In today’s fast-moving digital age, websites strive for top ranks and visibility in search engines through their content and the look and feel of their websites. As beautiful and intuitive as your website is, the beautiful images and intuitive user interfaces only go so far today.
Writing high-quality content is more important than ever to engage and resonate with users as well as search engines. This is where SEO content writing comes in. Within the following post we will explore everything about SEO writing, explaining what it is, why it is so important, and exactly how to do it.
What is SEO Content Writing?
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a certain form of writing that enables websites to become more visible to major search engines such as Google, Yandex, and Bing. SEO-optimised content is not only engaging for the reader but also includes specific details and keywords that will help your website move up in the search rankings.
Essentially, SEO content writing seeks to find that delicate balance between including specific keywords and header tags where search engines expect them while also making sure that the content is still exciting to read and valuable to the reader.
When it comes down to it, the point of SEO writing is to move up in the search rankings and drive more traffic to your website. It does this by ensuring that your website is filled with the right kinds of phrases and words.
SEO writing doesn’t just mean keyword stuffing. Where you put these keywords is just as important. Your content must be informative and useful to users to ensure they follow your path down the buyer’s cycle. This means everything from well-written and engaging web pages to blog posts that answer user queries and help them solve their problems.
Why is Content Writing for SEO So Important?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) writing is crucial for many reasons, especially in the digital age, where online visibility can make or break businesses. Here are some key reasons why SEO writing is essential.
Visibility & Traffic
In today’s digital age, where the internet is flooded with millions of websites, SEO writing is how brands increase visibility. With billions of searches conducted daily, appearing at the top of SERPs is the only way to attract organic traffic.
User Intent & Engagement
SEO writing aligns content with user intent. By knowing what users are looking for, writers are able to create content that directly addresses their needs and interests, which results in better engagement, longer dwell times on your site, and increased chances of conversions.
Establishing Authority & Trust
With high-quality SEO content, a brand is able to establish authority within the industry or niche. A website that provides users with valuable information on a regular basis gains their trust, and in turn, they will be loyal to that site, visit repeatedly, and share your content with others.
Adaptation to Search Engine Algorithms
Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, and thus, content writing for SEO ensures that the content remains visible and relevant. Visibility is an essential aspect of SEO, as the more frequently a website appears in search results, the more traffic it will receive. By following best practices, businesses can maintain their ranking position and continue to attract organic traffic from search engines.
Mobile & Local Optimisation
As mobile continues to take over, it is a fair assumption that local search has become a fundamental component of your marketing strategy. 76% of smartphone searches resulted in a visit to a nearby business within just 24 hours. In addition, 28% of mobile searches result in a purchase.
To make it easier for brick-and-mortar businesses to position themselves to benefit, SEO writing includes optimising with local keywords and geo-specific phrases so that the business’s information is at the forefront of local searches.
Cost-Effective Marketing
Compared to traditional marketing and advertising methods, SEO writing ensures a business reaches a larger, more relevant audience for a fraction of the cost. This means that once content is published and optimised, it will continue to attract organic traffic. This approach eliminates the need to continualy pay for each individual user acquired through PPC (Pay Per Click) ads.
Adaptation to User Behavior
Online user behaviour constantly shifts, particularly in search trends and, subsequently, voice search and user preferences. Whether it’s a shift in user techniques or devices, SEO writing can help you adopt such shifts, meaning that organic traffic will still go to your site.
Competitive Advantage
Content Writing for SEO offers brands a competitive edge. Websites that have access to a star-studded group of SEO specialists, brand marketers, product visionaries, user experience professionals, writers, and developers have a competitive advantage.
SEO-informed content will outperform content without a strategy behind it, any day of the week. For example, when the competition is soaring towards your target audience and their needs, you need to hold your position, and that’s only possible through aggressive SEO writing and content creation.
Long-term Growth & Sustainability
One key benefit of SEO writing is the long-term growth and sustainability it can provide for a website. When a website consistently publishes optimised content, it can build a strong online presence, become a leader in its industry, and enjoy steady organic traffic for years to come.
Enhanced User Experience
The user experience is a big component of SEO writing. Search engines consider factors like page content relevance, authority, authenticity, and overall readability of the text when they rank websites. When a site’s content is optimised to include all of these elements, it ultimately enhances the user experience, resulting in lower bounce rates, higher user satisfaction, and, ultimately, higher rankings.
Content Writing for SEO vs. Traditional Content Writing
SEO and traditional content writing are both focused on creating content for a specific audience. However, the primary focus is fundamentally different in almost every way. Take a look at this information for insight.
