“SEO content” is still a buzzword among content writers and content creators. What does it exactly mean? Ideally it means your content should help you improve your search engine rankings so you should write it in a manner that the search engines like Google find it easier to index and rank for your chosen keywords. Nothing wrong in that, but some people take it way too seriously. But it’s not their fault, many of the tactics being considered obsolete these days definitely worked a year or so ago. For instance, using your target keywords in your content was a definite yes-yes while writing webpages, blog posts and articles. Plugins and add-ons like Scribe SEO still recommend placing a certain number of your relevant keywords at strategic places. For instance, if I’m writing about my professional content writing services then this expression plus its various combinations must appear on the link and this is logical. Otherwise how would you tell the search engine to even consider your webpage for these terms?
Google still uses keywords these days but more than focusing on the exact keywords its algorithm uses something called Latent Semantic Indexing. The expression sounds ominous, but what it means is, if I write something on the topic of business content writing services and if it ranks well, it should also automatically rank well for professional content writing services because the algorithm may find identical patterns between the two words: professional and business. It is the way we use language in the normal world. There are many words who may be similar or identical and more or less convey the same meaning. The method is used to extract the meaning of the text you have written rather than simply analysing the words you have used.
So what about using keywords in your title, headlines, bulleted lists and other places? There is no reason why you shouldn’t use them, especially in titles and headlines, but there should be no compulsion also. Don’t use them unnecessarily. Create your title in such a manner that it conveys the core message of your content and prompts people to come to your website but you don’t need to stuff it with your keywords.
SEO content in the new context is more about creating meaningful, useful content. In fact I have written this multiple times on my website as well as my blog that when you are creating good, useful content you are actually creating SEO content. Focus on the quality, stick to a routine, use the language your target audience uses and make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your content and most of your SEO job is done.