I often get asked ‘how to write a blog for SEO’, or ‘how do I get ready to write an article that’s going to rank well?’ While there’s no way to guarantee that if you write this way or another way that your content will rank, there are general guidelines I follow for SEO writing, and I would recommend you follow as well.
Now, as the owner of a startup marketing company, I have to write a ton of content, not only for myself, but for my clients as well. And I love to do it, but I’m constantly making sure the content isn’t written just for your enjoyment, but for the search engines to rank as well. These guidelines I’m going to share with you are the ones I follow each and every time I open up a Google Doc to get writing.
Keyword Research
You may not like to hear this, because you’ve heard it in every other blog you’ve ever read about improving your website’s SEO, but that’s because it’s very important. You have to do keyword research when doing SEO writing because what good is ranking for a keyword that no one searches? I won’t go into detail on how to perform keyword research, because I’m sure you’ve read enough of those.
But really, do your keyword research when doing SEO writing, you won’t regret it. Also, the more you do it the easier it becomes, so keep at it!
Plan Your Content
Now that you know what your focus keyword is going to be, plan out the content in your article. I find this to be extremely helpful when doing SEO writing so I know where I’m starting, and where I plan to end. I do this by writing all of my header tags on the topics I want to be sure I cover. This way I make sure I don’t forget anything, and I also make sure I include my focus keyword in the header tags.
Write Your Title
Now that I know the structure of my article, I immediately go and write the title to accompany my content. The title is important in order to get people to want to read your article, it’s the first thing people are going to see and will determine whether they’re going to your article, or another article. Your title should be intriguing, and eye catching. You want people to read it and think “this is the article that’s going to answer my question.”
Write Your Meta Description
I can’t write an article about search engine optimization without begging you to please write your meta description. This is the snippet Google uses to show the searchers a little tid-bit of the content to help show them that this article is going to be the answer to all your problems. You really need to do this, it’s good for Google and it’s good for readers. You don’t want to leave it to Google to pull out a sentence or two that’s going to speak to your readers. Make sure it’s right by doing it yourself.
Find And Optimize Your Images
Good blogs always have images in them. It’s good to get those images and optimize them right away so you don’t forget. Since you already have your header tags set, you should know what kind of images you’re going to need. You should have a unique header image for your blog, and at least 1 image in the content of your blog. Images help to break up the content and helps the reader visualize your content. Also, if you optimize your images properly you can rank for them on Google Images.
Learn How To Optimize Your Images For Your Blog Like A Pro
Research Your Topic
This should be pretty obvious, but if it wasn’t, I’m telling you to do it now. It’s good to do research on your topic before you go and start writing it. Even if you think you know everything about that topic, there’s always something new you can learn, and it’s good to do a check and make sure what you’re saying is correct. Take your focus keyword and search for it in Google and see what comes up. That’s your direct competition, it’s good to look at what you’re going to be up against so you can beat them.
Power Through It
Just put the pen to paper, or fingers to the keyboard in our digital age, and get through the content. You have your headers, your images, and your research done. Now you just need to get to writing all the content to fill it in. When I do SEO writing I fly through the content and get all my thoughts into the document first, and worry about making it pretty later. It’s important when you’re doing this to be sure you’re using your focus keyword, or LSI keywords, so you can be sure to rank for it. If you don’t do it right away, you can always do it during the refine phase as well.
Refine It
Now that you have your content out there it’s time to make sense of it all. Go back through and fix your grammar mistakes, any run on sentences, or anything else that needs to be fixed up. You should also make sure during this phase that you’ve used your keywords enough times to be able to rank for it. Once you’ve refined your article you’re going to want to make sure that you have at least 1,000 words. Google prefers longer content compared to shorter content, and you want to take advantage of that. Typically when I do SEO writing for a blog and it has around 1,200 words before I refine it I can feel comfortable cutting out fluff and still keeping it at 1,000.
Post It!
Once you’re satisfied with your blog it’s time to post it live to your site! The moment you’ve been working towards. When posting be sure you’re putting your focus keyword and meta description into the right spots, and that you have your images into the blog. Also be sure to preview the blog before you publish it and give it one final read through. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done SEO writing and that last final run through before posting it live saved me from silly mistakes.
Share It
Now that it’s live you have to share it with your friends! The more people who go to the blog and stay on that page long enough to read it then the more likely you are to rank higher. Share it to your personal Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter accounts, and to your business pages as well.
How do you do SEO writing for your content? Do you follow the same steps as I do? Let me know in the comments!
Do you need help with your SEO writing? Check out my SEO services, I’d love to help you write your content, or teach you how you can do it too.