you need to understand the basics of page SEO elements, such as meta tags, image substitution text, internal links, and so on.
Why is SEO writing important?
SEO writing is important. Google has an estimated 3.5 billion searches per day, which means that customers will definitely use Google to find information. Once the site is ranked on Google's first page for the targeted keywords, the site will receive free, regular, and highly relevant traffic.
In other words, SEO = money.
As the cost of paid advertising rises and social media engagement becomes harder, natural traffic continues to dominate as one of the most important marketing channels modern businesses can invest in.
The seven steps to creating search Optimized content:
1. Study the SERP of the target keyword
The search intent is the intent of the searcher when entering the query. For example, if someone searches for "best restaurants near me," their intention is to find a good restaurant near their current location. Sounds simple, but if you get it wrong, you have no hope of being ranked on Google's first page – no matter how great your content is.
Assume that the target of the site is the keyword "RV storage ideas," which returns results containing ideas on how to store RVs when they are not in use.
This is wrong in Google's view. Here are the actual results: The top results for this keyword are all guides on how to get more storage within the RV, not the RV storage location. That's why it's so important to check the search engine results page (SERP) before you start writing anything. This can be done quickly and easily using Ahrefs' keyword Explorer or by searching for keywords through Google.
In addition, in the research stage, it is necessary to look for characteristic fragments. Selected snippets are snippets of information that Google takes from ranked web pages and displays in search results. The site's content is optimized for selected snippets to bypass some of the competitiveness of keywords and rank them faster. The best way to quickly and easily find selected fragments is to use Keyword Explorer. Simply enter the keyword you are considering locating, click the SERP Features drop-down menu, select Selected segments, and click Apply.
2. Create an essay outline
Creating a content outline is a key step in SEO writing, an outline makes the writing process faster and easier while ensuring a high level of quality control. Part of the outline process is filling in key SEO details, such as common questions people ask when searching for a given keyword. Another part of the process is to determine the title and subtitle of the article, the goal, and the approach Angle. What makes your essay different or better than all the others?
3. Write a draft
Every great essay begins as a draft.
Why is that?
Because the draft process helps us refine ideas and complete the research phase, it helps us flesh out the content stream. Plus, with the opportunity to easily change and modify content without feeling like you have to start all over again when you're done with the product, drafts are the perfect time to write freely without worrying too much about getting the text perfect or formatting everything. Just get the content on the page.
4. Get feedback and revise the draft
While not always possible, getting feedback on drafts can be helpful, as writers often can't see the forest for the trees, so having a second set of eyes is essential. If you have team members or employees, ask them to review the draft and give their thoughts. Even better, if you have an audience, you can get their feedback, too. Once you get feedback, revise your writing accordingly. Then proceed to step 5.
5. Edit the draft and format it into a suitable essay
Polishing an article with an editor can significantly improve the quality of the content.
When creating SEO content, the goal is simple: provide the best answers in the least number of words in an easy-to-navigate format.
Therefore, when editing, ask yourself the following questions:
Is that the best answer? Am I explaining this simply?
Is this article easy for someone (with limited time) to read and get what they need?
Improve your writing by using headings and subheadings to better organize your content, using italics or bold to highlight key points, and varying sentence lengths to keep your content interesting. It's also a good idea to avoid overly complex words that can make the point difficult to understand. Of course, if there is no easier way to explain something, more technical words can be used. Finally, it's a good practice to use photos, videos, and bulleted lists to break down long pieces of text and visually present ideas. Owning media may also help SEO.
6. Set up SEO elements and post
A great article is a big step toward ranking on Google, but it takes a lot more time to reach the top of these pages.
At the beginning of this article mentioned the page search engine optimization refers to the following content:
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The title tag
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Yuan described
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Open the graphics TAB
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Url slug
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Page or post classification
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Picture instead of text
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And more
Every page on the site needs this kind of optimization during the writing process.
Most content management systems (CMS) have a plug-in or setup where you can upload this data.
7. Update internal links
After you post, you should always add internal links to other pages on your site to the new article to help search engines and users navigate to the article.
This not only makes the site easy to use, but also helps Google crawl the site and determine the content of the new page (via anchor text) to properly index it.
Quickly identify opportunities for internal links a simple method is to use the Google search operator, site: can input "site:http://yoursitehere.com [related keyword here]" Google to use it.
Scroll through the results of related articles and select some to add internal links to new posts.
If the search modifier does not provide sufficiently relevant results to find internal link opportunities, you can use the exact match search operator to get more hyperrelevant results.
Aim to add at least three to five internal links to each new article, depending on how many pages you currently have — if you have thousands or tens of thousands of pages, you may need to add dozens or even hundreds of internal links.