SEO Article WritingTips

Every content writer can write an article, but can every one of these writers write a good SEO article? No, not everyone. An SEO article is different from a basic article that most people can write, and so begs the question;

What is an SEO article?

You can write a pretty good article, but can it compete with millions of articles on any search engine? The answer to this will depend on your SEO techniques while writing your article. Therefore, this comes downs to things like Keywords, types of keywords used, keywords density, keywords placement, competitor analysis, and many more.

And so, keep reading to learn:

·        What is an SEO article?

·        How to write an SEO article, and

·        What makes a great SEO article?

What is an SEO article?

An SEO article is a piece of content, i.e., a blog post written to inform, guide, or entertain the target audience, and is also optimized for search engines. An SEO article is a feature on a specific website as a page and has its unique URL.

What does the term SEO mean? You might wonder.

Well, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to techniques used to help rank an article or blog post such that it can appear on page 1 of search engine results. 

Therefore, optimization is the difference between an SEO article and a basic article. SEO article is optimized to rank in a search engine's index (i.e., Google's index) while a basic article isn't.

How to write an SEO article

To successfully write a great SEO article that will deliver to your expectation, you will need three things:

·        Topic to write about

·        SEO tools to use to find and analyze relevant data

·        A subject matter expert or a professional writer (might be you)

You can now follow these steps to write an SEO article with these things set.

Step 1: Specify your article's key elements.

The first step when writing an article is to specify your article's key facts. This, therefore, includes things like:

·        Topic: What are you going to be writing about

·        Word count: How many words do you expect your article to be? Remember, you can't just write you need to define the word count ranges so as to structure your article expertly.

After doing these, you can now move on to the next step, which is keyword research.

Step 2: Do keyword research

This step will help you complete step 1. Therefore, search for the common things that your target audience usually types on google based on your chosen topic. Note: keywords can be in the form of questions or single words or phrases. Additionally, they can either be short-tail keywords, which comprise one or two words only, or long-tail keywords, which comprise 3 or more words.

For example:

Shorttail keyword: ‘SEO”

 Longtail keyword: "What is the meaning of SEO?" – These types of keywords are highly recommended.

After defining your focus keywords (1 or 2) and alternative keywords, you can specify your article's remaining key elements. These will include specifying:

·        Focus on keywords and alternative keywords

·        SEO title for your article

·        Write an SEO meta description.

·        Write an optimized excerpt, or you can use your meta description instead.

Step 3: Write a professional article

Now that you have all that is necessary to write an SEO article, then it is time to start with the writing stage.

It is a known fact that quality content makes your readers happy, but it also puts you on the right side of google. What I mean here is that google promotes quality content as they value consumers' satisfaction. Therefore, an element of expertise needs to be felt in your content, and your content should be consumer-oriented.

Secondly, keyword placement is the key. Using keywords appropriately will help google identify and rank your article. This means you must include the focus keyword in your title, introduction (primarily first paragraph), sparing throughout the article, a couple of subheadings, and a conclusion.

And so, how do you ensure your SEO article writing is of top quality? Here are simple tips to follow:

·        Use keywords accordingly

·        Avoid sloppy text when writing; No grammatical errors & No spelling mistakes

·        If possible, find an expert editor with SEO knowledge

·        Write engaging content that will keep your audience informed and entertained

·        Avoid awkwardly written content

To add to this, Use SEO tools, and this is explained in our next step.

Step 4: Use SEO tools.

The good thing nowadays is that many SEO tools can help you optimize an article. And so, you don't need to have the expert knowledge to do SEO for your article. You only need an SEO plugin such as Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin or Bruce Clay's WordPress SEO plugin.

With these plugins, you can check SEO and even readability while writing your article. This ensures that you avoid any errors you would have made if you chose to compose your article via Microsoft Word.

Step 5: Identify your competition and analyze

Competitor analysis is the key aspect of creating a successful SEO article. This is simply because your top competitors comprise webpages ranking on the first page for your specific search query. And so, if you can analyze and determine what keywords they are ranking with will give you a better chance to compete with them.

Therefore, how do you perform competitor analyzes?

