Fahim Ahmed
“SEO content” or “content SEO” is a relatively new term, even though the concept is not.
Your content is what makes your website engaging and brings traffic to your site. Without having great content it is nearly impossible to rank.
No matter how well you optimize your website for search engines, your content will decide if your site is worthy of ranking.
Millions of contents are being published daily. But only a handful can be on the first page of Google.
Nowadays most people spend a significant amount of time scrolling through the internet. As a result, the need for new materials is greater than ever.
But how do you cut through the clutter and reach out to a potential audience?
The answer is simple: Write compelling content and optimize it for search engines.
A lot of top-tier SEOs consider content marketing to be a totally different thing than SEO. Some even consider them two different genres of online marketing.
Contrary to popular opinion, SEO and content marketing are kind of interconnected and complement one another.
“SEO content” or search engine optimized content justifies this analogy.
If you are already familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) or content marketing, this chapter will be a piece of cake for you.
Here we will briefly discuss what SEO content is and how you can use these writing techniques to skyrocket your website traffic.
What Is SEO Content?
SEO content is thoughtfully prepared content that is intended to rank high in search engines such as Google and Bing. This sort of content is intended to appeal to a certain audience and is usually optimized around a target keyword.
If you are unaware of SEO you might have a perception that any type of content will generate website visitors. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Sometimes a lot of content that isn’t optimized usually gets little to no organic traffic. Writing intriguing content is not enough to attract organic traffic over time. Your content also needs to be well-optimized to rank high in search engines so it can be visible to searchers.
SEO content usually has to do with writing and structuring your content in a way that makes it easier for the search engine to understand the general notion of your content.
There are three components of SEO content that you need to ace in order to rank high on Google and other search engines:
- copywriting
- keyword strategy
- site structure
SEO content is an integral part of your on-page SEO strategy. Without writing winning content that ranks high on Google, it is impossible to bring organic traffic to your site.
Types Of SEO Content
Before you start creating and optimizing your content for search engines, let’s first define the types of SEO content you may use:
There are different formats of digital content that you can work with to drive organic traffic to your website. It is not just a blog post or article that brings traffic to your website. Your content can be text, images, videos, audio, infographics, or a combination of these.
All of these content formats can be optimized for search engines.
Here is a list of the most commonly used SEO content format:
- Article: It is the most common SEO format that is used to drive organic traffic to a website. An article can be a mix of text, graphics, and video. Articles might be news-related, lists, how-to instructions, press releases, or general information.
- Landing page: These are standalone pages that people “land” on after clicking through from an email, PPC ad, or another digital place. Even though landing pages don’t have to be optimized for search engines, they are designed for a targeted audience.
Landing pages are very important for any business as they are used for conversion. Unlike evergreen content, landing pages serve momentarily during an advertising campaign - Static Pages: Static pages are those that remain unchanged for a long period of time. The content found on static pages of your website like the ‘About us’ or ‘terms & conditions’. Static pages are important for any small business as it becomes the first
- Product pages: Product pages has to be optimized for search engines so you can bring in free traffic to your website without having to spend money on promoting your products or services. Optimizing product pages are the most difficult because there are businesses that are paying to be on top of search results.
Why SEO Content Is Important
SEO Content helps Google and other search engines in understanding the content of your web page and determining whether or not that certain web page is worthy of being ranked in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
But it is not necessary that all of your content has to be optimized for search engines. A lot of our content is just informational that works as a supplement for other blog posts.
We usually don’t get a lot of organic traffic to those pages. But we get a lot of referral traffic that comes from our SEO content.
There is a common misconception among publishers that only “blog posts” are considered SEO content.
Product pages, landing pages, interactive tools, and even videos can be labeled as SEO content.
Doesn’t matter if you’re an online store or a blogger, you need enough traffic to grow your brand.
But bringing organic traffic to your website is the hardest part. Especially with so much competition in any niche, it is hard to grab the attention of your audience with just “good content”.
This is why SEO content is very important. Not only it brings traffic to your website, but SEO content also helps with conversion.
You can use SEO content to drive organic traffic to your website and then convert them into paying customers or refer them to other pages of your website.
SEO comprises multiple components, and you must cover the majority of them in order to rank well on search engines.
Yes, having a well-designed website with a great user interface helps a lot, but what matters most is the content of your website.
How To Write SEO Content
The goal of content SEO is to provide material that is both relevant and valuable to searchers while also being optimized for search engines. If your content does not meet the user’s intent, it is unlikely to drive organic traffic to your site.
Just like I’ve mentioned earlier, not all content is SEO content. Most content on the internet is short-lived and doesn’t see much traffic after a while.
