“What is the use of writing great blog posts that won’t rank on the first page of Google’s SERPs and people won’t see?” – Ruth Adeyemi, founder of SARMLife.
Have you ever wondered how bloggers are now able to grow their blogs without investing in paid advertisements or how organic traffic seems to roll in after just a few posts? It’s all in SEO writing.
Beyond writing valuable content for my readers, I always ensure the content is fully optimized for search engines. To do this, I follow a strict SEO writing process that has never failed me.
Over the years, I’ve had to upgrade these processes to match Google’s algorithm updates and recent SEO changes. For example, long-form content is no longer as essential for SEO ranking as it was.
This post contains my thoroughly explained SEO writing process that will help you create fully optimized blog posts that can rank on the first page of Google.
What is a blog post?
A blog post is a single piece of published content on a blog site accessible via the World Wide Web. The content is majorly written content that may or may not be supported with images (images are a MUST for optimization, though)
For instance, what you are currently reading is referred to as a blog post.
What is SEO writing?
Simply put, SEO (search engine optimization) writing is creating and writing content optimized for search engines.
Blogspot defines SEO writing as writing content to rank on the first page of search engines such as Google.
Optimizing starts with the content creation process, from the topic ideas to the writing and the images; this content is deliberately created and organized to ensure it fits the baseline requirements of search engine optimization and even goes beyond it.
Features of an optimized blog post
The features of an SEO (search engine optimized) blog post are pretty direct but also easy to miss, especially when you are batch-creating content. We created an SEO checklist to ensure you don’t miss anything while creating optimized content for your website or clients.
For you to write what counts as an optimized blog post, it needs to have these features:
· A good, compelling headline
The headline is the title of your blog post; it is the first sentence any searcher will see. An important tip to note when creating your headlines is that they need to give your reader a brief overview of what your post is about.
Your headline should be compelling but straight to the point. Do not use sugar-coated words, as they send a red flag to the reader.
· A good introduction
Some blog writers are a little lax about what they put in their introductions. The introduction is the first impression your reader gets, and it also determines whether the reader will continue the blog post or leave. You want your introduction to explain to the reader exactly what value they will get from the post. It is similar to the abstract of a research paper (a concise summary of the main work).
Advisably, the words you use in your introduction should be simple, sincere, and straight.
There are different types of introductions you can use for your blog posts, as explained in one of our Instagram posts.
· An organized, paragraphed layout
Did you know that long paragraphs reduce readability and prevent your readers from scanning through the entire post? Research has discovered that most readers scan the whole post before deciding if it is read-worthy or not.
If your blog posts contain long paragraphs, more than half of your readers will bounce out and not likely return.
Break down your paragraphs into smaller, digestible chunks.
· A long-enough and valuable content
The content of your blog post has to answer the reader’s questions, and this is where good research comes in. You need to identify the pain points of your target audience and give them content that is beneficial to them. Your content should also contain verified facts and visual engagements.
All these features are determined during your research, i.e., the headline, the outline, and the content.
· Links to authority websites
You might think that having an external link in your blog post will make you lose originality, but this couldn’t be more wrong. Having external links to authority websites in your niche will make your content more credible to your readers. However, please do not make it excessive.
When you talk about verified facts and statistics, you want to ensure your readers know the source.
Plus, can I mention that it is good for your SEO?
SEO writing process
Many writers have been stuck with SEO writing, or as some people call it, SEO blog writing and the frustration can make you question your writing skills. Maybe you own a website, or you hope to take your SEO content writing game to the next level as a freelancer to land high-paying clients.
Whichever class you belong to, I’m here to guide you step by step and show you how to write a compelling, fully optimized blog post.
The SEO writing process can be tasking, but it is achievable when you follow a laid-down template.