Well, as of now, we have several SEO tools that can help you find which pages are ranking top for your chosen search query. With these tools, you are effectively armed with important data. And so, for this, you will not only be doing the basic best SEO practices, but also you will be setting yourself to optimize your SEO article to fit or exceed your competitor's standards.

Some SEO tools, such as Bruce Clay's WordPress SEO plugin gives you the following:

·        Meta description and title tag length

·        Word count to aim for

·        Number of times the competitor has used a specific keyword

·        SEO article readability score in comparison with top-ranked webpages

Note this process can do along with keyword research to avoid complicating things.

Step 6: Content optimization

Now that you have well-written content and the right keywords to rank for, it's time to optimize your SEO article content.

The first principle to note is that your keywords must appear naturally throughout the content. This means no slapping keywords anyhow without regard for readability and grammar. If you do this, your article might be noted as spam by Google, which will adversely affect your ranking – and I mean like, really bad.

For example, if you have the keywords; "how to write an SEO article," how do you ensure this seamlessly fits into your content naturally? Let's see:

Example 1: Hey, are you looking for effective ways how to write an SEO article? If so, here are some simple yet effective SEO tips for you.

Example 2: Learning how to write an SEO article is essential as a content writer. This is simply because…

Simple, right?

The important pieces of advice that I can give here are:

·        Always avoid optimizing content for search engines but instead optimize for readers. This will help improve your SEO article's genuineness as well as readability.

·        Ensure your keywords are evenly distributed and avoid inserting many unnecessary keywords.

Step 7: Add quality images with optimal titles and sizes for each image

Images are critical components of an SEO article because they help improve your optimization. However, you can add an image just like that. While doing this, you need to remember issues like copyright, appropriate sizes, and alt description.

So, let's say you have an SEO image on your PC that you want to use; the image name might be "SEO" or "Pic 5." Therefore, how do you use this image appropriately?

Well, here is how:

·        Option 1: “How-to-optimize-tour-SEO-article”

·        Option 2: “SEO-optimization-tips-for-your-article”

Have you noted something with both options? I guess you have. We have incorporated potential keywords such as image titles and alt descriptions for both of these options. So, rather than just using the word "SEO" or "Pic 5," we have gone for "SEO-optimization-tips-for-your-article." And in this case, your focus keyword might have been "SEO optimization tips."

Step 8: Review your SEO article before publishing

Prior to publishing your SEO article, it is highly recommended that you review your entire content. This means you will have to do an editorial and SEO review to ensure everything is done correctly and that the content is okay. This process will help you with:

·        Eliminating any grammatical errors that you might have missed out on earlier,

·        Enhancing your SEO article's readability, and

·        Ensuring your article is optimized for the right keywords.

Do this to all your posts, even guest posts (if you accept some), ensuring quality articles.

What makes a great SEO article?

Now that we know how to write an SEO article, let's answer this tricky question; what makes a great SEO article?

Well, it is simply a combination of three things; good content writing, proper competitors' research and analysis, and best or top-notch SEO practices. And we have discussed all of these things in this article.

To help you improve your site's ranking as well as your article ranking, you should do the following:

5 Ways to Improve your SEO Article's Ranking

1.     Publish quality, authoritative content

Webpage and site's authority is mainly improved by publishing quality, authoritative content. Remember, a substitute for quality content doesn't exist. Therefore, relevant, authoritative content is undoubtedly a leading driver of search engine ranking.

Always create content that is specifically intended for certain users. This is important because it helps create and improve your site's relevancy and authority.

So, how do you do this? Well, here is how:

·        Search for relevant Keyword phrases for your SEO article. Ensure that your focus keyword phrase is something your potential or target audience searches online. For things like:

ü What is keyword stuffing?

ü Best at-home exercise for beginners

ü What is the best exercise for knee arthritis?

·        Create valuable, influential content that will solve most of your readers' problems.

·        Use keywords several times and in the right places, such as:

ü In the title

ü Within your misdescription

ü In your article's URL

ü Once or twice in your content introduction and conclusion

2.     Ensure all your metadata is okay

When publishing an article on WordPress, you will notice several places where it requires you to add metadata. For example, <head> tags, Slug, keywords, descriptions, and tags. The most important metadata are title, description, and keyword metadata.