Focus & Purpose
Content writing is focused on creating engaging, informative, and valuable content for a specific audience. Its main purpose is to inform, interest, entertain, or persuade the audience and help them meet their needs. And it’s the same for SEO writing, but here’s how SEO and traditional writing differ in this context.
SEO Content Writing
SEO content writing is focused on grabbing the attention of search engines by using specific, targeted keywords or phrases and using these words in a certain way so they are easier for search engines to identify. Although there is still a big emphasis on making the content engaging for the reader.
Traditional Content Writing
Traditional content writing is generally focused towards humans only. It includes news, reviews, books, and magazines. The point of traditional writing is to tell the audience as if you were talking to them. The main purpose and goal of traditional content writing is to engage only.
Audience & Targeting
Writing for readers is crucial in content writing. It allows the writer to locate the audience and stand out in front of them. It also encourages discussions, making the site more authoritative.
SEO Content Writing
In SEO content writing, the audience is both the reader and the search engine. Writers aim to create content that relates to the interests and needs of the target audience with strategically placed keywords and phrases that the user is likely to use in a search. The goal is to bring organic traffic to the page and increase search engine rankings.
Traditional Content Writing
Traditional content writing speaks to the reader first. The focus is crafting content that engages, informs, or entertains the audience without needing to appeal to search engine algorithms. Writers are looking to connect with readers on an emotional or intellectual level and are able to focus on more creative and unique storytelling aspects.
Structure & Formatting
Structure and formatting relate to the organisation of information. These are a great differentiator between traditional and SEO writing.
SEO Content Writing
SEO content follows a structured format that includes keyword optimisation in key areas such as titles, headings, meta tags, and throughout the body of the content. Writers focus on readability, using subheaders, bulleted lists, and short, concise paragraphs to improve the user experience. This layout makes the content easily scanned by both users and search engines.
Traditional Content Writing
Conventional content writing allows for more flexibility in structure and formatting. Writers can experiment with different styles, tones, and lengths based on the message they are trying to get across as well as the preferences of the audience. Readability is also important, though the focus is placed more on creativity and flow to engage the reader through compelling storytelling. There’s more flexibility when it comes to layout here and readability can vary depending on your audience.
Keyword Usage & Density
Keyword usage and density within writing styles include the frequency of relevant words to aim at specific searches in Google.
SEO Content Writing
Keywords are immensely important in SEO content writing. Writers begin with keyword research to determine what important terms and phrases users are looking for. That information is then worked into content strategically in headlines, section headers, the introduction, and the conclusion. The result is that the content is fully optimised for major keywords. However, with the recent Google algorithm updates, content helpfulness and readability for readers is extremely important.
Traditional Content Writing
While keywords might be used naturally within traditional content writing, this is not a strategy writers need to consider. Traditional copy’s main goal is simply to provide some sort of value to readers. Thus, it’s not concerned with keywords, their placement, and frequency.
Metrics & Analysis
Metrics and analysis refer to the tracking of performance indicators such as website traffic, engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversions within writing styles.
SEO Content Writing
In SEO content writing, relevant metrics are tracked and evaluated. These can include markers like organic traffic, click-through rates, bounce rates, and keyword rankings. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or Ahrefs let writers monitor how their content is performing and what changes they can make to their strategy to achieve better results.
Traditional Content Writing
Traditional content writing may also benefit from analytical tools, but the primary means for evaluating content may be qualitative feedback from the readers themselves. This feedback might include metrics like reader engagement, comments, social shares, or the effect of the content on the audience at large.
The Importance Of User Intent in Content Writing for SEO
User intent, within the context of SEO writing, refers to the basic goal or objective behind a user typing a given query into a search engine. It’s parsing out what users were actually aiming to find with their search and then making your content align with and fulfil that intention. Generally speaking, there are 9 basic search intent categories:
- Informational Intent: Users looking to find information or answers to questions.
- Navigational Intent: Users are looking to find a particular webpage or a particular website.
- Transactional Intent: Users intend to complete some action, often spending money.
- Investigational Intent: Users looking for information to help them buy something in the future, or what most of us call “research”.
- Local Intent: Users looking to find specific types of businesses or services in a specified
geographical vicinity.
- Brand Intent: Users are looking for a specific brand or a specific branded product.
- Long-Tail Keyword Intent: Users are asking very detailed or specific questions.
- Problem-Solution Intent: Users looking to find solutions to a problem.
