Good writing starts with a good SEO blog outline, but in the age of search engine optimization, “good” can mean a lot of different things.
Should your outline be optimized for top search engine results placement? For maximum reader engagement? For clarity and economy of language?
In the attention ecosystem, a good SEO blog outline requires all of the above. Your outline should be tailored to the search terms you want to be ranked for, but it also has to support your specific goals and speak to your specific audience. All of this can feel like a juggling act, but don’t worry—in this guide, we make writing a high-performing SEO blog outline achievable in just 3 easy steps.
Step 1: Select High-Quality Keywords
Before you can start writing your perfect SEO blog outline, you have to first identify what you’re writing about.
There are two kinds of keywords you should be aware of: focus keywords and secondary keywords.
Focus Keywords
Focus keywords are the primary words or phrases you target for search engine results placement (SERP). High-quality focus keywords should be specific enough to accurately describe your content, but broad enough that related web searches still return your page.
For example, “SEO” is too broad to be a helpful focus keyword for this blog post. A web search for “SEO” will return too many results on too many overlapping topics. However, a keyword like “SEO blog outline” is more specific to the content of this blog—that means users who search for “SEO blog outline” are more likely to be looking for articles like this one.
A best practice for focus keywords is to include them in the title and at least one major heading within your blog.
Secondary Keywords
As the name suggests, secondary keywords are less central to your SEO blog outline. They may describe the broad ideas and subjects of your blog or highlight niche topics within your content.
While you don’t necessarily have to include secondary keywords in your blog outline itself, they should be present in the content of your blog. Secondary keywords don’t have to be as targeted as your focus keyword—think of them as additional context for your focus keywords. For example, “writing” is too broad for a focus keyword, but in tandem with the focus keyword “SEO blog outline,” “writing” can add additional context that improves SERP for your blog.
Step 2: Know Yourself and Know Your Audience
Think about the way teachers communicate with their students: it’s different from the way they communicate with parents, isn’t it?
It’s likely that the way you communicate with loved ones is different than the way you communicate with colleagues or bosses. The way you might talk to a potential client is different from the way you might talk to a competitor.
Communication is always in service of a goal—whether that be to order your morning coffee, run an efficient meeting, or convert a new lead.
When it comes to SEO blog writing, understanding your goal is pivotal. However, motivation isn’t the only component—you must also consider your audience. Just like you might adjust your communication style based on the situation, you might also adjust your style based on the person you’re talking to.
Blogs are typically audience-oriented. Blogs change minds, break down barriers, and encourage change, but blog posts themselves are not just productive monologues, they’re a kind of secret dialogue between a writer and their audience.
Knowing your own goals and identifying the audience you wish to speak to is the vital first step in writing an SEO blog outline. As easy as that is to say, “knowing” and “identifying” are ambiguous concepts in practice. Here’s what this looks like in action:
Tone
As you write the body of your blog, you’ll quickly realize that there are a thousand and one different creative decisions you can make. Should you take a conversational style? Should you incorporate jokes? What about emojis? It’s helpful to think about tone in several dimensions:
Formal vs Conversational. Factors may include your target audience’s age and the context they’ll be reading your blog in. In a corporate finance blog, a formal tone could convey expertise and certainty. However, a blog geared towards personal finance for beginners might benefit from a more conversational tone that feels engaging and personable—even if the factual content of the blog is exactly the same.
Humorous vs Informational. Humorous writing is engaging and can be enjoyable for readers, but not every topic or audience lends itself to humor. In the wrong context, humor can make a writer appear unserious, especially if the joke obfuscates something more important in your writing. An informational approach can feel more “dry” to readers, which can work against you if you’re trying to create a memorable connection with a reader, but can be a benefit when your goal is purely to convey information.
Enthusiastic vs Factual. Finally, enthusiastic writing can increase the readers’ motivation to take action, while a more reserved presentation of facts has greater educational value. Enthusiasm is contagious and can inspire confidence in your readers, but it takes a balance between enthusiastic presentation and factual grounding to find the right tone for any blog.
Authority
As you think about your target audience, what level of experience do they have with the topic? Are you writing to seasoned experts who already understand the foundational concepts of your writing? Or are you writing to newcomers who need a thorough explanation of the background of your topic?
In practice, the distinction is never that black and white—your audience will most likely be somewhere in between the two extremes. For this blog, for example, I’m assuming most readers are familiar with the concept of search engine optimization.
Your target audience’s level of authority on the topic should guide the way you structure your article, what topics deserve their own headings, and which ones can safely rest on the cutting room floor.
