19 Best Practices For SEO Content Writing (A Beginner's Guide)

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Struggling to get your blog noticed? You’re not alone. With countless voices competing for attention, making yours stand out can feel impossible. But this is where blog growth engine comes in. By refining your SEO content writing, you can start turning the tide in your favor. This article will guide you through the best practices for SEO content writing, helping you craft content that attracts readers and search engines alike.

You'll learn about the essential techniques for enhancing your writing and achieving tangible results with Feather’s notion to blog integration.

Best Practices for SEO Content Writing

SEO content is about crafting web content that draws traffic from search engines. It merges SEO tactics with high-quality, valuable information to meet user needs. Let's break it down:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is optimizing your website to rank higher on search engines like Google. It involves making your site more user-friendly and relevant to search engines and users.

Content: What It Is

Content refers to information users can consume online, such as:

Blog posts

Articles

Videos

Infographics and more

Bringing It All Together

SEO content is optimized for search engines to rank higher in search results and attract traffic. It’s not just about keywords; it offers value to users by being:

Informative

Engaging

Well-organized

Choose keywords that match what your target audience is searching for. This helps your content show up when users search for relevant terms.

Keyword Optimization: Use Keywords Wisely

Properly use keywords throughout your content. Focus on the following elements to help search engines understand your content’s relevance:

Titles

Headers

Meta descriptions

Body text

Content Organization: Structure Matters

Organize your content logically by using the following:

Clear headings

Subheadings

Internal linking

This approach enhances navigation, improves user experience, and boosts SEO performance.

Content Promotion: Get the Word Out

Share your content on social media and get backlinks from reputable sites. This boosts visibility and credibility.

Quality Over Quantity: Avoid Thin Content

SEO success isn’t just about ranking high. Deliver value to users. Thin content stuffed with keywords lacking useful information might get clicks, but it won’t engage users. This can lead to high bounce rates and hurt your site’s rankings.

SEO content balances optimization with meaningful, high-quality information that solves user problems or answers questions.

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Best Practices for SEO Content Writing

1. Choose a Proven Topic

To write SEO content that ranks, start with a proven topic. This topic should have:

Traffic

Business

Ranking potential

If you’ve done keyword research, you should already have a topic that meets those criteria. For example, a blog post about baking supplies has all three elements. It can generate traffic, mention your product or service, and rank for the target keyword.

2. Analyze Search Intent

Before you write, analyze the search intent behind the keyword. You need to understand what the searcher is looking for. If your content doesn’t align with it, your chances of ranking are slim. For example, the keyword “how to make espresso at home without a machine” makes it easy to guess the intent behind the search. The information is in the keyword: searchers want to learn how to make great coffee at home without an espresso machine.

But the intent behind “espresso” is more complex to infer from the keyword alone:

Does the searcher want to buy coffee?

Do they want a simple definition or a detailed process for making it?

Should we write about expensive espresso machines or DIY alternatives like a mocha pot?

This information isn’t in the keyword but in the search results. If an article ranks well for a particular keyword, it’s probably giving searchers what they want. The existing search results can provide a roadmap to help you understand and match intent. Most of the top results for “espresso” focus on definitions and simple explainers.

To identify search intent, look at the top-ranking results on Google and identify the three Cs of search intent:

Content Type: What is the dominant type of content? Is it a blog post, product page, video, or something else?

Content Format: Are all the top results how-to guides? Or lists, or reviews, or comparisons?

Content Angle: What approach do the top-ranking articles take? Do they all talk about the “best,” or “cheapest,” or “for beginners”?

For example, the top results for “Neapolitan pizza dough” are all recipe blog posts, and authenticity is the dominant angle.

In most situations, your content should take a similar approach to the content that already ranks well (similar, but different). Once you’re happy you’re giving searchers what they want, it’s time for the nitty-gritty of on-page SEO.

3. Check Your Expertise

Today, more than ever, Google values content that shows first-person experience of the subject matter. Here’s what they said in a recent update to their quality rater guidelines:

“Does content also demonstrate that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with actual use of a product, having actually visited a place or communicating what a person experienced? There are some situations where really what you value most is content produced by someone who has first-hand, life experience on the topic at hand.”

Google uses signals to help determine content that demonstrates expertise. This is especially important for topics impacting a reader’s happiness, health, or wealth. Google calls these topics "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL).

As Google explains:

Non-YMYL Topics: “Everyday expertise” is enough. You're good if the writer has the type and amount of life experience to make them an expert on the topic.