News articles and trending topics usually don’t get attention when people stop talking about them. Once it disappears from the public eye your content will also start losing traction.
However, there is evergreen content that will consistently drive organic visitors to your website. These are the type of content that will stay relevant for years to come.
SEO content must typically be evergreen content that generates visitors throughout the year. SEO content are optimized to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs).
This type of content just needs to be updated once in a while to keep it fresh and relevant.
The best part about SEO content is it withstands the test of time. It is like a fine wine that keeps getting better over the years. Great pieces of evergreen content with high user engagement will rank higher and higher over time, generating more and more visitors to your site.
If you are looking to play the long game you should focus on creating SEO content rather than picking on trends.
There is a proven SEO framework for writing evergreen content. Here we have mentioned all the steps needed to write the perfect evergreen content.
If you want your post to get free organic traffic and rank high on SERPs follow this framework.
1. Find Evergreen Topics
If you are a good writer, writing a blog article might be a piece of cake for you. But writing well-thought-out content that consistently brings traffic to your website, on the other hand, is a difficult task.
The first step of creating SEO content is to find topics that are discussed throughout the year. Evergreen topics stay relevant for a long time and have the potential to generate organic traffic consistently.
Instead of spending your time writing 10 blog posts that generate thousand of traffic for a day, focus on creating SEO content that will bring hundreds of visitors on a daily basis.
To find evergreen content in your niche, first, figure out what your target audience is looking for. The easiest way to find evergreen content is by doing keyword research.
Keyword research can assist you in determining the topic that people are interested in as well as the total search volume for that specific topic.
You can also get an idea of how competitive those topics are and how difficult it will be to rank. After analyzing these numbers you can decide if you want to proceed with that topic.
2. Understand Search Intent
Search intent is the intention or reason behind an online search. You will always fail to offer relevant information if you do not understand the search intent and what your audience wants.
Google understands search intent better than any other search engine. This is how Google provides the most relevant and useful results once a search query is made by a user. So if you want to rank high on Google you can’t ignore search intent.
Understanding the search intent will help you deliver relevant content that your audience is expecting.
Without understanding the search intent of your users, it is nearly impossible to rank high on SERPs.
When writing SEO content, it is essential you take search intent into account.
If your audience is in a transactional phase and is looking to buy a selected product, you can expect to grab their attention with an informational blog post. They have already decided on the product and now are looking for the best prices.
In this section, we’ll briefly look at how you can leverage search intent to your advantage by aligning it with your content.
Determine the type of content
To understand what your audience is looking for you need to figure out the type of content they want.
Just type in your primary keyword or phrase in Google search to see what type of content rank on top of search results for that specific keyword.
It can be landing pages, blog posts, products, categories, or videos.
If you see that most top search results are videos for your target keyword, that means your audience is interested in watching videos rather than reading a long blog post.
So you might not be able to win the top position with a blog post. Rather focus on creating video content aligned with the search intent or change your topic.
Understand content format
After figuring out the content type you need to understand the content format that ranks high.
Analyze the type of posts that are appearing at the top of search results for your search query or your primary keyword.
Are they how-to posts, listicles, opinion pieces, news items, or something else?
If the top posts are how-tos then your target audience is probably more interested in finding solutions rather than hearing your opinion.
You need to be a bit instinctive to understand what content format suits best for your topic.
Find content angle
The best way to figure out the right content angle is to understand the audience you are catering to. It is the “selling point” of your content. It’s about what do you want to offer your audience through your content.
Is your content providing a solution, selling a product, or simply providing information?
You can see the title of the top-ranking page to understand more about the type of person searching for this. Are they looking for a fast fix or something more detailed? Do they want a beginner’s guide or more detailed content?
Finding content angle is also an important part of understanding search intent.
A lot of SEOs often overlook search intent and go straight into creating content after keyword research. This is probably not the most effective approach in creating SEO content.
Because without understanding the intent of your audience you won’t likely be able to grab the top spots in a search result.
3. Spy On Your Competitors
The majority of top-ranking pages are also ranked for hundreds of additional keywords.
If you want to be at the top of a search result, you must rank for all of the keywords that your competitors are also ranking for.
After you have concluded your keyword research for a topic, look into your competitor’s keyword profile and analyze all the relevant keywords they are ranking for. Then take advantage of it by creating a draft with all of these keywords included so that you may rank for them as well.
Finding keywords that your competitors are ranking for is quite easy.
You may use premium SEO tools such as Ahrefs or the free Google Keyword Planner.
