Creating SEO Content: A Quick-Hit Guide

Last Updated on April 23, 2019 by admin

We’ve talked about why content and SEO go hand-in-hand, but it’s important to understand the process behind actually creating SEO content.

Google has made clear that ‘content’ is a top ranking factor, but many are confused about what makes “good” content when it comes to SEO. Rather than just churning out unfocused content, businesses should focus on creating high-quality SEO content.

Creating High-Quality Content

Step 1 is ensuring that you’re aiming to create high-quality content. That means creating content that is written especially for your target audience. It should address their questions, discuss potential pain points, educate on relevant topics, and help your audience solve problems.

This alone requires some groundwork, including building an audience persona. An audience persona can help you determine what type of content and topics your target is searching for as well as their biggest pain points and motivations. Understanding this information can help you hone in on what types of content you should be producing and how to best convey important information to your audience that caters to their preferences.

Your content should also be shareable. If it is written based on an audience persona, it begins to become inherently shareable because it will be of interest to your target audience. However, you shouldn’t stop there. Be sure you’re including appealing images and ensuring that content is easily shareable on social channels. Include Twitter-friendly soundbites and be sure that your website has social sharing buttons.

Finally, get back to the basics. Your content should include relevant headers and sub-headers and be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Be sure to proof and edit your content before publishing and only link to reputable sources when referencing data points or other important information.

Creating SEO Content

Creating SEO content requires additional research. This begins with keyword research to ensure that you are targeting the correct words and phrases as you create content. You’ll need to identify core and long-tail keywords and build out your keyword strategy.

Once that foundation is in place, you can begin marrying your keyword strategy to your content strategy. From a high-level perspective, consider the following:

No keyword stuffing: Google is intelligent and heavy-handed when it comes to keyword stuffing. Avoid overusing keywords and be sure that every instance adds value to the overall piece of content. Use “find” features in word processing tools to keep tabs on how many times you’ve used a keyword and trim if necessary.

Expand keywords: Don’t forget to work in long-tail and related keywords throughout your content. These keywords may be good as organizational tools when building out longer-form content (e.g. use as subheads).

Be natural: Don’t force keywords where they don’t fit. This is in the same vein as avoiding keyword stuffing. Humans are adept at picking out forced sentences. Make sure you’re writing naturally and allowing the language to go with the flow. Consider using plurals or other variations of your target keyword.

Be thorough: While taking the keyword-stuffing and forced use suggestions into account, do be sure to include your keyword in important places. This includes the titles and H1s, in the URL, within image text, and within the first paragraph of copy.

This is only meant as a simple guide to help you get started on an impactful SEO content creation journey. Download our FREE keyword research checklist for more detailed information to get a jump-start on creating SEO-friendly content.