YMYL Topics: Formal expertise is essential, but “everyday expertise” is enough for some topics. For example, someone with cancer can answer “what is it like to have cancer?” better than a doctor.

The easiest way to demonstrate first-person experience is to write about subjects you know well. There are on-page elements that can help, too:

Include Expert Quotes: When your expertise isn’t enough to be authoritative on the subject, seek out quotes and feedback from people who are experts (especially in fields that require specific certifications and qualifications, like healthcare or accountancy).

Get hands-on with your topic. If you’re writing about brewing espresso, brew a few hundred shots.

Show Evidence. Prove to readers (and Google) that you did what you’re talking about: add experience to your author bio and include photographs and videos of your experience.

4. Cover the Topic in Full

If your expertise is covered, it’s time to create the type of content searchers want to see. Analyzing search intent gives you a high-level idea of this but doesn’t reveal everything. That’s a problem because the best result for a query covers everything searchers want to know.

If a reader clicks on an article titled "How to brew perfect espresso," they’ll likely feel frustrated if the article misses out on important steps, such as:

Grinding beans

Dosing your basket

Good search content should be exhaustive and:

Covers all steps of the process

Lists all necessary resources

Answers all the relevant questions

5. Make it Unique

If you base your content on top-ranking pages, you’ll end up with copycat content. This content fails to stand out from the crowd or offer anything unique. Copycat content is a problem for SEO because people have no incentive to link to it. Links are important because they’re a ranking factor.

Regardless of the term—information gain, uniqueness, or value-add—the answer is simple: provide something that can't be found anywhere else.

Google is aware of the issues with copycat content. They even filed a patent in 2020 with a potential solution. It’s called contextual estimation of link information gain. It presents a solution whereby documents are given information gain scores. These state how much more information one source may bring to someone who has seen other sources on the same topic.

6. Make it Sticky

People aren’t going to stick around for something they find confusing or complicated to read. That’s bad because Google uses interaction data to assess relevance. If searchers abandon your content like the Titanic, that’s unlikely to help SEO.

Here are a few tips for making content more sticky:

Keep it simple. Avoid complex words and sentences.

Make it visual. Break up walls of text with images and videos.

Speak your audience’s language. Use terms and jargon that resonate with readers.

Boss your spelling. Run a spell check; it makes all the difference.

Tools like Hemmingway and Grammarly can help with simplification and spell checks.

7. Keep it Evergreen

Content doesn’t stay fresh forever. That’s an issue if you’re targeting a fast-moving topic. It means you’ll have to work to keep your content updated to keep Google and searchers happy.

For example, the estimated traffic trend for our list of top Google searches goes up and down.

Estimated organic search traffic to our list of top Google searches varies over time due to the demand for fresh content:

Searchers prefer up-to-date information rather than outdated lists.

Traffic dips occur when content becomes stale.

Traffic rises when we update the page.

The latest algorithms look for common words that accompany your keywords. That lets the search engine know that the content is about that topic. It isn’t necessary to research which accompanying words to use, as they are generally the essential words that something about that topic would use.

If you aren’t sure how to use these companion words, study latent semantic indexing and put that knowledge to use.

9. Link to High-Quality Sites

Using links as information citations is a common way to show where the information came from. Nevertheless, your site should not be using information from low-quality sites. If you have links to spammy sites, the information on your page will also be assumed to be spammy. Always link to high-level websites that are popular in their own right.

The overall goal of search engines is to make good information universally available. When you link to good sites, you show search engines that you get your information from useful sites.

10. Use Varied Content Types

A great web page may include several ways to impart information. These often include other types of media to back up and expand on the information in the text. Videos are excellent for this purpose. Helpful pictures are also valuable for readers. Too much gray text can be challenging for people to read. Breaking it up makes it flow better and allows for easier reading.

11. Write Meta Information

Every piece of content needs meta tags and a meta description. This allows search engines to display a short description of your created content. You also need a title tag. This should be about 70 characters at maximum. This is the maximum number of titles Google allows. The meta description should be at most 160 characters. If you aren’t up on basic HTML, learn some basics to create these valuable pieces for your content.

12. Use Plenty of Subheadings

No matter how narrow your topic is, it can be broken up with subheadings. This also allows you to have your keywords where they are prominent. Subheadings help break up the text, making it easier for readers to find the information they seek.

