Category Archives: Content Strategy

SEO guidelines for content writers

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SEO content writer guidelines

SEO content writer guidelines

You can find thousands of content writers on the Internet vying for your business and some of them are actually brilliant.

But your business website, or even your blog, doesn’t just need a content writer, it needs a content writer that can take care of your SEO needs.

What am I talking about?

The performance of your content writer can be gauged from the following two indicators:

  • How much search engine traffic your content attracts.
  • How much of that traffic actually converts.

Successful content writers know how to draw a balance between both the requirements.

What does an SEO content writer do?

What does an SEO content writer do

What does an SEO content writer do

An SEO content writer writes search engine friendly content but more than that, he writes content that helps your visitors.

What does Google want to do? Does it want to crawl, index and rank your content or does it want to provide the best possible information to its search engine users?

It’s a mix of both.

It wants to provide the best possible information for the search being done.

The information cannot be found unless Google crawls, indexes and ranks your content (or content from other websites and Internet sources).

An SEO content writer knows what Google wants, from the inside out.

He knows that the content quality and the content relevance triumphs everything else.

Then, when quality and relevance are taken care of, the SEO content writer focuses on the keyword optimization aspect of your content.

Does he need to be a better writer? Obviously. He should be a great writer. He should be a great copywriter. He should be able to write convincingly and engagingly.

Your SEO content writer must also know how to format and organize your content in such a manner that Google can easily make sense of it.

Can any writer achieve that? Not without experience.

There are millions of webpages and blog posts on the Internet.

And when there are millions of webpages and blog posts to compete with, only the subtle things, things that cannot be directly observed by the eye, can make a big difference.

Hence, an SEO content writer

  1. Develops a complete understanding of your topic/subject before beginning to write.
  2. Completely understands what your audience is looking for.
  3. Writes your content impeccably.
  4. Knows where to use your keywords and where not to use them.
  5. Knows how to organize your content under various sections so that it’s easier for search engines to make sense of it.
  6. Write simple yet professional sentences that are easier to interpret both for search engine algorithms as well as human readers.

Does an SEO content writer just write content to improve search engine rankings?

It depends on in what capacity your SEO content writer is working with you. An experienced SEO content writer like me can provide both consulting as well as writing.

What does consulting mean? It means advising you with the topics that you must cover to improve your search engine rankings.

The sort of topics that you choose to cover is as important as writing the content itself. To create content that genuinely improves your search engine rankings you must know what information people are looking for and then write content accordingly.

You should also be able to write and publish unique information. Preferably, information that is not existing anywhere else. The more unique your information is, the better are going to be your search engine rankings.

The conversion rate of your content is as important as your search engine rankings. In fact, if you enjoy higher search engine rankings but your conversion rate is low, your rankings are of no use.

Hence, an SEO content writer must also be a good copywriter because only then he is going to be able to convince your visitors into turning your paying customers and clients.

Does an SEO content writer really improve your search engine rankings?

Well, this is the intention of working with an SEO content writer – your search engine rankings must experience a significant improvement once optimized content begins to appear on your website/blog on an ongoing basis.

“On an ongoing basis” is the key here. Publishing SEO content on your website or blog is not a one-time affair. Just like you continuously need to host your website, you continuously need to publish content.

The reason is, all your competitors are continuously publishing SEO content. They all want to outdo each other. Every competitor who is ranked below you, wants to rank above you, and he or she is not going to rest unless that objective is achieved.

Hence, you need to outdo his or her effort and for that, you need to publish SEO content on an ongoing basis.

Hence, provided

  1. Your content writer is well-versed with writing SEO content.
  2. You publish content regularly at set intervals.
  3. You focus on publishing high-quality content that delivers value.

Your SEO content writer is definitely going to improve your search engine rankings.

Your SEO content writer must strike a balance between higher search engine rankings and conversion rate

Balance between SEO and conversion rate

Balance between SEO and conversion rate

Your website needs targeted traffic from all over the web in general, and search engines in particular.

After that, it isn’t just search engine traffic that does the job, you also need business, you need paying customers and clients.

When I say content writers, I mean people who totally understand the need of a business to convert traffic into customers and clients.

Add SEO abilities and you have the killer combination. So here are a few SEO guidelines for content writers that may help you as a content writer, and as also as a business owner looking for an SEO-proficient content writer.

  1. Write for the target audience
  2. Use the language your target audience uses on day-to-day basis as well as on search engines
  3. Avoid using more than two keywords for a webpage, an article or a blog post
  4. Stick to the main topic and try to remain as vertical as possible
  5. Be original; search engines like Google dislike duplicate content
  6. Use the primary keyword in the title
  7. Write for your audience first, make sure your content is convincing and would convert well, and only then think about SEO
  8. Use your primary as well as longtail keyword in the description
  9. Write in a conversational style
  10. Use appropriate images whenever possible because this can get you extra traffic from image searches as well as social networking websites like Pinterest
  11. Solve a problem, or provide a solution
  12. Use primary keywords and longtail keywords within headline tags (for instance, <h1>, <h2>, etc.)

While preparing content for these SEO guidelines for content writers I discovered that lots of points that I have mentioned above already exist, or rather, appear in regurgitated form on other websites. Since the language is almost similar it shows that most of these writers don’t actually understand what it takes to create SEO-friendly content that also converts well, and they have simply taken the content off other websites and blogs. Some have even copied the bulleted lists straightaway. Well, this is the first sign that shows that where you stand.

Why SEO guidelines for content writers

Every good, experienced content writer by default is also a good SEO content writer.

