How to Write Content for SEO
By: Kirsty Stuart
Tags: Blogging, Writing, SEO, Content Writing, Marketing

How to Write Content for SEO

The ultimate on-page SEO guide for content writers and bloggers.

Photo by Reza Rostampisheh on Unsplash

This guide will teach you how to write content for SEO (that’s search engine optimization) if you’re a content writer, blogger, Medium writer, or online business owner. It’s everything you need to know to optimize your content so Google can find it — nothing more, nothing less.

How to write content for SEO — the long-game

If you want to indulge in a long and fulfilling relationship with the search engines — one that will stand the test of time after the initial fireworks have settled down — then taking the organic, evergreen approach is the way to go.

Like all great relationships, this takes a healthy dose of time, effort, and patience. But it’ll be worth it: your writing clients will love you/you’ll expand your tribe on your blog/you’ll sell more products or services/untold riches could be yours (Delete where applicable.)

Let’s get started.

1. Research keywords

There are different ways to do this. The simplest? Type your topic into Google and look at what auto-complete suggestions come up. This is a quick and easy way to get ideas on what keyword phrases people are using to search for content around your topic.

Another way to settle on a keyword phrase is to use Google’s Keyword Planner (you’ll need a Google account but it’s all free). What you’re looking for are keyword terms getting a healthy amount of searches per month. (A ‘healthy amount’ will differ depending on your topic/industry). Like with many relationships, it’s preferable that the competition is either ‘low’ or at least ‘medium’.

Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest is a tool I’ve started using recently too. It spits out keyword phrases and content ideas and lets you know how many people are searching for phrases around your topic. I use this in conjunction with the first method to come up with keyword phrases on the quick.

2. Use your keyword phrase in your content (properly)

Thankfully, the gap between writing content for SEO and writing content for actual humans is closing in. Gone are the days of stuffing online content with keywords so it only made sense to bots.

So, once you’ve chosen your keyword term, you need to sprinkle it throughout your content where it naturally makes sense to do so. (Yes, sprinkle.)

As a general rule, use your keyword phrase:

in the title (preferably at the start)

within the first paragraph

in the URL (keep this short)

in the title and alt-tags of any images

in a sub-header or two (and use those H1, H2, H3 tags)

anywhere else it makes sense to

You don’t have to hit all of these if it will confuse or overwhelm your reader — or make your content less valuable in any way. Don’t stuff keywords in where they have no place being because you want to ‘follow the SEO rules’.

Just don’t.

3. Write insanely valuable content

I know you know this. I know you already write insanely valuable content. But this really can’t be stressed enough.

Readers want to devour useful, engaging content that is relevant to them. If you want to know how to write content for SEO, guess what? It’s the same as writing content for readers — because Google wants to direct people to the most useful and relevant content, depending on what they search for.

How can you ensure you’re producing the most valuable content possible?

Do your research

Be overly useful

Write in plain English

Go for depth over breadth

Write authentically

Remember how we looked at competition in terms of the Keyword Planner tool? Look at your competition — i.e. what’s ranking highly for your keyword term — and produce content that’s way more useful, engaging, relevant and in-depth than what’s already there.

Blow the competition out of the water.

4. Link to other useful content

Outbound links to reliable, authoritative sources reinforce to Google what subject you’re writing about. That’s a good thing.

To help readers and Google bots on their journey through your site (or the site you’re writing for), it’s good practice to add two or three relevant internal links to your content too.

So link to other internal and external content, but only if it’s hyper useful and super relevant.

5. Use bullet points, headings, and white space

Google needs to be able to scan your content and easily tell what it’s about. Guess what? Readers need to be able to scan your content and easily tell what it’s about.

Once a reader is hooked, you’ll need to keep them hooked by organizing your content as tightly as Marie Kondo organizes her sock drawer.

How?

Embrace the white space. Use bullet points, numbered lists, and subheadings to organise your content — don’t make it difficult for readers to find important information.

You might not get your own Netflix series, but both readers and Google will thank you for it.

6. Share your content far and wide

The more people that share your content, the more Google will see it as valuable.

If you’ve put all of the other advice in this post into practice, you’ll have a high-quality, engaging piece of content on your hands — so show it off! Don’t just tweet a link to it. Plan a mini-marketing strategy for your content — email people about it, ask relevant bloggers to share it with their audience, comment on other blogs — just get as many eyeballs on your content as you can.

Then Google can’t ignore it.

There must be more to on-page SEO?

Yes, there are SEO geeks who will want to talk about site architecture and submitting site maps and the like — let them talk. As an online writer or blogger, if you don’t have the above basics in place when writing content, Google (and therefore readers) won’t ever know about it.

If you only take one thing away about how to write content for SEO, take this:

Readers and Google are looking for the same thing: clear, digestible, useful, and relevant content.

If you get the basics of SEO right on a consistent basis, Google might just finally make the commitment to your content you’ve been hoping for.