SEO blogs and articles are a really, really important part of our online PR services and social media management.
At The Content Factory, we write around 40 SEO blogs and articles per week for our clients — not including landing pages — and each one helps drive traffic to their websites. Regularly posting fresh content on your site is one of the easiest ways to introduce potential customers or clients to your brand.
Comprehensive Online SEO TrainingOf course, you can't just throw a bunch of words on a page and expect people to come running. Pro SEO article writing services know that if you build it, they will come... but only if you build it the right way.
Here are the 9 secrets of professional SEO article writers.
1. Get your keyword research on.
If you're going to post content on your site anyway, you might as well take the time to make sure Google takes notice of your effort.
Find out which keywords and phrases people are searching for (as well as what you can be competitive in), and make yourself a keyword spreadsheet. Keep track of how many times you work the keywords into your content, and use the right tools to track where you rank for the keywords you target. SEMrush is our favorite — in fact, we love SEMrush so much, we've become affiliate partners with them, and when you click here you'll get a 7 day free trial.
Don't know where to get started? Check out our comprehensive guide to keyword research for SEO.
2. Put the keywords to work.
Once upon a time, being an SEO content writer just meant dumping keywords into your copy — but that’s not how the game is played anymore.
While it’s still a good idea to include your target keyword throughout your article, peppering your copy with forced keywords won’t really move the dial much (and often, it’ll hurt it). As is the case with any bit of SEO strategy, you’ve got to be tactical.
Include your keyword in the title, in the first 300 words, and in the first H1 or H2 (though, it should be noted that it isn’t necessary to hit both — just make sure you have it in one of them). After that, you should be trying to use variations of your keyword.
As an added note, it should never be a struggle to fit your keyword in your copy. Ideally, your keyword should feel natural in your writing — if you feel like you’re starting to write jibberish, you’ve gone too far.
Remember, the people using search engines are searching for that particular phrase because they want to know more about it/buy it, so it makes sense to give them what they're looking for. You'll get more clicks if you do — it's one of the tricks of the trade for professional SEO article writers.
3. Write about something people care about.
Before you set out to do any kind of SEO writing, ask yourself this: who cares?
We’re not being facetious, here — too often, article writers just pump out content for no real reason, with no real strategy behind it. They forget that actual humans need to want to read this stuff — you’re not really writing for Google’s algorithms, you’re writing for people!
When you’re writing, you should always seek to offer some sort of value to your readers. What can you tell them that no one else can? What service can you provide that’s unique? What knowledge can you share that can’t be found anywhere else?
Nobody knows your business like you do — so use that to your SEO advantage.
If not, you can at least discuss news relating to your business. When in doubt, look at your list of SEO keywords and see what kind of list, link bait or in-depth posts you can work those keywords into. Don't be afraid to interview some experts, either (if you quote them and feature their expertise in your post, they'll be likely to share your content via their social channels — this way, you can leverage larger networks to increase the size of your own).
4. Know the basics of technical SEO
All the keyword optimization in the world won't help you if your site isn't even indexed.
As a writer, you aren't expected to know how to migrate a site, or to enable HTTPS across an entire domain. You don't really have to know about how to maximize a crawl budget, and you don't have to know about minifying JavaScript. Yet, knowing a few things about technical SEO can make you a better SEO writer.
First off, understanding how Google crawls pages and hands out link authority can help you build a strategy. After all, content writing isn't just about writing a singular blog post — it's about writing (and linking up) a bunch of them.
If you have a good understanding of how your blog is structured, you can help make everything a little bit more efficient — which means that a backlink to one of your posts will give your site the maxium benefit.
It also helps to understand how to optimize a website for more than just keywords.
Keeping your images small, ensuring that there aren't too many popups on a particular page, or simply being able to make sure that your blog posts are indexed are all skills you should have as an SEO writer.
Get a free technical SEO audit
Complete the following form, and we'll send you a high-level SEO audit report within the hour. You'll learn the top 3 technical SEO issues that could be impacting your organic site traffic.
5. Make it long enough to count.
Sure, 100 words of fresh content is better than no new content at all — but how much value can you really deliver in a Tweet?
Search engines tend to give preference to longer blogs and articles, and for good reason. Try to shoot for at least 600 words, but if you can get to 1,000 or more, go for it.
There has been a lot of research that shows that search engines tend to favor "in-depth" content of at least 2,000 words — we've seen this work for ourselves and our clients, and many of TCF's most popular blog posts are at least 1,500 words. The longer your content, the more value you’re going to give your readers, and the better chance you’ll have at lower your bounce rate. (Speaking of that…)
6. Watch your analytics.
SEO writing isn’t fire-and-forget — you shouldn’t just post your content and walk away.
