If you’re not writing with SEO in mind when you create your blogs then then you’re losing valuable traffic to your website. It’s as simple as that.
Whenever you create content for your website (like a pillar web page or a blog post), you must consider search engine optimisation too. Content writing with SEO by creating content that focuses on a single topic, essentially a keyword phrase, helps you get found on search engines like Google.
For every page of content, there should only be one topic or target keyword phrase for that page. So if you have 10 topics or phrases you want to be found for, you should have at least 10 pages of content.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to use keywords for SEO the RIGHT way so you get the traffic, leads, and sales you need.
5 Top Tips for Writing with SEO Keywords
Keyword research is a crucial element of modern SEO. Whether you’re kick-starting an old blog or developing your content strategy for a new one; good quality keywords are one of the most efficient ways to attract consistent, quality traffic to your site.
So where do you start to write with SEO in mind?
#1: Do your keyword research
First you need a good keyword research tool that helps you find topic ideas that people are searching for on search engines like Google.
This helps you find content ideas that your customers are looking for. You can then plan your SEO content strategy to cover those topics in your blog posts. Here are my best keyword research tools that I use when I’m writing SEO content.
#2: Pick your primary and secondary keywords
After you have done your keyword research, look at your list of keywords and split it into two categories: primary and secondary. Your primary keywords are the main ones you want to rank for.
Your secondary keywords will be different versions of your primary keywords.
So for example the primary keyword of this article is ‘writing with SEO’ and here are a some of the secondary keywords:
seo content writing
How to write content with SEO in mind
writing SEO content
Write with seo
See, even now I’m writing with SEO in mind!
When you’re thinking about how to optimise a web page, you might be tempted to cram in your keyword as much as possible. Don’t. It’s important not to overuse the same exact keyword. That’s bad for SEO and tiresome to read.
Instead, focus on your primary keyword, generate 5 to 10 iterations of that keyword, and then sprinkle those throughout your page.
So if you’re writing SEO friendly articles you need to make sure each individual one is geared up for 1 primary keyword and a selection of secondary ones.
#3: Add punctuation to make a keyword work
Writing with SEO keywords can sometime seem awkward – adding some punctuation can make all the difference!
My understanding is that you can get away with adding or removing punctuation in keywords because the search engines don’t necessarily count them. So if you have a good keyword that doesn’t quite work then adding punctuation might make it work for you!
For example, if you had the term “vegan desserts recipes.” That’s a natural phrase. That’s how people talk. But if you had “vegan recipes desserts,” that’s not how we phrase things in English. It’s really awkward.
You can switch it to “vegan dessert recipes,” and hope that you’ll still get some SEO juice, which I think you probably would, though not as much. Or instead, figure out if you can insert some sort of punctuation, usually a hyphen or comma. “vegan recipes desserts” becomes “vegan recipes, desserts.”
Then you build a sentence around that, like “When it comes to vegan recipes, desserts are by far the hardest to make” It works, it still has your SEO keyword, but the comma in it makes sense.
The concept is to look at a strange keyword phrase, think how you can insert some punctuation, and then build a grammatically workable sentence around it. Nine times out of 10, there will be a way!
#4: Add keywords to your content naturally
This is really the most important–whatever you write has to make sense. It needs to flow naturally for the reader, not just be a bunch of words with lots of phrases stuck in that you think will do well with the search engines. That’s weird.
So how do you write well and still get the SEO keywords that you need into your copy?
I usually do this before writing. I look at my keywords and then try to think how I can naturally weave them into what I’m writing. It takes a little bit of practice.
But, if that will make you feel all tense when you’re writing, go ahead and write your first draft without worrying about the keywords. Then, go back and see where you could pop them in that makes sense. Kind of like editing keywords into your writing, instead of writing them in the first time.
#5: Add keywords to your content strategically
Once you have a final list of keywords, then you can use this information in lots of places in your content.
Using keywords to optimise your content is a whole other topic (you can read more in this article about where and how to use keywords for SEO), but you can get started here is a brief summary:
The SEO title and meta description of your page
The main heading on the page (H1 tag)
In the URL (web address for the page)
The introduction
The subheadings
The images and alt text
Within the copy
Within the anchor text for internal and external links
Measure, tweak and update if necessary
Last of all, don’t forget that you can go back and re-optimise your posts in a few months once the dust has settled. Give your content about 3 months before you decide to make any real changes, then go and see what keywords it’s ranking for and what’s gained traction, and optimise further from there.
If your post is ranking better for a secondary or additional keyword than the initial “primary keyword”, then switch your primary keyword for SEO!
Make small changes to optimise keywords and see if the results are favourable. Do this over and over again and you’ll have a really fine-tuned content marketing strategy on your hands.
SEO blog writing doesn’t need to be hard!
Writing with SEO in mind helps you earn organic traffic and bring qualified readers and potential customers to your website. Copywriting for SEO is easy if you follow the rules, so, bookmark this article ready for the next time you write a blog!
If you think you need some more help in this area then download my FREE SEO checklist, it’s the ultimate guide in showing you how to optimise your blog step by step.