How to Write Content? The Ultimate Guide for SEO Copywriters
TechsPlace | SEO Copywriters writing content requires you to combine the talent of writing pieces that are interesting for your target audience and optimizing that content for search engine algorithms. If you do this job well, you can earn top search engine rankings, drive traffic to your website and landing pages, earn backlinks, and gain many other benefits.
That’s the purpose of this guide. It covers the important points of SEO Copywriters so that you can be certain that your content gets you the results that you want.
Take a Quality First Approach
Google and other search engines want to present users with information that is useful to them. If they fail at that, people will stop using them. This is why search engine algorithms have changed over the years. A decade or more ago, you could climb to the top of the search engine results page simply by stuffing the right keywords into your content. Whether or not you actually wrote anything helpful was pretty unimportant.
That’s no longer the case. Search algorithms are smarter and are designed to reward quality content. It’s important to remember that even though there are methods you can use to improve SEO, none of these is a substitute for writing content that your audience finds engaging.
Keyword Planning
Before you do anything else, you have to figure out what you’re going to write about. Topic selection is the first thing to consider. Obviously, you want to write about relevant things to your brand and attract the right audience. It’s also time to think about keywords.
Put yourself in the chair of your target customer. What words and phrases will they use when searching for content that relates to your expertise and branding? Those are the phrases you want to optimize for.
To figure this out, you’ll have to engage in keyword research.
Determine Your Expertise
What is it that you can share with your audience that nobody else has? This will often combine subject matter knowledge, your branding, and your own unique spin on things. Ask yourself the following questions?
- What problems can I help my audience members solve?
- What is the theme of my blog/website?
- How can I do something that my competitors are not?
List Relevant Keyword Phrases
Now it’s time to make a list of search keywords that you want your content to be ranked for. It shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with these as long as you understand what you have to offer your audience.
Imagine that you own a chimney sweeping company, ‘ABC Sweepers’. Most people you target will be interested in content related to keeping a chimney in decent shape. They search for terms including:
- How to prevent chimney fires
- Cleaning my own chimney
- Chimney services near me
- Do I need to have my chimney cleaned?
- How much should I spend on chimney cleaning?
- Chimney cleaning services
- Birds nests in chimneys
- Chimney cleaning
- Chimney cleaning discounts
- How does chimney cleaning work?
- Do tuck pointers clean chimneys?
- ABC Sweepers Hours And Phone Number
- ABC Sweepers in Phoenix
One thing that’s important to notice is that the list of keywords considers several things. These are:
- You want to focus on short and long-tail keywords.
- Your audience will be in various stages of the buying process. Some are just learning about chimney cleaning and your company. Others are close to making a purchase.
- Voice search and other factors mean that most people use natural language when searching.
- You should optimize for local search when selecting relevant keywords.
Select Your Post Topics
Previously, you gathered some ideas on topics you might cover to draw an audience and earn better search engine rankings. Now it’s time to dial things in a bit closer. You need to create a list of specific topics for blog posts, articles, and web content.
Start with your list of keywords. You want to pick a focus keyword phrase. You’ll feature this in your title and near the top of your page. You’ll also want to include other relevant keywords. Just remember that these keywords should appear in your content naturally. It should never seem as if you are trying to use as many phrases as possible.
Think about your audience segments as well. People with different needs and requirements will use different search terms. For example, a local homeowner who needs chimney sweeping services ASAP will search phrases like, ‘chimney sweeping near me’, and ‘ABC Sweepers hours and phone number’. For them, you might create a locally optimized landing page with contact information, a brief explanation of your services, and maybe information about a discount offer.
A new homeowner who is wondering how to take care of their chimney might search ‘Do I need to have my chimney cleaned’. In that case, a blog post about basic chimney care might be the best choice.
Basically, you want to answer:
- Who am I writing for?
- What’s the best format? Blog post, landing page, web page, article.
- What’s the best medium? Written, Infographic, Video
Write Your Content
Now it’s time to sit down and actually write your content. Here are some tips for producing great content.
Write it long enough to be Relevant
People value thoughtful, authoritative content. So does Google. You can’t really write an actionable, informative post in less than 500 words in most cases. There are no hard and fast rules. Just know that Google favors longer posts.
Write Well
This seems obvious, but it’s trickier than you think. It takes a unique skill set to write SEO friendly marketing content. You want your content to showcase subject matter knowledge. Your audience should get what they need out of your content. Good SEO content is also mobile-friendly, easy to scan, and useful for readers on the go. Think bullet points and lots of images, not large paragraphs.
If you aren’t confident in your ability to write content that connects, consider working with a service such as Trust my Paper for SEO Copywriters. A professional writer can take your subject matter and keywords and create something sure to rank.
Finally, use links wisely. Internal links are links to other pages within your site. These encourage people to explore your website. They also help Google index your website. External links add credibility to your content. For example, you might link to a safety study that proves that cleaning your chimney reduces your risk of a house fire by 20%.
Links can also provide detailed explanations that you don’t want to provide in your own content. Imagine that you mention that your readers need to obtain a city permit to have any chimney repairs done. You don’t want to spend four paragraphs explaining this, so you link to the City’s web page on obtaining construction permits.
Final Thoughts: Publish and Promote
You earn SEO points by creating keyword-optimized content, but there’s more to it than that. You can improve your odds of ranking on page one when you earn backlinks when people share your content on social media, and the more traffic goes to your page. Once you publish your content, it’s time to start promoting it. This is how you’ll get the links and social media engagement you need.
Link to your new content on your social media platforms. Tweet about it. Encourage your followers to like and share as well. If you have connected to any influencers, reach out to them as well.
This article is contributed by guest author on techsplace.com.
