What Is SEO Content Writing? Definition, Examples & Guide
Seriously, what is SEO content writing? Is it a complicated technique? A buzzword? A bird? A plane?
Actually, once you learn more about it, SEO content writing isn’t as hard as you might think, as a concept. In fact, it’s a marketing strategy that you can’t afford to miss out on as an ambitious entrepreneur.
The confusing bit is that you might have already heard about it but through other terms such as SEO blogging, content marketing, or blogging on your business website.
But, before answering your question ‘what is SEO content writing’, have you noticed how that term consists of two parts?
Let’s start by defining them separately to better understand the magic that happens when you put them together.
What is SEO?
SEO means search engine optimisation and consists of the practice of increasing both the quantity and quality of your organic website traffic through Google and other search engines.
This involves several factors. For example, whether your website is mobile-friendly, how fast it takes to load, if your contact details and information are consistent across the internet, etc.
However, the most famous and central one is keywords. Why?
Because that’s what your target audience types on Google, and that’s how they can (or can’t) find you.
For example, some of the keywords that are relevant to my business are ‘website copywriter’, ‘blog writer’, ‘freelance copywriter for hire’, and ‘copywriter UK’.
My main website pages are optimised for those!
What is content writing?
Content writing is an audience-oriented marketing strategy that has revolutionised the business world by replacing the old, corporate, blowing-your-own-trumpet mentality with a ‘let’s create valuable content for our dream customers’ approach.
Yes, it involves words, but content writing is slightly different from copywriting: while the aim of the latter is to generate sales, content writing is about attracting your target audience, retaining it, and building trust.
Sure, that will also lead to more sales eventually (duh!), but the writing itself isn’t usually built around the call-to-action to buy.
In fact, content writing mainly involves informational blog posts on relevant industry-related topics that your target audience cares about.
For example, if you sell a natural deodorant, the content writing strategy on your company blog could include articles on ‘the benefits of switching to a natural deodorant’, ‘all the harmful chemicals inside your store-bought deodorant,’ and ‘how to sweat less’.
Not company-focused articles on ‘our latest award’ and ‘what’s new at Natural Deodorant Ltd’.
Ok, then what is SEO content writing?
SEO content writing is a marketing strategy that uses keyword research to create insightful blog posts to attract and retain a company’s target audience.
Just like the definition of content writing, SEO content writing is about attracting your dream customers onto your website through these informational articles, turning them into a loyal audience, and, ultimately, generating more sales.
However, similarly to SEO copywriting, there’s a strong focus on keywords.
In fact, for your articles to be found by your audience, every single blog post must target a different long-tail keyword (consisting of three words or more).
Technically, ‘content writing’ and ‘SEO content writing’ should be synonyms: you can’t create a successful content marketing strategy without taking SEO and keywords into account.
Harnessing SEO content marketing on your female-founded biz website: 3 steps
So, what is SEO content writing in practice? It involves three main phases.
1. Creating an SEO content writing strategy for your target audience
As we’ve already established, a strong SEO content writing strategy involves a company blog on which you publish articles that your target audience will find interesting, useful, or entertaining (or all three at once).
It’s important to conduct some market and competitor research to find out what type of content they actually engage with.
While the blog posts will be related to your industry and products, it’s also helpful to brainstorm a few more specific areas and niches that you will cover.
For example, if you sell coffee, you could write brewing guides for different types of coffee makers, recipes for different coffee drinks, and educational articles (e.g. differences between roasts, why coffee is called joe, etc.).
2. Performing keyword research
When coming up with a new topic, you must also find the keyword that best describes it. Or, sometimes, you can even look for keywords first and use them to generate topic ideas!
There are two main reasons why keyword research is… key, when it comes to SEO content marketing:
In order to be found, every article must be optimised for a main one
You’ll find out what your target audience actually types, which might not be what you would
In fact, you might be used to referring to your second-hand garments as ‘retro clothing’.
However, that term gets searched 1K – 10K per month, whereas people are clearly more familiar with ‘vintage clothing’ since they search it ten times more often (10K – 100K).
3. Writing SEO-friendly content
Once you have a topic and a good keyword, SEO content writing is about writing the actual blog posts for your human readers and optimising them for search engines.
A good SEO-friendly blog post has a clear heading structure to facilitate readability, sticks to that specific topic rather than trying to squeeze a much broader subject into a single article, and… doesn’t actually feel like it involves SEO, when your target audience reads it.
How SEO content writing benefits your business
If you have a business website, you need an SEO content writing strategy!
(No blog page? Create it right now. You have one but it’s all about your company’s achievements? Turn it into an audience-oriented blog.)
The benefits of blogging for business with a strong SEO content writing strategy include:
More chances to rank with every new blog post (which is also an indexed page)
Higher SEO ranking for your overall website
Higher conversion rates
67% more leads than websites without a blog
Building trust
Positioning your company as an expert in your field
More content for your socials and newsletter
Cheaper than PPC and higher ROI
70% of consumers learn about a brand through its blog posts rather than paid ads
How I can help you with SEO content writing for your female-founded business 🙌
No time to write?
Not sure about how to optimise your blog posts to actually attract your dream customers from Google?
With my blog writing services, I can create a strong SEO content writing strategy and write the actual blog posts on a regular basis.
You just worry about enjoying the results.
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