- Educational Intent: Users looking to find in-depth knowledge or to learn a subject.
To break things down further, if somebody types “best coffee shops near me” — it’s local intent. As they’re looking for coffee shops in their area.
In contrast, if somebody searches “how to change a tyre,” it seems like their intent is fairly informational — they would probably like a discrete series of progressive instructions to help them get from flat to road-ready.
As you should be able to see by now, understanding user intent extends far beyond just keywords. It requires a genuine attempt to put yourself in the shoes of the searcher and to try to understand what they want to know, even when it’s indirect.
Looking at user intent allows SEO writers to produce content that’s more relevant and useful to the needs of the end user. This, in turn, delivers a better user experience and generally enhances the likelihood that it will rise the Google ranks and return as the answer to a given search query.
The Impact of Content Length on SEO
Content length is one of the biggest factors that often gets neglected. As per recent studies, longer content gets higher rankings on search engines. But it’s not just about writing longer articles. Each topic is different and requires a different approach to explain fully.
For instance, if someone is searching for how to boil an egg and you serve them with a 5000 word article, that for sure won’t rank, as Google will prefer a 300 word article that quickly answers the user’s query.
On the other hand, if a user is looking for a comprehensive report on global warming and its impact on future generations, now you can start from the beginning of time and go into great detail. As for this search, Google will prefer to serve the user with as much information as possible.
So, does content length matter in SEO content writing? Yes, it does, for sure. Is there a set number of words you can write and magically appear on the first spot on Google? Well, unfortunately, no. As a general rule of thumb, articles above 1500 words tend to rank best. But you have to keep the topic in mind. Try to understand the user’s search intent and write to answer their query comprehensively, whether it takes 100 words or 10,000.
How do Search Engines Work & Rank Content?
Search engines act as gatekeepers to the internet’s vast treasury of knowledge, functioning as incredibly complex information retrieval systems that are built to provide users with the most relevant results. This involves three crucial actions: crawling, indexing, and ranking.
Crawling
During the process of crawling, software agents known as “web crawlers” or “spiders” navigate the web by following hyperlinks from one webpage to another, continually scouring new web pages and revisiting existing ones to spot any changes. This continuous exploration guarantees that the search engine’s database remains an up-to-date version of the internet as possible.
Indexing
When crawlers stumble on a webpage, the search engine’s organisational framework comes into play through a process called “indexing”. Crucial information, including text, code structure, and metadata (including alt tags and meta descriptions, which are hidden tags that describe the content of the page to search engines), gets pulled out of the webpage via an operation called “parsing”.
Each part is then stored in a distributed database called the “index.” The index is essentially a book catalogue containing a duplicate of every webpage that the search engine has found.
Ranking
Once this database has been completed, the actual delivery of search results can take place through ranking. In essence, this is the important stage to ensure that the most relevant search results are delivered.
Crucially, this involves a series of incredibly complex algorithms, which are designed to automatically sift through the index in response to a user’s query. They do so by taking into account countless ranking factors, including some of the most important ones such as:
- Relevance: The relevance of the content on a given webpage to the specific search.
- Quality: The quality and expertise of a website about a specific topic.
- User experience: This covers several factors: page loading time, mobile friendliness, website security, and so on.
- Freshness: This is about determining whether you’re brand new to the scene or if you’re regularly updating your site with up-to-date information.
- Location: For geo-specific searches, location plays a huge part.
Search engines have always been cagey about revealing the factors that go into their ranking algorithms, but in the past couple of years, they have started to become more transparent. From what we know, there are over 200 ranking factors for Google!
Keyword Research & Planning
Keyword research involves discerning the exact words and phrases (a.k.a. keywords) users type into search engines to find information, products, or services related to a particular topic.
It’s a fundamental part of any search engine optimisation (SEO) and content marketing strategy, as it tells businesses what their target audience is in search of and how to create content that meets that need.
Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research tools are important because they give insight into what people are looking for online. They offer search volume data and show how competitive a keyword is.
They also offer suggestions for related keywords. The best keyword research tool for your business will depend on your needs; some of the most popular ones include:
- Google Keyword Planner: This free tool by Google provides search volumes, competition levels, and keyword suggestions based on a phrase you submit.
- SEMrush: Although referred to as an all-in-one SEO tool, SEMrush has powerful keyword research features as well as competitive analysis.
- Ahrefs: Most famous for backlink analysis, Ahrefs is also known for a comprehensive set of keyword tools.
