18 Best SEO Content Writing Tips To Rank Better

How To Create a Blog Content Plan in 9 Stepss

The Ultimate Guide To Blog Content Creation

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In today's digital world, understanding SEO content strategies is vital for anyone looking to elevate their online presence. Imagine spending hours crafting what you think is a perfect piece, only to see it languish on page three of Google search results. Frustrating, right? The good news is that by mastering a few key SEO content writing tips, you can avoid this all-too-common scenario and get your content the visibility it deserves. This article is your guide to learning the best SEO content writing tips to rank better and make your hard work pay off.

Feather’s Notion to blog is a tool designed with these challenges in mind, offering practical solutions to help you apply these tips effectively.

What are the Basics of SEO Writing?

Keywords are your guide in SEO writing. But it's not about cramming them everywhere. Focus on using them naturally. Ask yourself what your audience is searching for and what problems they're trying to solve.

Place keywords strategically in titles, headings, and the first 100 words.

Avoid overstuffing, as search engines can penalize you for it. Balance is key—keywords should fit seamlessly into your writing.

User Intent: The Hidden Motivator

Understanding why someone is searching is crucial for SEO content. This is known as user intent. Are they looking for information, comparing options, or shopping for a product?

For example, “best headphones under $100” shows a commercial intent, while “how to fix headphones” is more informational. Aligning your content with intent helps it stand out to users and search engines.

Readability: A Key to Engagement

Readable content is more likely to engage readers and keep them on your site. Use shorter paragraphs, headings, and simple language. Make content scannable, breaking it into bite-sized chunks. Remember, you’re writing for humans first, search engines second. Search engines will likely boost your content if readers find value in it.

Historical Optimization: Reviving Old Content

SEO isn’t a one-and-done process. Even your best content needs updates to stay competitive. Look at older posts that were once popular but have since lost traffic. Refresh them with:

Updated stats

New insights

Better structure

This not only improves rankings but also repurposes valuable content for new audiences.

How to Optimize Blog Posts for SEO

Why Content Is Important for SEO

How to Write SEO Content for Website

How to Write SEO Optimized Content

SEO Content Writing Examples

Importance of Content Writing in SEO

SEO Content Planning

How to Use AI for SEO Content Writing

Challenges in SEO Content Creation

1. Choose a Proven Topic

You should already have a proven topic if you’ve done keyword research. This is something with traffic potential, business potential, and ranking potential:

Traffic potential: can generate enough visits to make creating content worthwhile.

Business potential: allows you to mention your product or service naturally

Ranking potential: your website can rank for the target keyword.

2. Analyze Search Intent

Understanding search intent means figuring out what the searcher is looking for. You need to do this because your chances of ranking are slim if your content doesn’t align with it. For example, a keyword like “how to make espresso at home without a machine” makes it easy to guess the intent behind the search.

Decoding Keyword Intent

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?

Search Result Analysis

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.

Decoding Search Intent Through Result Analysis

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.

Aligning with Search Intent

In most situations, your content should take a similar approach to the content that already ranks well (similar, but not identical). 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's Focus on YMYL Content

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, seek expert quotes and feedback (especially in fields requiring 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.

The Importance of Comprehensive Content

If a reader clicks on an article titled "How to brew perfect espresso," they’ll likely feel frustrated if the article misses out on essential steps, like grinding beans or dosing your basket. Good search content is exhaustive.

Reader Satisfaction and SEO

It covers all the process steps, lists all the resources the reader needs, and answers all the questions. It delivers on its promises and leaves no critical gaps in its information. Exhaustive content is great for readers, but it also increases the likelihood that your article will rank for more keywords.

Exhaustive Content Beyond Length

Importantly, being exhaustive doesn’t always mean writing something very long. Content can be thorough, helpful, and short, depending on the topic. If you know from experience that a particular subtopic is crucial to mention but can’t see any keywords or existing articles to justify it, go ahead and add it anyway. Information that helps the reader is information that helps search rankings.

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 essential because they’re a ranking factor.

Whatever you want to call it, information gain, uniqueness, value-add, the answer is straightforward: offer something that can’t be found anywhere else.

Measuring the Value of Unique Content

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. Try these if you’re curious about what language and terms your audience might use.

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.

Driving Organic Traffic in Time-Sensitive Topics

Estimated organic search traffic to our list of top Google searches over time. This happens because the topic demands fresh content. Searchers don’t want a list of the top Google searches from yesteryear; they want something up-to-date. Each dip happened when our content became stale, and each rise happened when we updated 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 valuable sites.

10. Use Varied Content Types

An excellent 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 no longer than about 70 characters. This is the maximum number of titles Google allows.

The meta description should be no longer than 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.

SEO Writing Beyond Ranking Factors

In SEO writing, you need to consider the goals set for your strategy and search engine ranking factors. Nonetheless, writing content is 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.

What does that look like? Thorough answers, scannable sections, organized subheaders, and visual aids. Keep your buyer:

Personas

Motivations

Challenges

Interests in mind

Choosing topics that will resonate with your potential customers and address their pain points is also essential. 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

Understanding Informational Search Intent

Types of Search Intent infographic showing a grid of four intent types and their definition with an example. Your primary and secondary keywords should have informational intent for blog posts. Users who want 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

Blog Content 2024 January Seo Optimized Content Structure For Readability

17. Implement Internal Lining

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 that can expand their education and move them further along the buyer's journey.