3.     Ensure that your content is regularly updated

Keeping you're the contents of your SEO article fresh and updated is considered the best indicator of content relevancy by google. Therefore, you must keep updating your content in any way possible. For example, if you have written a new post related to the one you have already done, be sure to interlink both posts. This help reader gets additional information, which keeps them on your site for longer.

Generally, updating your article can significantly improve your site's SEO. 

4.     Don't forget to use alt tags for your images and videos

Alternative text descriptions, along with alt tags, are essential components. They help you describe an image or video used in your post. Furthermore, alt tags and alternative descriptions help search engines read and locate your page. For example, we have screen readers and those using text-only browsers; search engines use alt descriptions to find your page and recommend it to them.

5.     Create a link-worthy article

One way of attracting links from other sites is by creating a content-rich article that is authoritative and unbiased. In addition, the article has to help your readers learn more about what they are searching for.

The reality is that when someone likes something, they are likely to share or bookmark that content for later referral. So, your content must not only be compelling but also be very informative and easy to understand.

Creating an interview-like article with real-life examples and relevant data is a great way to create a link-worthy article.

How do you find SEO keywords?

Now that you know how to write an SEO article and make it rank, do you know how to find the right keywords for that article? If not, here are some of the ways you can use to research relevant keywords:

Step 1: Make a list of relevant topics that are important based on your niche business

Kickstarting keyword research always starts with brainstorming topic ideas that are important and relevant. This means you will have to make a list of 5-10 topics which you will then use to create specific keywords.

So, how do you do this effortlessly and effectively?

It's simple, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience or buyer. From there, you can visualize what they will likely look or search for on the internet. Secondly, ask yourself this question; what do I want my site or business to be discovered for? With these two tips, you can come up with not only relevant topics but also important ones.

Step 2: Now convert the topics into keywords

With topics set, you can now come up with relevant and important keywords based on your target audience's search history.

Here is a simple way to do this. Go to Google or any search engine you are using, then on the search bar, type your topic, and immediately you will notice google suggesting some of the commonly searched phrases. Let's take "Blogging ideas" as our target topic here. If you type this word on google, you will see suggestions like:

·        Blogging ideas for beginners

·        Blogging ideas for students

·        Blogging ideas to make money

·        Blogging ideas for 2022

·        Blogging ideas for beginners in Hindi

You see, it's simple, right?

Step 3: Define and understand your user intent for your chosen keyword

What's the intent of your article? Or what do you expect your article to solve or address?

A particular keyword can have a different meaning if not appropriately defined. For example, the keyword "how to start a blog." The term blog can refer to either a "blog post" or a "blog (website) itself."

Therefore, leaving that keyword open can hurt your SEO as it may impact your audience retention. If someone clicks on your site and finds out that you are addressing something else, he will quickly leave. So, if your intent is a blog post, use a keyword like "How to start a blog post."

Take an example of keywords we have listed in step two; Who are you targeting, and what's the intention? If it is students, you will have to go with "Blogging ideas for students," not any other keyword. These will be your focus keywords, and you can take maybe 1or 2 of those other keywords as your alternative/related keywords.

Step 4: Search for related terms (keywords)

After defining your focus keywords which can be 1 or 2, find related keywords. For this, you can take extra keywords as noted in step 3, or you can simply:

·        Type in your focus keyword on google,

·        Run a search,

·        Scroll down the search results until you see the "Related searches" section.

·        From here, you can choose a couple of keywords to use.

Step 5: Try using a keyword research tool.

The keyword research tool is an important SEO tool that can help you find ideal keywords for your SEO article. It generates exact and related keywords based on your targeted topic. And to make it even better, it shows the search volume for each keyphrase.

Some of the best keyword research tools that you can use are:

• Ahrefs
• KWFinder
• Ubersuggest
• SECockpit
• SEMrush
• Google Keyword Planner
• KeywordTool.io
• Keywords Everywhere

Conclusion

And that's all about what is SEO article and how to write an SEO article that will rank. Remember, practice makes perfect. And so, if you're a beginner article writer, it will take you some time to get the best copy of the SEO article out there.

Writing an SEO article is enjoyable, so I hope these tips will help you have more fun. See you in our next article.