In SEO writing, you need to consider the goals set for your strategy and search engine ranking factors, though writing content is much more of a process to meet user demand than SEO requirements. When you provide a qualified and unique experience of reading and visiting the page with high-quality content, it automatically favors the position of your page in the SERPs.

13. Optimize Your Content for Featured Snippets

Featured snippets on Google are the most direct answers to search queries. For instance, if I were to search, “How do you write a blog post?” Google might use a featured snippet to show the best answer. You must answer the question thoroughly and succinctly to earn a featured snippet on Google.

If the keyword you want to capture the featured snippet requires a definition, write an answer that’s no more than 58 words.

14. Write for Humans, Not Search Engines

With all these SEO guidelines, it can be easy to forget that when a user searches on Google, they are looking for an answer. The best way to improve your chances of ranking is by writing high-quality blog posts.

Creating High-Quality Content That Resonates with Your Audience

What does that look like? Thorough answers, scannable sections, organized subheaders, and visual aids. Keep your buyer personas, their motivations, challenges, and interests in mind. Choosing topics that will resonate with your potential customers and address their pain points is also essential.

Leveraging SEO Tools for Effective Content Creation and Optimization

While some SEO tools can help on the technical side of your site, you can also opt to use content writing SEO tools to help you write correct, concise, and human-friendly content that will rank well and engage readers.

Different tools also measure content engagement, allowing you to see how long people spend on a page, whether or not they visit multiple pages, or how far they scroll down your site.

15. Satisfy Search Intent

After identifying your keywords, you must ensure your content satisfies search intent. Search intent is the reason why users search for your keywords. There are four main types of search intent:

Informational: The searcher is looking for information about a topic.

Navigational: The searcher is looking for a specific website or page.

Commercial: The searcher is researching options.

Transactional: The searcher wants to make a purchase soon.

Types of Search Intent infographic showing a grid of four intent types and their definition with an example. Your primary and secondary keywords for blog posts should focus on informational intent. Users seeking to learn about a topic find helpful articles and in-depth blog posts valuable.

Some standard content formats for informational search intent keywords include:

How-to guides

List posts

Step-by-step tutorials

Definition posts

Comparison posts

Looking at the top-ranking pages on Google can help you determine which content format is best for your topic.

16. Structure Content for Readability

It’s essential to make it as easy for readers to navigate and understand your content as possible. You can do this by:

Dividing content into clear sections with subheadings

Organizing those sections in a logical order

Using succinct paragraphs and sentences

Utilizing bullet points when appropriate

Formatting some words/sentences in bold to highlight key points

17. Implement Internal

A good writing practice for SEO content is to include relevant internal links on your pages. Internal links can connect to related pages within your website to help create content hubs by clustering associated topics, while external links support your content with credible sources. Search engines use links to discover new content, so it is a good idea to link to new pages so they can be found and indexed easily. Use descriptive anchor texts in your link to convey what the linked page is about.

Internal linking also helps users find additional content to expand their education and move them further along the buyer's journey.

18. Create Content Hubs

You need more than just an article or two when writing for SEO. Google relies on E-E-A-T factors to understand your position on the topics you write about and seeks credibility. You can enhance this by aiming for topical authority in your subject by creating content hubs. Content hubs are structured as a central pillar page that provides a high-level overview of the topic, with several related subtopic pages linked to it.

This interconnected network of content allows users to easily navigate through different aspects of the subject while search engines can better understand the context and relevance of your content.

Gain Search Engine Trust with Content Hubs

Instead of producing isolated blog posts, content hubs allow you to comprehensively cover various aspects of a topic, making your website a go-to resource for users seeking information on that subject. This approach signals to search engines that your website is an authoritative source on the topic, leading to improved search rankings.

19. Measure Your Content Performance

Measuring the performance of your articles isn't a writing tip but needs to be more noticed. Tracking your content's performance is crucial for developing a successful content strategy because it lets you know what's working and what can be improved. By closely monitoring your content marketing KPIs, you can make data-driven decisions that help you optimize your content and boost your website's search rankings.

Why is SEO Writing Important?

Best Practices for SEO Content Writing

SEO writing improves your content’s visibility and ensures long-term traffic growth. By optimizing your content for search engines, you're making sure it ranks higher in search results, which significantly boosts the chances of people finding and clicking on it. If your content isn't optimized, it may end up buried several pages in search engine results, where it's unlikely to attract any meaningful traffic.