- Ubersuggest: This free tool by Neil Patel provides keyword suggestions, search volume data, and competition data. The free version only allows 3 searches per day, but you can sign up for only $12 (around £9) a month.
Step-by-Step Guide to Keyword Research
Here’s a step-by-step guide to complete keyword research yourself.
Define your goals
What do you want your content to achieve? Brand awareness, lead generation, sales? Your keyword strategy will look different depending on your goals. If you’re looking to sell a product, you’ll want to create informational guides to guide customers through the customer journey.
Understand Your Audience
Do your market research to learn your audience’s preferences, pain points, and interests. This information should help guide your keyword research, which should aim to find keywords that your audience will be attracted to.
Compile a Seed List
Again, as part of your market research, find the topics that are most relevant to your target audience. Read up on your buyer personas and consult with your salespeople to compile an initial list of seed keywords to profile and target for content.
Use Keyword Research Tools
There are lots of tools available to flesh out your seed list, providing key descriptive words, content topics, and search queries. Look at metrics such as monthly average searches, keyword difficulty (KD — how hard it is to rank for the keyword), and search trends.
Analyse Search Volume
Looking at the search volume will give you an immediate sense of keywords that people are interested in, but be careful of keywords that are highly searched, as they may indicate levels of competition that might be too much for you initially.
Assess Keyword Difficulty (KD)
Look at the keyword difficulty rating to gauge the competition. Depending on your website’s authority, try to make sure you have a mix of low, medium, and high KD keywords. If you are a beginner or have low domain authority, you probably don’t want to try ranking for high KD keywords to start with.
Explore long-tail keywords
Finding long-tail keywords is important in keyword research because they will be as relevant to your content but not as competitive as more general terms. Long-tail keywords are typically three- to four-word phrases that are very specific to what you are selling. This is important because these key phrases are more targeted, so they generally have a higher conversion rate. However, traffic to these are often much lower.
Tools like Quora and AnswerThePublic can help you generate long-tail ideas by showing a visual representation of questions and phrases related to a keyword. This makes it easy to see different long-tail variations and brainstorm a content strategy around them.
Another great tool for finding long-tail keywords is Google Autocomplete. Google will start suggesting searches for you when you start to type into the search bar. These suggestions are usually long-tail keywords that are based on popular searches, so adding them to your list can give you great insights into the phrases your audience is commonly searching for.
Consider User Intent
As stated before, it’s crucial to assess what user intent is when searching for a specific keyword.
If a keyword turns into rich snippets, serves up video results, includes site links, and has other features, you can add content to target these specific Google SERP snippets.
Check Seasonality & Trends
Search for keywords that exhibit steady interest all year, unless you’re creating a seasonal marketing strategy. In that case, you’ll want in-period keywords.
Tools such as Google Trends can give you insights into how your keyword might be looked for over time. This can help you choose short and long keywords. As always, long keywords are more specific and have a lower search volume, but short keywords have a higher search volume.
Assess Competitor Strategies
It’s important to analyse your competition’s domain authority—in other words, where you rank compared to other sites. If you emerge at the top of their list for a keyword search, this indicates the potential strength of your website.
Analysing keyword competition starts with using a keyword matrix. A keyword matrix is a valuable tool for grouping and ranking keywords to analyse their competition within an industry. This is also known as keyword clustering.
Here’s how you can create a competition matrix for keyword research:
- Identify the top competitors within your industry and compile a list of relevant keywords.
- Rank the keywords you come up with; this includes short-tail and long-tail keyword variations.
- Collect various data from Google Keyword Planner, specifically search volume and competition.
- Construct a spreadsheet to house the keywords, with competitors along the columns and keywords
along the rows. Label the columns with competitors and rank the rows with the keywords.
- Assign rankings to the keywords based on the data collected from Google Keyword Planner.
- Fill in the columns with PPC or organic search results from your keyword list in AdGooroo. To get the most accurate volumes possible, it’s best to obtain PPC/paid search data reports and organic/SEO data reports. This also allows you to incorporate local or trending keywords.
Lastly, identify the patterns within the matrix. This includes what the top players are ranking and spending their money to start building from there. Leverage the strengths, address the weaknesses, exploit the opportunities, and mitigate the threats.
Evaluate Earning Potential
Are your keywords expected to earn revenue? Commercial keywords like “buy,” “discount,” and “best deals” are clearly relevant to advertisers who want to reach customers who are poised to spend.
Review Metrics Like Ahrefs Clicks
Metrics such as Ahrefs Clicks offer concrete data that can demonstrate whether a keyword results in user engagement. Good search volume and a high click rate are important.