18. Create Content Hubs

Creating an article or two isn't enough when you're 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 Hub Structure and SEO Benefits

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.

Content Hubs as Authority Builders

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.

SEO Writing for Beginners

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Effective SEO Content Writing Techniques

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SEO Content Development

SEO Content Tracking

Google doesn’t care if the content is AI-generated or not. It cares about E-E-A-T: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is Google’s ranking system. It’s about showing high-quality content that’s people-focused and provides original, evidence-backed information. It’s about creating a smooth user experience by answering visitors’ questions. That’s why this type of content usually comes from humans.

The Problem with AI Content

People have used AI content to manipulate search rankings, which violates Google’s spam policies. This type of content lacks originality and insightfulness, so Google doesn’t see it as valuable. Often, it’s created with the sole purpose of ranking, disregarding users and their search queries.

Still, this doesn’t mean AI and SEO can’t work together. You just need to make the content valuable and able to meet users’ search intent. Then, you can rank even with AI-generated text.

How to Use AI for Helpful Content

Not all AI content is terrible. You just need to get high-quality information that meets E-E-A-T requirements. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. Some content types, like sports scores, match summaries, financial reports, and weather reports, are naturally more suited to automation.

Automation can help when content is focused on data rather than personal experience. Content writers who use AI to outline articles and simplify complex information can create user-friendly, valuable content.

Run your blog and newsletter with Feather today! Create a new account and send emails from Notion, or go from Notion to blog in minutes!

5 Types of Content That Helps With SEO and Page Rankings

1. Blog Posts: Casual Conversation with a Purpose

Blog posts are the classic way to create engaging content for SEO. Think of them as a casual chat with your audience, where you share insights or advice. With over 600 million blogs worldwide, this format remains a cornerstone of content marketing. It’s not just about writing; you can spice things up with images, GIFs, or videos.

Conversational Tone for Connection

Companies often use a conversational tone, like talking to a friend or colleague. This approach helps make connections and build relationships. For instance, Grammarly’s blog covers a wide range of topics related to writing, from outlining essays to crafting resumes.

Regular Blogging for SEO and Engagement

Publishing blog posts regularly can lead to better results. Sixty percent of bloggers who post daily report strong outcomes from their efforts. Blog posts are an excellent way to improve SEO and user experience.

2. Long-Form Content: Where Depth Meets Detail

Long-form content is popular for those who want to provide a more comprehensive take on a subject. It’s a step up from regular blog posts, diving deeper into a topic. This format tends to have a more professional tone and can cover different angles of a subject.

While blog posts might scratch the surface, long-form content gets readers the information they need in greater detail.

3. Videos: Engaging and Informative in One Package

Videos are a fantastic way to share information with your audience. They’re engaging, informative, and can pack a lot of punch in a short amount of time. Here are some numbers to show how impactful video can be. Brand association increases by:

139% after watching a video

92% of users share video content with others

Conversion rates improve by 86% with video

Videos can stand alone or be integrated into blogs or long-form content for an added layer of engagement.

4. Listicles: Quick, Easy, and Informative

Listicles are excellent for those looking to provide quick, easy-to-digest information. They’re perfect for users who want to skim through content and get relevant information quickly. Listicles can take many forms, such as how-to lists or lists of tips. When done right, they provide a seamless user experience and encourage readers to stick around longer.

5. Guides: All the Information You Need in One Place

Guides are comprehensive pieces that provide everything readers need to know about a topic. They can be open or gated, depending on your goals. Gated content requires users to input their information before gaining access, typically in exchange for an emailed copy. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that gated content doesn’t contribute to your SEO ranking since Google can’t access the text.

If you want to boost your SEO, you’ll need to publish your guide on your site for Google (and users) to see.

Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today with Feather

Feather gives you the freedom to create and manage SEO-friendly blogs and newsletters without needing any coding or design skills. Think of it as a bridge between Notion and the web. Write in Notion, and with a couple of clicks; your content is live on a Feather blog. You’re not just getting a blog; you’re getting a blog that Google likes.

Feather sets everything up in a way that plays nice with search engines. And the best part? You can customize the look with CSS to switch things up. It’s a whole new level of control.

Subfolder Blogs: Your SEO Secret Weapon

Subfolder blogs are better for SEO than subdomains. Search engines see subfolders as part of your primary domain, which means your entire site benefits from any authority the blog gains. Feather makes setting up a subfolder blog easy to keep all that SEO juice on your primary domain. It’s an advantage that’s too good to pass up.

Collaborate and Publish Effortlessly

Feather makes it easy for teams to collaborate on blog posts. You can work together in Notion and then publish with a click. Everyone stays on the same page, and the process is smoother than ever. There are no more messy back-and-forths with drafts and edits, just clear, streamlined collaboration.

From Notion to Inbox: Newsletters Made Simple

Feather also lets you create and send newsletters right from Notion. Write the email where you write your blog posts, then hit send. It’s that simple. You can even manage your subscribers and track performance without leaving Notion. Everything you need is in one place, so you can focus on what matters: your content and your audience.