How To Write Effective SEO Content

Writing effective SEO Content is perhaps the most important piece of the SEO puzzle. For years, Google has suggested that the most important factor to better results is to write relevant content, structured properly.

Let’s break down the process.

Select Your Keywords

Identify a Primary keyword for your post.

To write effective SEO content, your Primary Keyword should be evident and should be a keyword or phrase that your audience is searching for. Think about answering a question or providing insight. There is a sweet spot of choosing a High-Traffic, Low-Competition keyword. This is often where opportunities lie. A great tool for researching this called the Alexa Keyword Difficulty Tool. It costs around $150/mo. so you need to be committed to working your SEO strategy if you plan on purchasing some of these Power tools.

Make sure to use your Primary Keyword in the Page Title. This is the actual page name. Also, use the Primary Keyword in the URL link. The URL Link is the page name that follows your domain name.

Establish a few Secondary Keywords

Once you identify a primary keyword, choose two to four secondary keywords to also use in your post. Your Secondary Keywords should be closely related to your Primary Keywords. One way to do this is to go to Google and enter your Primary Keyword. At the bottom of the page, you will see a list of “Related Searches”. Take a look at these and select 2 or 3 to use as Secondary Keywords.

Creating Your Content

Effective SEO Content Is For Your Audience, Not Search Engines

Will your readers find your Post to be relevant and useful? This should be your primary goal. Is the information something that your peers or competition would agree is relevant?

Write Between 300 – 1200 Words

Certainly, you need to write enough copy to get across your message. Many indicators suggest that a minimum of 300 words is what we should strive for. That often equates to 4-6 paragraphs of 2-3 sentences each. Not too difficult is you truly have something to say. Long form Posts appear to get a boost in rankings, so feel free to write a longer Post of more than 1000 words. as long as it remains readable and on point.

Keyword Density

Keyword Density is an outdated concept. In the past, writers would look to stuff their keywords into the copy to meet a certain density or percentage of overall copy. Working too hard to gain an “edge” should be an internal check to pause and re-focus on writing for your audience. However, you should use your primary keyword 2-3 times throughout the Post. You should use it in the first sentence or paragraph, and if possible in your Heading Tags (H1, H2 or H3). Finally, use it further into the copy and again at the end in some form of a summary statement.

Your Primary Keyword should be in the SEO Title. This tells the search engines what the Post is all about. It should not exceed 55 characters. Also, use your Primary Keyword in the Meta Description. The Meta Description is what is displayed under your SEO Title in the search results.

Use your 2-3 Secondary Keywords once in the copy of your Post.

What Is Your Writing Style?

If you are writing Effective SEO Content for your audience, most readers can process content when written at a 6-8 Grade Level. Often, I read technical journals and follow thought leaders. My audience relys on me to break down the important stuff and present it in a concise, easy to read format. I try to have a personal connection with my audience, so my writing reflects that. Microsoft Word has a readability tool built into it. There are online Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level  testing tools as well.

Links & Tags

Utilize Inbound links in your posts. One of the easiest ways is to link to related content on your website or link to your Contact Us page to answer additional questions.

You should also include some Outbound Links in your Posts. These can be an industry source for data, a quote, a tool or resource. Make sure that the link opens in a new browser window. You want to keep your website tab active as long as possible.

Setup Blog Categories & Tags to help the search engines group and categorize your content. Your Categories can often be organized by business services, Practice Areas, Product Categories or other basic content Categories. Identify words and phrases that are related to the message of the Post. Create tags using these words and phrases. This process of creating Categories and Tags helps the search engines better organize your content.

Image Optimization

Make use of photos and images in your Posts, as this makes the copy easier to read, draws the reader in, and allows for yet another way to optimize your Post. Take the time to re-size your image to the best specifications. Large images over 3MB will cause your page to load slowly. Poor performance will affect your SEO rankings. You can Tag your Images by using your Primary Keyword and applying it to the ALT Tag.

You can see that there is some work involved in order to create Effective SEO Content.  However, this discipline, performed on a regular basis should yield positive results for you and your audience.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. We are here to help the community produce more Effective SEO Content.