The importance of content writing in SEO can never be overstated. With most of the SEO services making content writing an integral part of search engine optimization, you cannot separate content writing from SEO. Read Why you can’t ignore content marketing as an SEO expert.

Why is content writing important for SEO?

One of the biggest reasons why the importance of content writing in SEO never diminishes is that Google prefers high-quality content. Long gone are the days when your content (your links) could get good rankings on the strength of just your keywords and key phrases.

Of course, keywords and key phrases still matter and you cannot hope to get better SEO without creating content around your keywords, but they are not the sole drivers of your rankings. Read 10 tips on how to write SEO content for your website.

Your rankings don’t just depend on keywords. Your SEO depends on:

• The value of your content
• The quality of your content writing
• The keywords and the key phrases that you use
• The social media attention your content gets
• The number of backlinks your website or blog gets from “trusted” websites
• The frequency with which you publish content on your website or blog

Social validation and backlinks these days are as important as the quality of your content, the number of webpages and blog posts, and your keywords. In many cases, even if your content is mediocre, just because it is being linked from different external websites, it enjoys better rankings, so much is the importance of backlinks. Read Relation between content writing and SEO.

You will notice that all the points mentioned above involve content writing unless the primary content that you publish is videos and images.

Unless you write quality content you are not going to get social media attention. People are not going to share your content. People are not going to link to your content. You have to provide value. Your content needs to be well written and relevant. It should be inspiring enough to make people talk about it and link to it. They’re not going to link to your content as a social service. They won’t pay attention unless there is an overwhelming reason to pay attention.

This is where importance of content writing in SEO stems from.

Why does Google give importance to content writing for SEO?

The reason is very simple. What does Google do? It finds useful information for people. If it is not able to find useful information based on the search terms people use, people will stop using it. This is why a large team of math PhD’s at Google are working round-the-clock churning up algorithms to weed out inferior content and push forward high-quality content. Read How to write content for humans but optimize for Google and other search engines.

So, Google’s present and future depends on quality content writing, credible content writing. Without relevant content, Google cannot survive. Hence, it loves you if your content writing is good, and it ignores you, and even penalizes you, if your content writing is inferior. This is why content writing is so important for your SEO.

Brief recap of how to do content writing for SEO

Content writing for SEO isn’t as difficult as it may seem. All you have to do is write for niche topics and stay focused. Aside from this, here are a few content writing tips for better SEO

• Do detailed keyword research before content writing: Keyword research is very important. Although over-use of keywords in your content writing can get you penalized and your rankings may suffer, writing content around your keywords, as of now, is unavoidable. Focus on long phrases. Write your content as if you are providing answers to questions. This will help you write your content around your keywords or the search terms people use to find your website or blog.
• Write about something people care about: Create content people would like to find. Write on topics that matter to people because after all people will be searching for those topics. I provide content writing and content marketing services on my blog so it doesn’t make sense that I start publishing tutorials on how to tweak your TV settings, unless the topic is related to content writing and content marketing.
• Take care of the length: Longer blog posts and articles seem to rank well these days, or at least people are claiming that they do. It must be Google’s another attempt to keep lazy people away. In order to write long blog posts and articles you need to work hard, you need to come up with relevant information to enable you to write longer pieces. Anyway, when you’re writing blog posts and webpages, try to write at least 600 words. In this video Matt Cutts recommends at least 400 words for better SEO but I think this is old story. If you can manage, regularly cross 1000 words and better, try to reach 2000 words. Read The difference between long form and short form content.
• Analyze your web analytics data routinely: You should monitor your content using Google Analytics and Google’s Webmaster Tools. These will tell you if your content is attracting the right audience. They will tell you what keywords people are using to enable them to find your website so that accordingly you can create either more content around those keywords or create less content around those keywords.
• Edit your content: Writing, especially quality writing, is a work of passion and when you are writing passionately you tend to skip a few grammar and spelling mistakes. Even established authors have editors. Use an editing tool to write. You might already be using something like Google Docs, Microsoft Word and even OpenOffice. Pay attention to their suggestions. You can also try Hemingway Editor.
• Rewrite existing content with new perspective: Remember that quality+quantity improve your SEO. Quantity means you need to write lots of stuff. I have observed that many content marketing and content writing blogs keep on publishing the same stuff but with different titles, different words and different links, very cleverly creating new content out of existing content. You can do the same.

The importance of content writing and content marketing in SEO

Content writing, content marketing and SEO are intertwined. You write content, then you market content and this combination of content writing and content marketing yields better SEO.

Should you do content writing just for SEO?

Sure, you can do it, but to achieve what? Companies that earn revenue from advertising may like to do that, write content just for SEO, but if you want to convert your visitors into paying customers and clients, you need to write content that converts. You want to have loyal customers and clients for your business. You can have loyal customers and clients only if you create high-quality content that engages people, delivers value, educates them and makes a mark on their subconscious.

The best way to create a balance between high quality content writing and SEO is, create high-value content, and use the right keywords.