The SEO writing process:
- Identify your audience
- Know your content bucket
- Come up with topic ideas
- Optimize the topic ideas
- Research the topic ideas
- Research keywords
- Research content around the keywords
- Create your headline
- Create your SEO outline
- Write your content
- Insert visual content
Since SEO writing skills go beyond just blog writing, most of what makes your blog posts optimized is the research you put into it before typing away at your keypads, just like I’m doing right now.
· Identify your audience.
I cannot emphasize this enough!
If you check out our blog post on How to make money blogging in 2024 – the ultimate guide, I wrote there that one of the most significant milestones that any blogger can cross is the ability to recognize and know their target audience. Why is this important?
Your target audience is the one interested in your content and will want to click open that blog post because it addresses either their curiosity, fears, or pains. If you don’t know your target audience, you cannot create content relevant to a specific group of people.
You end up with no niche and no audience.
When you know your audience, you begin to find out about their pain points by doing surveys, checking out the posts of others in your niche, checking out commonly searched words, and direct interaction with people in that niche.
· Know your content bucket.
A content bucket is a segment of the entire content you want to relay to your audience. Each content bucket should address various aspects of your business while also reflecting your overall message as a brand/business.
Content buckets are vital because they help you narrow down your ideas and distribute content across your audience.
For example, if you are a fashion blogger, your content bucket might include accessories, dresses, color combinations, or even make-up.
When you want to write a blog post, you select the content bucket and find topic ideas around it. Check out Topic ideas for different niches HERE
· Come up with topic ideas.
This particular process might not need you to go online because you can develop topic ideas based on your experience, expertise, and interactions with people. Otherwise, you can check other similar websites and get inspiration from their content; it is entirely legal.
I recently wrote some ideas for a friend in a different niche from mine. At first, I had no idea what topics were good and not-so-good, but I ended up checking other blogs in the same niche as hers. The summary is that the content was created while also maintaining originality.
If your content bucket of choice as a relationship expert is breakups, you might think of topic ideas like:
- Why new couples breakup
- How to avoid a breakup
- How to maintain long-distance relationships
- What ladies/men do after a terrible breakup
Mind you, these are JUST ideas and have not been verified yet.
· Optimize the topic ideas.
For search engine optimization, you want to ensure your topic ideas are relevant to people’s interests.
This is where you use https://www.answerthepublic.com
This site gives you a compilation of all the questions people are asking about a particular keyword.
Now that you have a topic idea, log on to the site, type in your keyword of choice (1-3 words), and watch the magic!
Take, for instance, that your keyword of choice is simply ‘breakup,’ you’ll see a screen similar to this:
Now, you have dozens of options, and all you have to do is pick one.
The above image is just a part of the result page. You don’t have to be worried about coming up with relevant topic ideas anymore. You have over a hundred ideas in a single content bucket. Imagine having up to five content buckets! Mind-blowing!
· Research the topic ideas.
You now have a verified idea you can use. The next step is to run that idea through Google.
From answerthepublic.com, your idea might be ‘how to break up with someone you love’ – this is what you type in Google search.
Why?
You want to compare them with existing blog posts, and you do this by checking the similar keywords used by the top-ranking websites. In addition to the keywords, you also check the headline structures and the meta description.
From the above example, you can see that ‘break up with someone’ is the keyword frequently used by most top-ranking websites.
Let me also share a tip with you.
One of the points in my SEO checklists is that your focus keyword should be part of your headline and URL. To fully confirm what focus keyword others use, you can check these two places and then research that keyword.
Any website with its focus keyword in both places is knowledgeable in SEO writing, and you should visit these websites for content inspiration.
Now, you have a keyword to verify.
· Research keyword(s).
This part is so exciting! Ubersuggest is the best keyword research website out there, in my opinion.
When you upload your keyword on ubersuggest, it analyzes that word. It gives you real-time data, including search volume, cost per click, SEO difficulty, other keyword ideas, and content ideas you can use along with the keyword you entered.