Refine & Prioritise
Make your shortlist using a mix of metrics and the relevance these keywords have for your business. Once you’ve trimmed your list of keywords, think about what balance you’d most like to strike. Between traffic numbers and potential for engagement? Between competition and search volume? Between a website and localised leads?
Create a Keyword Mapping Plan
You can begin by laying out individual keywords in relation to their page. This will make certain that each keyword your business employs is designed to make a real impact on potential customers.
Monitor & Adapt
Remember that your analysis of keywords is an ongoing process. As user trends shift, newer keywords emerge, and business change leads you down a different path.
Employing these steps will allow you to build a full-fledged keyword plan that will ensure the visibility and effectiveness of the content your business is trying to get to your customers.
Content Creation & Optimisation
When it comes to creating content that ranks well on search engines like Google, several key factors come into play. Here’s a comprehensive guide to structuring and optimising SEO-friendly content.
Writing SEO-friendly Content
After the keywords have been decided and other SEO strategies have been implemented, the next step is to create SEO-friendly content that ranks well in search engines and also engages readers.
Focus on Quality & Relevance
Write high-quality content instead of focusing on quantity, informative content that provides value to your readers. Make sure your content is relevant to your chosen keywords and your target audience.
Keyword Placement
Incorporate your primary and semantic keywords naturally throughout the content using both natural and organic language. Try to include them in your title, headings, subheadings, and body text. It’s also a good idea to get a keyword within the first 100 words of the body and close to the end of the text.
Create Compelling Headlines
Write catchy, attention-grabbing titles that use your target keywords, are both clear and descriptive, and make readers want to click to see more. You make people want to click things by sparking emotions and curiosity.
Write an Engaging Introduction
Begin with an introduction that is sure to hook any reader, and include your primary keywords in a natural way that signals relevance for your content. A good introduction will touch on people pain points and explain how the article can help them if they read on.
Use Subheadings For Skimmable Content
Use headings and subheadings to make your content scannable to help your readers quickly find what they need. Use bullet points and numbered lists when possible and avoid long paragraphs. People on the internet have short attention spans!
Include Relevant Information
Write as much information as you can about your chosen topic. Remember to back up your information with in-depth, reliable sources. Include frequently asked questions and focus on your users’ concerns. Try to include a few internet links (links to your own website’s resources) and external links (links to external sources of information). A good rule of thumb is 2-3 links per 1000 words.
Use Clear & Concise Language
Avoid jargon and complex language whenever possible. But also keep in mind who your audience is. For example, if the content is for law graduates, complex text will actually boost SEO. Write as clearly and simply as you can so that anyone can understand your message if most cases.
Add Visual Elements
To enhance the content, include relevant images, videos, infographics, or charts that are unique. Optimise images with descriptive alt tags containing keywords.
Maintain Readability & Flow
Write short paragraphs and beef up the white space on your content to make it easier to scan and read quickly. Make sure that all of your thoughts and ideas are connected with smooth transitions.
Include Call-to-actions (CTAs).
Encourage your readers to take action with magnetic CTAs that stretch throughout your content. These invite your audience to learn more about a product, service or about your business itself.
Proofread & Edit
Make sure that you take the time to read over the article yourself to ensure that there aren’t any embarrassing grammatical mistakes. I recommend reading through the article at least 2 times.
Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
Creating SEO-friendly content requires careful attention to all the elements of a page that could potentially affect its search engine visibility. Everything from your title tags and meta descriptions to subheadings and internal links needs to speak the right language for the search engines and your readers.
Title Tags
These are used to specify the title of a web page. Title tags should be concise and descriptive while also making sure to include your relevant keywords. The HTML title tag is specified in an HTML document and sets the page’s overall title. Make sure these are around 60 characters. This way, the title tag will render appropriately on search results pages.
Meta Descriptions
A meta description is a brief snippet of text that provides a brief description of the page’s content. Meta descriptions are displayed below the title tag in the search results. Here, as well, you will want to include your key search term. Make sure to keep these descriptions around 160 characters.
Link Building
Linking is critical for increasing your content’s rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) by helping search engines index it effectively. Here are the main strategies.
Internal Linking
This passes authority or “link juice” amongst pages on your website, which helps them be indexed by search engines. When doing this, link from your highest authority pages first, and as a general rule, always use descriptive anchor text and relevant keywords in those links. Try not to include too many links though, as this will decrease the amount of link juice each link receives.
