As millions of brands compete to get visibility, it is becoming increasingly difficult for smaller websites to get clicks online but; learning how to implement SEO for content writing can mark the beginning of improved visibility for your website.
This is because changes in Google Algorithms and the emergence of Artificial Intelligence as overlays and other ranking indicators has changed the dynamics. Today, brands seeking to drive improved visibility do not merely have to optimize, they must evolve their search optimization strategies to meet with these changes.
A lot of brands are still using the outdated search optimization strategies to power their content SEO but in this article, I’ll be sharing with you some of the key strategies you can evolve to actually boost your visibility and traffic from the search engine.
Is SEO Important for Content Writing?
Search engine optimization for content writing is the process of optimizing your content to enhance its visibility on the search engine pages. SEO for content writing is important because optimizing your website content can lead to improved visibility, better traffic and overall improved satisfaction for your users.
With that said, whether you’re a content creator or business owner, the following are the key steps you can use to optimize SEO for content writing.
Create a Content Goal
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The first step to optimize SEO for content writing is to create a specific goal for your content before even setting out to write it.
I have noticed that a lot of new content creators would rather create content for the purpose of updating their website without taking adequate steps to create a goal for the content so they can optimize and align the goal properly.
To get the most out of your content, you want to purposefully identify the goal for a particular piece of content. Find out why are you writing that content and how exactly do you want it to deliver for you in terms of ROI.
Let’s say you’re a brand that’s into fashion for millennial women and you’re trying to create a piece of content for your website. To get the best results from your content, you want to identify specifically what you want that content to achieve for your fashion brand.
If you want the content to appeal to millennial women from Europe for example, you have to use this goal to streamline your content so you can reach out to these women.
What that means is that your goal will eventually form a part of or determine what you’ll end up using as your main keywords among other things.
And when you’re able to do this effectively, you’ll find that it becomes even easier for you to achieve or get closer to achieving your ROIs with your content, compared to writing without one.
Identify your Keywords
Now, since you’ve already identified your content marketing goal, you want to take a step further to identify the keywords that will get you to achieve the specific goal you set out in step one above.
As far as optimizing SEO for content writing is concerned, keywords are crucial tools that can heighten your effort in achieving your set goals.
So, to get started; you want to dig into your keywords research and analysis. Based on the goals you identified earlier, what are some of the key words that can get you to achieve that specific outcome?
To be fair, there might be instances where you’re not able to guess the keywords on your own. In such situations, you can always embark on a more detailed research for keywords.
Using tools like Google Keyword tool, Ubersuggest, etc, identify the keywords that matter to your audience, as regards this piece of content you have in mind.
Considering that there are different keywords variations, search volumes and other factors that may end up affecting your final choice of keywords. You want to consider your keywords choices and use only the search phrase that will most likely get you to achieving your results.
For example, if you’re writing content for a very competitive niche, you might consider using long term keywords to boost your chances at a higher visibility etc.
Same thing goes for search volumes. The higher the search volume, the better your chances at getting a decent visibility. And in some cases, high search volume might also signal a high competition and a need for long tail keywords.
Using the keywords tool will give you a good idea on how to plan and optimize your keywords for optimum prominence on the search engine.
Optimize your Titles and Meta Tags
Using your keywords to optimize SEO for content writing is not always about improving the body of your content or even the text alone. There are other part of your content and the web page itself that you want to improve for better results.
Let’s take the meta titles for example. Although your meta titles have to sound naturally captivating to your ideal user, you also have to use your keywords as part of the title to get the best results for your content.
In addition to optimizing your meta title you want to pay attention to your sub titles. Chunk down your post into relevant subtitles using relevant headings be it H2, H3 etc., that will further enhance your content.
Outside your title tags, you want to also plan your meta tags and optimize it for visibility. This is very crucial because your meta tags is a key variable that can improve your content reach.
Identify the relevant keywords for this section and use it accordingly. And then go ahead and consider using a very captivating description for your meta description area.
Create a few words summary of your content and have it as part of your meta description while making sure to include your keywords as part of the description.
Optimize for Search Intent
Search intent is the main goal a user has when using the search engine to make a particular search, using some specific keywords. With recent changes in Google Algorithms, search intent is now very crucial in your content optimization.
While optimizing SEO for content writing, it is a good idea to know your user keywords but outside that, it is even better you understand your user intent to you can specifically deliver on their expected outcomes.