Why First Page Rankings Matter

Appearing on the first page of Google can't be overstated. A 2024 study by First Page Sage found that websites ranked in the first position on Google get a 39.8% clickthrough rate, while the second position only garners 18.7%, and the tenth position drops dramatically to just 1.6%. Once your content falls to the second page, those chances diminish even further. If you're off the first page, your content is almost invisible to potential visitors.

SEO Writing as a Long-Term Strategy

SEO writing is a long-term marketing asset. While paid advertising, like PPC, can drive quick results, it requires ongoing investment. If you stop paying, the traffic stops too. SEO writing, on the other hand, keeps driving organic traffic to your website for as long as the content stays relevant and ranks well.

It’s a sustainable strategy that works around the clock, helping you reach audiences without continually paying for exposure. Well-optimized SEO content builds a strong foundation for your website’s visibility and overall digital success.

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Best Practices for SEO Content Writing

Define Your Goals and Stay Focused

Start with clear goals. Are you driving sales or boosting traffic? If sales are your aim, craft attractive product pages and supportive blog content that link to them. If traffic’s your thing, go for engaging, sticky content like long-form articles or videos that keep visitors hooked.

Consider Your Audience’s Needs

Understand your audience. Use surveys and analytics to understand who visits your site clearly. Develop personas that represent your ideal visitors. Think about what content these personas crave. For example, offer downloadable white papers if you're targeting C-level executives. If teens are your audience, create frequent updates with visuals and videos. Ensure your site is mobile-friendly, too.

Keep Content Flowing with an Editorial Calendar

With your audience in mind, build an editorial calendar. This calendar dictates when and what type of content you’ll publish, keeping you consistent and preventing last-minute scrambles.

Tips for Sticking to Your Calendar

Use Tools: Share the calendar with your team using tools like Google Calendar. Set reminders for authors.

Ongoing Features: Consider recurring content, like a weekly roundup or themed posts. Create category pages for these features.

Plan Wisely: Allow extra time for complicated content like videos and infographics, which require more editing and optimization.

Stay Flexible: Don’t plan too far ahead. Things change, so plan for the short term to stay adaptable.

Analyze and Adapt: Keep Improving

Check your site’s analytics regularly. Perform content and SEO audits to see what’s working. Use tools to measure success through:

Page views

Links

Comments

Social shares

Conversion rates

Goals for Analysis

Repeat Success: Identify patterns in what works. Does your audience love videos? Make more of them. Adjust your calendar to focus more on successful content types.

Update and Improve: Revise older content that’s not performing. If an article ranks for a different keyword than intended, optimize for that keyword to boost traffic.

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How To Track SEO Success

Best Practices for SEO Content Writing

To gauge the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, start by monitoring your position in SERPs. Knowing where your site ranks for your target keywords is essential for understanding your visibility online. To automate keyword tracking and ranking analysis, use tools like:

Google Search Console

SEMrush

Ahrefs

Visibility Matters: Understanding Impressions

While ranking high is crucial, ensuring you get enough visibility for relevant keywords is just as important. Low impressions, despite high rankings, could suggest low search volume keywords. Use Google Search Console to track total and keyword-specific impressions to ensure you’re targeting valuable search terms.

Bringing Visitors In: Tracking Organic Search Traffic

Organic traffic represents the actual users landing on your site from search engines. Tools like Google Analytics or Search Console help you track this metric, giving insight into how effectively your SEO efforts drive visitors. Focus on:

Overall traffic

Traffic for specific keywords

Compare branded vs. non-branded traffic

Engaging the Audience: Measuring Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR measures how often users click on your site after seeing it in search results. A higher CTR means your Title Tags and Meta Descriptions are compelling. Use Google Search Console to track and optimize your CTR by improving how your search listings appear.

Keeping Them Hooked: Gauging Engagement Rate

Engagement rate shows how users interact with your site, such as:

Staying on a page

Clicking links

Filling forms

High engagement indicates your content is relevant, while low engagement suggests the opposite. Tools like Google Analytics 4 help track engagement, offering insights into content effectiveness and areas for improvement.

Building Authority: Tracking Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) measures your site’s link authority and predicts its ability to rank. Higher DA means better ranking potential. Use tools like Moz to track your DA over time and evaluate the success of your link-building efforts.

Staying Sharp: Monitoring Technical Site Health

Maintaining a technically sound website is crucial for SEO success. Tools like SEMrush’s Site Audit provide reports on issues like broken links or slow page speeds, ensuring your site is optimized for both search engines and users.

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