We are the SEO generation! And the golden key to unlocking the secrets to any content marketing strategy is great SEO content. Compelling content not only improves your visibility in search engines, but it also helps in building your brand.
The truth is that any content can be SEO content, but not all content is SEO content. This is the kind of writing that will be designed especially to aid the masses to find your website.
But what is it exactly that makes good SEO content?
Write for Humanity…and Robots
Think about how you conduct research on the internet. You plug in some words, term or phrase into the Google search engine, and hundreds and thousands of results are populated within seconds. It’s likely that you’ll scroll through the first 5, maybe 10, results before clicking, or re-wording the search. When you think about it, Google has the most amazing customer service!
On the other hand, you’ve got to write for the Google spiders, or “crawlers”. A crawler is the algorithm created by search engines to track websites as a way of scanning the internet. The more streamlined the content, the higher ranking your website will receive.
Master the Blog Post Format
If you research blog posts, you’ll notice a definitive structure:
1. Headline: the first thing people see in results and on your page. Is it interesting enough to click? The death of a great post is a lukewarm headline. Make it snazzy!
2. Visual: Add visual elements for an intriguing way of inviting your reader to continue.
3. Introduction: The headline brings people in, the introduction keeps them there. When writing this SEO content, come up with a few different interesting paragraphs to entice readers to keep on reading. You don’t need to spell it all out at the start — make sure it’s short and sweet, and not packed with information that overwhelms visitors.
4. Lead In: Introductions end with a lead into the main points of the post. Some wording that works well here is, “Here are the main points,” or “We’ve organized a list to better help,”
5. Main Points: Finally, you can let loose and get creative. But be sure to stay organized: use bullet points, numbered lists, and headers, titles and subtitles to break up the content.
6. Conclusion: Don’t leave them hanging, but don’t get too fancy either. Give ‘em a short, sweet goodbye.
7. Invitation for Further Engagement: It’s common to provide a call to action (CTA) at the very end of your post to create an opportunity for expanding the relationship between you and your reader.
Research Those Keywords
You will be super successful at writing SEO content when you’re doing a bit of research to see which keywords are ranked at high-volume. Using a free keywords tool like this one will help you in your quest. There are also loads of free keyword planning tools like Google AdWords Keywords Planner. These kinds of sites will let you know what people are searching for, and overall, you’ll have a better grasp on your target market.
Once you get the hang of it, SEO content writing is actually quite fun – it’s like a quirky puzzle! Need some more advice on SEO content? Book a Marketing Consultation with me today!