What is SEO content writing.

SEO content writing is a way to create content that’s optimized on-page to help your content get a high ranking on search engines. It also signals that your content is relevant and of high quality.

When we talk about content, that can be anything that exists online you want your audience to find. This includes:

Blog posts
Landing pages
Product pages
Guides or eBooks
Infographics
Videos
Toolkits
Glossaries

Alongside keyword rese

arch and optimization, it’s important to ensure your content is organized. This means that your content should be in a logical order on your site and easy for visitors to locate. A great way to do this is to plan a flow for your content and include relevant links but a sitemap to help SEO and make your content findable.

If your content fails to land on the first SERP (Search Engine Results Page) you’ll see Clickthrough Rates (CTRs) nosedive to less than one percent. The difference between CTR in 1st position #1 on Google is significant compared to 2nd position #2 – 40 percent click vs. 18 percent. If your content fails to land on the first SERP (Search Engine Results Page) you’ll see CTRs nosedive to less than 1 percent.

Now that you know what SEO writing is, let's look at advice from DMI experts and some takeaway tips you can apply to your own work.

Writing for SEO: Top tips from technical writers

The practice of SEO is about the visibility of your content, but don’t forget to make sure that your content is tailored to your specific and unique audience.

It’s wise to keep on top of content and SEO marketing trends to stay ahead of your competition and spot any opportunities to get your content seen. We’ll take you through 9 key tips to help you write with SEO in mind.

1. Understand the KPI of your writing

Good SEO writing is not just about including a few keywords and being left at that.

This is where your content marketing KPIs play a role as they will help you determine the end goal of each piece of content. You should also have content in your marketing mix that drives people through the marketing funnel from awareness through to conversion.

For example, top of the funnel content for driving awareness includes blog posts, e-books, and infographics, while bottom of the funnel content to encourage conversions includes demos, testimonials or webinars.

2. Create a structure based on a strategy

An important part of your overall strategy is creating an effective content marketing strategy. Without one it will be difficult to ensure that you are creating relevant content that drives prospects through the sales funnel and that what you create will appeal to your buyer personas.

For example, let’s take SEO writing. A hub piece would be ‘What is SEO writing?’ and a spoke piece to link to and support it would be ‘SEO for Bloggers: How to Optimize Your Articles’.

This approach will not only help you build a lot of content (and show expertise) on a particular topic but help increase keyword rankings, drive traffic and grow KPIs such as leads and sales.

3. Find SEO keywords by using keyword research tools

A crucial element of SEO writing is keywords. There are five essential steps to keyword research:

Define
Brainstorm
Filter
Inspect
Prioritize

Once you have a target list, you can use research tools to help rank and explore keywords. There are free tools like AlsoAsked and AnswerThePublic, but the searches are limited on a free account so you won’t get huge volumes unless you pay.

Paid tools such as Semrush and AHREFS are very useful and give you a full account of keyword volume, competitive insights, etc.

4. Make sure your headers are in order

Blogs are an important part of a company’s content marketing strategy. They allow you to draw people in through relevant and engaging content that can be used to increase dwell time and encourage click-through.

But today’s users are digitally savvy and want information quickly which is why blog headers are so important. When people read longer pieces of content they tend to scan or skim. That means they are looking for information that’s important to them.

If you need help with starting a blog check out our 5 simple steps or to create and format a blog, use our handy blog template.

5. Write using the tone suited to your industry

Every industry is different and the messaging and tone that works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another.

For example, a consumer beauty brand may use imagery and adopt a tone that’s upbeat and friendly, while a B2B software provider may need to use a more formal and factual approach. When it comes to tone, think about the one you use carefully as one that’s risqué may turn your customers off rather than engage.

You should also keep your community in mind and be inclusive so that when a user visits your website or social media feed, they can see what you are about.

You may already know what tone works for your prospects and customers. But if you don’t it’s crucial to understand your ‘ideal’ customer. This requires creating buyer personas for your audience segment so you know how to attract and engage them.

Get started today by using our buyer persona template to make the most of your content.

6. Include relevant internal and external links

Links are the best way to guide website visitors to other relevant content. To get the most from your content, include internal links that will drive people to content of interest – think of the ‘Hub and Spoke model’. You can also drive people to the ‘money pages’ that give them the opportunity to purchase.

External links or backlinks are an important part of SEO as they will link to your content from third-party sites. The more external sites that link to your content the better as it will drive search rankings and show value in your content.

7. Suit your writing based on the platform and output

Any content marketer will tell you that each platform requires its own content. What that means is that the way you write for a blog will not work for a social media post or landing page.

Each content type and platform requires its own approach and style. If you’re writing a blog, you’re taking people on a journey and creating a story. Whereas a Google ad needs to hit all the relevant keywords and be compelling to encourage a click within seconds.

8. Write compelling CTAs

If you’ve put a lot into creating a piece of content, make sure you give people the opportunity to take an action. The aim of a CTA is to convert a reader or visitor into a lead that can be nurtured.

There are several types of CTAs you can use:

Sign-up or Subscribe – Use this to encourage people to sign up to a newsletter or updates
Learn more – This invites people to go to a tailored landing page or another section of the site. It can also act as a teaser for launch events as used by Apple in this email invite.
Get started – This can encourage people to sign up for a course or start on a learning journey
Download now – You can use this to urge users to download an eBook or whitepaper
Try for free – This is for a free trial or demo. We use this example on our site to invite people to try a free digital skills test
Get my discount – This can prompt people to sign up to a mailing list to get a discount code
Try for free – This is for a free trial or demo. We use this example on our site to invite people to try a free digital skills test

9. Always optimize!

You may think that once you hit ‘publish’, your job is done. Unfortunately, that’s not the case when it comes to content.

So you always need to optimize your content. The best way to do this is to perform an audit of your on-site SEO, particularly for key pages that drive leads or revenue. You also should keep an eye on how content is performing and if you see a slide in views or leads, try to identify why. You can do this by looking at your data and picking out content that’s seen a decrease over some time.

At DMI, we worked with Wolfgang Digital to optimize our blogs using SEO tactics. This involved including relevant keywords, refreshing content and including internal links to refresh top-performing content. As a result, in just one quarter we saw a 143 percent growth in leads from the blog year on year.

Watch our webinar on how to create content that’s guaranteed to engage your audience for some tips on authenticity and content creation.