Copywriting For SEO: Absolute Beginner’s Guide!
Writing for SEO is as much a skill as much as it is an art. An SEO writer's task is to write content for both search engines and users. To do so successfully, you must understand how to use basic SEO content principles in practice.
This guide will teach you everything you need to know about SEO writing. We'll explain what SEO writing is and the ten steps to take to ensure that every piece of content you produce is search engine friendly.
To write for SEO, you don't need to be an SEO expert, but you do require basic SEO copywriting skills.
Without further ado, let’s do further and get right into it.
What is SEO Writing?
The process of designing, generating, and optimising material with the primary purpose of ranking in search engines is known as SEO writing (sometimes known as "writing for SEO").
This is accomplished by effectively incorporating search phrases or keywords into your text without keyword stuffing. SEO copywriting or search engine optimization writing are other terms for SEO writing.
What is Writing for SEO?
The process of writing material to rank on the first page of a search engine, such as Google, is known as SEO writing.
To do so, you must concentrate on three factors:
✧ Understand what searchers require when they use your target term
(i.e., search intent)
✧ Make the best possible response to a given search query
(i.e., research and knowledge)
✧ Present the solution in an easy-to-read and understandable format
(i.e., have good writing skills)
Aside from that, you must comprehend the fundamentals of on-page SEO features such as meta tags, picture alt text, internal links, and so on. But those will come later on in the article.
For the time being, consider the following question: "Why should you even care?"
What is the Importance of SEO Copywriting?
Considering that Google receives an estimated 3.5 billion queries per day, SEO writing is critical. This means that your consumers are almost probably searching for information on Google.
Furthermore, if you rank on the first page of Google for your target keywords, you will receive free, recurring, and highly relevant traffic to your website.
To put it another way, SEO Equals money in the bank.
As paid advertising expenses grow and social media engagement becomes more difficult to come by, organic traffic remains one of the most significant marketing channels in which any modern business can invest.
So, how can you acquire those sought-after organic page one rankings?
Search-Optimised Content Tips
Fortunately for you, the procedure we use is basic and straightforward. Once we've completed our keyword research and determined which keyword(s) to target, every item we publish on our blog goes through the SEO writing phases outlined below:
SERP Research
Remember how we started understanding search intent is important when writing for SEO?
When a searcher types in a query, they are expressing their search intent. Consider the following example: if someone looks for the "best opticians near me," their objective is to discover an excellent optician in their immediate vicinity.
It may appear straightforward, yet it is surprisingly easy to get wrong. And if you get it wrong, you have no chance of ranking on Google's first page—no matter how good your content is.
You might wonder how you could have gotten it incorrect.
Assume you're looking for "laptop business recommendations". At first glance, you might believe that this search will return results with tips on what businesses you can run or do on your laptop.
But if that's what you believe, you're mistaken. At least, in Google's opinion. Here are the actual outcomes:
The top results for this search, as you can see, are all tips on how to gain additional storage inside your RV, not RV storage locations.
That is why it is critical to verify the search engine results page (SERP) before beginning to write anything. You can quickly and simply perform this using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer (like I did above) or by Googling the keyword.
You should also check for featured snippets throughout the research step. Using our previous search term, a highlighted snippet is a piece of information that Google pulls from a ranked webpage and displays directly in the search results:
You can optimise your content for highlighted snippets like the one above to skip part of a keyword's competitiveness and rank for it faster.
There is one more step to do before you begin writing once you understand search intent.
Outline Your Article
Making a content outline is an important stage in SEO authoring. An outline speeds up and simplifies the writing process while maintaining a high level of quality control.
Filling in vital SEO elements, such as common questions people ask when searching for a specific keyword, is a part of the outline process.
Another step in the process is deciding on your article's headings and subheadings, goals, and approach angle. What distinguishes your piece from, or makes it superior to, all the others?
Here's an example section of an outline we created for one of our other previous articles:
Drafting
Almost every excellent piece starts with a rough draft.
