By Dan Duke — You need your content to be seen by a specific audience, to generate quality leads, and to encourage those leads to become customers. Everyone does. But not everyone knows how to use SEO writing to craft messages to accomplish that.

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SEO writing means creating content for two very different audiences. The first audience is the people looking for answers from Google and other search engines. The second audience is the search engines themselves, and content should be structured to make it easy for them to find and assess.

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SEO writing involves a lot of moving parts. We will cover a lot in this article, and will start with the thing that's at the heart of the matter: content quality.

Content quality

Content quality determines how well a piece of writing communicates its message to its audience. High-quality content is clear, accurate, and easy to understand. It's relevant to your target audience and satisfies their search intent. It also delivers reliable, expert-level insights and information. Blog posts with high content quality can help to establish credibility, build trust, and attract and retain readers

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Content quality helps to drive search engine rankings and increase the chances of getting shared and linked to by other websites. Producing high-quality content is one of the most important of all SEO strategies.

What is SEO writing?

SEO writing focuses on producing content that is optimized for search engines so it has a better chance of ranking well and being more visible to more people.

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It's a close cousin to content optimization, which is creating content with the depth and expertise necessary to answer a user's query on a search engine. Content optimization gives readers something worth finding and SEO writing increases that content's chances of being found. They go hand in hand, and there is some overlap between the two.

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Both processes start with researching and identifying target keywords that are relevant to the topic and can act as the theme of an article that has a good chance to rank well. These often are long-tail keywords, keywords that closely reflect the specific intent and wording that people use in online searches. They have good search volume, which indicates an opportunity to reach people, but are not competing with broad, overarching terms that will be tough to rank high in.

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Writers then use related keywords strategically in the text, subheads, and other parts of the article. Keyword density helps search engines determine that the content will provide the answers people are looking for.

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To excel at SEO writing, we need to understand how search engines work and what ranking factors are used to rank websites. We must consider what is motivating the people searching for information. Are they just beginning to research a product or service? Are they ready to buy? What problem is causing them to search for answers? By satisfying those demands, good SEO writing can help you reach your target customers and drive more traffic to a website.

Why is getting on Google’s first page so important?

Google is the most widely used, largest search engine in the world. Appearing on the first page of Google's organic search results significantly increases the visibility of a website. The higher your content ranks in Google searches, the higher the click-through rate (CTR) will be. Users not only find your content, but click on it and go to your website.

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According to research by Sistrix on Google and CTR, 28.5% of Google users click the first organic result. The second position gets 15.7%, and the third position gets 11%. The click-through rate for results beyond the 10th organic ranking were so low that Sistrex didn't even bother to analyze them.

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Appearing on the first page of Google search results not only gets you organic traffic, but also helps build credibility and name recognition with potential customers.

9 must-follow SEO writing rules

To produce high-quality content and boost your organic traffic, add these techniques to your writing process. Content is the key to driving more traffic to your site.‍

Have a plan for topics and keywords

Before writing anything, you should have a plan for your content. We call it content ideation. You should know the goals for this content and your target readers. Do the research necessary to develop a list of topics, using search volume and keyword difficulty.

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Before writing blog posts for each topic, identify the target keywords and related words that you will optimize for. Keyword research can help you create content that's relevant and focused on the topics most important to your business, website, and audience. We mentioned long-tail keywords earlier, but here's an important fact. The Sistrix study also showed that when people searched for long-tail keywords on Google, the results included fewer featured snippets, boxes, and other items that take attention away from organic results. So using long-tail keywords for your content means users will will see fewer distracting features from Google and a higher proportion of organic results.

Use keywords in your on-page SEO elements

Use your identified keywords strategically in your content's meta tags — the title, meta description, and headings — as well as the body of your content. On-page SEO includes a wide range of techniques for tailoring your site and each page to gain the most traffic. This particular technique helps search engines understand the content's topic and rank it more highly on search engine results pages.

Write for people

Your content should be informative and engaging, providing value to readers and addressing their needs and interests. This can help to build trust and credibility with your audience and improve user engagement. Use a clear structure and formatting to make the article easy to read and understand. Subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs break up the text and make it easier to scan.‍

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Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT have come a long way. But they aren't sophisticated enough to cover all the SEO bases while addressing topics with creativity and the specific voice suited to a target customer. You want to write content with natural language that seamlessly includes relevant keywords. At the end of the day, quality content is king.

Develop a strategy for backlinks

Link-building, an essential part of off-page SEO, involves acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own site. These links, called backlinks or inbound links, are a ranking factor for Google SERPs. Backlinks from well-respected sites show search engines that your website is reputable, trustworthy, and authoritative. Search engines see such links as a vote of confidence for your site.

Use external and internal links

Use internal links to send readers from one article on your site to other relevant content. This can improve the user experience on your site and keep people there longer. They also make it easier for search engines to discover, crawl, and index your pages. Show Google that you're not a one-trick-pony by directing them to other great content on your site.

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External links send readers from your site to another authoritative source to get more information. Avoid sending them to your competitor's site and choose only relevant, authoritative sites for external links.

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In either case, use a keyword or phrase whenever possible as your anchor text, which appears as the highlighted text users can click on. You'll want to choose anchor text that reflects the language in the meta title of the linked article.

