5 Ways to Improve Your SEO as a Content Writer

Writing for pleasure alone is not content writing. It is not just about joining words. Whether your objective is to raise brand awareness, generate leads, or improve sales, the key is to create content that connects with your audience, increases traffic, and eventually accomplishes your goals.

Content writers are the “Houdini” who work behind the scenes, curating material and building stories. Any content you write can inspire, educate, and sway people. Content writing builds a bridge between brands and consumers by converting straightforward concepts into powerful messages.

But you won’t receive the expected search traffic if no one searches for the subject of your post. Your objectives are ultimately not met. In this situation, SEO is beneficial. It helps create high-quality content, increase visibility, and rank on search engine results pages.

In this article, you will find helpful tips to improve your SEO skills and unlock the potential of your content.

What is SEO and SEO content writing?

The process of improving your website to rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs) is known as search engine optimization or SEO. Enhancing a webpage’s relevance, authority, and trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo is the aim of SEO, which aims to increase organic traffic or visits to a webpage without paying for advertising. You may improve the visibility of your website for content-related searches by putting SEO tactics into practice.

The primary goal of SEO content writing is to create high-quality, optimized online content. This also involves using the right key phrases and keywords within web content, which will help improve the site’s visibility and ranking on SERPs. When SERPs rate content highly, its placement improves.

Writing content without considering SEO may not be considered search engine friendly; one of the best ways to write for SEO is to combine high-quality copy with targeted search terms.

Why is SEO important for content writing?

SEO can be your secret weapon as a content writer to help you reach the right audience. It is important to ensure you get targeted traffic from search engines without cost. Search engines have a vast number of users each day, and if you want a piece of that action, your site or its contents should feature prominently on the first pages for related searches.

Besides increasing traffic and improving search rankings, SEO plays other roles in content writing. Some of them include:

1. Creating Better User Experience

A user’s overall experience and satisfaction from interacting with a website, application, or digital product are called user experience or UX. User experience includes aspects such as:

• Usability
• Visual design
• Accessibility
• Interaction design
• Content

SEO is not only about search engines but also about creating a memorable experience for users. UX also plays a critical role in content writing. It determines how users perceive and interact with the content. A positive user experience can get users’ attention, provide valuable information, and drive engagement.

Read more: The Role of User Experience in Content Writing.

2. Increasing Visibility

Visibility refers to how easy it is to find and access a website or online content. In this context, a website’s visibility is based on ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases. The higher the website appears in search results, the more likely it is to be found by users looking for related.

With billions of online competitors, your content must stand out. SEO techniques like keyword optimization and meta tags help search engines understand your content. Using these techniques makes it more likely to appear in relevant search results.

3. Generating More Traffic

Organic traffic originating from search engines is known as SEO traffic. It hinges on increasing the volume of natural traffic to your website by utilizing search engine optimization strategies. Ranking well will significantly improve the number of people visiting your website, as most users only click on the first few results.

Businesses can also benefit from targeted SEO traffic by getting free leads, customers, and sales from search engines. Companies may create interesting material that boosts online visibility and overall business growth by hiring a professional SEO content writer.

Read more: SEO Traffic: What Is It & How to Get It

4. Building Credibility With Users

Users generally trust search engines, and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords they are searching increases the website’s trust. When your content consistently ranks high in search engine results, it signals users and engines that your website or content is a trusted source of information. Aside from credibility, this also builds authority in your industry, making users more likely to engage with your content.

5. Giving Competitive Advantage and Long-Term Results

Every modern digital sector is highly competitive. Utilizing SEO can provide a competitive advantage. When two websites offer identical products, the one that is optimized for SEO is more likely to attract customers and generate higher sales.

By optimizing your content, you can outrank competitors in search. Unlike paid advertising, which stops once you stop paying, SEO efforts provide long-lasting results for your brand. You can maintain high-ranking results and attract traffic by continually optimizing your content.

6. Measurable Results

Measuring outcomes is one of the best things about SEO. Tools like Google Analytics allow you to monitor key performance indicators like traffic, click-through rates, and conversions. This, in turn, indicates areas that require more optimization and offers insightful information about how well your SEO efforts are working.