In fact, you should be regularly monitoring your content using Google Analytics. According to data gathered by the folks at SEMrush, time on site, bounce rate, and pages per session are all as important (if not more important) than keyword density.
When you think about it, that’s not that surprising. If your site has a high bounce rate, that means that visitors to your site aren’t staying for long, likely because your page isn’t providing them with the information they’re looking for. If your bounce rate is high, there’s a good chance your page isn’t optimized for the appropriate keywords.
You should be warned that there are plenty of non-content related things that can cause your bounce rate to skyrocket.
Aggressive pop-ups, slow loading times, obnoxious ads or images, and any other ugly design element can push visitors away. Writing good SEO-based content isn’t just about the words on your screen — it’s also about how your visitor sees them. If they are obscured by bad design, no one is going to stick around to read them.
Optimize the optimization of your web content writing.
If you use WordPress as your blogging platform, there are lots of free online PR tools (in the form of plugins) you can take advantage of. At The Content Factory, we use Yoast and Shareaholic, along with several others. Free and easy web PR is as simple as hitting the "install now" link.
7. Edit your work.
The main difference between professional SEO article writers and regular people is an eye for self editing.
Programs like OpenOffice, Google Docs and Microsoft Word make it easy — the red and green squiggleys give most of it away. Having an eye for aesthetically pleasing formatting is also important. Stay away from super long paragraphs and sentences that go on for miles.
If you’re able, it’s always a good idea to have someone else take a look at your work before you hit publish. Even if they aren’t an SEO writer (or editor), a second set of eyes can catch a lot of easy to miss mistakes.
8. Become your own online PR agency.
Once you've written and posted the fresh content, the SEO work is only half complete.
The final step of all web content writing is acting as your own online PR agency — link to your content all over the place. Comment on blogs and link back to your site. Submit your content to Reddit and StumbleUpon. Social media management and web content writing go hand-in-hand, and as soon as you hit the "Publish" button on your fresh article or blog, you should tweet your heart out.
Want more PR advice? Check out our 5 DIY Internet Public Relations Tips.
9. Realize that becoming an SEO writing expert takes time.
SEO writing is a skill — and like every other skill, you aren't going to master it overnight.
But here's the thing — that's totally okay. See, when you're writing SEO content, you're always going to want to go back and edit your content as your analytics start to give you specific insights. Even if you don't hit gold on your first try, you can keep perfecting your piece of content until it starts to rank.
Likewise, every piece of content you write is yet another notch in your belt.
With that said, not everyone is going to have success with SEO writing.
Not everyone is an expert writer, and if you don't have a writing background, you might struggle. Our advice is to give it the ol' college try. Do your best, and see what you can accomplish. After a few months, if it just isn't working out, you can find additional training, a content writing service, or a content marketing company to do it for you.
Become an SEO Wizard with Online Training from The Content Factory
Need a little more help before you’re ready to call yourself a professional SEO article writer?
Our how-to guide on writing a blog post that converts will take you through the steps necessary to write content that’ll help grow your business.
The Content Factory offers personalized online SEO training that teaches you the ins and outs of keyword research, link building, technical SEO, and more. Check out our free webinar on 9 Expensive SEO Mistakes You're (Probably) Making. If you like what you see, learn about our full SEO training series!
Of course, not everyone has time to master the art and science of SEO while running a business. We got you. Contact us for more information about our content writing services.
Are you a lady in SEO? We've got a killer Facebook group you'll want to check out ASAP! You've got questions, we've got answers – with a lot of actionable advice and support from other women slaying it in the industry.
Header Photo by rawpixel.com on Freepik
Why are you giving away your secrets?! Seriously though – this is a really helpful list. Thank you.
Hello @Michael,
Blogger is not giving us their own strategy or secrets but attempting to giving us a notion so that we'll follow a right approach. As a SEO Analyst at Lyseis Marketing Limited, I usually read/write blogs so that I can equip myself uptodate with SEO Strategies..
Well, I completey agree with you that this ia really helpful list.
Nice
While we’re tackling the subject of 7 Web Content Writing Secrets of Professional SEO Writers, All you need to know are some truly basic tags. Armed with that basic understanding, you are able to save lots of money by search-optimizing your website, adding neat buttons and free ready-to-use scripts (which you need to add feedback forms, guest books, hit counters and more).
@ppc company – surely spam. I haven’t even heard the word “guestbook” in years. Nice catch ladies for removing his link. 🙂
Thank you Content Factory for these tips. I'm a new business start-up and I have just begun my first blog (beautyboldpr.tumblr.com).
