How to write SEO content that Google loves

Even if you’re not planning to get the bulk of your website visitors from Google, you probably wouldn’t say “no” to some free traffic. That’s where SEO content comes in.

Visitors who find you via search engines tend to trust your business more than if they clicked an advert. In fact, many visitors actually scroll past the adverts to click the first organic search results.

And the best thing about SEO content is that once it is posted it can generate regular traffic for years to come, and at no additional cost.

SEO content writing isn’t dauntingly technical, but you need to know the basics.

Let me take you by the hand and show you my time-tested process for writing SEO content. If you want to write the content yourself, use my system as your own. And if it seems too much effort, perhaps I can write for you.

Keyword Research: Step 1 for any SEO content

Keyword research is a big subject, which I cover in more detail here. But, to vastly simplify, you’re looking for search terms relevant to your product or service, that enough people are using to make it worth your while, but for which you could realistically rank.

This is the most critical step, so it’s worth getting right. Otherwise, one of three things will happen:

• You’ll select a keyword that no one searches for, so you get no visitors even if you get the number one spot.
• You’ll pick a keyword that’s impossible to rank. Spend years languishing on page 11 of the Google search results.
• You rank highly for a popular keyword, only to find the visitors are not good customers for your offer. Now, the cost of hosting your site increases without any gains in revenue.

How to get the data you need to understand whether your keyword ideas will fly?

The cheapest but slowest way is to set up an account with Google Ads to see Google’s information about search volumes. However, I would totally recommend using paid SEO tools for this stage. Most of these tools have a free tier, anyway.

Next, look at the search engine results pages for your keyword idea, and see what sites are ranking well. Are all the sites massive media sites or e-commerce colossi? If so, perhaps your keyword is overambitious.

Next, look at the actual content appearing in the search results.

Were you right about what the keywords mean? It’s genuinely possible to get this wrong. A search for what is biab might be for a strengthening treatment for fingernails, or it may be for a homebrewing method. A search for bleach may be a quest to buy cleaning products or find episodes of a Japanese anime series.

Got it right? Then is the successful content genuinely relevant to the search query? Is it in-depth enough?

Be realistic with yourself, but it may be possible to take the best of each piece of ranking content, add your unique twist and come up with something better.

What will you cover, & why?

Write an outline of what you will cover and what problem you want to solve. This step helps give your content focus. You may even choose to include your outline at the start of your SEO content. This helps your reader know what they’re about to read. It also offers an easy way to get your keyword into the body text early on, a basic SEO rule.

It’s good to touch upon the Related Searches at the bottom of the Google search results. These are a goldmine for improving your content in a way that is helpful for Google and your reader. Plus, you might get extra search traffic for these additional queries.

Also, check out Answer the Public for more insights on what your market is Googling. There’s a good chance your rivals aren’t using it, giving you a competitive advantage.

Craft an irresistible title that uses your keywords

SEO content writing should appeal to search engines and human readers. You include your chosen keywords for the search engines, but you must also ensure it captures the searcher’s attention. You want searchers to click on it when it appears on Google.

The higher the percentage of searchers who click on your result, the higher Google will tend to rank you. A truly virtuous circle.

How to write a strong headline is beyond the scope of this post. However, here are a few fundamentals:

• Emotions, particularly fear or greed, are always a good bet. The Seven Deadly Sins can all be flipped into powerful emotions that work for selling.
• Numbers in titles tend to perform well. Have you seen how many List Posts get published each day?
• Evoking intrigue will always work. Humans are very curious.
• Compare your headline to the headlines that are already ranking. Do they all look the same? Maybe you should zig while your competitors zag.

Great headlines take practice. Experiment with them to see what works best for your market.

Write your content, including keywords, synonyms, related search terms, and related queries

Yeah, I know. 🤷‍♂️

Just a minor step in the process.

Pick your one main keyword and several supporting keywords.

Using SEM Rush, you may notice your keyword has a particular search intent.

Search intent is the name SEM Rush gives the searcher’s motivation. There are four types of search intent:

• Informational. For instance, why do my houseplants keep dying. The searcher is looking for information, not actively looking to make a purchase. If you target an informational keyword, your aim should be to build trust and authority. An ideal type of keyword to target with SEO content. But your goal should still be either to get the user’s email address or go straight for a sale.
• Navigational. Sometimes users type a brand into a search engine. There’s only one place the user is interested in visiting if they type amazon into Google. (Spoiler: They are almost certainly not looking for the rainforest.) The same applies to a search for a physical address. There’s probably no reason to target these types of keywords. Just check you appear first when you Google your brand name.
• Commercial. The stage when the searcher has decided they want to buy something, but they feel they need to do a little more research. In my humble-but-correct view, this is the best type of keyword you can target with SEO content. An example of this type of keyword might be land rover vs land cruiser, or best SUVs 2022. There’s a good chance the searcher is in the market for a new SUV; they’re just deciding what they want.
• Transactional. The type of keyword where the searcher knows what they want, and want to buy it. The keyword may include buy, or free shipping, or near me. You want to rank for these search terms if you can, but they’re not best served by SEO content. The visitor will expect to see product pages or a booking form. While the prospect may have a few more questions or need more reassurances, brevity, and a clear, unmissable call-to-action are vital. Don’t make the mistake of talking your way out of a sale!

Like any blog post, you will have to decide what form to use. Popular options include:

• The how-to post.
• The listicle.
• A case study.
• A curated round-up.
• A monster piece of cornerstone content.

The search intent should drive your choice. You’ll probably find some formats work better than others for you and your niche.

Use your keywords when they feel natural. Avoid keyword stuffing.

Beyond this, follow the principles of effective copywriting, as always.

Check your title is still relevant to your written content

Did the scope of your post change as you wrote it?