Why?
Because the drafting process assists you in refining your ideas and completing the research step. It also aids in fleshing out the flow of your information. You may also simply edit and revise things without feeling like you're starting over once you've completed a project.
We always draft our documents in Google Docs. This facilitates communication among our editors, designers, and others. Your draft is the ideal place to freely write without worrying about getting the words flawless or formatting everything. Simply place all that you want to talk about on the page and worry about the refining and edits later.
Feedbacks & Revisions
While it is not always practical, receiving input on your drafts might be beneficial. As writers, we frequently struggle to see the forest for the trees, so having a second set of eyes never hurts.
If you have team members or workers, have them examine the drafts and provide feedback. Even better, if you have an audience, solicit their opinions as well.
A Facebook group or email list is ideal for this. Submit your manuscript to a few trusted people to discover what your genuine customers think of your article. They may provide feedback that you did not consider. In reality, the feedback may contain information that is not yet available on Google.
Once you've received comments, rework your drafts accordingly wherever necessary. Then proceed to the following step.
Formatting
This is the moment for you to polish the article.
If you don't already have one, hiring an editor can significantly increase the quality of your content. However, if you are unable to hire one, you can change the information yourself.
How do you go about doing that?
My goal while creating SEO content is simple: deliver the best possible answer in the fewest possible words in an easy-to-skim style.
So, as you're revising, consider the following:
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Is this the best solution?
-
Is my explanation clear?
-
Is it simple for someone (with limited time) to browse this post and obtain what they need?
You may improve your writing by better arranging it using headings and subheadings, using italics or bold to highlight crucial ideas, and altering sentence length to keep things interesting.
It's also a good idea to avoid using extremely complex words, as these can make your point harder to understand. Of course, if there is no simpler way to explain things, it is acceptable to use more technical terms.
Finally, utilise photographs, videos, and bulleted lists to break up long periods of text and graphically demonstrate your ideas. Having media on hand may also aid with SEO.
Consider reading your text aloud to yourself while editing. Reading it aloud accentuates the dry or uninteresting parts, highlights where things become unnecessarily difficult or unclear and can identify grammatical faults.
In terms of grammar, Google Docs will also show you when you misspelt something or made a grammatical error. When editing, this essential tool allows you to concentrate on the quality of the material rather than the technicalities.
SEO & Publication
While writing a fantastic post is a significant start toward ranking on Google, it takes a little more to get those page one rankings.
At the outset of this essay, we mentioned on-page SEO. This is about the following:
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Title tags
-
Meta descriptions
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Open graph tags
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URL slugs
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Page or post categorisations
-
Image alt texts
And more...
Note that it’s good practice for you to use this optimisation for every page on your site and it’s not just exclusive to blog posts or articles. Most content management systems (CMSs) provide a plugin or configuration that allows you to upload this data. If they don't, we strongly advise you to switch to one that does!
Update Links
After you've published your piece, you should always provide internal links from other pages on your site to the new content to assist search engines and users find it.
This not only makes your site more user-friendly but also allows Google to crawl your site and determine what your new page is about (via anchor text) to correctly index it.
Scroll through some results of related articles and select a few to include internal links to your just published post.
If that search modifier doesn't return results that are relevant enough to uncover internal link chances, you can use an exact-match search operator to acquire even more hyper-relevant results.
Every new article should have at least three to five internal links. However, this amount is dependent on the number of pages you currently have—if you have thousands or tens of thousands of pages, you may wish to add dozens or even hundreds of internal connections.
Closing Words
Anyone can learn to write for search engines. It's a talent that can be readily learned with practice and by adhering to some fundamental SEO guidelines.
There are numerous SEO writing tasks available if you operate as a freelancer. If you're conducting SEO for your website, learning how to write SEO content will help you be noticed on Google.
The procedures you take are listed above, but remember to always put the user first. Your main priority should be to create content that users want to read and then optimise it for SEO.
