How to Create SEO Content Writing Strategies For Maximum SEO Impact

“Content is what the search engines use to fulfill user intent.”

Dave Davies, Co-founder of Beanstalk Internet Marketing

Do you want to adapt effective SEO content strategies? Then you know it’s not an easy task.

Search engines don’t rank your website based on how much time you put into writing, or even how many words you write. They’ve got a lot of other things to consider when determining how relevant your content is for a particular search query.

There’s also consideration for what comes up for a given search query (and not just by how much it ranks… there are lots of other factors that come into play here).

SEO content writing is a marketing strategy for creating valuable, relevant and discoverable content. According to Internet Live Stats, there are about 3.5 billion searches per day and adapting the best SEO content writing strategies will give you higher chance of being found on the SERPs.

The sole purpose of adapting legit SEO content writing strategies is to build trust, solve problems and convert potential customers into buying customers.

What is SEO Content Writing?

SEO content writing is a key element of SEO. It’s writing content that provides answers to users’ questions and helps them solve their problems.

It can be anything from an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to a ‘how-to guide’ or even a blog post. But it has to be relevant to your site, with answers that are actually useful for people searching for what you have to offer.

If you want to see your ranking improve, you need to create relevant, high-quality content with answers to the questions other people are asking on Google and in search results.

To write SEO content that ranks high on Google, you need to focus on the below things;

1. Understand what searchers want or are looking for when they search for a keyword you are targeting (understand the search intent)
2. Offer the best possible answer to a given query.
3. Present the answer to the query in a way that is easy to find, read and understand.

For your SEO content writing strategies to work, you need to at least have the basics of on-page SEO elements such as internal linking, external linking meta-tags, etc. But we will touch on those later.

For now, we need to understand why we should care about following legit SEO content writing strategies.

Why is it important to write for SEO?

Google’s algorithm is designed to give users the best possible experience when searching for something. 

It does this by analyzing your site and matching it with what people are looking for.

The more relevant and helpful content you have on your page, the better chances you have of showing up in search results.

If you want to rank high in search engines, you need to have content that is relevant and helpful. 

Providing answers to the questions people are asking on Google and in search results makes your site more likely to show up when someone searches for those things.

You should also write for users, not search engines. 

This means that you need to think about how people will use your content, and what they will expect from it.

When writing an article about a specific topic, include the keywords people might search for when looking for more information on that subject.

Write in a way that is natural and easy to understand. This means using simple language and avoiding jargon or industry-specific terms that may confuse users who aren’t familiar with them.

What is EEAT in SEO and why does it matter? 

Gone are the days when keyword stuffing and link manipulation could help you land on page one of Google, and I am so glad they are behind us.

Today it’s all about E-E-A-T! Google is prioritizing user experience.

Here are some questions to think of when addressing the user;

• What information are they searching for?
• Will they have a good experience? 
• Will they find your content useful?

To answer the first question, you need to do thorough keyword research, paying more attention to understanding the search intent.

Paying attention to core web vitals is the answer to the second question. Also, consider the text size, interstitials, security, accessibility and web design.

“It’s important to look beyond rankings and rather ensure a website is usable for everyone.”

Ruth Everett, Technical SEO Analyst at Lumar

The best way to answer the third question is by understanding how helpful your content is. If it satisfies the search intent and answers the readers’ questions with meaningful answers, then it qualifies as useful content.

E-E-A-T is a concept used to determine the credibility and is a ranking factor of a website. It ensures that users see the content on your site as useful and are confident to consume it as they find it accurate.

Steps For Creating SEO-Friendly Content That Ranks High On Search Engines

Today, having a strong online process is a must for a business to succeed. One of the best and most effective ways to boost your online visibility is through SEO by optimizing your website and content to rank high on the search result pages (SERPs)

We’ll go over a step-by-step process that will help you write content that makes Google happy. 

Step 1: Brainstorm Topics

Before doing your keyword research, start by generating a list of topics your customers care about. You can do this by using;

1. Reddit and Quora

Reddit and quora are great places to get to know the views and concerns of humans about a topic. 

For example, let’s take ‘project management tool’ as our topic.

When you search for project management on quora, you get a series of results that can help you come up with content ideas. 

From the screenshot above you can get content ideas like;

• Best project management tool
• Free project management tool
• Agile software project management tool

2. Answer the public

Answer the public is a free tool that helps you get brainstorm topics. 

