SEO content writing, even after all this time, still seems like some arcane magical method of ranking highly in search engines so people will find you. In reality, if you write specifically for those people who need to find you, the search engines will find you, too.
This doesn’t mean you can’t help things along.
Continue to write original, compelling, relevant content. That will never change. Write it and they will come. But add in some highly successful SEO techniques and they will get to you even faster. These techniques are centered on keywords without creating a keyword stuffed web page. It is all in where the keyword goes.
You did do your keyword research, right? Good; moving on. (If not, please go do it and come back to this article.)
Title
Putting your keyword or phrase in the title (and, of course, the title tag) lets everyone, especially the search engine, know exactly what your page is all about. That is the first step to getting ranked. If the search engine cannot easily tell what the page is about it may not get indexed. Since most people doing an internet search are pretty motivated to find what they need, they don’t want to waste time guessing whether they have found it either.
Meta-description
You may have heard something like, “Search engines ignore meta-tags.” And this is true to some extent. But the contents of this particular tag also show up in the search result. Putting your keyword into it won’t magically put you at the number one position but it will make it much easier for searchers to find you on a page full of search results.
Content
Why wouldn’t you put the keyword into your content? I can’t think of a single reason not to.
Keyword Frequency
As stated above, the keyword must be somewhere in the content. It just can’t be every other word, an action known as keyword stuffing. This is a big No-No in terms of SEO content writing. Search engines and people probably hate this with equal passion. Both will abandon a keyword stuffed page within a microsecond of landing on it.
Linking
This is what gives your web page the biggest boost to that number one position. Relevant, in-bound links from authoritative sites tell search engines that others think your web page is deserving of attention if not numerous accolades. If you have chosen your keywords correctly people linking to your page will probably even use your keyword as their anchor text, putting an even bigger spotlight on your SEO content writing.
Don’t forget to link outwards to other relevant sites. Search engines like this, too. It tells them you aren’t trying to trick them by creating links for the sake of creating links.
And In Conclusion…
SEO content writing really isn’t a deep subject, and it just isn’t that complicated. If you are a good writer, the page will almost SEO itself. But you can help it along by keeping these five steps in mind as you write. Perform due diligence by researching your keywords, using them well, and promoting your content. SEO content writing success will follow.
