SEO Writing: Create High-Ranking Content (by an SEO Expert)
written by
Victoria Kurichenko
updated on
July 26, 2023
Chances are you’ve landed on my website from organic search results and then navigated to this guide about SEO writing.
I know this because I’ve created this user journey and many similar ones on this website.
As an SEO expert with over 5 years of experience, I’ve written and optimized 354+ blog posts for my clients and on my websites.
I use my SEO skills to grow this website, help companies with SEO blog writing services, experiment with SEO strategies, and teach SEO copywriting to content creators like you.
This concise guide will share what you should know, do, and use to master SEO writing. I am sharing my proven-to-work strategies, tools, and tips to help you create content that hits the Google front page.
This post is also linked to many related articles on my website, where you can learn more about helpful tools, keyword research, and more!
Let’s get started.
What is SEO writing?
SEO content writing is a process of creating optimized content aimed at ranking in organic search results.
It is different from blogging and copywriting. If you want your website to rank in search results, it’s not enough to write opinion blog posts, hoping they will rank high on Google. It’s not how it works.
You must do keyword research and follow SEO writing rules to create optimized content.
SEO has never been a quick way to build a profitable online business. SEO requires consistent work overtime to produce sustainable results visible in years of intense work. However, the perks are indeed worth it.
Why is SEO writing important?
SEO-based content writing is crucial because it helps your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). When your website ranks higher, you get more traffic, which can lead to more leads and sales.
SEO and optimized content writing should be an essential part of any business’s digital marketing strategy that wants to build a sustainable traffic acquisition channel.
Among other important aspects of SEO writing are the following:
- Improved search engine rankings
- An increased flow of organic search traffic to your website
- More leads and sales for your business as a result of attracting the target audience
- Built trust and authority
- Improved brand awareness
SEO tools
I’ve reviewed multiple SEO writing tools and shared my honest opinion with my readers worldwide. If you want to learn more about a particular tool, click on the corresponding card below.
Good examples of SEO writing
As an SEO professional, I’ve written, optimized, and measured the performance of many content pieces for B2B, SaaS, and other websites, including my own website.
I want to show you a few SEO content writing examples so you know what results you can expect from SEO in the short and long term.
67 web pages and 6,000+ monthly traffic
The subtitle refers to my website.
I’ve been growing Self Made Millennials for two years. I launched this website as a digital environment for my marketing experiments, but it started to grow, giving me endless ideas for monetization.
Here is what I achieved in 2 years thanks to consistent SEO writing:
- 72.3% of all web pages generate organic traffic (Ahrefs data)
- I wrote, optimized, and published 67+ web pages
- 6,000+ monthly traffic (Google Analytics data)
- 25,000+ daily impressions (Google Search Console data)
- 4-figures monthly income from product reviews, ebooks and services sales
In the report below, you can see the top traffic generation pages on my website. They all have several things in common:
- Blog posts are optimized to rank on Google
- Target keywords have low keyword difficulty and decent traffic volume
- Target keywords have business potential, which means I know how to monetize these pages
It’s worth mentioning that a well-optimized blog post can reach the Google front page in a few weeks, even if published on a new or relatively weak website.
If you publish optimized content on a website with a strong domain rating, blog posts can hit the Google front page in a few days.
If you want to achieve similar results for your website, you’ll find the following resources helpful:
How to learn SEO writing
I often get inquiries on how to grow a website with SEO. My answer is to conduct keyword research and consistently create high-quality and optimized content.
For newbies, I recommend checking my SEO writing ebook that explains how to create optimized content that will rank on Google step-by-step. This ebook teaches my proven-to-work SEO writing process and on-page optimization strategies I’ve mastered for the last 5 years.
I regularly update this ebook, so all editions are updated for each year. If you want to learn SEO writing or get a ready-to-use optimization workflow, you’ll find this ebook helpful.
I’ve also written a blog post featuring the best SEO books I’ve personally handpicked.
5 SEO writing tips
As an SEO expert, I want to highlight several SEO copywriting tips that will help you optimize your content for search rankings and improve your website’s online visibility.
1. Start with keyword research
Keyword research is the foundation of SEO writing. You need to know what keywords people are searching for when they’re looking for information on your topic. Once you know the keywords, you can use them to optimize your content piece for rankings.
You can use various tools for keyword research. I am a fan of Ahrefs and Semrush, but there are more affordable alternatives, like Mangools, Frase.io, and Robinize.
You can learn more about my keyword research process here.
2. Mind search intent
Search intent, also known as user intent or keyword intent, refers to the underlying purpose or motivation behind a user’s search query on a search engine.
It’s the reason why a user types a specific query into the search bar. Understanding search intent is crucial for SEO and content creation, as it helps ensure that the content provided matches what users are looking for.
To optimize your content for search intent, you must analyze the top-ranking pages for your target keywords and understand what type of intent they cater to. Then, create content that aligns with the search intent while providing valuable and relevant information to the users.
Unlike many tools, Semrush shows search intent for every keyword, which makes it easier to understand whether it’s worth targeting a keyword.
3. Make your content easy to read
I recommend using your target and semantically related keywords naturally and in a way that makes sense for your audience. You should include your keywords in your title, meta description, headers, and throughout the body of your content.
I also recommend using short sentences, paragraphs, and headings to make your content easy to scan. You can use bullet points and images to break up your text and make it more visually appealing. It’s essential for good readability. Otherwise, users will experience difficulty reading your content, especially on mobile devices.
4. Write long-form content
Longer content tends to perform better in organic search results. Why? Because Google sees long-form content as more authoritative that holistically answers users’ search intent.
Even if you can answer “yes” or “no” to your writing topic, you’ll anyway have to conduct keyword research, create an outline including the target and semantically related keywords, write at least 1,500 words, and optimize your content piece.
This is one of the SEO writing best practices to keep in mind.
5. Regularly update old content
Updating old content is one of the most underrated tips for SEO content writing. Even evergreen content can become obsolete over some time, but Google prefers serving users with fresh and up-to-date content. That’s why you can improve your website’s ranking by updating and optimizing old content.
Here is an example of how the performance of one of my website pages improved after updating roughly 70% of the content. It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve conducted keyword research, collected new keywords that my content piece did not target, and included them in the copy.
You can see the impact of a content update on SEO below. My article’s impressions and clicks doubled a few days after publishing a refreshed article.
FAQ
SEO writing is the process of writing content with the goal of ranking on the first page of search engines like Google. This is achieved by researching relevant keywords and creating optimized content that answers the user’s intent.
As an SEO expert, I use the following monetization strategies you might also find interesting:
1. Creating honest product reviews and monetizing them through affiliate programs
2.Paid link placement
3.Paid guest posting
5. On-demand SEO services
You can write about anything you want in your personal blog. The content should not necessarily be optimized. It’s not the primary goal. Instead, you might want to build a personal brand with the help of a blog.
SEO writing is different. It’s about strategic and optimized content writing to rank in organic search results and attract the target audience.
Hello there!
My name is Victoria.
I am an SEO expert, Medium top writer, solopreneur, and the founder of Self Made Millennials. I help companies create optimized content and attract potential customers through organic search results. In addition, I share how content creators can monetize their writing skills.
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4 Responses
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Hello there,
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Thank you!
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