SEO writing tips - Express Writers

SEO Writing in 2018: 6 Features of High-Ranking, High-Traffic Content

June 19, 2024March 27, 2018 by Adam Oakley

I’d bet you that SEO writing is on 99.99999% of marketers’ minds these days. Why? Well, in our current atmosphere of content shock, internet users are bombarded with a mountain of new SEO blogs and articles, each second. In SEO content and ALL brand content, you must stand out on every level to get read. On WordPress alone, over 86.4 million posts are published each month. Whoa! If you can’t position yourself advantageously for the search engines, you may as well throw the rest of your content marketing out the window. And, if you can’t get people to read your content, you will chuck any potential leads and sales into the trash, too. So, yes: SEO writing and all online content is a big deal, and we all want to know how to do it the best way. “What does SEO writing look like in 2018?” Someone recently asked this great question in my group: “I’ve done research, and I cannot seem to get a defined answer/list together. It’s about ‘SEO-Friendly’ Content/SEO Optimized Content. One SEO Consultant told me just yesterday blog posts should be more than 1k words, another last month said it was 750+. From a separate angle, one individual said I needed to have a keyword density of 5%, the other said 10% and someone else said to only use a keyword 5 times per 500 words of text! So, my question is to you all is this: What does SEO-friendly/optimized content look like in 2018, what does it mean to you to produce SEO Opt. content, and what are the ideal lengths of posts right now?” Thanks, Elizabeth Madison! Lining up with what Elizabeth said, you’ll see SEO guides all over the internet telling you different things to do. Every single marketer offers a different answer, and it’s all conflicting information. A prime example: blog length for SEO. What’s the right amount of words to appeal to the masses? Here are recommendations from various authority sources: Yoast says you should always post blogs with more than 300 words. They also say experienced writers should shoot for over 1,000 words with every post, while less experienced scribes can stay around the 700-800 mark. Meanwhile, HubSpot focused on research that says posts with an average 7-minute read time are the biggest attention-grabbers. If the average reader goes at a pace of 300 words per minute, that means your blogs should be 2,000-2,500 words in length. And then there’s Neil Patel, who makes post length recommendations based on industry. For instance, those in retail should aim for 1,500-1,700 words per post, while brands in finance should go for 2,100-2,500 words. With all the conflicting posts out there with various recommendations, it’s no wonder so many marketers are scratching their heads. What’s the right answer? First: There Is No Perfect, Definitive SEO Strategy It’s incorrect to assume there’s one “be-all, end-all” answer to doing SEO. Unfortunately, there isn’t one secret formula, one so-easy-it’s-stupid hack, or even one sure-fire, fail-safe method. If an SEO gives you what they say is the definitive answer, they’re completely ignoring a vital factor. SEO content that’s highly-ranked and high-traffic is complex and layered. It doesn’t fit one mold. Why isn’t there one perfect way to do SEO? Because SEO will always look different depending on the audience you’re serving. Your specific audience determines the keywords that will work for your content. They also determine the most successful length for your blog posts, the type of content that performs well, and how it all ties together. Your SEO is going to look different from Joe Shmoe’s because you are not keying into the same targets. THAT is why you can find so many different answers for SEO best practices all over the web. SEO is audience-specific! Second: Good SEO Writing Is Written for HUMANS So there’s no perfect SEO formula – it looks different for every individual situation, site, audience, and purpose. Now that we have that out of the way, the second thing to remember is SEO algorithms are built to work, think, and rank the way humans would. It’s truer than true. The ultimate goal is for algorithms to ape human logic. As they get smarter, they get closer to miming human cognition (though, thankfully, this isn’t The Matrix… yet). In fact, according to The Conversation, Google’s tech experts have been tapping neuroscientists to help them understand the human brain better. They want to apply that knowledge to the search algorithm. If it can search more like a human, then it will serve user search intent better. (There’s a reason they call it “RankBrain.”) We have to remember, ALWAYS, that Google’s purpose is to serve the end user the content they want – the stuff they want to click. We have to align ourselves with this thinking to perform better. We have to create human-centric content. Even though Google’s algorithm is a robot, we cannot write for the robot. We have to write for the humans the robot is trying to serve. 4 More SEO Writing Techniques That Will Help Your Content Rank Higher Let’s reiterate: There’s no perfect SEO method. Your best SEO practices must be yours: tailored to your audience’s search needs. You have to write content for humans, not machines. What other content features will not only make your people want to read it, but also help Google find it and serve it to them? Over the years, I’ve tested and published thousands of blogs. From my experience, I’ve come to these conclusions. You must: 1. Choose Keywords Carefully When you find the right keyword to use, your ranking potential skyrockets. You can’t just pick one at random, however. You have to evaluate each possible keyword and understand how it could (or couldn’t) work for you in your content. For example, most keyword tools rate the difficulty of a keyword on a scale from 1-100. (A score of 100 basically means the keyword is impossible to rank for.) I never … Read more

