The Easy SEO Guide for Content Writers

Perfecting your SEO

Why are SEO Keywords So Important to Reach Your Target Audience?

Every page has a specific purpose on your website and it's important to capture the readers that are looking for the answers that you can provide.

The more relevant your answers are, the higher up you'll be on Google, Yahoo or Bing results pages. Higher up = higher click rate, which is essential for your online marketing strategy.

Only around 19% of people actually click onto page 2 when they're searching for answers on Google - so it's essential to be up there on page 1 for your written content to get noticed.

So, what are the key things to think about when you're optimising your page?

1.   What Question is Your Target Audience Asking?

Most blog content is specifically designed to answer a question. So, a quick way to find the best keywords for your SEO content writing is to put yourself in the position of the user asking that question.

In the case of SEO keywords, for example, you may be looking at this guide because you would like to discover the best words to use to reach out to your online audience.

It's possible that you searched for ‘how to find good keywords' or ‘easy SEO guide,' for example - check out the title and headings of this blog - they aren't a coincidence.

Make sure your SEO keywords are words that will appear in the questions that your audience is about to ask. Quality content published online is specifically designed to answer the questions that people are asking - all with other motives in mind. Usually, these are to specifically drive organic traffic to the website or to convince people to buy a product or service.

Ranking highly on search engine results pages

2.   SEO Systems to Develop Your Content Strategy

Of course, some systems can help you out massively with your SEO search terms.

Platforms such as Similar web or Semrush offer all sorts of keyword research options to aid your SEO writing. They simply provide the info for you. Many of them offer a free trial for 7 days - so you can try out what you need to optimise your online business and pay later if it's working for you.

The positives here are that you can also see how optimised your website is. They will take you through particular pages of interest to your readers and highlight where you need to try a little harder with each blog post to achieve better search engine optimization.

The paid option might not be for everyone though, especially if you're a new online business on a budget. Don't panic! There are some things that you can do, totally for free to boost your online articles.

3.   Keyword Cannibalisation in Your Content Writing

There are two major things that can damage your position on Google, resulting in disaster for your online content. These are labeled as ‘Keyword Cannibalisation.'

Focus on finding the right words to outrank your competitors

Using Too Many Keywords in Your Content Strategy

Gone are the days when you could stick 50 keywords into a 500-word block and rank on page 1 of Google. Previously, the more of a keyword you used, the higher up you'd be.

However, this led to people using the same keywords hundreds of times on their landing pages. As you can imagine, the web content in these cases didn't really make sense. It helped to drive traffic to a page that actually wasn't beneficial to anyone. These landing pages couldn't provide those key answers to the questions that readers were looking for.

This is where optimized content fell down and made the simple act of an online search useless to convert readers.

But Google soon made a change to combat this for all online content. Now, it's more effective to present a keyword appropriately 2 or 3 times in 500 words. The rest of the written content or blog posts should be useful and answer the question that the readers have. These 2 keywords are more powerful than using 50.

If Google notices that you're trying to use a word too much, you'll actually be pushed down the list and your blog posts won't be seen.

Using the Same Keywords Across All Content Writing

If you have a website with multiple pages and social media outlets, it's likely that each page will discuss related topics. When you create content, your written copy will probably focus on the topic that your business needs to promote.

For example, if you own a copywriting business (yes, that's not a coincidence either), then lots of your pages will include the word ‘copywriting, freelance writers,' or ‘writing copy.'

Although this is likely to be valuable content, which checks off one of the cannibalisation issues, it can also cause issues for multi-pages.

SEO blogging

Using the same keyword on lots of pages means that Google won't know which page to rank at the top of the results pages (SERPs). So, basically, your use of keywords confuses Google and as a result, you might end up at the bottom again.

Your social media posts, amazing content ideas and outside-the-box blogs will all be for nothing. Google will see that all your pages have the same wording, and as a result, all of the pages will go right to the bottom.

To combat this and fool the search engines, you should structure your pages to avoid having too many of the same keywords on each page when you're writing content - I know it's difficult.

4.   Creative Writing Using Google Keywords

If you'd like to explore your own keywords to achieve search engine optimization without the use of a system, as an accomplished content writer, there are a few steps you can follow for free.

●       Create a table of the types of content that you'd like to explore in your social media or blog posts, including topics, interests, and things that you feel your audience will search for.

●       Break down those topics into potential headings that work for your particular digital marketing strategy - to avoid cannibalisation, try to add headings that have varied wording.

Searching for Key Phrases for Your Content Strategy on Google

No one expects you to be psychic. Although you can have a good guess at what people might search for, you don't know for sure. One quick SEO hack to explore is to put your initial question into the search bar and see what people have searched for previously. The search engine results will provide you with your very own, free content strategy.

All you need to do is answer the questions that you can see people are already asking. Simple.

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These topics come up automatically because they're common topics that people have searched for relating to your topic. These are the perfect things to write about and could become your keyphrases.

Content Writing Using Subheadings on Google

Blogs, and pretty much any web content, is typically broken down by subheadings. That's because unfortunately, the human brain is a little lazy. We'll typically get bored of reading something that is more than 3 or 4 sentences long. Wordpress blog writers naturally break their writing down into easy sections to retain the attention of the audience - Just like this one does.

To find those headings and make them relevant in regard to search terms, Google offers this little helping hand:

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Featured snippets on Google allow you to explore questions that people need answers to. The fact that they're on page 1 on Google, means that people search for these things often, so these are the exact topics that you need to focus on when you write content.

If you write the title in the same way as the articles here, you could end up competing for space. However, adjusting the title but retaining the meaning gives you subheadings, and hopefully, a sound digital marketing strategy that simultaneously boosts your writing skills! What more could you ask for?

Search for Keywords on Google Before Writing Content

Finally, if you're struggling to find relevant keywords without overusing them, travel to the bottom of your page on Google. There are some suggested terms already published online at the bottom of the page, so you can vary your words and keep them relevant throughout your new and improved SEO content writing.

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Quick Tip to Leave You With

Remember, not all keywords are in your copy or social media posts. If you're writing a blog, you can include keywords in your Google snippet, meta description, and on your alt text for your images.

Why Not Take an Online Course to Gain Writing Experience?

To gain writing experience or massively improve your content creation abilities, there are lots of valuable online courses out there to help you perfect your writing skills.

To really get ahead with your content writing and reach out to your online audience, why not try out an online content writing course or copywriting course?

These courses give you the rundown on how to upgrade your writing skills and develop your digital marketing presence using online articles and social media marketing strategies.

Comprehensive Copywriting Academy to perfect your content marketing

If you're looking into the fabulous world of online courses, I would personally recommend the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy (CCA), which helped me to improve my content writing skills, walked me through practical exercises, gave me lifetime access to valuable resources, and opened me up to a whole new world of writing content that I love for people who love to read it.