External Linking
Linking to reputable, relevant sources adds credibility. Use clearly labelled anchor text; avoid link/domain overkill with the same domain. Again, only 1 or 2 links per 1000 words is best.
Backlinks
Also known as incoming links, backlinks are links from other websites pointing to your content. Search engines consider them a vote of confidence, indicating that your website is a quality, trusted resource on a topic. Creating valuable, easy-to-share content and reaching out to related websites for backlink opportunities is an efficient approach that increases the number of backlinks to your content.
Optimise Your Anchor Text
Anchor text provides context to search engines about the linked content and should provide a descriptive, relevant snippet of its content. Use descriptive anchor text with relevant keywords when linking internally. Avoid generic terms such as “click here”.
Link to Authority Sites
This helps increase the trustworthiness and credibility of your content. Linking to government sites, educational sites (.edu), or leading publications can elevate the value of your content, which can improve your SEO ranking.
Image Optimisation
Remember that your page speed can be slowed down if you upload large-scale images. Be sure to compress each image without sacrificing quality and use names like seo-friendly-content.jpg.
Alt Text
Always use alt text to describe an image for those who are vision impaired or if pictures or images are turned off. Most search engines rank your content based on relevance, and a big part of this is the use of relevant keywords within your content.
Content Formatting & Readability
How content is formatted plays a big role in SEO writing, as it can help search engines better understand and index your content. Here are the most important formatting tips for SEO-friendly content.
Use Short Paragraphs
Remember that it’s not just your content that “speaks” to a reader; your user experience is also key. Large blocks of text can be overwhelming, especially on computer and phone screens. Stick to paragraphs with just 3-4 sentences and keep people hooked. It’s also better to use shorter sentences when possible.
Bullet Points & Numbered Lists
When you format information in bullet points or numbered lists, it makes that information easier to scan and digest both for readers and search engines. Try to include these as often as possible.
Fit Your Keywords Naturally
By naturally, we don’t mean stuff your focus keyword into your content over and over again. It’s unnatural and generally disrupts the user experience instead of complimenting it. Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing, so don’t do it. As a general rule, try to aim for about 4-8 repeats of your primary keyword in 1000 words of content.
Use Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
Headings will help your web page and related content rank in the search results for your focus keyword. They’ll not only help with content “readability” but also help the search engines better understand the structure and relationship of your content. Use H1 as the main title, and then use H2, H3, etc. for subheadings. Look over how we used them throughout the Jake Perry Writes blog for an idea of how headings should be structured.
Optimise For Mobile
More than 50% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. So, needless to say, make sure mobile usability is factored into your overall on-page SEO strategy.
Mastering Advanced SEO Content Writing Techniques
Now, we start to separate the beginners from the expert SEO content writers. The above techniques are a fairly straight forward set of strategies that’ll sure get you results, but if you want to take it a step further, here are some advanced concepts.
Content Clusters & Pillar Pages
Content clusters and pillar pages are modern SEO strategies that organise a website’s content around key topics. First, the pillar page serves as the main hub, covering a specific subject in detail — let’s say SEO.
Also within this page are links pointing to more detailed content, known as cluster content, which is expansion content. This strategic interlinking allows readers to deepen their understanding of specific subject matter. By people discovering this piece of long-form pillar content, it signals to search engines, “Hey, this is some high-quality, in-depth content. We must rank it higher”.
Schema Markup & Structured Data
Schema markup gives search engines additional context about your content, helping them understand its meaning and purpose. When you implement schema markup, you can enhance your appearance in search results.
These are called rich snippets, and they might consist of star ratings, FAQ sections, or event information, for example. Structured data, which is powered by schema markup, gives search engines a clearer view of the main entities and context in your content. This can lead to a higher click-through rate and better visibility on SERPs.
Additional Considerations
More technical SEO considerations for content include SSL certificate, structured URLs, XML sitemaps, breadcrumbs navigation, structured data testing, handling 404 errors and redirects, and Robots.txt Optimisation. But these aren’t really anything to do with content writing, so we’ll leave you to do your own research on these subjects.
Ending Thoughts
Ultimately, SEO content writing has evolved from being an added expense to a necessary and fundamental strategy for growing an online business. It has become the linchpin that effortlessly connects brands with their target audiences, facilitating visibility, engagement, and trust.
By identifying and addressing user intent, forging structure over chaos, and adapting to the complexities of search engine algorithms, businesses can carve out their niche on the web. In a world where online visibility is the lifeblood of any business, nailing the basics of this critical art is the key to a sustained and thriving business.