10 Great SEO Writing Tips To Help You Conquer & Rule the Content Castle

December 31, 2020August 23, 2016 by Adam Oakley

If content is King, who gets the other throne? While it’s easy to create content, it’s not easy to create stellar, highly sought-after content that readers can’t help but love. While this is bad news for most people, it’s great news for writers and marketers alike. The secret? You have to be willing to learn and adapt to great SEO writing tips. Think of it like royal decrees. These are the guidelines that will help you vanquish the dragons of poor form, and claim a rightful seat as the King or Queen of royal SEO content. Read on for the royal decrees. Defining the Art of SEO Writing SEO writing is the practice and art of writing online copy that is optimized for Google and other search engines. While this does mean doing technical things like including target keywords and ensuring that all links come from high-authority sites, it also means mastering stylistic things like spacing, format, layout, and content structure. As SEO has changed in the last several years, SEO copywriting has become more advanced, and today the practice is all about providing quality for people and search engines without sacrificing relevance, ease, or beauty. When optimized copywriting is done well, it can help a company draw readers to a page. This, in turn, results in higher numbers of leads and conversions, and can go a long way toward completely overhauling a company’s online success rates. 10 SEO Writing Tips for Conquering Content Now, time to learn our best tips for vanquishing and conquering your SEO content to be proclaimed triumphant ruler over your content empire. 1. Understand your subjects Any good ruler knows their subjects, and the same thing goes for SEO. To produce high-quality, relevant content, you need to understand who you’re writing to and why it matters. Case in point: the copywriting you do to market to teenagers will vary vastly from the kind you do to sell household products to retired middle-class women on a budget. With this in mind, understand your audience as thoroughly as possible. By researching your viewers, polling them for answers to questions, and developing outstanding target personas, it’s easy to build a solid foundation for good SEO copywriting. 2. Produce prodigious headlines If you can’t craft a royal headline, you can’t expect people to bow down to your writing. Because of this, it’s essential for any content queen or king to take the time needed to learn how to write compelling headlines. This includes things like learning to integrate target keywords, understanding how to use action language and power words, and learning about Google’s best technical standards for good headlines and meta titles. 3. Don’t be afraid to try someone else’s headline formats out Think about viral sites like Upworthy and Buzzfeed. What are they doing to garner thousands of clicks, likes, and shares each day? The answer is in the headline, and it’s okay to take a hint from their formula. Great headlines are very formulaic, and one of the best things you can do to boost your SEO copywriting success is to take a look at headlines you love, and then try to emulate them. 4. Include numbers in your copywriting People love numbers, and they have since the time of olde. Because numbers communicate things like brevity, solidity, and actionability to a would-be reader, they improve the click-through rates of your content. While numbers in and of themselves may not boost your content’s SEO, the increase in clicks and conversions that including numbers creates will. With this in mind, add numbers to your content headers to make the most of your readers’ views. While there are many ways to include numbers in copywriting headers, one of the most effective is in the form of lists. By providing 5 Simple Tips for X or 10 Ways to Y, you can help your readers learn something new, solve a problem, or address a concern, all while also boosting your conversion rates and making your content more irresistible than ever before. 5. Make long-tail keywords your friends rather than your foes Long-tail keywords are some of the most powerful SEO copywriting tools available. Ideal for ranking in Google, providing targeted value to readers, and tailoring your content to be as specific and unique as possible, long-tail keywords can help you rank, help you maintain your rankings, and help you draw new readers. With this in mind, don’t shy away from long-tails because they can be confusing to get started with. Instead, take the time to learn about why you need long-tail keywords, and how best to integrate them into your content. 6. Update your content kingdom often Nobody likes a stale, stinky content kingdom, and you’ll lose followers if you let yours get stagnant. While readers love fresh content, Google loves it even more, and publishing new website, blog, and social media content on a regular basis can go a long way toward helping you rank well and stand out as a leader in your industry. Every time you publish a new piece of SEO copywriting, you give Google another page to index and your followers another page to love. Plus, writing fresh content on a regular basis allows you to hone your writing skills, learn from SEO mistakes, and become a stronger force in the world of SEO copywriting as a whole. 7. Don’t neglect your meta content Meta content often lives on the outskirts of the content kingdom – forgotten and alone. When you learn how to craft outstanding meta content, though, you grant yourself admission into a new kingdom where everyone works together to create a prosperous and highly visible content strategy. With this in mind, bring your meta content in from the cold. While meta descriptions may take some additional time to write, there’s no denying that a compelling meta description is worth its weight in gold when it comes to encouraging clicks and driving engagement for your site. 8. Use images to draw royal attention Images are a fantastic way to draw additional views to your content and boost its position … Read more

