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Crucial Step for SEO Writing (and 4 Tips)

Marketing
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Are you looking for an ultimate guide for SEO writing? We, Viva One Digital, will guide you through every step of writing for SEO and introduce you to the greatest writing tips SEO.

Here are what we are going to cover:

What is SEO writing?

SEO writing is writing for search engines optimization sake. It is to plan, create, and optimize the content in order to rank well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. This process is used to make sure that your content and website are easy to find and favored by search engines. 

When writing for SEO, you have some elements that you need to pay attention to in order for your webpage to be more visible to search engines. So search engines will put your websites on the top of result pages.

The importance of SEO writing 

Why is SEO writing so important? SEO writing is the crucial tool to make your website rank high in big search engines like Google. When your website is ranked highly, more people will visit your website. 

People tend to not scroll down nor go to further search engine result pages when they are looking for something. This is why websites compete to be ranked in the first page or pay for paid ads to be present first.  

Ranking at the top of search results not only brings more traffic and customers to your website but it builds brand recognition as well. It makes people see your business as trustworthy and reliable. It makes your brand stand out and seems like an expert in your field.

Must-know terms in SEO writing

Focus Keywords

Focus keywords are main keywords or the topics that the users want to know. We use focus keywords to form our SEO writing. Focus keywords will appear in your content naturally throughout the artcitles.

Long Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords consist of 3-6 words. It is more specific keywords that the users type in search engines. It tells search engines what they are looking for.

Anchor text

Anchor text are hyperlinked words or phrases. and will take the audience to other webpages on your website or other websites.

Meta description

meta description example for SEO writing

Meta description is a short text under the page title in search results. It is a summary of the website that will attract the audience to click on your website.

Alt Text (alternative text)

Alt text or alternative text is a word of phrases that are used to describe the image. Alt text will be inserted in the HTML. We can use focus keywords as part of alt text to improve SEO.

How to write SEO articles like a pro

Here are all the steps you need to follow when writing for SEO:

1. Start with listing content topics

To start the SEO writing process, there are few things that you need to do before start writing. 

With SEO writing, you need to write about topics that will be attractive to your target audience. You want to write the articles that they will want to read.

To make sure every article you write will serve audience needs, you need to know your audience’s interests and preferences first. Then, come up with the big topics and their subtopics. 

2. Turn topics to keywords

Now that you have your lists of content to write, you need to turn them into keywords. To do this, you need to do keyword research. 

Keyword research is an important part of SEO, keyword research will help you pick the right keywords. You need to choose the popular keywords to make sure your website has good visibility in search engines.

Each keyword gets different attention. Some keywords are used by thousands of users per month while others keywords may not be searched at all in a day. Even singular and plural keywords matter.

3. Create good page title

Page titles really matter, it is the crucial element that will determine whether people will click to your website or scroll past your website. It will work to attract an audience to your website. 

Titles will let the reader know if this website is what they are looking for or not. The title should be short and concise. The titles must contain the focus keywords and state what content you have covered in your writing. 

And to make your website more attractive to search engines, the title should contain numbers, and words that are persuasive or create strong emotion for the readers.

4. Work on the URL

The URL should be optimized similarly to the title. The URL should not be longer than 70 characters. It should resemble the title and contain the focus keywords in it. To make it short and concise, get rid of all the unnecessary words.

5. Write the content

Now you have reached the writing step. When writing for SEO, your article should be at least 600-800 words long. However, you might need to write up to 2000 words in some topics. All in all, the length of the articles are not fixed and it does not affect the search engine ranking. 

However, the articles that are too short may not rank well because it cannot meet user intent or what the audience wants to read about that specific topic. This is why you need to have many useful and relevant subtopics in your SEO writing. 

You should try to cover every subtopic that the audience needs to know related to the focus keywords. To make this process easier, you can use the focus keywords to guide you to generate the subtopics. 

See the content list of this page as an example, my focus keyword is SEO writing. Then I think of what people will need to know in order for them to be able to write SEO articles including the definitions, benefits, and writing guidelines.

