What Is SEO Writing?

Content marketing has forever changed the way in which brands advertise their products and services and, more notably, leveled the playing field for businesses of all sizes.

It’s obvious that content marketing has finally evolved into THE way of marketing, with more than 90% of businesses adopting the technique. It’s one of the best ways to reach potential clients organically. A huge part of this success is through SEO writing.

What is SEO writing, why does it have such a large effect, and how do you write it? Here’s our take on SEO writing and how to use it to market your business.

What Is SEO Writing?

SEO writing involves creating content with a focus on specific keywords and phrases in order to help searchers easily find said content on the search engines. The best SEO writing uses high-quality copy as a foundation and optimizes it for targeted search terms. It also appeals to both users and search engines.

The keyword of this style of writing is SEO. With knowledge of how search engines come into play in connection with marketing, you can have a large effect in the digital sphere.

What Is SEO/Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process marketers use to increase their visibility in the SERPs and boost their site’s organic search rankings.

In short, Google and other search engines collect information from websites, which helps them index pages. This is done through digital bots that “crawl” pages and collect all sorts of data. Then, complex algorithms rank pages based on hundreds of factors to find the best webpages for a specific search query.

It’s a lot to process- literally!

Though there are several methods by which one can use SEO to help their business, the best way to obtain enduring results is through SEO writing.

Think about it. Millions of search queries happen every day. People are constantly looking for answers, suggestions and entertainment. If your blog posts and webpages can get on a readers’ radar, your company is only a few steps away from getting a sale.

How Do You Write SEO Content?

Once upon a time, it was common for SEO writers to ignore the user experience entirely and write strictly for the search bots using “black hat” SEO techniques. Common techniques included keyword stuffing, buying backlinks and cloaking. The end results typically included keyword-dense blocks of unintelligible text that didn’t provide much, if any, value to the reader.

Today, the search engines (specifically Google) have no tolerance for black hat SEO and penalize websites that engage in black hat techniques. Google wants to rank content that was created with the user in mind and in which searchability is an added bonus. To create this type of content, there are a few components SEO writers should focus on.

Write for the Reader First and Foremost

SEO writing is a continually evolving discipline. In the middle-ages of content marketing (after the era of keyword stuffing), SEO writers attempted to squeeze the same keyword or phrase into a piece of content as many times as possible. This is because, back then, Google ranked websites based on keyword density.

In the past five years or so, however, Google realized that by ranking websites based on how many times they could repeat the same keyword, it was actually rewarding site owners for publishing spammy content with little to no value. So, it shifted its approach.

Now, it’s completely focused on the reader. Google services almost the entire world. In order to make users happy, Google finds content that will likely best answer a search query.

Factors of Search Engine Ranking

Today, Google considers five key factors when determining which pages to rank for particular queries:

• Meaning of the search query
• Webpage relevance
• Content quality
• Webpage useability
• Context

As you may notice, each of these ranking factors is geared toward ensuring the user has a seamless search experience. You can help Google achieve its goal and, therefore, earn its favor, by writing with the end-user in mind. How can you do that and still achieve maximum searchability with each piece you publish? Two words: Keyword research. This brings us to our next point.

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

Ideally, you will focus each page on a single keyword or keyword phrase. That keyword needs to do a lot of heavy lifting, so it’s important that you choose wisely. For starters, you should choose a keyword or phrase that people use to search for information about your products or services. However, don’t assume the most obvious keyword is best.

The Best Keywords For SEO Writing

Often, the best keyword for any particular piece of content is popular but not too competitive. It also creates the opportunity to answer a user’s initial search query, and then to expand on the topic by addressing additional questions the reader may have.

For this reason, you should conduct your keyword research with not just the main topic, but also with subtopics, in mind. If you can only go so far with a particular keyword — even if it has a high search score — you may want to keep looking.

The goal is to create the most thorough and value-driven piece of content possible for the word or phrase you choose. When creating this piece, you should not have to worry about how or where you will incorporate search terms. Rather, inserting them should be natural and almost effortless.

Be careful not to choose too many keywords for one piece of content. Your SEO writing should be focused, which helps search engines recognize the value of your content.

