We are influencers and brand affiliates. This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.
Whether you’re new to the world of SEO content or you’ve been in the industry for years, writing content that’s balance for both your readers and for a high ranking in the Google search engine is a difficult business.
No matter how difficult, and competitive, the industry is, it’s an essential part of business nowadays and finding a balance that works for you is crucial. Here to make sure you find that balance, so you can one step ahead of your competition, is a step-by-step guide to writing SEO content.
Before You Start – Preparation
Before you even think about putting fingers to keyboard, there’s a couple of steps you’ll need to take to prepare yourself before you start writing any form of content. Firstly, you’ll want to research the topic that you’re writing about.
It’s all well and good trying to jump into your content straight away, but once you’re in a flow and you have to stop to research some points or facts, it can break your mindset making it extremely difficult to get it back.
Research all your facts, figures and points before you start writing so you can quickly refer to it while you’re in your writing stage.
Before You Start – Keyword Research
The second thing you’ll want to source is the keywords that you’re going to use in your content. If you’re researching your keywords or key phrases, after you’ve written the piece, they’re going to stick out like a sore thumb, and while they may be good for Google, they’re going to sound out of place for your reader.
Search your keywords first so you can implement them naturally into your content while you’re writing it. State of Writing has a huge collection of resources to help you with keyword research.
Consider Your Formatting
There are so many different types of content you can write which will have different effects for both your readers and Google. To give you a quick lowdown on what’s available, you could choose;
- Product pages
- Standard blog post
- List articles (listicles)
- Long-form articles
- Informative guides
- Inspirational pieces
- Infographics
- Slideshow presentations
And this is just scratching the surface. Check out Revieweal for more information on types of SEO content that you could be producing for your business.
When it comes to writing your content, be sure to pick the best format that’s suitable for the information that you’re providing. The better the formatting match, the more your readers will enjoy reading it and the higher you’ll rank in the search engines.
Defining the Goal of Your Content
Hand-in-hand with the consideration above, you need to define the goal of every single piece of content that you’re writing, but this is as difficult as it may seem.
Are you trying to boost your social media follower counts or your engagement rates? Are you trying to promote a product, or a service, or perhaps you’re trying to inform your readers on something happening in your industry?
Whatever is it you’re trying to achieve with your content, have this concept fresh in your mind while you’re writing so you can constantly strive for this. This is a more direct experience for your reader and Google can index your pages more effectively.
Know Your Audience
Let’s say you’re trying to inform your readers of a package holiday that your company is trying to sell. This holiday could be for 18-year-old females or 80-year-old males. It’s important you define exactly who your audience is before you start writing so you can choose the right approach in terms of format and language.
Having this in your mind while you’re writing will help your readers have a better reading experience as well as making it easier for you to choose your keywords and therefore rank higher on Google.
The Writing Process
Now that you’ve got all your preparation and information in your head, it’s time to start writing your piece of content. You can do this any way you feel comfortable with, but there are a few points you’ll want to remember.
As a rule of thumb, try to write as much of the content as you can without stopping or editing. Get the first draft done, including the implementation of keywords. This will help the entire piece of content to remain consistent with itself and the structure to flow in a readable manner.
The more you can write and complete in the first draft, the better. If you haven’t got the time, HuffingtonPost has a great article on writing services you can use to write content on your behalf.
Editing & Perfecting
Once you’ve completed the writing stage of your process, be sure to take a break. This could be an hour or even a day, just as long as you remove yourself from the content before returning. When you return, read through your content several times to make changes.
Read through the content once without making changes to refresh your mind and then read through it again to edit the sentence structure to make sure you’re communicating the message you want to communicate. Grammarix is one of the best resources for learning professional editing techniques.
Now read through your content one last time without reading the content itself but looking for things like grammar errors, typos, spelling mistakes and other aspects of proofreading. For more information on improving your editing and proofreading techniques and tactics, check out sites like UK Top Writers or Australian Reviewer.
Once you’ve completed this step, you’ll be ready to upload and promote your content to the masses!
About the Author
Rachel Summers has been a social media manager and content writer for eight years, working for a range of companies, both big and small, including Best Australian Writers, a leading custom writing service. In her free time, Rachel also manages and advises a variety of small and start-up businesses on their social media strategies. For more articles, check out her website.
We are influencers and brand affiliates. This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.
This is the Dragon Blogger Guest Bloggers account for author’s who want to submit articles and only have credit in the post instead of having to manage their own WordPress profile.