Having worked as both an account manager and in an internal comms department where I used a CMS I agree good content and keywords are both good to use. However I like the way this article summarised the key points and has a helpful, friendly tone. I concur, a good secret shared!
I've added a link on my blog to this article so we can all share the goodness…
Thanks again.
L
BB PR
Thanks for the information
Nice guide for beginners. You can add another tip, the keywords can be used in H2 tag twice in each page.
Thank You
Very good article. The importance to have your SEO campaign on a high scale is a must. You can have a good website but in order for it to succeed you must be on track with your Google rankings and marketing strategies. SEO is an important part to this.
Very nice post and thank you!
Get an expert opinion about your website by doing a full SEO analysis and then take necessary actions to improve it.
Very informative thank you.
Thanks for sharing your secrets! People often forget the rest of the steps after writing a text (including me). For step 1 and 2 1 use the seo tool webtexttool, to find the right keyword, keyword density etc. The other steps take creativity and passion for writing!
Keyword research is really important in writing good articles. It is effective especially if you want to drive traffice to your site. You should also avoid copying articles already used from other sites.
Keyword research is really important in writing good articles. It is effective especially if you want to drive traffic to your site. You should also avoid copying articles already used from other sites.
It was really a helpful article for me to understand SEO and as in your other article you have given the link to check siteseo check up i think now it not free so was unable to find problems in my site, so can you help me out with that.
Are you sure? It’s still showing up as free for us, but you can only analyze one website per hour with SEOsitecheckup.com’s free plan (or maybe it’s per day? I’m unsure exactly). For most people, one free analysis per day is plenty, but if you’re looking at the SEO situation of several different websites, you may want to upgrade to the paid version.
For more information on maximizing the SEO value of your website content, check out our recent guide: How to Write a Blog Post That Brings In Business — there’s lots of actionable information in there that will help your content get to the top of SERPs.
Thanks for the great article . This is very usefull article for the newbies and also for the proffesionals. Seo is tha important factor to rank a website
As a writer myself, i agree on each and every step of this article. Good one.
I really liked this post. I already implement a lot of these techniques already. Images as alt links is a good idea though! Blogging more quality content and more networking will ultamatly lead to success, time will tell!
Awesome! Thanks for the article.
I love it when I write blog articles but my biggest challenge right now is writing with SEO in mind.
I will keep these tips in mind!
Hi,
Great stuff !!
I always love to read interesting and useful stuff.
Thanks a lot for the extremely useful information with us. It will be helpful for newbies like me as a article writer.
With Regards
Naveen
Hi,
Great share for SEO article writers. You have explained the prominent secrets in a very impressive manner. Thanks a lot for sharing such extremely valuable information with us.
Daniel Palmier
Thanks for the positive feedback, Daniel!
Kari
Nice. Thanks for sharing your tips
The content should have links to other related content on the site. This is another feature that will greatly enhance user experience and benefit the website in long run.
Most important is to write genuine content
Great share.
Great point re: linking to other related content on the site, Moses. Totally agreed! There are blog plugins that’ll even do that automatically.
Awesome Secrets for Writing Search Engine Friendly Articles thanks.
Cool article. It is important to emphasize the importance of having some kind of effective email outreach campaign. Writing good content is only one part of the game. The rest is marketing yourself to other websites and making it seem more attractive. Cool article though I enjoyed it.
Thank you for providing the great information regarding content, it will useful to my website content writing.
Just to add up about the 7 secrets of professional SEO article writers. I would suggest if you make the most out of keyword research use the keywords with effect, provide people with the content they are after, produce lengthy enough content to attract attention, ensure you edit and proofread your content.
Just how awesome is this, now there’s a lot of ways on how to approach SEO at its finest. This 2016, it will surely be the peak of success for SEO companies around the globe. Job well done! Thank you in advance for letting me use this as for my future reference.
I would like to add another “secret” to your list:
Use “cosmopolitan magazine” like headlines. Like “10 best ways to do X” and so forth. This improves click through rates and if backed with good content, you’ve got a winner.
Thanks again for your helpful tips!
Very nice and informative guide for beginners. You can add another tip, the keywords can be used in H2(Heading2) tag twice in each post.
This is helpful for especially for those who have just begun in SEO writing. Thanks for sharing this!
Keyword research is absolutely important for writing good articles. This is effective particularly if you want drive an automobile traffic to your site. Its also wise to avoid copying articles already used from other sites.
