When I first started at my digital marketing job as a content writer, I had no idea what SEO was. I was told I was doing SEO right, but I didn’t know what “right” meant. As I’ve figured it out for myself with the help of those around me, here’s how you can use your content writing to drive SEO. But first, you have to understand what SEO is.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. At its core, it’s understanding how search engines work to create websites/content/brand that can rank. Some elements of SEO mean:
- Making sure the website is crawlable by Google
- Writing content that is useful, readable, and trustworthy
- Developing a website that provides a good user experience
But, the main idea of SEO is that you are creating an online presence for a business that people actually want to purchase goods and services from. How do you convince people that your business is good? Content.
From a content standpoint, here’s what you can do to write in a way that is designed to rank (and it’s not just keyword research).
1. Understand Your Audience
Your audience is the most important. It’s not trying to rank for keywords with high search volume. In fact, your audience should guide everything, including the keywords you are trying to rank for.
To be the best answer online, you have to understand what people are looking for in the first place. When writing your content, ask yourself these questions:
What Problems Are You Trying To Solve?
There’s a reason people search on Google using phrases like “best restaurant near me.” If they’re looking for business, they want to find the right one that will give them a good product AND a good experience.
So, write the content to show why your business is the right answer. Are people looking for the cheap option? The expensive but high quality option? How you choose to portray your business can determine whether or not people will want to buy.
This is also how you can create your unique value proposition. What things make your business unique? Why should someone choose you over your competitors? Find the best parts of your business and FLAUNT it. Something to note, is that you need to showcase how your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) benefits your customers, not just something you’re excited about as a business owner.
What Words Does Your Audience Use?
What do you call a sugary carbonated drink? Is it soda, pop, or soda pop? Learn what your audience calls the product you’re trying to offer, and use those words to guide your content. While social media pushes your content in front of other people, SEO is designed to push people to your content when people come looking for it.
If people don’t recognize what you’re offering, for example, if people are looking for an AC, is that an air conditioner? Is that Animal Crossing? In the search realm, we call what people are looking for as “user intent”.
You can’t write content to showcase “how to braid hair” and expect someone to schedule an appointment at your salon. You can’t expect to rank with content like a “restaurant-look alike recipe” when people are just looking for directions to get to that restaurant.
2. Make Your Content Authoritative
Have you ever written an essay without citing your sources? Why would you do that with your website content? Think of writing your content like a good essay. Make it typo-free, well-written, and most importantly, add links. Especially for blogs or content not necessarily designed to convert, cite your sources (which are often more authoritative sites than yours anyway).
It shows both the people reading and Google that you did your research and you’re more trustworthy.
Google has extensive search quality ratings they have someone manually review, but a good way to think of it is the algorithm update a few years ago focusing on Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT).
3. Be Persuasive
There are other pieces of technical SEO, such as the meta description, designed to get people to take action and click. If you want to drive traffic to your site, you have to follow the first steps and write those little tidbits like the meta description in a way that will entice people to making the click.
This is not to be confused with clickbait. Meta descriptions shouldn’t be promising an article or service that your company doesn’t provide. Instead, they should showcase exactly what your website, blog, or page is about.
4. Formatting DOES Matter
One of the biggest differences between scholarly writing and marketing is the formatting. In school, people are often taught paragraphs should be five to seven sentences long. But, when writing for the web, no one wants to read big blocks of text.
When writing for SEO, don’t hesitate to use:
- Headers
- Lists
- Images
- Short paragraphs
- Blockquotes
Anything that can make your content digestible and skimmable, do it! Your readers shouldn’t have to work hard to understand what they’re reading.
5. Use Data
Once you’ve written your content, you can’t assume it’s the best it will ever be and that it works. Instead of leaving website copy, never to be touched again, you can use data to help you find what’s working and what’s not.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console together can inform your decisions. You can also use tools like HotJar to get a better idea of how people are interacting with your site. Data can help you answer questions like:
- What queries is your site showing up for?
- What pages are starting to rank?
- What pages are your potential customers visiting?
- How long do they stay on the page?
- What pages do people go to before converting?
- What pages do people convert on?
- How far are they scrolling on a page?
- Where is your audience clicking on your site?
Remember, when looking at data, you’re not trying to figure out how to improve your numbers just to improve rankings. Your goal should be to improve rankings to help those who are visiting your site.
After all, if more people decide you have the right or best answer, you may naturally increase rankings (nothing is guaranteed in SEO).
SEO Shouldn’t Be Intimidating
If you’re brand new to the world of SEO, you shouldn’t be as intimidated by it as it sounds. Yes, there are a lot of acronyms and jargon to sort through, but if you really want to learn SEO, all it takes is to read articles from reputable sources, like Moz, Backlinko, or Search Engine Land.
It's Becky Rebecca 