Motivation
Finally, consider the action you’re hoping your readers will take after reading your blog. Some blogs simply want to create a positive experience for readers—perhaps to increase brand loyalty or awareness. Others seek to add value to their readers’ lives through conveying important information. Still others are hoping to convert readers to make a purchase.
Your motivation plays a large role in how you structure your SEO blog outline.
The Problem, Solution, Proof formula works well to efficiently break down barriers and change readers’ minds, while informational blogs like this one benefit from sequential organization.
Vincent Van Gogh frequently painted over his existing paintings, iterating on them to create great works of art. Similarly, Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa over an existing sketch. The greatest works of art weren’t executed in a single stroke of genius—they’re the result of revision and iteration.
In your SEO blog outline, iteration is pivotal. You should plan to iterate on not only the wording of your headings, but also on the content and structure of the blog itself.
Some practical ways you can iterate on your outline are to experiment with adding and removing subheadings, reordering sections of your piece, or simply trying out different wordings. The secret to creative iteration is experimentation, and it’s in the outlining stage of your blog that you have the most agility and freedom to experiment without consequence.
Once you’ve written the body of your blog, major restructuring has an exponentially higher time-cost. This is why revision and iteration are a part of the outlining phase of SEO blog development, because it’s your best opportunity to let your creative juices fly.
Work With the Best
Writing a SEO blog outline is doable, but it isn’t easy. It takes time, experience, and skill. Express Writers writes high-performing blogs for every industry, taking the guesswork and legwork out of your content strategy.
When Google says an SEO ranking factor is important, marketers need to sit up straight and listen.
Why?
Considering Google controls more than 90% of web searches, it’s safe to say they’re an authority on the subject.
With that kind of monopoly, Google’s ranking factors and page-quality guidelines are what drive SEO best practices, which is important for content marketing.
Before the pandemic, Google search traffic averaged around 3.6 billion searches per day. But since March 2020, that search traffic has grown to more than 6 billion. That’s an extra 2.4 BILLION more daily searches than there used to be!
So, what’s the connection between content and SEO, and why does Google place such a high value on content?
It’s all in today’s blog.
First, let’s start with the basic question…
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. While it technically includes all search engines, the main focus is Google (for reasons we already covered).
Then why is content important for SEO?
Simply put, content and SEO go hand in hand.
SEO content writing is the practice of writing optimized web content with the primary goal of being ranked in the top results of a search engine results page (SERP).
Great content that isn’t optimized for search engines isn’t going to perform well. Neither will phenomenal SEO methods executed on poor content.
While content and SEO are two different subjects, they must work in tandem in order to form a successful content marketing strategy.
[bctt tweet=”Content and SEO go hand in hand. ? Great content that isn’t optimized for search engines won’t perform well. Neither will phenomenal SEO methods executed on poor content. Learn to put two and two together via @ExpWriters ➕” username=””]
A Guide on Content and SEO: 5 Steps to Optimize Your Content for Search Engines
Let’s rewind back to Google and why the search engine giant believes content is so important for SEO.
Google’s primary function is to generate the most relevant, helpful articles when someone types a topic or question into the search engine.
So, logically, it makes sense that Google is going to prioritize content that is high-quality and serves to help, educate, or entertain based on what the searcher is looking for.
Marketers put a lot of effort into making educated guesses about which factors Google uses in its ranking algorithm. But the importance of content isn’t even a guess – Google tells us how critical it is in their SEO starter guide:
Google hit the nail on the head when it claimed “users know good content when they see it.”
They do.
That’s why two driving forces behind what constitutes as good content can be traced back to acronyms in Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines:
E.A.T. (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): 3 factors Google uses to rate content quality
Y.M.Y.L. (Your Money or Your Life): Content that can potentially impact a reader’s financial, physical, and/or mental health and happiness
Below, we’ll explore how to optimize content for SEO while ensuring high relevancy and quality.
1. Research
Would you try to build a house without a blueprint?
I certainly hope not!
The same principle applies when you start pumping out content without doing any research or preparation beforehand.
It all starts with a focus keyword within your niche.
You also need to understand your audience’s search intent. If you’re targeting the keyword “birthday cake,” what are your targeted readers actually looking for? A local bakery? A recipe to bake a birthday cake at home? Your content needs to target the correct audience.
Pro tip: Google is a FREE way to easily find synonymous keywords. You can generate a list of suggestions when you type your focus keyword into the search bar.
