Having your own website can feel overwhelming at times. There are many aspects of a website that may feel challenging to learn, even if you are a seasoned veteran in the digital space. If you have your own website, you may have heard of SEO writing and that it can help your website immensely. But, what is SEO writing and how can it affect your website? This SEO writing for beginners guide will help you navigate through the core concepts of SEO, tips for how to become an SEO writer, and other helpful tips and tricks for success.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. What this means is that a search engine, primarily Google, is put at the forefront when it comes to quality and quantity of any content on your website. There are many different aspects that go into SEO and all of them could affect how your website ranks. When a user enters in a search query, they are shown a list of results. This is what is referred to as the search engine results page. The goal of SEO is to allow a website or web page to rank higher on the search engine results page. However, this algorithm that determines these rankings is ever changing. But, there are some good practices that you can implement to consistently enhance your SEO.
FACTS: 60% of marketers say that inbound (SEO, blog content, etc) is their highest quality source of leads. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate. (HubSpot)
What Goes Into SEO?
SEO is composed of several different parts. How your website or web page can rank depends on these different parts, as well as how they affect each other. Although SEO may seem complicated at first, breaking it down into these unique parts can help it seem more manageable and easier to accomplish. An important rule of thumb to keep in mind is that quality is always more important than quantity.
Quality Content
One of the most important aspects that goes into search engine optimization is quality content. Content can be in the form of blog posts, service pages, and landing pages. Creating content gives you a means of connecting with your audience and a way to build a foundation of trust with your audience. When creating content, it is important that you place quality above quantity. This is both beneficial for building a foundation with your audience and for ranking higher in search engines. This is because inaccurate content or content filled with spam can lead a search engine to deem that website or web page untrustworthy.
Similarly, users who stumble upon the page are unlikely to stay for too long or return to your website. Instead, focus on topics that would appeal to your ideal audience and try to provide them with answers to common questions they may have in the form of helpful content.
Usability
How well does your website work? If you notice glitches, videos not working, or text not showing up properly, chances are your usability is pretty low. This can affect how users view your web pages and your website overall. They may not be able to navigate to certain pages or even make a purchase. To make matters worse, they may not even decide to stay on your website at all. Afterall, first impressions are everything. In order to make sure you have proper usability, you will want to make sure you have a fast loading time, all extensions work properly, and that every aspect of your website is in working order. Keep in mind that usability can change over time, so it is important to check it often. One way you can check it is with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. This information can help you know when users are actually able to see your content:
(Image Credit: Thrive Business Marketing)
Website Reputation
Google will take into account the reputation of your website, including reviews that are associated with your website. User interaction, which includes traffic and how often a user interacts will also play a role into website reputation. If you are providing your audience with blog post after blog post that is highlighting the same points, your reputation over time is likely to go down. You will begin to lose trust with your audience and you may rank lower on the search engine results page. Eliminating spam will help you to build up your reputation, as well as including well researched information for your audience. Before we can answer, “what is SEO writing content”, you must first understand what organic traffic is. If you need help tracking your reputation and user interactions consider using Google Analytics. They have a users overview, for example:
(Image Credit: Google)
What is Organic Traffic?
Organic search traffic is when traffic is garnered through effective SEO practices versus paid avenues. While paid avenues can prove to be effective, SEO practices are generally regarded as being more long term solutions. Paid ads generally are put at the top of the search engine results pages before the organic search. These posts may have a tag that says, “sponsored”, which will be above the post. The post may also have a highlighted title tag in the search engine results page. However, paid ads are not necessary to boost your traffic. Effective SEO writing can lead to a boost in search engine result rankings and therefore boost organic traffic all on its own. If you want to track the sources of your web traffic you can use Google Analytics. In this example notice how organic traffic is up top and paid searches are on the bottom:
(Image Credit: MonsterInsights)
What is SEO Writing?
What is SEO writing content? SEO writing is taking the best practices of search engine optimization and applying them to writing content. This content could be used for service pages, home pages, contact pages, and blog posts. Anywhere that has text on your website can benefit from SEO writing. In order to be a well-balanced SEO writer, there are some more things that you will need to know. Below, you will learn how to become an SEO writer with this SEO writing tips.
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Why is SEO Writing Important?
Most online traffic is generated through organic traffic through the means of proper search engine optimization implementation. Optimizing your website not only increases how your website performs and increases trust with your audience, it also can prove to be effective as a long term plan for success. The information and content that you provide appropriately will allow your website and web page to be indexed properly, making it available to your ideal audience. Many pieces of content will be available, unless deleted, for your audience as long as you would like. This means that long after the posting date, users can still find your content and your website.
Know Your Website’s Goals
One of the most important things you can do when learning how to become an SEO writer is to identify the website’s goals. Where do you see the website in two weeks? Where do you see the website in two years? Both short term and long term goals are things that you will want to identify and write down. Although these goals may be more vague, you will also want to identify more specific goals for your website. This may be expanding your reach, narrowing down your demographic, or boosting your conversion rate. This roadmap you are creating will help guide you with your writing.
Search Intent
After you have narrowed down some key factors about your website, it is important to understand search intent. Search intent is what a user wants to gain from making a search query. A search query is what a user will enter into the search box. Typically, a user will want to either find information, do something, find a website, or go somewhere in person. Discovering the user’s intent goes hand-in-hand with keywords. Keywords are words that a user may use when typing up a search query that relates to your website. For instance, a user may search for shirts. In the results page, a user will be shown many options to purchase a shirt. This is because users that generally search for shirts are looking to purchase one. For instance:
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Keyword Research
Keyword research takes time and a great deal of planning in order to get it right. Although many tend to overlook this crucial planning phase, it is important to take your time and research properly. You may know which words you want to rank for on the search engine results page, but that is not the only thing to keep in mind. You will want to put your audience at the forefront and recognize whether or not those are the same keywords that your audience will be looking for. This will prove to allow you to get more conversions than if you were to disregard your audience.