Hey this is a great article. I’m relatively new to writing for SEO, and this was very helpful to me. It’s certainly different from just usual writing, haha. So many things to keep in mind!
Hi. Wonderful and interesting article indeed. It contains ideas on how to become an effective seo writers. It is perfect for all those aspiring seo witers in the world. This is a great article for them to read about. Through, I’m able to capture the secrets of successful seo writers. This is really worth of time reading it. Thanks a lot!
how much is it important for seo to use language codes in URLs structure?
we see some sites use for example “fr” , “de” , … at the start of all categories and posts like this: domain.com/fr/category/post
how much that (for example) “fr” can help in seo ranking of a french website? is it recommended to do so?
Gained enough knowledge about SEO
Hey,
Great post.
In today’s world, when the online occurrence has become vital for the achievement of any business, Search Engine Optimization is a requirement and not a luxury.
Using SEO as a marketing tool has established to be quite effective for businesses. A few benefits of this include increased brand awareness, the greater return on investment and improved client acquisition to name but a few.
Thanks for sharing!
SEO writing can be one tricky thing if you are not aware how to craft and promote it. The tips you’ve provided really helped me in polishing my SEO writing skills. Thanks a ton!
Glad we could help!
Thanks for sharing, It was really a helpful article. This very good article. Sometimes people often forget the rest of the steps after writing a text. The importance to have your SEO campaign on a high scale is a must. Keyword research is really important in writing good articles. It is effective especially if you want to drive traffice to your site. Seo is the important factor to rank a website.
Thanks, It is one of the best article about professional article writing. I read the whole article & i want to Know “Total number of word in a paragraph in Blog post”.
Thanks ! It helped me a lot because various things comes under content writing.I applied all
your content writing techniques on my website too.Awesome article!!!
This article explained how perfectly optimized page should be updated in on page SEO for better results, Thanks a lot for sharing!!
Nice Blog
Content Marketing is best part of the digital marketing. write a unque content and post article sites, blog sites amd etc and backlinking is a mode to drive traffic.
This article is still relevant in 2017. Nice Piece of Information. Obviously, In the changing landscape of marketing and promotion, SEO has become a core element of any serious business whether big, small or medium.
That was something worth reading about SEO.Thanks man for sharing all those tips and information.
This article is very helpful in so many ways especially when you badly needed traffic to your site or pages. Thumbs up!
This blog keeps posting all new SEO tips about content writing. It’s really helpful for writer like me!
knowledgeable content thank for sharing this to all.
Very informative article. It is so interesting how search engines see the website differently than we do. For us, all those nuances like image file names or alt tags are not even visible, we just see a picture. Because of this, a lot of us are not aware how those things are becoming crucial in writer’s work. Thanks for putting that in perspective.
Point no 5 & 7 in this article are especially interesting.
I agree that its really important to note analytics to find out how to improve and writing content for yourself to grow even more! There are many ways for professional SEO writers to be successful – one of those ways is to hire SEO agencies and consultants.
This article is very helpful in so many ways especially when you a looking for a top secrets of seo writers a lot of us are not aware how those things are becoming crucial in writer’s work. Thanks for putting that in perspective.
Thank you for the informative article! I’m just starting in SEO and these tips are super helpful!
These tips are so helpful especially for newbie bloggers like me. I really appreciate learning from bloggers who are willing to share their own tips. Hopefully my next write-up would be better. Thanks for sharing this!
Glad you found the SEO tips helpful!
Great read! This article is very useful and will help people especially those are new in SEO writing. SEO writing is tricky and somehow hard because you have to come up to a content that is suitable to your target market and that are appealing in the eyes and mind of the readers. Thanks for sharing! Cheers and more power!
Thanks for the great feedback, Mark!
Excellent Blogs for SEO writers. SEO blogs and articles are a really, really important part of our online services and social media management.Nice Guide.
Thanks for Sharing this information about SEO nice article 🙂
Thanks for sharing this content..it means lots for new blogger like me.
Thanks for such free and helpful articles !!!
I liked that you had mentioned that it can be important to use keywords in your article to make sure that your website can be recognized easily. My friend is writing book reviews currently and wants the increase the traffic to his site and we haven’t been sure how to go about it. It might be helpful for him to work on his keyword usage, but he might need professional help to increase his overall SEO.
Thanks for the positive feedback, Robert. We’ve got a lot of comprehensive (free) SEO guides on our site, and we also have training packages available if your friend needs more 1-1 help!
These are real tips that I needed as I long to sharpen my skills in content writing and SEO. Thanks for sharing the insights.
Thanks for sharing such essential steps for SEO writers.SEO blogs and articles are a really important part of our online PR services and social media management. These article sharing 7 secrets of professional SEO writers.
