So you’re wanting to drive some traffic to your website. Don’t we all? Most people don’t get any meaningful traffic to their website, but then again, you’re not “most people”. You’ve seen blogs and sites that have engaging content and want to learn how to do it, or want to get a playbook on how to do it. You’re in the right place!
SEO content writing isn’t a fad or something that will die away in the next few years. It won’t even go away now that AI’s really becoming a bigger and bigger force. The reality is that people will keep searching for content and if you’re creating useful, entertaining content that also gets the nod from search engines, traffic is a matter of when, not if.
To get you moving in the right direction, I’ve put together this brief “Do and Don’t” list.
Don’t…
- write just for search engines. You’ve probably seen those sorts of articles before. They sound robotic. They possibly have been written by AI before. How these robots works is that you plug in a keyword you’d like appearing a certain number of times, type the topic, then the robot “scrapes” the SERPs for content, then cobbles it together in a Frankenstein post. Yuck. You can do better than this.
- plan out the perfect post. The rate of content creation is only getting faster and faster. If you’re reading this, there is every possibility that you’re just starting out and can’t afford a writer. You might have to do this yourself. That’s OK. You can do it! But just know that Google and the rest of the search engines won’t pick up on whether the right phrase was used, or even that spelling error. Getting something that’s 6/10 is better than getting a 9/10 piece out.
- just write every so often. Google needs to see that you are in it win it. If you publish a post, celebrate! It might have been hard for you. But just know that it’s the first step, not the last in a long journey. I’ll tell you now that you shouldn’t expect to see any results for the first 3-6 months, and that’s publishing once a week. You need to be patient.
Do…
- write for people, the problems that bug them and about the solutions they’re trying. Also, don’t be afraid to write for money, in the sense that you’re trying to make your blog profitable. This comes from writing “money” posts, like comparisons, reviews, testimonial pieces, etc. This is what people relate to. By leading with humanity, then optimising for SEO afterwards can you make your SEO content writing even more effective.
- Use keywords to guide your content. Yes, while it is good to write for people, search engines aren’t at the level yet where they can gauge and categorise what content is about. The path of least resistance is still by using targeted keywords, sprinkled just enough so that the content still flows. Use keyword tools to find out what keywords might be a good fit and build content around them.
- Link your posts together. Internal links where you refer to other pages and posts in your website further help Google to determine where the most dominant pages in your website are and thus what they should optimize for pushing up in their SERPS. It also looks a lot more natural in their eyes when webmasters and blog owners do this. They want content that’s been thoughtfully written by people to help other people. If they see internal linking, they’ll be more likely to put your website up higher.
So there you have it, three do’s and don’ts. Hopefully this has given you some food for thought. Anything I haven’t covered that you want to know more about? Let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to ponder. Happy writing!