You must have a Google Ads account in order to use the Google Keyword Planner. After you log in to the Google keyword planner, you will see two options:
- Discover new keywords
- Get search volume and forecasts
You need to select the ‘Discover new keywords’ option and click on ‘Start with a website’. After that, you just have to paste the URL of your competitor that you want to spy on and select the ‘use only this page’ option and click the ‘Get result’ button.
You can view a list of relevant keywords for that specific page and choose and save the ones you wish to use for your topic.
4. Prepare Your First Draft
Writing a draft can be a lot exhausting but it is also very helpful for creating the perfect outline. Drafting your blog post or content has very little to do with SEO.
It is just a way to put your thoughts to work and explore the topic to create something tangible. Writing a draft will help you cover the topic properly and provide you with context. Once you are done with keyword research, you can start creating a draft for your blog post.
It is much simpler to write a blog article when you are familiar with the subject and have an idea of the topics you need to address.
An easy way to create a draft is to write all the important points and the keywords that you need to use. Don’t spend a lot of time drafting your article.
Also, be sure to write it in such a way that you can rewrite it correctly and publish it without having to start from scratch.
Writing while you speak is a strategy that has helped me compose most of my blog articles. It makes the writing process easier and more enjoyable.
Also, when you utter the words that you are writing, it gives your blog post a more casual, conversational tone. You’ll get a sense of if your words are exactly appropriate and whether your readers will be able to relate to your content.
This sort of interactive content has a pleasant tone, which every reader appreciates.
5. Make Any Final Revisions
Nobody makes a perfect draft that can be published without giving it a second thought. You will probably need multiple revisions before you can actually publish it and cater it to your audience to read.
Making your content interactive and easy to grasp is what you need. In this day and age of social media, our attention span has plummeted dramatically. We can hardly concentrate on anything these days, and only if it is intriguing to us.
So unless you can provide something interesting or insightful your readers won’t stick around for a while.
It is important to get your readers engaged with your content so they can continue with your journey. Pulling readers into the flow of your content is important so they get to finish with a positive vibe and start a conversation.
It also impacts your user engagement metrics such as average time on page and bounce rate. If your audience is hooked with one of your content they would want to read more.
This way a good content can also increase the click-through rate and help you make better conversions.
So what are the things you should focus on before publishing your blog post?
- Check for grammatical errors
- Correct any spelling mistakes
- See if your content is easy to understand
- Remove any irrelevant topic
- Read it out loud
6. Make Your Content Visually Appealing
We have probably iterated this multiple times and will say it again
Add visual to your text
Many bloggers and copywriters make this silly mistake of overlooking the visual component of content. You can’t make your post interesting without adding visuals to it.
Include photos and videos in your blog post is just as crucial as including white space. Just like you use subheadings to break lengthy texts, you can use images to break down your content.
Frankly, no one enjoys reading long passages of text, especially on their screens. Reading a long wall of text not only hurts your eyes but is also very distracting.
Images can enhance a story and grab the attention of your readers. Interesting and relevant visuals can supplement your long blog post. It is an easy way to convey your message.
Visuals can help your audience understand and comprehend your content. Adding useful images and videos in your blog post works as a reference and makes your content visually appealing. It also increases the shareability of your post and improves user satisfaction.
You have probably noticed that most top-ranking blog posts have multiple images and videos included in them. This proves that Google prefers content that is not only insightful and relevant but also aesthetically appealing.
Also, make sure to add alt text with all your images.
Including alt text not only boosts your on-page SEO but is also extremely helpful for visually impaired people who use screen readers. This HTML attribute is used for describing the image to search engines.
Furthermore, if your webpage fails to load properly, the browser may display a cached version of your page that includes the alt text in place of pictures if the image fails to load.
7. Write Compelling Meta Title And Description
Meta description of your blog post is another element that appears in the search results. Your title and the meta description will give the first impression of your content.
Think of it as your elevator pitch. If you can’t write something intriguing and relevant people won’t likely click on it. The title of your blog post and meta description is the first mode of interaction.
Meta description and titles are also used to match the search intent. It reflects what your content is all about and what your users will get out of it. The easiest way to entice your target audience to click on your web page is by writing a captivating title.
Meta descriptions are also very important for search engines.
Search engines don’t just scour your web page for text. Most search engines look into the metadata in the page’s code to learn more about your content.
This is why it is important to have a compelling and optimized meta title and description.
8. Publish Your Content
Now that you’ve passed all of these checkpoints, it’s time to publish your work and share it with the rest of the world. Be open to feedback and try to work on all the negatives. Even after publishing, there is always room for changes.
An evergreen content is always the last draft