Amidst daily professional and personal grinds we forget these points so it is always better to keep revising them on a regular basis so that they get embedded into our subconscious. For instance, creating a title that contains the primary keyword should be done as a usability benefit even if you are not specifically writing for SEO. Similarly, highlighting important point with the help of the main keywords helps your readers quickly understand the gist of your webpage or the blog post.

Engaging your visitors with good content

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Just came across this blog post titled Five Ways To Better Engage Readers on Your Blog and being a professional content writer I totally realize the importance of engaging visitors with well-written content. Not only your blog, you also need to engage visitors/readers on your website too because

Engagement => Attention => Greater chance of business happening

The competition is tough on the Internet due to fair and unfair reasons. There are some websites that have excellent content, and there are some that are merely content farms aggregating inferior content from various sources. Unfortunately, the search engines do little to discriminate and this is why it is very important that you’re able to convey your visitors that you are here to interact and set up a relationship with them, and you’re really serious about what you are communicating. So how do you engage your visitors?

  • Give them what they are looking for
  • Empathize with them
  • Offer something really useful (it can be information)
  • Encourage them to have a dialog with you
  • Convey to them that you are one of them and not some unknown entity

We like to do business with people we’re familiar with and when you engage your readers they get familiar with you.

A good way of engaging visitors, especially on your blog, is by encouraging them to leave comments on your blog. Darren has listed 13 Types of Posts that Always Get Lots of Comments.

Good content establishes your authority

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Content Spread

Why so much hype about publishing good content on your website or blog on a regular basis? On the basic level there are two reasons: search engines prefer websites and blogs that have fresh content, and social networking guys and girls always have something to promote or retweet. So your content constantly generates new traffic and keeps the buzz going.

On a more advanced level, people begin to respect you (not as an elder but as a person who knows things and shares them confidently), and when they respect you they don’t fear doing business with you. When you constantly publish content people can derive knowledge from, they begin to see you as an authority. Interestingly, I’ve observed this on the Internet and also in my day-to-day life, given a chance people like to listen to those with authority and they like to read what they’ve written. But does only publishing good content make you an authority?

Not necessarily. Good content must be followed by regularity and relationships. Occasional sparks don’t bind people to your ideas. They have a low attention span on the Internet because so much is happening here. Written a great blog post? Cool! How are you going to make people read it if you haven’t created an audience for yourself? An audience is often created a few persons at a time. You create valuable content on a regular basis, you start interacting on other blogs, online forums and social networking websites and people start visiting your website or blog. If they see something remarkable there, they make an effort to return and check out what new you have published. Even after 15 days if they don’t find new content they assume you publish occasionally, and soon they lose interest, and you start all over again, and the loop goes on and on.

On the other hand if you publish valuable content regularly, they become used to visiting your website; they may even subscribe to your RSS feeds or newsletter, and start following you on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with what you have to say. Sometimes they may also link to you from their websites and blog posts, or promote your links on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon etc. This creates a cascading effect. More and more people become aware of your thoughts and ideas and they want to interact with you. When they interact with you you get a platform to share more of your knowledge. This is how you establish your authority.

Whom are you trying to please with your content?

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By this I mean, whom are you trying to target, influence and consequently, engage, with your content publishing and marketing strategy? This needs to be clearly defined and this is so important that I don’t mind repeating it again and again.

Whenever you’re publishing a new web page or a new blog post, just sit back and think about whom it’s going to impact the maximum, or whether it’s going to impact at all. Sometimes we publish content simply because we like it. This is not a totally bad thing to do and you should often let your individuality show through, what eventually matters is what your content gives to your visitors. Do they feel enriched? More than that, do they do what you want them to do after consuming your conten, in whatever form it exists?

Does your content engage your readers?

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The most important job of your content strategy is to engage your readers in a continuous manner. This is how they remember you. This is how they become familiar with you, and what you can offer them.

In order to engage your readers, you need to talk and listen and respond, instead of just talking at them from your lonely, isolated part of the universe. Ask them questions, and give them answers, or even probable answers, when they ask questions. Don’t just focus on establishing your authority — although that is important if you want people to listen to you — but along with that also talk in their language and be approachable.

In order to engage your readers in conversations,

Encourage them to interact on the comment section of your blog

The best way of letting people interact on your comment section is to let them share their thoughts. If you have, say, 10 points to discuss on a particular topic, publish just 7 and let the remaining 3 come from your readers. Does this leave your post unfinished? Wait for a couple of weeks, and if nobody talks about the points that can make your post complete, you can always update it.

Publish sometimes things that are relevant to your users even if they’re not directly related to your product or service

Is there some public debate going on on your part of the world and you would like to know what your readers think about it and how it impacts them? Take for instance global warming and rapidly melting polar ice caps. It may not help you sell more network security devices or get you more web hosting customers immediately but it will certainly provide you with an opportunity to reach out to your readers and convey to them that you are not merely interested in promoting your business. Varied topics also encourages those people to come forward and express themselves that are though interested in your field but have got nothing much to say.

Highlight suggestions made by your readers

Sometimes readers/visitors raise very important issues and they need to be highlighted. Talk about them by updating your existing blog post or writing a new one. Give full credit to the reader who gave you the idea and if he or she has a website, link to it. This will give an incentive to your other readers too.

Make good use of social media

Some of your readers may be active social media users. They may like to share their thoughts on Twitter and FaceBook rather than posting them on your blog. If you find it difficult to express what you have to say in the limited number of characters, write a small post on your blog and then just mention the link on your stream.

What more can you suggest?