According to Internet Live Stats, 7.5 million blog posts are published every day. With so much information online, it can be challenging to capture and maintain the attention of your target audience.
Successful brands know how to entice their readers with engaging, relevant content so that they keep coming back for more. And they know how to use content writing techniques to help search engines find their websites or blogs.
This post is a great starting point for businesses seeking to improve their online presence and learn SEO content writing.
How to Choose Your Keywords and Style of Content
Successful brands write content for specific search terms. Google will show your page to someone who searches for a particular phrase (or combination of words) if the algorithm considers your page sufficiently relevant. You should choose your key terms carefully and place them strategically in your content. How do you know which keywords are right for you? Here are some quick tips to help get you started with SEO content writing:
- Use tools like Ahrefs and others to find longtail and short keywords with high monthly search volume (100+) and low competition. You can also use free tools like Keyword Planner by Google Adwords.
- Unless you’re selling something of a high value (luxury tours, real estate, etc.), aim for keywords that are less than six to seven words long, as they will capture a greater search volume compared to longer ones.
- Divide your keywords by search intent to build a funnel and naturally guide your audience from awareness to buying stage. Naturally, most of your keywords will fall under one or two of the following categories: informational, comparison, transactional, navigational.
- Analyze the ranking results for your target keywords by performing a Google search. Suppose most of the results are blog posts. In this case, you need to create a blog post. If most of the results are product pages, then your best bet is to create one. This technique will help you focus on the actual intent around your keywords and create relevant content that satisfies search intent.
How to Develop Your Online Content Strategy
Once you’ve defined your keywords, their intent, and the type of content already ranking for these search terms, it’s time to work on your content strategy and align it with your overall digital marketing roadmap. Building your content strategy doesn’t mean simply repeating what others are doing or even what you’ve already done. It means figuring out how to create a unique story that engages prospective customers in order to help solve their problems.
How do you do that? Create a page or a blog post that’s substantially different and 10-times better than your competitors.
The most critical part of your strategy is to be different. Here is how you can stand out from the crowd:
- Use more, better quality images, custom graphics, videos, infographics, etc., than your competition.
- Double the total word count of the pages that rank in the top 10. You can check the average word count of top search results by using tools like Frase.io.
- Use tools like Hemingwayapp.com, Prowritingaid.com, and others to ensure the readability of your content. Use H2s, H3s, H4s to structure it for skimmers, and stick to short paragraphs not exceeding 300 words.
- Build your website UX, blog posts design around users to make them intuitive and easy to navigate.
Conclusion
Websites that perform well in search results are usually user- and content-centric. Brands that understand that people come to their website because they are looking for a solution to their problem focus on helping them. They eliminate all the distractions on the user’s journey. Remember, you will get the opportunity to sell something if you first give users the value they requested.