Write With Google’s Ranking Factors at the Forefront of Your Mind

We know, we know … we told you to write for the reader first and foremost, and while we stand by this advice, you should also know that pages that rank well also cater to Google’s preferences. Though Google looks at more than 200 ranking factors, there are 10 that have more influence than others:

• Value: Is your content relevant, user-friendly and accurate?
• User Experience: Does your content create a positive user experience? In other words, is it visually appealing, easy to engage with and does it address the user’s query?
• Mobile-Friendly: Is your site accessible across multiple devices?
• Backlinks: Is your content worthy of backlinks from other reputable sites?
• Traffic: Does the majority of your site’s traffic come from direct searches, or do visitors find you through a Google search?
• Page Speed: Does each page load in 2 seconds or less?
• HTTPS: Is your site secure?
• Behavioral Signals: Are people interacting with your content, meaning do they mention it, comment on it or share it?
• Schema: Can the search engines easily understand what your content is about?
• Content Depth: Is your content more thorough and helpful than similar pages on the internet?

As you take time to incorporate these factors, you can expect to see your SEO writing rise in the rankings of relevant search queries.

SEO Writing FAQs

Now that you know what SEO writing is, it’s important to address frequently asked questions about this type of content. The more you understand how to utilize SEO writing, the greater impact your company can have when ranking on search engines.

How Is SEO Writing Connected to Content Marketing?

In the most general sense of the term, content marketing refers to the process of creating and publishing content for the purpose of attracting and engaging website visitors and converting them into leads.

The content itself can take various forms, including but not limited to blog posts, website pages, landing pages, email newsletters, press releases, videos and infographics. Social media posts, title tags and meta descriptions are also considered “content,” as are product descriptions, category descriptions, paid ads and headlines.

Regardless of the type of content you create or what it looks like, it all involves one crucial element: the written word. And to help people find and utilize your content, this is where SEO writing comes into play.

Why Should My Business Focus on SEO Writing?

Whether or not you have a strong content strategy, it’s important to optimize all the content on your website to boost traffic, build brand authority and gain leads.

However, we strongly suggest you look into building your content strategy. There are numerous benefits of producing consistent quality content on your website. With the help of SEO writers, your company can have a stronger online presence as your website begins to rank higher and higher for search queries.

Additionally, you can help improve the experience of your readers and customers. Engaging content that is concise and error-free does a lot more good for your business than error-filled paragraphs that are confusing. Your writing reflects your brand, and as you increase the quality of writing, you also increase your standing in the industry.

How Do I Get Started With SEO Writing?

Our first suggestion is to make sure your main website pages are optimized for SEO. You may need to start with Google’s webmaster guidelines to help search engines find your pages. Additionally, make sure your content on home pages, landing pages and product descriptions are well-written and focused on your target market.

Next, we encourage you to start blogging. Each blog post you create has potential to rank for keywords that leads are searching. In addition to increased traffic, a strong blog presence can help build up brand authority. As you expand your business, your online authority can complement and enhance your company’s growth.

SEO writers can help you craft great content for your blogs, products, landing pages and any other of your writing needs. They know how to target keywords, format in an SEO-friendly way and write content focused on the readers.

Is SEO Writing the Best Kind of Writing For My Website?

Though each marketing asset requires writing, not all should be written in the same style. For each deliverable to achieve the goal you set for it, you need to write it for the intended audience.

To understand what we mean, consider the way in which you would tell a story to your mother versus how you would recount it to your best friend. You might embellish more for your BFF, as s/he may appreciate a dramatic tale every once in a while. For your mom, however, you would keep the story short, simple and free of fluff, as her days for drama are long gone.

This same concept applies to SEO writing and other forms of writing such as copywriting. Though you want to convey the same message across all marketing channels, you may need to tweak the language, format and other aspects of the delivery to appeal to specific audiences.

That being said, SEO writing can be another form of copywriting, just with search engine optimization in mind. In general, SEO writing should be used for any digital writing so that search engines can help you advertise, promote and inform your customers and readers.

SEO Writing: Get Professional Help!

So, what is SEO writing? It’s the solution to gaining more leads, building brand awareness and scoring online sales. It is the future of content marketing, and you can get started today. With a strong SEO strategy, you can get ahead of competitors and start building expertise in the industry.

If you want to improve your SEO writing, consider getting professional help. SEO content writers are trained to write blog posts, articles and pages with SEO best practices in mind. Instead of spending the time and effort to create engaging content, content companies like ours can do the work for you. Learn more about what we offer at our Content Shop and get started today.