Similarly, tools like Moz and Search Measures use measures like visibility to show how well your content or website performs in organic search.

Ways to Improve Your SEO as a Content Writer

As discussed above, it is important to focus on SEO to get organic traffic to your website or content. Therefore, it is only proper that you know how to improve your SEO skills as a writer.

Let’s look at five ways to improve your SEO skills as a content writer:

1. Keywords Are Key

Before you start writing, you should research keywords for your piece. If you want your writing to reach the target audience and have the expected impact, pay attention to keywords. Even if you have the most excellent idea for content, the right keyword will give your content the needed ranking.

Keywords are specific words and phrases people look for in search engines. It is also what your SEO content will be built around when writing. Keywords will help you with headers, FAQs, meta titles, and meta descriptions – building your SEO rank as you write.

When using keywords, you must understand industry trends. Given the rate of change within industries, it’s necessary to have a process that works well when researching keywords for a piece. If you’re new to this, there are specialized tools that you can leverage to ease the process.

2. Meta Information Matters

Meta information or metadata refers to the data that gives information about other data. It’s “data about data”. What meta-information does is that it describes, contextualizes, and classifies data. It makes the data easier to understand, search, and manage.

There are different types of metadata, but the ones you can’t ignore are meta descriptions and meta titles.

Meta titles, or title tags, are the titles of webpages that appear in SERPs. For best practice, they shouldn’t exceed 60 characters.

Meta descriptions are the first things your audience notices upon finding your piece in the SERPs. As the name suggests, it sums up the topic of the work in one clear and concise line. For optimal results, your meta description should include 140–160 characters. The meta description can impact your page’s CTR.

Note – your primary keyword must be included in your meta information.

3. Use Headers

When writing an article or any piece, your structure matters. According to research on engaging people, about 80% of users scan first before reading. Scanning is to get an overview of the critical points and the post. For your readers to pay attention to your post, it must pass the scan test, and then it comes in your header to help.

Headers refer to the top section of a document or web page. They give information about the content in a particular section of the page/piece. Headers generally provide structure and organization and indicate the level of importance of content.

The different levels of headers are:

• H1 – Main title or heading
• H2 – Subheading
• H3 – Sub-subheading
• H4 – Sub-sub-subheading

4. Focus on Long-form Content

If you want to improve your SEO writing, create long-form and informative content. Why longer? Longer content keeps your audience on your page for a more extended period, given that it gives the audience what they want.

When writing long-form content, your outline, keywords, and headers will guide you on what to write and provide a structure. You also don’t want to be penalized by the internet algorithm for your short content. Google’s latest updates prioritize longer and factual content rather than clickbait and short content.

Long-form content gives you room to put your creativity on display.

5. Obsess Over Form

When writing for SEO, form matters. The length of sentences, paragraphs, voice, active verbs, and other elements is crucial in giving your content the proper form. If you pay attention to them, it pays for your SEO ranking.

Paragraphs – ensure your paragraphs are short. Putting spaces between paragraphs has a psychological effect on your readers. To most, it takes less energy to read. For best practices, a paragraph should contain at most four sentences.

Sentences – you can have a mix of long and short sentences within a paragraph. However, be sure it doesn’t exceed 24 words per sentence, as that can adversely affect your readability score.

Active voice—Using active voice can make your writing more precise, concise, and engaging, as it emphasizes the doer of the action rather than the action itself.

Example:

• Active voice: “The dog bites the man.” (The subject, “dog,” is acting biting.)
• Passive voice: “The dog bit the man.” (The subject, “man,” is having the action of being bitten performed on them.)

Conclusion

Work on your SEO skills for any intentional content writer looking to upskill and reach a wider audience. Content creation will yield conversion when you mix both writing and SEO. With an understanding of SEO, watch your piece do numbers when appropriately implemented.

Remember, when writing, provide engaging and accurate information and take pleasure in it. When you enjoy writing, you’ll have no problem creating content.