Produce evergreen content

Evergreen content is material you post on your website that is optimized to offer value and rank high in search engine results for a long period of time. It provides in-depth information that’s relevant to a user’s search on core topics. Because the content stays meaningful and useful for years, it gives consistent content marketing results.

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Evergreen pieces save you time and energy. You write them once and update them occasionally, and they give you a strong, lasting return on your investment (ROI).

Optimize images and other media

Images and other media can play a valuable role in SEO content. Use your focus keyword in the image alt data — fields that provide captions and otherwise describe the images. This helps search engines understand the content of your images and media, as well as give you credit for them.

Regularly update and refresh your content

Search engines prioritize fresh, up-to-date, quality content. In addition, the Google algorithms for search change from time to time. To stay current and relevant, and to react to changes in search engines and marketing, regularly update and refresh your content.

Monitor and analyze your performance

Use SEO tools, analytics, and KPIs (key performance indicators) to monitor the performance of your content. This can help you understand what is working well and what can be improved. Then, you can make changes to your content and SEO strategy as needed to pull up your SEO metrics, such as bounce rate, page speed, domain authority, and backlinks.

Apply technical SEO

Remember when we mentioned at the beginning of this article that SEO writing has a lot of moving parts? In addition to everything else we've talked about, there is the matter of of technical SEO. There are dozens of details to attend to regarding content, site architecture, structure, and other factors that help search engines and website users find, assess, and enjoy your content. Here are a few key elements that will augment your efforts at great SEO writing.

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• Site speed and performance. Optimize your page load times and minimize your server response times. You can also leverage caching techniques and image optimization to improve the user experience. This helps keep bounce rates low, too. If you're doing site updates or maintenance, implement 301 redirects to keep the website easy to navigate for both crawlers and visitors. A website with too many 404 errors will inevitably have poor SEO.
• Mobile optimization. The website should use responsive design and operate well on different devices and screen sizes.
• Indexing and crawling. Make sure search engine bots are able to crawl and index the website effectively by properly using robots.txt, meta robots tags, and XML sitemaps.
• Schema markup. Add structured data to help search engines understand the content and context of web pages.
• Canonicalization. Avoid duplicate content issues by using canonical tags and setting preferred URLs.

SEO writing tools

Every SEO writer should be familiar with tools to help bridge the gap between content creation and optimization. Here are a few common tools for content writers.‍

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• Keyword research and analysis tools. These tools can help you identify the most relevant and valuable keywords or phrases to target in your content. They can also provide data on the search volume and competition for search queries and important keywords. This kind of data can help you understand how to use the words effectively in your content. Examples include Rellify, Semrush, Ahrefs, and Keywords Everywhere.
• Content creation and editing tools. These tools can help you create and edit your content. Features can include spell check, grammar check, and suggestions for improving the readability of your text. Examples include Grammarly and OneLook Reverse Dictionary.
• SEO optimization tools. These tools can provide suggestions for improving the use of keywords. They can also help optimize the structure and formatting of content and implement other factors affecting your search engine rankings. Examples include Rellify, SEO Surfer, and Frase.
• Analytics and reporting tools. These tools can help you track the performance of your content in organic search results. They can provide data on your rankings, traffic, and other metrics. The information can help you understand exactly how your content is performing. It can also help address what changes you can make to improve your search engine rankings. Examples include Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Moz, and SemRush.
• Collaboration and project management tools. These tools can help you coordinate and communicate effectively. They're especially useful if you are working with a team on your SEO-friendly content. These platforms can provide features like shared calendars, task lists, and document sharing to help manage projects and work efficiently. Examples include Asana, ClickUp, Monday, and Trello.‍

What skills should an SEO writer have?

To become a complete SEO content writer, you need to offer more than good writing and editing. Develop or sharpen these skills:

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• Research and keyword analysis. Learn to research and identify target keywords or phrases that rank and are relevant to your content. You should also be able to analyze keyword data like search volume and keyword difficulty to understand how to use guide content creation.
• Understanding of search engine algorithms. Become an expert on how search engines work and what factors they consider when ranking content. This knowledge will help you write blog posts that account for factors like topic relevance, SEO, readability, and expert authority.
• Flexibility and adaptability. Learn to adapt your writing style and approach for different clients and projects. Be prepared to adjust your SEO writing based on changes to search engine algorithms and best practices.
• Strong communication skills. Communicate effectively with clients, team members, and other stakeholders. That will help you meet the needs and requirements of each project and connect with each target audience. Also, you might work with clients who have different levels of expertise in SEO content and will need to communication with them at different levels.  

Get help with SEO writing from the experts

As you can see, SEO writing is an important part of content strategy, but it's not an easy thing to master. Writing simultaneously for search engines and people can challenge even experienced SEO writers. That’s why so many businesses have found success by combining dynamic new technology with human expertise. That's where Rellify comes in.

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Our content management system can help you create the right content now with AI-driven content strategy for your best topics. With our winning blend of technology and human capabilities, Rellify covers the entire lifecycle of the content creation process. Rellify's expertise carries through ideation, keyword research, writing, deployment, continuous monitoring, and everything in between.

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There are plenty of ways to get your message out there. Whether you have a website, webpage, blog post, email campaign, whitepaper, or social media presence, it needs to be found. No matter your inbound marketing challenge, learn how to achieve more search visibility in less time by booking a meeting today.