Doing this will reduce your bounce rates while increasing your onsite time.
Let me explain. Let’s take for example you’re creating a post about digital marketing but the strategies you’re listing out is targeted at advanced businesses or businesses with bigger portfolio.
If a user who’s a small business owner stumble on that particular strategies, they may feel like its not applicable to their business and they will effectively leave to read up the next article.
As part of optimizing for search intent, you want to clearly understand your target audience. Know the keywords they are using and the specific intent they have in mind while using that keyword.
With this you will be able to create content that is relevant to their needs.
Create Value
In an era of AI and automated at scale content generators, creating valuable content for users with is one of the top ways to attract and retain website visitors.
With all the search algorithm updates going on recently, spammy, thin content and automatically generated content with little to no value are almost of zero effect to website owners.
If there was ever a time creating low value content at scale delivered on ROI for businesses, that time is far gone.
As you take steps to optimize SEO for content writing today, I want you to keep in mind that there’s no point optimizing a spammy or low value content to gain visibility. It will not deliver on expected outcomes.
So you want to go ahead to not just create and publish content for your audience but give them something valuable that will fix their needs.
Go the extra mile to provide content that serves as complete solutions to their search queries. Add some extra research, cite sources and link them to even better resources when you have to. This is the sole purpose of content marketing.
Forget about optimizing a poorly created, thin or spammy content. It will not deliver on your expected outcomes in the long run.
Go ahead, showcase your experience and expertise through your content. Add real life examples and context that makes your content relatable. In the long run, this can boost your EEAT, a key ranking indicator for web content.
Use & Optimize your Images
Pictures speak a thousand words. You’ve probably heard that a number of times. But, in the world of content creation, pictures could be one of the most important factors that will boost your content.
This is because images adds context, makes a piece of content more relatable, understandable and even, less boring.
It also comes with additional search engine optimization benefits that could impact your content especially when it comes to image search.
As part of your steps to optimize SEO for content writing, make effort to add relevant and contextual images to your posts before publishing them.
To do this, you can head over to stock photo platforms like Unsplash, Pixavay, Pexels etc. find images relevant to your content, download, resize and upload them to the web page.
Give attribution where necessary and then optimize the images itself, including the alternate text before finally uploading it to your website.
Create Internal Links
Internal links are links within the pages of a website, linking one relevant page to the other.
The main benefit of internal link is that it helps in your website navigation by allowing your users and the search engine bots to move from one page on your website to the other.
As part of your strategies to optimize SEO for content writing, create internal links on your content page, linking to relevant pages, using the right keywords as anchor texts.
What this does is that it helps in the easy indexing of the particular page while also getting the search engine bots over to the linked page.
Internal linking is a great way to revive your old content, position a web page for better ranking and visibility on the search engine and of course, it provides an opportunity to create more resources for your users.
Optimize for GEO
Generative engine optimization (GEO) are strategies used in optimizing your content to drive visibility on AI powered search platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok etc. It is one of the most recent addition to search optimization strategies.
While SEO focuses a bit more on keywords, GEO focuses on your content quality, clarity, structure and overall organization. It’s goal is to establish your brand as an authoritative source for the specific keyword.
AI powered search are becoming increasingly important in driving information discovery. With the right structure, you can get your content to show up more on these AI powered search platforms as citations or direct links, leading to follow up traffic back to your website.
While optimizing for GEO, it is important to bear in mind that this is a new and evolving area but for now as part of your optimization strategies, consider focusing on context and user intent, establish your content authority in that niche by appearing in more AI powered citation and of course, optimize for conversational language that can be easily understood by the AI tools.
Final Words
SEO for content writing can appear insignificant but it has a huge role in the overall outcome of your content marketing effort. As a serious content marketer hoping to see improved outcomes, take steps to optimize your content for the search engine.
Beyond that, create valuable content. And above all, do not waste time in sharing and promoting your content as much as you can both within and outside your website, using the strategies listed here.
With that said, I understand doing search engine optimization alone can be difficult for beginners. But using these strategies can get you started. Also, you can get held by the hand to learn the bolts and nuts of search engine optimization from our team here or sign up for our search engine optimization services and have us get your website the visibility it deserves here.
Now, it’s your turn. What are your challenges when it comes to optimizing the search engine for content visibility? Drop your comments below.
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