20 Tips For Becoming An SEO Writing Superstar

June 19, 2024September 22, 2014 by Adam Oakley

They say that SEO writing is hard. They say there’s too much to learn. That, unless you really dedicate yourself, you’ll never make it. Plus, Google changes their algorithms so often that you’ll have to relearn everything anyhow, right? The truth is, the fundamentals of good SEO writing do not change. What it takes to write engaging copy that reaches your real readers and SEO rankings is completely learnable. And, while you’ll certainly need to put in the time and work to succeed, becoming an SEO writing superstar isn’t out of reach, especially if you’re already some kind of writing-slash-tech nerd. We’ve put together a list of 20 tips to help. 1. Keep Your Content Audience-Centric This is something that I talk about over and over again throughout my blog posts. And for good reason. Because if you’re not creating audience-centric content, it will be near impossible to become an SEO writing superstar. But, what exactly is audience-centric content? This visual provides a solid representation of what it is and isn’t: Image Source Hopefully you already have a pretty good idea of who your target audience is and what type of content they want. If you don’t, I strongly encourage you to develop a target persona so you can better identify and reach your audience. Takeaway: Identify your audience and ALWAYS create audience-centric content catered to what they want to hear about. 2. Target Long Tail Keywords Keywords obviously play a pivotal role in SEO success. But, as more and more content is being created, it’s becoming almost impossible to rank for common, one-word keywords. Fortunately, as long as you’re creating great content, there are still plenty of long-tail keywords that you can target and rank for. Want to know the best part? Long-tail keywords significantly outperform other keywords when it comes to conversion rates. As you begin performing keyword research for content, work to identify long-tail keywords that support the topics that your audience wants to hear about. While there are dozens of strategies you can use to find them, the below resources should give you a solid head start: Our Guide – Your Nutshell Guide: How to Find Killer SEO Keywords for Your Online Content Brian Dean – How to Find Long Tail Keywords Shout Me Loud – 6 Awesome Tools to Find Long-Tail Keywords in Any Niche Takeaway: Build your content around long-tail keywords that offer less competition and higher conversion rates. 3. Stick With Long Form In the world of SEO writing, quality trumps quantity. For this reason, it’s highly recommended that you stick with long form for most, if not all, of the articles you produce for your blog. Why? Well, the statistics show us why. Take a look at this study from serpIQ outlining the average content length of top ten results in Google: As you can see, the longer the content is, the better it performs in SERPs. And while we are recommending long form content, that doesn’t mean that you can just stuff your articles with fluff and expect strong results. You still need to create great content that’s well researched, well written, and that follows SEO best practices. In the end, when you’re making the decision to commit to long form, you’re also making the decision to commit to quality throughout. Takeaway: For best results in search engines, commit to producing well-researched long form articles. 4. Make a Plan As Benjamin Franklin once said: “By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.” And while Franklin probably wasn’t talking about SEO writing when he said this, it certainly holds true with content creation. Planning in content creation essentially comes down to doing proper research and putting together a strong outline. And while that may sound time consuming, it doesn’t have to be. For a great resource on how to do this, check out CoSchedule’s post outlining the 10-Minute, 10-Step Solution for the Best Blog Outline. Not only does their article lay out everything you need to create an outline, but it also shows you how to do it in the most efficient way possible. Takeaway: Develop an efficient process for creating strong outlines. 5. Get Good at Research To become truly great at SEO writing, you need to get good at research. Gary Bencivenga, a legendary copywriter with over 40 years experience, said that understanding the importance of research changed his career. As he went on to say: “It took me a while to realize that the best writers are the most tenacious researchers. Like miners, they dig, drill, dynamite, and chip until they have carloads of valuable ore. John Caples advised me once to gather seven times more interesting information than I could possibly use.” While I’m not advising that you spend ten hours researching for your next blog post, gathering as much information as possible is going to put you in the optimal position to create the best available content on your topic. And, if you’re looking to become an SEO writing superstar, that should be your goal. While searching via Google has made research a fairly fast and pain-free process, here’s a few other resources that could help: Google Scholar Books on the Topic Expert Interviews Industry Specific Magazines Takeaway: Commit to consistently developing your research skills and understand that research is key to any great piece of content. 6. Study the Competition As I mentioned in the last section, if you want to become an SEO writing superstar, your goal should be to create the best piece of content available on the topic you’re writing about. To do that, you have study the competition and find out what’s already out there. Fortunately, Google makes this process easy. Let’s say, for example, that I wanted to create a blog post about ‘how to create an about page’. When I type that into Google, the results look like this: From here, I’ll sift through and take notes on each article on the first page of the rankings to … Read more