You can also discover more synonymous keywords at the bottom of the SERP page where Google suggests related searches.
[bctt tweet=”Pro tip: Google is a FREE way to easily find synonymous keywords. You can generate a list of suggestions when you type your focus keyword into the search bar. ?✅” username=”ExpWriters”]
Keyword research tools will give you a better idea of how traffic and competition affect your focus keyword.
While there are free keyword research tools available, I don’t recommend them. After researching paid vs. free keyword tools in the SEO content writing course that I teach, I discovered that some of the free tools provided misleading data.
My top 3 keyword research tools I highly recommend:
It’s tempting to target keywords that have high average monthly searches. But, especially if you have a new website, resist the temptation.
Relevancy is much more important than search traffic. Look for easily attainable long-tail keywords that are specific to your audience and don’t have much competition.
2. Content
Content is your most important ranking factor.
I’ll say it again for those in the back – content is your MOST IMPORTANT ranking factor.
Your content needs to:
Be high quality
Provide useful information
Be relevant to your niche
Be free of typos and grammatical errors
Have a smooth flow that readers can follow
Be at an average-to-low reading level for most viewers
Cite trustworthy sources with links to credible websites (be sure to link directly to the source, not a link of a link)
Your keyword, of course, is a critical piece of the puzzle. But keyword density is dead, so get it out of your mind.
Instead of worrying about keyword density, you should be more concerned with strategic placement and topical content.
If your writing stays on topic, you’ll naturally be using your keyword frequently enough for search engines to pick up on it.
In addition, make sure you place your focus keyword in your title and URL. Use synonymous keywords throughout the article, especially in subheaders.
As far as other SEO content writing tips go, here are some of Google’s dos and don’ts:
You should always end your content with a call to action (CTA) that prompts the reader to further engage. This can be something like asking to subscribe to your newsletter, offering a service, recommending similar articles, etc.
3. Structure
Your content should be well written, but it also needs to be properly structured and organized, not to mention optimized for mobile.
Most readers on the web are skimmers, which means you need to break up your content into an easily readable format, including:
Short paragraphs
Headings and subheadings (H2s and H3s)
Bulleted or numbered lists
Media such as images, videos, infographics, etc. to break up text and boost engagement
Bolded main ideas for readers to easily pick out
When it comes to using images, make sure your focus keyword is in the alt tag. It’s also a good idea to rename your file before you upload it to get that keyword in there one more time.
Proper structuring is part of SEO, which means it needs to work with your content, not against it.
4. Make Your Content Evergreen
You want your content to have a long lifespan. Evergreen content stays relevant long after it’s published.
For example, “10 Best Christmas Presents to Give Your Sweetheart” is not evergreen, because as soon as Christmas is over, that content is irrelevant.
In comparison, “5 Proven Methods to Earn More Money with a Side Hustle” doesn’t have a foreseeable expiration date. People are always going to be interested in earning extra money.
In order to make sure your content is evergreen:
Avoid using years and dates whenever you can, especially in the title, topic, and URL
Don’t focus on seasonal or short-term trending topics
Avoid news (it’ll be yesterday’s news in the blink of an eye)
Don’t use time-sensitive words and phrases such as “last year” or “a few weeks ago”
I recommend revisiting old content on a regular basis and giving it a refresh to make sure it’s still relevant with up-to-date information.
5. Write a Unique Meta Description
Everything within the article is important for search engine rankings, but don’t forget about the external content potential readers will see on the SERP before they click on your post – your title and meta description.
In less than 160 characters, counting spaces, you need to convince a reader that your article is worth reading.
ALWAYS write a unique meta description rather than leaving the default, which is the first 160 characters of your article.
I recommend using an impactful statistic in the meta description, but this comes with a disclaimer: you’ll need to update your meta descriptions regularly if you rely on dated statistics.
Use Content and SEO Together to Maximize Your Content Marketing Strategy
We’ve covered a lot of information, and yet, we barely scratched the surface of SEO and content.
Start with the tips I (and Google) outlined in this guide, and I promise your SEO content marketing strategy will be in a better place than it was before.
While content marketing itself doesn’t cost any money since we’re targeting free keywords in search engines, it is a major time commitment to do it right. Many companies are investing in hiring an expert copywriter, and it’s no surprise that content creation is the top outsourced activity.
Businesses need high-quality content that engages their audience, ranks with Google, and builds real trust.
Are you ready to invest in your SEO content marketing strategy with an expert copywriter? Check out the Content Shop to see our writing services and pricing.
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