In order to get to know your audience a little better to find the right keywords, you will want to ask certain questions. Let’s go back to our “shirts” example. You will want to ask yourself how you can give your audience the best content about shirts and answer their questions that they have about shirts. Why would someone want a shirt? Where are the people’s locations who would buy your shirts? Who wants these shirts? What types of shirts are these people looking for? The answers to these questions will help to point you in the right direction on which keywords you should be targeting. You can also use one of the many keyword research tools available online. For example:
(Image Credit: WordStream)
Did you know? 13.53% of keywords with ten searches per month or fewer consist of only one or two words. Around 8% of search queries are phrased as questions. (Ahrefs)
Tips For Finding Your Audience
Every website is going to have a unique audience. However, these audiences could share similarities. One of the key questions someone may ask if they are learning SEO writing for beginners is how to find their audience. Finding your audience is the first step to connecting with that audience, building a foundation, and increasing your conversion rates. If you do not manage to connect with your ideal audience, then you are likely to see your rankings and conversion rates suffer.
Research The Competition
It is important to remember that copying your competition is not a thoughtful strategy for the long run and is unlikely to pan out in the way you would hope. Copying can lead to mistrust between you and your audience, as well as bonds within the industry being broken. However, your competition can provide you with lots of useful information when it comes to finding out who your ideal audience is. Look at your competition’s most interacted with posts, whether they are on social media or on their website. This will give you clues to who is following them and interested in their information, services, or products. This is also a great way to view which types of ways to present information to that audience works best, as you will be able to see interactions with those posts. Another way to find your competitors is through competitor research tools such as SpyFu, for instance:
Interact With Your Audience
One of the best ways of getting to know your audience and who you want to target is by interacting with the audience that you currently have. Interacting with your audience will tell you right away what type of content your audience gravitates towards and which content they ignore or do not want to comment on. This can assist you in creating content in the future that your audience will enjoy, which will help you to grow your audience.
Extra SEO Writing Tips
It is important to remember that when it comes to SEO, algorithms are constantly changing. This can make it difficult, and even frustrating for website owners that do not have a following already built up. Each website has started from scratch and it is possible to build up the audience that you want. However, one of the most important things to remember is that SEO takes time and is a long term plan for the success of your website. You are unlikely to see results overnight. You might not even start seeing steady results until months after you start your plan. This also depends on what goals you have set for yourself.
Set reasonable and achievable goals, but do not be afraid to test your limits. Of course, you are not going to surpass a million clicks on your link overnight. That is just not a realistic goal and setting goals such as that one can leave a website owner feelings burnt out or defeated. Instead, set goals for yourself that are achievable and do not beat yourself up if you do not meet those goals. SEO is a tactic that allows you to tweak and refine your plan, allowing you to grow with each bump in the road that you face. Simply put, use your setbacks as a learning experience to better hone your SEO.
How to Find SEO Writing Jobs
If you are looking for SEO writing jobs, there are a few places that you can find them. However, these writing jobs may be difficult to find, especially if you are a beginner. Generally speaking, most website owners and businesses will be looking for writers that have experience. But, that is not to say that you do not have another way to land the job. Writing up mock SEO articles can still help you show the company or website owner your worth as an SEO writer. So, where should you look?
Start Your Own Business
If you are interested to pursue a career in SEO writing, then it is important that you establish yourself in the local community. Before you begin pitching your services, you will want to ensure that you have refined your resume and examples of your writing. Getting into contact with the owner of a business may prove to be a challenge. It is important to find a professional email address to contact for that business versus just a general email. Addressing the owner by their name in the email is also helpful. Take care to make sure that the owner knows that you’ve done your research on the business and are wanting to work together. Starting your own business can come with unique challenges and pitfalls. As always, you will need to follow your state regulations when it comes to owning and operating your own business.
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Get Hired by An Agency
Agency work can provide you with more consistent work than attempting to obtain clients on your own. While this is not always the case, it generally provides SEO writers with more security. An agency may or may not hire you as an employee. Instead, they may take you on as an independent contractor. This means they do not need to provide you with benefits and you will need to sign a contract. Finding an agency can sometimes be tricky. However, searching for some in your local area is generally a good place to start. Many places may also offer remote opportunities, so it doesn’t hurt to search outside of where you are located.
Diib®: Get Your Current SEO Writing Metrics Here
SEO writing can feel challenging and even daunting at first, especially for beginners. However, once you break down SEO it will be easier to understand. From there, you can begin implementing SEO best practices to advance your writing. Diib Digital can give you every metric you need to see the success of your SEO writing campaign. Here are the features that set us apart from the competition:
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FAQ’s
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of organic traffic to your website by optimizing content and images.
Keywords are topics that describe what your content is all about. In SEO, they are words that a user types into the search bar. Pages are displayed according to their relevance to the searched keyword.
According to our growth experts, it will usually take 3-6 months to see ranking improvement through SEO techniques. This, of course, is dependent on the industry and popularity of your keywords.
Keywords need to be used naturally in your writing and the writing should be relevant to your business. Avoid keyword stuffing which could be penalized by Google. Google uses keywords to determine the order of pages on SERPs.
Use one main keyword then choose 4-5 secondary keywords that support and are relevant to your main keyword. Try to choose words that will distinguish your website from the crowd.