Whenever it’s the time of the year when snowflakes start covering our windows – the New Year is about to ring our bells – content marketers’ calendars start seeing major shifts.

Some new things are added, some things are dropped, while others are remodeled.

That’s the story of every year, and you can find its reason without much effort:

The online world is continuously in a state of a stir.

What worked yesterday might not be the right fit for today’s changing landscape. And what wasn’t working yesterday might become the showstopper of today’s world.

In other words: Everything keeps on revolving, dissolving, and evolving. So should you and your digital strategies!

If marketers don’t keep up with the new SEO writing guide every year, it is equal to giving up on their game to stay on SERPs and earn more revenue with customer engagement.

So if you are planning to bang 2021 with a sharpened up content marketing strategy, don’t forget to add SEO in your content writing equation because that’s how the whole formula works.

 

What is SEO Writing?

Simply: SEO writing is the process of using all practices and focusing on the search ranking factors to create optimized content.

It makes Google believe your site is relevant to rank higher on SERPs against a search query and send targeted organic traffic.

SEO content includes everything from web content, blogs, articles to landing pages.

But whatever type of SEO content you produce, one thing is common in all of them:

Every section of content is created, focusing on what would and wouldn’t work for increasing organic visibility.

It includes…

• Keywords
• Quality
• Formatting
• Alt Image
• Structuration
• Placement
• Experience

…everything.

 

 

Content and SEO – Why You Need the Ultimate Guide to SEO Writing?

For content, SEO is just like what black and white colors are for fashion. It never fades out of the trend.

In fact, it always remains there to give an extra oomph to the whole persona of SEO.

The same is the case with SEO!

Separate SEO from content, and you will extract out the soul from the content.

No matter how beautiful and well-written your content is, it will not be more than a lost zombie on the deserted island.

SEO helps content from getting lost and puts it in front of the right audience.

No wonder that more than 60% of marketers consider SEO as their top-most inbound priority.

 

So as long as…

• People are using search engines to find your brand
• Organic search remains the dominating source to drive traffic
• Content remains the force behind high rankings on SERPs
• Dominating on SERPs remains important to meet the target audience
• SEO keeps on driving multiple business benefits

…SEO is not going anywhere.

It is you and your team who have to adapt, understand, and fit yourself into this SEO driven world.

And one of the best ways to set your content marketing on track is by bridging the gap between content and SEO.

Let your #CONTENT and #SEO marry and live in peace so that your online presence can experience the pleasure of ‘Happily Ever After.’ More at @GlobexOutreach

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Now when you are busy tossing your content box to debunk old tactics and make space for some new techniques, here is our SEO content writing guide to help you fill your content marketing strategy 2021 with the right things – for the best results.

 

How to Create SEO-Friendly Content?

So you are envious of those showstopper websites that take the top ranking position on SERPs?

 

Don’t worry; you can also become part of these ‘beauties.’

Here is your complete guide to SEO content writing to meet your targeted audience organically on SERPs:

 

STEP # 1: Create Content for Users Not Google

The first step in the basic guide on writing SEO optimized articles is:

Create your content from the target audience’s perspective.

Surprised? You might have thought that I mistakenly wrote ‘audience’ instead of ‘Google.’

Well, no. I meant it!

Because:

In 2021, it is all about making your readers happy to make Google happy.

In fact, Google itself says in its Webmaster guidelines that you should focus on users, not Google while writing content.

 

Google is itself a business. It has competitors; struggles to remain at the top of the industry, the audience that Google always wants to remain loyal to it.

So how can Google do all this?

Answer: By keeping its audience satisfied with its services. Well, just like any other business!

Google wants you to write content that:

• Provides value to users
• Answers all possible questions of users
• Offers comprehensive and compact information about the topic
• Intends to keep readers interested and engaged till the end

In other words, write content that makes readers happy, not what you think Google will like.

Google likes what readers like. FULL STOP!

 

STEP # 2: Write REALLY High-Quality Content

Pick up any top-ranking website, and you will find one thing common in the content:

That content will have an extra edge that other sites will be missing.

This is where high-quality content sneaks into the SEO writing guide.

