7 Steps to Writing SEO Friendly Content

Did you know that SEO optimization and writing content go hand in hand? Just about anyone can write decent content for a website, social media posts, blogs, etc. However, if your content isn’t SEO friendly, your website might not be able to be found on page 1 where your ideal audience can find you. At Nick the Marketer we offer SEO services in Birmingham, AL and we believe that having a good connection between your SEO efforts and your content writing is essential if you want to start boosting your rankings on Google. But, what steps should you take when you’re trying to optimize your content to be SEO friendly? Here are some tips to help you understand how to create killer content that not only looks good on your site, but helps you start ranking amongst your competition.

Know Your Keywords

Writing content for SEO goes beyond more than just choosing a fun topic and writing about it. If you’re looking to create content that drives traffic to your website through search engines, the best way to start optimizing your content is to focus on keywords that you want to start ranking in. You can do this one of two ways. You can use keywords or phrases that you know your audience is already searching for or there are plenty of tools out there that will help you define your keywords and show you how they’re being searched across the internet. Pro tip: When writing SEO content, be sure to use your keywords or phrases at least twice.

Research Your Topic

Now that you know your keywords, you’re going to want to see how they’re already being written about online. An easy way to do this is by simply searching for your keywords and checking out the most relevant topics or what you can find on the first page of Google. This gives you a good idea for some directions you could take your content in, or allows you to brainstorm other ways to use your keywords in your SEO content. While researching, be sure to jot down any ideas you have so that you can come back to them later. This will help you get a full understanding of what you want to write about!

Outline

One of the worst things you can do for your content is to leave it unorganized. Before you begin writing, start by creating an outline of the subtopics you’d like to cover. That way, you have an easy path to follow as you start to write. Give smaller paragraphs a different headline to help break up the information and make it easier to not only read but for search engines to understand with the correct tags as well.

Having a Great Headline

When someone comes across your content, you have about 2 seconds to capture their attention. Having a captivating, informative, keyword-rich headline is the best way to draw the reader in and get them to click on your content especially when they’re searching for things on Google because the title is the first thing that will show up on search engines.

Write to Your Audience

Your content should focus on answering questions that your audience may be asking and while that seems like a no brainer, you’d be surprised to know how many companies miss this mark! Knowing your keywords or keyword phrases is a great direction to start in when it comes to writing for your audience. Using your current clients as a guideline is also helpful as you can write like you’re talking to them!

Use Images

Imagery is the perfect way to pull your audience in as people tend to be more visual! So, adding images, diagrams, or infographics to your content is a great way to grab people’s attention.  Using images is also an easy way to help you cross-promote your content on social media which helps when it comes to backlinking to your site. The more creative your content and imagery, the more enticed people will be to share your content with their followers and boost more traffic to your website.

Practice Practice Practice

Like anything else, writing SEO optimized content takes tons and tons of practice. The first time you write and publish things on your website you might not see immediate results and that’s totally okay! Even as a company that offers SEO services in Birmingham, when we first started out we had to practice as well.. However, we’ve found our strides and what works for us and for our clients as well! Noticing your chosen keywords haven’t helped your SEO efforts? Try something else for a little while and monitor that performance for a little while. SEO is ever-changing and the more you practice the more you’ll find what works and doesn’t work for you.

If you need help writing killer SEO content, we can help! Schedule a call today and let’s get started with creating you the perfect marketing strategy for you and your business.