If you’re a content writer, you’re probably constantly wondering how to improve your SEO skills. This is right, because the market does not stand still, so it is important to constantly keep up with the times and improve your knowledges. Let’s first learn what content writing and SEO writing is, and then move on to tips on how to improve SEO.
What Is Content Writing
Content writing is primarily the process of planning, writing and editing various web content that is most commonly used in digital marketing. This can include writing articles for blogs, scripting videos, tweeting on Twitter, and more. Content writing includes more than just writing articles, as this industry is much broader. Thus, it includes various content formats such as social media posts, article and podcast titles, video scripts, landing pages, YouTube video descriptions, and more.
What Is SEO Writing
SEO writing is the process of planning as well as creating and optimizing various content for search engine rankings. Good content to rank on Google is key, but good content alone won’t be enough. It is necessary to have not only well-written content, but also good SEO. Thus, together they will give high-quality SEO content which will be enough for a good ranking. Without SEO, your content can get lost and become just one of many pages in the search results. Also ranking on the first page can do you nothing if you have bad content. That is why it is worth remembering that good content and SEO must be linked in order to bring the greatest results.
Best SEO Optimization Tips
- Respond to the interests of your target audience. If you don’t know how to do SEO, then the first thing to do is to study your market. Many companies continue to create content that serves their interests, not the interests of customers. Focus on your audience’s questions and remember that not all posts and data need to be about you and your product (however, they should all be related to your industry). You have to be an expert in the eyes of your target audience, so you have to write both interesting and informative SEO optimized content. Study competitors and their content in order to improve yours and be one step ahead.
- Use catchy headlines. Most often, customers decide whether to stay on a particular page in the first few seconds, so you have very little time to attract attention or impress. This is where the power of SEO subheading effectiveness comes in. Remember that they must first of all be clear, short, inverse and contain the necessary keywords. In addition, it is important to make sure that your meta description is also interesting, reflects the essence of the article and expands its topic in detail. It is the title and meta description that are reflected in the search, so do not forget to take this into account.
- Save content under your own domain name. Once you get some exposure, traffic, and recognition, it’s important to move away from being hosted by a Blogger, for example, and start hosting a blog in a sub folder on your own domain. Thus, when you have the opportunity to showcase other forms of social content, you will need to embed them on your website and share from there.
- Use keywords. Although this SEO tip may seem obvious, it is very important. You need to use a large number of key phrases not only in the title, but in all your content. This way, both your readers and search engines will be able to know what your content is about. However, keep in mind that overuse of keywords can also be a problem. Firstly, it can scare away readers, and secondly, it can lead to search engine fines. Thus, when using keywords, try to make them look as natural as possible.
- Promote content through social networks. Since almost everyone uses social media these days, it has long been a powerful tool to help increase the reach of your content. When writing a new article, it is recommended to publish it on social networks, forums and blocks. You will also need to use strong headlines with keywords to grab attention and call the customer to action. So social media makes sharing very accessible, so you need to make sure there is a share button after every post.
- Use images. Most likely, you understand that a post with a picture will attract much more attention than ordinary text. Since people perceive visual information better, adding an image along with your text can create a more enjoyable experience for the client. So, image posts can also be a tool to drive new traffic to your site.
- Structure your content. Even if you write great text with a good headline and lots of keywords, it can be easily lost if it’s in an unorganized format. As such, it’s important to break up the information in your post into smaller paragraphs with subheadings. No reader will enjoy looking at a lot of solid text, so small paragraphs will not only make reading easier, but also increase your reader engagement. Therefore, internal organization and structuring and are of great importance. Use H1 for headings and H2 for subheadings to make your content more visually pleasing.
- Use Google Authorship. At the moment, the easiest and fastest way to link content to a particular author is Google Authorship. To do this, all you need is a Google+ account. This way, your articles will start to appear in search results as larger snippets with author photos along with the title of the article. Now this tool is suitable not only for personal promotion, but also to increase the click-through rate on your articles. So, take some time to learn how to properly set up authorship for your website and increase engagement.
- Use natural link building. You probably understand that links are still an important SEO ranking factor. If your article is to be used by another site, then a link to your own articles or your site will provide feedback. It is also worth remembering that adding an embed code on your site will help you promote content sharing and also be able to add a link to the original source. Good SEO content greatly increases the likelihood that other sites will also link to it, so you can potentially get more reach and customers.
- Constantly monitor activity. In addition to all the other tips, it is very important to constantly track the activity of your SEO content. For example, you can use Google Analytics to track pageviews and average time spent on a page for free. It is important to study various metrics in order to understand how a user interacts with your site and content. For example, if you notice that visitors spend little time on the page, it will most likely mean that your content does not correspond to what they would like to receive, or that it is not interesting. That is why it is important to study these indicators and constantly improve your content in order not to lose visitors and customers. Also, constantly pay attention to the number of social interactions, such as reposts, likes, and more. This way you can get information about the vitality of your post. This will help you understand what type of content is liked and popular, and what is boring and not interesting.
So, as you already understood, both SEO and content together are an important part of the interaction of customers with your information. Try to use the highest quality methods in order to increase engagement, generate higher traffic and attract new customers.