It is a no-brainer that high-quality content means that it should be:

• 100% Unique
• Valuable
• Grammatically accurate
• Free of spelling mistakes
• Manipulation free

Everything that Google’s quality guidelines demand.

But for Google, the definition of high-quality content doesn’t end here.

It has diverse meanings, and they are not limited to just words, style, tone, and voice.

A high quality content is a piece of content that includes factors that make it SPECIAL from all other hundreds of content pieces already written on the same topic or subject area.

These edging factors can be:

• In-depth content that covers all possible queries
• Innovative idea not mentioned in any other content
• Unique presentation of already written content
• Something important that others are missing out on

It is not possible to fight the battle on SERPs with just weapons of grammar and vocabulary.

You need to bring crisp in your content that keeps your visitors hooked till the end that reduces your bounce rate, and increases your dwell time – something that Google looks for ranking a site.

Bounce rate and dwell time are not exactly tagged as a ranking factor, but they do impact RankBrain – Google algorithm that judges users’ experience to determine its rank.

High bounce rate + Low dwell time = Bad visitor experience

Low bounce rate + High dwell time = Good visitor experience

 

So content with bait is also high quality content if it reduces bounce rate and increases dwell time.

It means that no matter what, you should NAIL your content by all possible means.

 

STEP # 3: Match with the Search Intent

You want your content to rank on SERPs in 2021? Then you can’t do it without considering ‘the search intent factor.’

Simply: Search intent is the core objective behind the query a searcher generates on search engines. It indicates the type of content the searcher wants to consume and see in the SERPs to satisfy the need. It can be to find an answer, a website, or to buy something.

Google is giving importance to this factor more than ever before.

What appears on SERPs is not dependent on what Google thinks should appear or what you are targeting.

It depends on what users want to see.

Here’s how things work:

 

But pick up any SEO writing guide, and you will see that they all say one thing:

Writing content that matches the user’s intent is not a very easy feat.

Because it is sometimes hard to understand the search intent, some people don’t even bother to write the exact or full query.

They type a few words and expect Google to read their minds.

For instance, what do you think a person wants to find if it has typed ‘cartoons’ in the search bar?

• Possibility 1: He might want to know the names of different cartoon movies.
• Possibility 2: He wants to see images of different cartoons.
• Possibility 3: He wants to compare different franchises of cartoon movies.
• Possibility 4: He is looking to buy toys of different cartoons.

See? A search query can have so many possible search intents.

Based on this, we can divide search queries into four categories:

 

CATEGORY # 1: Informational Search Intent

As the name implies, here, the core purpose of the search is to:

• Know about something
• Seek knowledge
• Stay informed or educated

In other words, it is the WHAT part of the searcher’s journey.

It can be about anything. Starting from the desire to know upcoming movies in 2021 to who Stephen Hawking is, everything is a part of informational search intent.

 

CATEGORY # 2: Navigational Search Intent

In this search intent, the searcher is already aware of the ‘What’ part of the story. He knows what is what.

Now he wants to know about the HOW part. How can he reach the desired thing?

For example, the searcher already knows about Stephen Hawking. So he wants to know about his books.

In this case, the search query can be:

Stephen Hawking’s books.

So what happened here? The searcher wants Google to take it to websites that talk about his books or have excerpts of them.

 

CATEGORY # 3: Commercial Search Intent

The searcher in this phase is aware of ‘What’ and ‘Where’ part of the story. Now comes the WHICH part.

Which of Stephen Hawking’s books is worth buying?

So the possible search queries can be:

• Stephen Hawking books reviews
• Best Stephen Hawking books

The searcher wants search engines to show results that contain a comparison of different books so that he can satisfy his ‘Which’ search intent.

 

CATEGORY # 4: Transactional Search Intent

Now the searcher has reached almost the bottom of the funnel.

He knows ‘What’ the searched thing is about and ‘How’ it can benefit him.

Now he has switched to the purchase phase. He wants to know WHERE he can buy it.

For example, after reading about different concepts of Stephen Hawking, someone wants to buy one of its books.

Here the search query can be:

• Buy Stephen Hawking’s books
• Stephen Hawking’s books Amazon

It will take the searcher to websites from where he can buy the desired book.