From the above example, you’ll notice the keyword overview, which consists of:
- Search volume
- SEO difficulty
- Paid difficulty
- Cost per click
Scrolling down, you see the keyword ideas, which give you statistics on other keywords you can use.
It shows the trend for each keyword and the top-ranking websites for it, alongside the keyword overview statistics for each keyword idea.
After this is the content ideas segment, where you see existing content with that keyword; in this case, the keyword is ‘break up with someone.’
The fantastic thing about this content idea segment is that it shows you the monthly estimated visits to that website and the keywords that bring this organic traffic. It also shows the number of backlinks, so you know if the website is really credible, and the number of social media links (Facebook).
You know what? You get this much information for free and even more information when you subscribe to the paid version.
The paid version, among other features, provides breakdown statistics on which device generates the highest search volume (mobile or desktop).
· Research content around the keywords.
This is the same step as researching the topic ideas from AnswerthePublic. The only difference is that you have specific keywords to type in Google search.
In this case, your focus keyword can be ‘when to break up with someone’ or ‘break up with him’ because the search volume is 1,900 and 1,600, respectively. Also, you can still go with the focus keyword ‘break up with someone,’ which has a search volume of 1,000.
Or you can use all these keywords while deciding on one focus keyword.
For example, ‘when to break up with someone’ can be my focus keyword, while the other two can be my other keywords.
Note: One of the best SEO writing tips to hold on to is using a medium tail keyword as your focus keyword and long tail keywords as your other keyword ideas. All your keywords should not be more than five (5) or less than three (3).
If your focus keyword is ‘when to break up with someone,’ you use Google search query to find content related to that query, noting the headline and content structures.
· Create your headline.
From the above SERP of the focus keyword ‘when to break up with someone,’ you can see several headline structures around the keyword.
As earlier stated, you need to have a compelling headline that will make the reader want to click on your page. Sharethrough Headline Analyzer is a good, free, and accessible platform for writing a compelling headline, and you can also use it to verify the viability of your headline.
The platform analyzes your headline’s engagement and impression scores and suggests ways you can make it better.
Before you write out a headline, note these points for SEO:
- Your focus keyword must be in your headline with no added word(s) in between. Use any of the formats below:
- Prefix, (focus keyword), suffix.
- (Focus keyword), suffix.
- Prefix, (focus keyword).
- Your headline should not be too long to avoid being cut off like the ones below.
- Use context words.
- Use numbers, preferably odd numbers.
Run any headlines you come up with through the headline analyzer, follow these rules, and ensure your scores are above average.
· Create your SEO outline.
To create your outline, check out the top-ranking websites from the Google search query you carried out.
Compare at least five (5) different websites and note their content structure.
Afterward, create your outline and include a new point that is relevant to your content. OR
You can elaborate on a point mentioned briefly in other posts.
The endpoint is to ensure you give your readers added value; that will be the reason your post is preferred to others.
· Write your content.
You have your keywords, outline, and content inspiration. All you have to do is write.
However, it is important to know that writing isn’t just writing. When it comes to an optimized post, you have to be intentional and a little bit technical, especially when it comes to the placement of your keywords, links, images, and even your subheadings.
Here are my favorite SEO content writing tips to keep in mind when writing your optimized blog posts:
- Go straight to the point.
- Use simple English (8th grade English).
- Include your keywords in your sub-headings.
- Allow sentence flow between paragraphs.
- Build from the basics.
- Include relevant internal and external links.
- Use the right formatting style.
- Use AI minimally.
- Integrate keywords naturally.
· Insert visual content.
Your SEO blog post isn’t complete without visuals. Make sure your images’ sizes are small to reduce your site’s loading speed.
Also, add Alt texts to your images; this is very important for SEO.
If you follow these SEO writing processes, your blog posts will be sure to make the front pages.
If you need me to assist you with your SEO writing, or you need more detailed and vocal coaching, you can set up a meeting with me HERE or check out our SEO writing services.