That’s okay; it happens.

But remember, the title is your promise to the reader about what they can expect. Do you want your headline to promise something it doesn’t deliver? So tweak the title if necessary.

The only time it makes sense to disappoint the reader with an article that doesn’t deliver on the headline’s promise is when your content is deliberate click-bait which you monetise with adverts.

We all still agree it’s annoying, though.

Your Call-to-Action

Put a summary at the end. It helps to tie up your post and tells the reader what you told ’em.

And don’t forget, whatever you’ve written, there must be a reason for it. What did you want the reader to get out of it, and what did you want them to do? Even if it seems obvious, tell the reader what to do next.

If you just want them to enjoy your content, ask them to share the article or leave a comment saying they enjoyed it.

Do you want them to buy something? Even better: Tell them what to buy!

Know this: They’ll probably do nothing if you don’t tell them what to do.

Don’t forget, you don’t have to limit yourself to just one call-to-action. Tell the reader what to do at various intervals throughout a longer piece of content. Unless, of course, you only want to restrict sales to readers who finish reading your post.

Give your post structure

Search engines use heading tags and emphasis tags to help understand your content.

Your CMS (Content Management System, e.g., WordPress) should make this a piece of cake.

Use <h1> for the highest level headings (the blog post title/headline) and subheadings as <h2>, working your way down <h3> and lower for headings of lesser importance.

Some WordPress themes make it difficult to limit <h1> tags to just the post title. It’s not a life-or-death situation if you have to use <h1> tags more than once, but it’s good practice to avoid doing so.

Consider adding ordered lists or unordered lists. AKA numbered bullet points and unnumbered bullet points. These help your content be readable, visually break up the page, and – anecdotally, at least – are helpful for SEO. If you want to get more advanced, you might consider learning about schema.

Add images to complement your words

Can you create high-quality illustrations or photos yourself? Great.

Some articles will benefit from custom graphics, like charts and graphs.

If not, consider Stock Photos. Be prepared to spend some money on these. Free ones are generally cheesy and of poor quality.

Public Domain images may be apt for your content. There’s a wealth of images you can use for free, but you’ll spend some time trying to find them. Time’s money and all that.

Don’t forget to add image alt tags. As well as being primarily created to help screen readers for accessibility, they help Google know what the images are.

Write a custom meta-description

If you don’t write a custom meta-description, the default meta-description will be your first paragraph.

Your meta-description doesn’t directly affect your ability to rank the content. But it is likely to appear in the search results if you rank high enough to be seen. And the combination of an enticing headline and a compelling meta description that begs to be clicked on will get you more visits.

Google will sometimes ignore your meta-description altogether and cobble together the phrases and keywords in your content that best answer your market’s question. There’s nothing you can do about that, and in any case, Google’s usually correct.

Get linking

There are not many good information sources on the internet that don’t link anywhere. That’s the very nature of the internet. The World-Wide Web, right?

So would it be surprising if Google was suspicious of web pages that don’t link to other sites?

Add a minimum of one link to more of your (relevant/related) content and one or two links to external content. This adds extra value to your content, helps establish your best content as cornerstone content, and helps Google understand how your article relates to everything else on the Web.

Word of advice: Since Google sees your link to other sites as a small vote upon their quality, avoid linking to your direct competitors if you want to out-rank them.

Read, edit, polish

I usually run my posts through Grammarly to catch any errors. Reading your post aloud is another effective way to see if your writing seems stilted. It will also give you a fair idea if you’re keyword-stuffing.

Hemmingway App is helpful, too, if you don’t mind copying your post into it, making your edits, and then copying it back into your CMS.

If you have some writing tics – and we all do – go through your writing and edit them out.

For example, I know I use that more often than unnecessary. So I might CTRL + F for instances of that and delete them if they serve no purpose.

Get your URLs looking right

One more thing, before you publish.

Getting your URLs right the first time is essential. If you change them later, you’ll lose any links or shares you managed to gain. You don’t want that, do you?

So check your new post’s URL, its address on the Web.

Here’s what you should aim for in a URL:

• Reasonably short. Ideally, you could theoretically read it out to someone.
• The URL should contain your keyword. It’s better when it’s clear what the visitor will find at the URL.
• Avoid cluttering your URLs with categories like this example: https://yourdomain.com/articles/my-seo-content/.
• Likewise, avoid including the publishing date of your content. SEO is a slow game, and https://yourdomain.com/2022/04/20/my-seo-content/ looks outdated a week later.
• Use only lowercase. Avoid a messy mix of lowercase and title case. It just looks ugly.
• Stick to hyphens in your URL. Steer clear of underscores (_ )as word separators.

That’s it: You now have my time-tested SEO content framework.

SEO plugins like Yoast or All-in-One SEO can prompt you on some steps if you use WordPress. I’ve used various SEO plugins over the years, and have a preferred one. But whichever you choose, you’ll speed up the writing process, giving you more time to focus on the keyword research and the actual writing.

Warning: Don’t obsess about SEO scores. Never forget you write SEO-friendly content so that Google shows your words to humans. So when in doubt, please the reader first and search engines second. After all, it’s the readers who might spend money with you.

As I say, SEO is a hu-uge subject, so I’ve only scratched the surface in this article. There are no guarantees: Your content might rank easily, or it may never get onto page one on Google, no matter how hard you try to promote it.

But the steps in this post give your content the best chance to succeed.

I hope you enjoyed this guide and found it valuable. I’ve shown how:

• Writing your own SEO content is entirely achievable for you if you want, but also…
• Writing content that has a chance of getting found on Google is not without effort. There is more to it than scattering a bunch of keywords through your writing.
• And finally, to let you know the efforts you can expect from me when you hire me to write for you.