 

This SEO for writing guide gives you a clear insight into what is search intent and why you need to create content according to the target audience’s search intent if you want to appear higher on SERPs.

Here are a few ways to find the search intent of targeted customers:

• See what your competitors are up to.
• Think from the target audience’s perspective.
• See what types of words searchers use to find your services.

STEP # 4: Choose and Place Keywords Mindfully

Either you read the best SEO writing guide ever or a mediocre article on SEO writing guide, you will see that both these high and low-end pieces will have consensus on one thing:

Choose the right keywords and place them in the right place.

Keywords are like bread crumbs that are sprinkled on your website.

Google picks these breadcrumbs to land your target customers on your website.

So keywords are something that can never escape from the list of SEO writing guides.

But you must select the right chunk of crumbs and place them in the right place so that Google can find them without much effort.

Like you can’t randomly select keywords that no one is using to reach you and can’t embed them in the mass of content so that Google can’t find you.

So  your selection of keyword depends on two things:

 

1.       The Right Selection of Keywords

Google has a guide for keyword selection.

According to this guide, you should select keywords based on these points:

• Target keywords that your users are using to reach you.
• Align keyword selection with your business goals.
• Choose keywords that actually help you drive traffic.

But besides this keyword selection checklist, there are some hush-hush secrets about keywords.

Secret 1: If you are landing a new business into a competitive market, don’t go for very competitive keywords.

It might take you years to beat giants and rank higher using these competitive keywords.

Secret 2: Target long-tail keywords because they are less competitive and match more with the phrases users use to search.

Secret 3: Use LSI keywords that make your content and page more relevant to Google.

Hit on the secret of #keyword selection and get a short cut route to success. 1) Start with less aim for big 2) Sync keywords with the ultimate goal 3) Focus on people’s #searchintent. More on @

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2.       Place Keywords on the Right Place

Just imagine if a road sign saying to turn right is placed in woods, is it of any use?

Obviously, no! That signboard is in the jungle; how can people on the road know what to do?

The same is the case with keyword placement.

Rather than placing keywords where you feel like placing, place them where Google can find them easily.

See different SEO writing guides, and you will see that all of them tag a few places as the ‘constant’ for placing a primary keyword.

For example, if your primary keyword is ‘blog writing services,’ here is where you should place it to optimize your content fully:

• Title Tag
• Meta Description
• URL
• H1 Heading
• H2 Heading
• Introductory Paragraph
• Image Name

So place your keywords in the right place so that Google can understand your content and rank it for the keyword.

STEP # 5: Focus on E-A-T Criteria

It is hard that you haven’t heard about E-A-T before.

You might have heard it while reading the SEO guide for writing blog posts or reading an article on how to do SEO because it is everywhere.

I searched for E-A-T, and that’s what I got…

…around 16, 200, 000 searches.

But what actually is E-A-T?

Why should your content have expertise, authority, and trustworthiness?

What is the role of E-A-T in giving a boost to your SEO efforts?

Why is E-A-T important for Google?

The answer to all these questions lies in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines that Google has made for the quality raters to judge the pages’ quality.

You can find that there is a full section related to E-A-T.

And here is how Google defines these factors in its guide.

It means that besides the quality of the content, Google also checks the worth of the creator of the content.

If a person who has nothing to do with the medical field starts giving medical advice (no matter how high-quality content is written!), it is useless for Google.

The significance of E-A-T varies from niche to niche. Like, for Google, a fashion blog will not be important if only Gucci’s employees write it.

But Google will want a law expert to give law-related advice.

Whatever is the case, it is an important factor, and any SEO writing guide is incomplete without mentioning it.

Consider E-A-T for writing content if you don’t want to be eaten up by your competitors on SERPs.

 

Conclusion

SEO without content is zero, and content without a touch of SEO remains hidden.

It means that both of them are useless without each other.

So instead of just focusing on how to create quality content. You should focus on how to write SEO optimized quality content.

That’s the only way to win users’ attention and Google’s heart in one go.

The bad thing is that it can be difficult. But the good thing is that it is not impossible.

Write the right content in the right way, and the right things will come right your way. Try it!