6. Use keywords in the writing 

While writing your SEO articles, do not forget to corporate focus keywords in the writing. And make sure to use them in the first paragraph and meta description.

There is a good reason why you should use the focus keywords in the first paragraph. If you use the focus keywords in the beginning of the article, your websites will attract more people. The search engines will prioritize the websites that use keywords above the fold over those websites that use keywords below the fold.

Also,  having the focus keywords at the top of the web pages will ensure your audience that you have the information that they are looking for. However, using the keywords only at the beginning of the article is not enough. You still need to mention the keywords a few times throughout the article. The key is to not overuse the keywords, make it sound natural as much as possible.

Apart from the content, you should also use the focus keywords in your meta description as well. The meta description is the first representation of your whole content. It will let the audience know that this website is what they are looking for.

7. Use keyword in the headings

The heading is also important for search engine optimization. The search engines will search for the keywords from the heading as well. If your focus keywords appear in the heading, your website will be more likely to be ranked first in the search results page.

See this article as an example, you can see that the focus keyword which is ‘SEO writing’ is used in most headings. 

8. Add hyperlink to other pages

Another element that will help your search engine ranking is to hyperlink your content to other pages both internally and externally. 

You should link within your websites. The search engine will view your website as a hub or expertise of the field. Also, internal links are a great way to gain more views for other pages in your website. Plus, the audience will benefit from this as well.

External links are to hyperlink your content to other websites. It is even more important for search engine ranking than internal links. When you link to informative, relevant, and trustworthy websites, it boosts your brand credibility. In the same fashion, if you link to spam or poorly created websites, search engines will not be impressed with your website.

9. Add images with keyword in image alt text

Now the last thing that can make your SEO writing perform well in search engines is to add images. It makes your content easier to read and it will help your SEO if you include your keywords in the image alt text.

You should add a few images to your article to improve the content readability and maybe give examples or further information on the topic. 

The images that use the focus keywords as an alt text, will help improve your search engine optimization. It is another element that ensures that your article is relevant to what the users want.

Tips to better your SEO writing

Now that you know all the basics of SEO writing, let’s take a look at some tips that will make your SEO article even better.

Write for your audience

If you follow every step above in how to write for SEO, your website is surely to be well perceived from the search engines. However, you must not forget that the most important people for your business are the audience. 

When you do SEO writing, keep in mind that you write for humans, not the search engines. You need to write articles that are readable for people. Use the language that is easy to understand. Make sure that when people read your articles, they understand what you want to convey right away. 

You will want to use the tone that is informative and reader centered. You need to write with the goal to serve the audience’s needs.

Don’t overuse keywords

This tip is very important. You must never overuse the keyword in any article. You want to make your article seem natural. If you forcefully put the keywords everywhere in the article it will end badly.

Overusing the keywords will make your article unreadable. It will make your post look unprofessional and even look like a spam post. Your audience may not get any benefit from reading your article at all. And they may even have a bad impression of your business. 

Use a content list and hyperlink within the page

To make your article easy to read. You should provide a list of content in the post for your audience at the beginning of the article. Doing this, the audience will know the outline of your article. They will be able to tell right away if your article answers what they have in mind. Plus, they will be able to skip and scroll to the part they need. 

Moreover, if you want to make your article even better. You should hyperlink that list to each part of the article. It will make a great experience for the audience and make your website look professional. 

Compress image for fast loading page

The last tip will help your website load faster. It is to compress your images and other visual media before adding them to the post. You want the website to display quickly when the audience enters the website. Which is the reason why you need smaller size media files. If the website takes too long to load, the audience will not get a great experience and it might affect how they view your brand as well. 

Conclusion

SEO writing is to write with the purpose of getting ranked higher in search engines. It will bring more people to your websites. There are many steps in SEO writing that includes planning, paying attention to every important element and following practical tips to better the SEO articles. Anyone can become a good SEO writer if they put effort in every element and every step of SEO writing. 

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