Here is an example of the keyword ‘project management tool’ using this tool.

Answer the public revealed topics like;

• Which is the best project management software
• Which project management tool is best
• Which project management software is best
• Project management tool examples
• Project management tool free

Download all the keywords or topics in an excel sheet.

3. Google SERPs

You can use Google to help you generate topic ideas.

When you search for ‘project management tool’ you will see the people also searched snippet that displays questions users ask.

This section can be beneficial when generating topic ideas.

Step 2: Conduct a thorough Keyword Research

For your SEO content writing strategies to be successful, you need to understand what your target audience is searching for. 

This is the reason why Keyword research is an important step in your content-writing process.

Keyword research involves researching and analyzing keywords for their competitiveness, monthly volume and value to the business.

Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and keywords everywhere.

Choose a seed keyword that your customers might be using to find your content online. In this case, we will use ‘project management tool’ assuming we want to research keywords for a business that sells a project management tool.

Work with a seed keyword that has a high keyword difficulty as you will need fewer resources to rank for it.

After selecting keywords that suit your business, you need to map out the keywords to suit the stages of your marketing funnel- awareness, interest, consideration and conversion.

Group the keywords based on their organic traffic potential, keyword difficulty and where they are in the funnel before you start creating content. Doing this will enable you to understand their business value and understand what keywords to prioritize. 

You also need to keep an eye on long-tail keywords because, despite their low search volume, they can lead to high conversion as they are more specific queries.

For example, I wrote an article for Hackernoon and targeted the long tail keyword ‘has SEO stopped being relevant’ and ranked at number two on the SERPs.

Step 3: Analyse the Search Intent

After performing the keyword research, you need to understand the search intent of each keyword. According to Think with Google, 39% of purchasers are influenced by a relevant search. Using Keyword that match the search intent will help you get found for relevant search terms.

For example, If a person is searching for ‘project management tool’ it would be great to use the keyword to write a listicle on the best ‘project management tools’. Writing a guide for this type of keyword will set you up for failure and you will not rank on page 1.

Creating an outstanding piece of content without matching the search intent is one of the reasons why a user can search a query and have no chance of being found.

Here are the four types of search intents you can find on the SERPs;

1. Informational: the user is looking for more information or knowledge. For example, how to clean the drainage.
2. Navigational: Used by users to navigate to a specific website or page. Mainly used for branded queries.
3. Transactional:  The user has an intention of a user to complete a specific action, such as making a purchase, booking an appointment, or subscribing to a service. For example, Buy shoes online, book a flight, order pizza for delivery.
4. Commercial – Used by the user to educate themselves to buy. For example, reviews, comparison keywords (x versus y), etc

Step 4: Great Content Structure

After identifying the most relevant keywords and matching them to the searchers intent, it’s time to structure your content.

Great content structure is important for successful SEO content writing strategies. It helps improve user experience and make it easier for search engines to understand your content.

That’s not all.  A well-structured content piece is easy to read, understand and navigate, leading to high user engagement.

Search engines use algorithms to crawl and index websites and well-structured content help search engine bots identify the main topics and rank the content accordingly.

Adding headings is an essential aspect of creating well-structured content for SEO.

To add headings, you should first determine the main topics or sections of your content. The main topic should be the H1 heading, and the subtopics should be the H2 headings. You can also use H3 headings for subtopics under H2 headings, and so on.

When adding headings, you should ensure that they are descriptive and contain relevant keywords. This helps search engines understand the content and improve its relevancy. 

Additionally, headings should be in a logical order that makes sense for the reader. For example, if you are writing a how-to guide, the headings should be in chronological order.

Most content management systems like WordPress have built-in heading options that you can use to format your content. 

When adding headings, highlight the text you want to format and select the appropriate heading option from the dropdown menu. 

It’s important to use headings sparingly and only when necessary to avoid overusing them and confusing the reader

Step 5: Create and Optimize Content

Once you have the structure of what to cover to satisfy search intent, the next step is to create SEO-friendly content. Google uses machine learning to understand content structure and text. 

It uses a language known as Natura; Language Processing (NLP) to understand the relationship between words and interpret them to match search queries. This is the reason why Google can differentiate between Amazon the eCommerce store and Amazon, the forest. 

Google’s algorithm relies on semantic keywords to rank pages on the SERPs. You can use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or SEranking to find the right semantic keywords for your content. Using related keywords helps Google understand what your content is about.