10 SEO Writing Mistakes That Will Hurt Your Rankings

December 31, 2020May 26, 2014 by Adam Oakley

These days, webmasters have to invest a considerable amount of time, money and energy in the right optimization tactics to stay in Google’s good graces, including correct SEO writing. If this is your case, good news – we’ve got some useful information for you to share in this blog. The bad news is that you cannot count on a one-size-fits all search engine optimization (SEO) plan allowing you to improve their rankings. Don’t be discouraged though. The good news is that practice does make perfect in this case, without too much blood, sweat and tears. What Can Hurt Your SEO Writing Rankings Once you agree to play by the book and ditch black hat SEO tactics in SEO writing and all SEO you do, you can easily avoid some of the most common optimization pitfalls. Here are 10 major mistakes that could hurt your rankings and get your website in serious trouble, forcing you to crack open your piggybank to correct your wrongdoings. 1) Posting Duplicate Content on Your Website. Duplicate SEO writing will never do you any favors. As tempting as it may seem to save some time and money by stealing someone else’s intellectual property, don’t go down this road. Duplicate content is dangerous for a number of reasons: It exposes you to major penalties from search engines. In case you didn’t know Penguin 2.0, Google’s much-feared algorithm change was rolled out to target duplicate content, identify unethical SEO tactics and remove offending websites. It disappoints your readers, making them land on your competitors’ websites. Posting duplicate content is like telling your audience how awesome your main rivals are. Your competitors will most likely send you flowers for this. Just take a minute to think about it: what does duplicate content say about you, your company, or your aspirations, vision and purpose in business? Absolutely nothing! This is precisely why instead of copy pasting meaningless, unoriginal web content, webmasters should turn to personalized, compelling, relevant, user-oriented web writing that ensures a flawless user experience and also helps the website rank higher in search engine results. 2) Relying on Keyword Stuffing. Keyword stuffing is so yesterday. None of the competitive players in your niche are doing it anymore, so why would you? Long gone are the days when you could stuff your texts with dozens of keywords and get away with it. At this point, according to Search Engine Journal, first-class, Google-friendly web writing should display a perfect balance between everyday language and keyword usage. So this leads us to a very pressing question: how much is too much, when it comes to keywords? Unfortunately, there is no mathematical formula that you can apply to get a precise answer to this question. The experts at Moz have weighed in to say the keyword density would be a waste of time. Here’s a simple solution for you: read your text aloud: if it doesn’t sound right, then it probably isn’t. If what you are reading makes sense and flows naturally, chances are that Google will also appreciate your optimization efforts. When in doubt, you can always use one of the many keyword density analyzer tools available online to assess the quality of your writing. 3) Posting or Approving Spam Comments. Some business owners prefer to take the easy way out when it comes to implementing on-page and off-page optimization tactics. The road to SEO writing hell is often paved with good intentions and ignorance. Those who pay third-parties a certain amount of money to spam different websites by posting comments accompanied by a link to their webpage seldom attain their end goal. This technique is very annoying and less effective than you may be inclined to think. It will inevitably affect your brand, making you seem desperate. We all have to start somewhere, but do you really think that multimillion dollar companies managed to reach their target by posting spam comments on other people’s websites? If the recipe for success would be so simple and so transparent, everybody would be following it to get rich and famous overnight. Unfortunately, this is not how it works. Also, according to Entrepreneur, you have to be very careful when it comes to approving comments posted on your website or blog. Keep only the ones that provide real value to your customers and ditch the rest. This is the safest method to protect your image, discourage spammy SEO writing practices employed by others and show the uttermost respect for your readers. If you want to safeguard your website from spam comments that may compromise your reputation, just follow Google’s set of guidelines. 4) Investing in Irrelevant, Low-Quality Content. Google strives to ensure a more than satisfactory navigation experience for all Internet users. This means that it values high-quality content and compels webmasters to improve web writing that doesn’t meet its standards. If you’re willing to cut corners when it comes to crafting new content, you may want to reconsider, since Google is not the biggest fan of quality compromises. Before writing a new blog post or on-site content, make sure you: Have an in-depth knowledge of the topic that you plan to expand on Conduct a keyword analysis to discover the most popular queries around which you will build your content Are familiar with the particularities of your niche, business and audience and can actually respond to your visitors’ needs and demands. 5) Not Investing in Content (At All!). Sometimes,lack of drive can be much more dangerous than a misguided action. The history of your company is not going to write itself. If you can agree upon this fact, then you can also reach the conclusion that lack of content won’t say too much about who you really are and where you’re heading. Your visitors are craving for premium, informative, problem-solving content; so what exactly are you doing at this point to address their needs and demands? Well-focused, reader-oriented content gives your audience a good reason to listen to what you have to … Read more