Very good information. The methods are really working. I like your article. Keep sharing more article in future.
Hello,
Nice guide for beginners.
Keyword Research is one of the most important factors of SEO, also if you want to drive traffic to your website. You should also avoid using duplicate content on website.
Thanks
Kapil Heera
I’m a beginner seo content writer, and this article helps me to get inspire. thank you
New to writing using keywords. I have been writing and editing books for the most part. Ghost writing for the most part. I will be saving this as something to look back on each day. Thank you for sharing.
I am already wanting to edit my previous comment. I need to practice the pause and reread action more often.
This article saved my life! no other words can describe the hole that this got me out of! the best tips and tricks! thanks so much!
I agree! analyze keywords for the blog we need time alone, the contents of the blog that is its content. This is a complete set of instructions!
Keyword Research is so important. Being familiar with some of the long tails in the target niche can be of great value when you are building out the main targets… something which is taking more time since this article was first written even.
Thanks.
Point 8 should be to use tools like grammarly to check your content. It makes you frustrated when you receive content with errors.
Good call – we love Grammarly!
Very helpful blog. Now I got some ideas. Hope this will work for me also.
Thanks a lot.
Great blog. Got new ideas after reading this. Thanks for sharing! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the positive feedback, James!
Iam posting 1 articles weekly 3 times but iam not getting views
Hi Gopala! If you’re posting that much content and still not attracting views, you may want to check out the 9 Expensive SEO Mistakes You’re (probably) Making – and how to fix them FAST blog post we recently published. Lots of good info there that can help you turn things around. Good luck!
Hello, thank you for the information. I have been reading your articles on SEO and I must say that I have been able to do well with the use of SEO. I have made use of it in my article writing and other kinds of technical writing that requires the need of ranking on search engines. Thank you!
thank you for the information. I have been reading your articles on SEO and I must say that I have been able to do well with the use of SEO. I have made use of it in my article writing and other kinds of technical writing that requires the need of ranking on search engines. Thank you!
It’s a very detailed and informative article about SEO copywriting. It helps me a lot to improve my SEO technique and the strategy. I write a similar article like this and yet it’s effective yours. I would like to add your content to my article. Thanks for such a great article.
It’s very effective tips and eye opening. It’s good ti hear from SEO industry expert. Thank you for sharing and keep doing good job.
Good article. Every time I try and I’m not able to produce the quality content. Can you provide me a helpful article to produce a quality content for my website?
Gotcha covered! Check out this post on how to write content that draws organic traffic (and converts).
>Before you set out to do any kind of SEO writing, ask yourself this: who cares?
This is precisely what I ask myself when I read like 90% of website content nowadays. So much boring filler. But for what purpose?! Why not spend your money on content that’s interesting and people want to read? Gah.
Thanks for this
No prob! Glad you found it helpful 🙂
Good article! Thanks for sharing 🙂
There are a few great tips that have been mentioned on the above article which can help one become a SEO Wizard. But practice makes perfect, as one gains practical experience and hands on training, one develops expertise in the area. A training program would help you strenghten your fundamentals and make sure you get the experience you deserve towards becoming an SEO analyst.
Good call! We’ve developed a killer online SEO course that will take you from 0-60 on the SEO front, covering everything from keyword research and implementation to technical SEO. It’s got a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee, and we’ve gotten great feedback on the course (check out those testimonials!).
One of the best article I have came across. It is amazing. Thanks for sharing such valuable content. It is going to help people to understand SEO better. No one easily shares SEO Secrets. You have done this. Thanks!
So happy to hear you got value out of the post! Following these tips will definitely make you a better SEO writer – SEO works incredibly well, when you know how to work it correctly.
Great post, I think the strength of most professional writers is in keyword research and knowing how to sprinkle these keywords in their posts. Not to also forget, going lengthy with your posts also helps. Nice post anyway.
This is one of the best articles I’ve read about SEO content writing. The ‘Watch Your Analytics’ tip is solid.
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for these 9 secrets of professional SEO writers. It was very valuable to me. I knew them, although it is never a bad thing to be reminded and refreshed of them all. Once again, sincerest thanks 🙂
Amazing content I like the way you explain each and everything. I have bookmarked your pages to review whenever I need to know about SEO writing. Please guide me about SEO as I am a writer.
Great Article!
Thanks for sharing tips.
How to use and place your keyword in your content is playing important role in SEO.
As we all know content is a heart for website.
It will really useful to me.
Keep sharing…
This is very good seo tips for best content i used this seo tips and got best results.