Step 6: Add Relevant Media

After creating content, you’ll want to add relevant images to enhance your content. Relevant images and video help increase engagement and ranking.

Users stay on your piece of content longer engaging with images and videos on your website. Use the SERPs to check what type of media the websites on page 1 are using for your keyword. 

Sometimes, when you type a keyword on Google, you’re served with images and videos. If the pages ranking on page one are using videos in their content, you should consider adding videos to your content too. Also, you need to add descriptive alt texts to give the search engines more information about your images or videos.

Step 7: Links Links Links!

To rank high on SERPs, you need to add relevant internal and external links hyperlinked on a descriptive anchor text.

Internal linking helps improve user experience and increases the time a visitor spends on your website.

External linking to relevant and high-quality sources helps show the authority and credibility of your content. Including both internal links and external links to your content can help with ranking. 

Step 8: Optimize your Titles and Meta descriptions

Make sure you write unique meta descriptions for all your pages. Both meta descriptions and meta titles are important for SEO as they tell the search engine what your content is about. 

Meta descriptions and Meta titles are displayed on the SERPs to give users information about what your content is all about.

However, meta descriptions are not a ranking factor but they do influence the click-through rate of users. The more descriptive they are, the more likely users will click on them.

How Do You Make Sure Your SEO Content Writing Strategies Will Work?

Content appears on the first page of the SERPs when it meets the user’s needs or matches the search intent. With the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, it’s essential to make sure your SEO content is of the highest quality. You want your content to be valuable to readers and search engines alike. But how do you ensure that your SEO content meets the mark?

Start by making sure it is informative, interesting, and relevant. Make it free from errors and typos and use appropriate formatting and headings to make your content more scannable. That way, readers can even skim through it quickly to find what they are looking for.

Finally, make sure to link to other relevant content on your website. This will encourage readers to explore your website more and will also help search engine crawlers to better understand your content.

Originality and Specificity

Creating content that stands out from the competition is essential for successful SEO. By researching the current content on your topic, you can find opportunities to share original insights and information that your competitors have missed. 

If you can provide a unique opinion or angle, you can position your content to be more attractive and relevant to a wider audience.

Write for a specific audience

Writing for a specific audience is key to producing content that resonates with your readers. When you understand the needs and interests of your target audience, you can create content that speaks to them directly. 

This can help your content to be shared more frequently as well as generating higher search engine rankings.

Personalize your content

Personalizing your content to the individual reader is an effective way to produce high-quality content. 

Utilizing techniques such as dynamic content and personalized emails to tailor the message to a specific reader can help to engage your audience and increase the likelihood of them engaging with it.

Why Content Refresh is Important?

Trends are always changing, and so are solutions. A content refresh is an important part of making sure your SEO content is of high quality and that it remains relevant, up-to-date, and interesting to the reader. 

A content refresh also helps keep search engine algorithms engaged and promotes higher rankings. It involves rewriting existing content, adding new content, and ensuring that the content provides value to the reader. 

This process can help attract more visitors to your website, as well as increase engagement and conversions.

FAQs on Quality SEO Content Writing Strategies

What is Quality in SEO Content?

Quality SEO content is content that is optimized for search engine visibility and has the potential to generate organic traffic to your website. 

It is content that is well-written and engaging, and contains keywords relevant to your target audience.

How Do You Make Sure Your SEO Content Is of High Quality?

There are a number of steps you can take to ensure that your SEO content is of high quality. These include:

• Researching and selecting the right keywords to target
• Writing content that is informative and engaging
• Creating content that is SEO-friendly, including using heading tags and meta descriptions
• Optimizing and formatting content for readability
• Using a variety of content types, such as videos and infographics

How Often Should I Update My SEO Content?

It is a good idea to regularly review and update your SEO content to keep it up-to-date and relevant. Google recommends publishing content on a regular basis to keep your website fresh and encourage visitors to come back to your site.

In addition to creating content, good SEO practice is to include relevant keywords in your content without overstuffing them. Always make sure that your content is original and of good quality. You can use tools such as Grammarly or Hemingway to check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Finally, ensure that you optimize your content for mobile devices. The majority of web searches today are done using smartphones, and you want to ensure that your content is optimized for these devices. Use a mobile-friendly design and make sure your content is properly laid out and easy to read on all devices.