What is SEO content writing? Or what is SEO friendly content writing? These are the common questions often bothering business owners and aspiring SEOs. In today’s blog, I will share what actually SEO content writing aka SEO friendly content writing means!
Definition:
SEO content writing term is made of two important terms “SEO” and “Content”.
SEO is a technique of trying to bring the web content to the top ranks of search engines, so a website/portal can attract more search engine traffic.
Content is exactly the one you understand. It is a piece of content written on a specific subject that shares some kind of information to its targeted audience.
SEO content writing is a blend of SEO and Content. It means writing content that follows the best practices of SEO so it can rank on top in the search engines to attract maximum possible visitors, plus, it is written so well that it can clutch the incoming visitors from search engines to read the whole content and navigate through the website. In a nutshell, an SEO friendly content writing is an art of writing content that delight both, Search Engines and Readers/targeted audience.
Now, as you understand the meaning of SEO content writing, let’s delve a little deeper to see what it is made up of or why it is different than simply writing.
What SEO best practices a content should follow to qualify as an SEO friendly content?
Content must follow the best SEO practices. This is important, isn’t it? So what types of factors does it contain to become an SEO friendly content? There are many things a content writer has to keep in mind to create SEO content. I am sharing the major factors to be considered to build content that qualify for the top ranks in search engines:
Keywords
The most important thing SEO content must have is keywords. Keywords are not a few phrases, but it means all the keywords people would be searching for. It requires thorough keyword research to define the list of the right keywords. Generally, content writers are/should guide by the SEO experts with a list of targeted keywords in the content to be written.
Keyword Density/Frequency
It is a statistic of the number of times a keyword appears in the content in context to a total number of words in the content. It is calculated in percentage (%). For an instance, if a keyword appears once in a 100 words keyword, the keyword density is 1%. Some people misunderstand it as in the first 100 words. No! Let me share another example to understand what is keyword density in SEO content? If an article is of 500 words and a specific keyword appears in that article (anywhere in the whole content) 10 times, the keyword density is 2%. Keyword Density is also known as Keyword Frequency.
Keyword Proximity
Normally, a keyword aka targeted search term is made up of more than one phrase. Keyword Proximity refers to the distance between these phrases that made up the targeted keyword. For example, if my targeted keyword is “SEO content writing”, below are examples of close proximity and distant proximity.
SEO content writing is an art and every writer may not have this art. (Close proximity)
We offer SEO friendly Content Writing service at affordable rates. (Close Proximity)
SEO requires a lot of content that is written by professional writing service providers. (Far proximity)
Keyword Prominence
It refers to the position of a keyword and its value at that place. It doesn’t only take search engines in the context, but the overall content. It means if I place a keyword in the first two lines of the article and then in the second paragraph, does it look prominent? In a nutshell, keyword prominence defines the natural flow of the content with keyword visibility for both, readers and search engines.
Following Latest Content Related SEO Algorithms
A writer must be aware of the best content practices defined by the search engines and these best writing standards must reflect in the content. For example, according to the recent algorithms, behavior-based keywords work better than the exact match keywords. The content writer must be aware of similar facts and use them in their content written to gain SEO benefits.
Unique content
Unique content is a broad term. To make it quick to understand in the context of SEO content writing, it means your content shouldn’t look like a copied content. It means it shouldn’t have an identical (completely or partially) copy on the web. I recommend 100% unique content, but by keeping the same writing style pattern of many content writers in mind, I allow 80-90% unique content as approved. It means 10-20% could be ignored. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND 100% unique content as that will give the best SEO benefits.
Please be noted, some bloggers copy content and at the end, they give credit to the main writer. Passing credit will not make your content yours or unique. Stop fooling yourself and your audience!
What best practices should be followed for the audience?
As mentioned in the definition of SEO content writing, it is not only about the search engines; it is also about the audience it targets. According to the current major SEO ranking factors, search engines like Google consider bounce rate and website dwell time as one of the ranking factors.
Thus, a content writer has to keep the following things in mind while writing SEO friendly content:
Content Types
Each content type has a different style of writing. It follows a different style of voice, tone, and flow. A writer has to follow the best practices for different types of content. Below is the list of different content types:
(Learn more about offered professional content writing services)
Targeted Audience
A content writer has to understand the targeted audience and write content that would match their taste of reading. For an instance, content written for a teenager living in India should be different than content written for a c-level executive living in the USA. The top 3 factors to keep in mind while writing a user- friendly content are listed below:
Pass expected value to the readers
Each reader has a specific expectation while he/she opens a piece of content. For example, blog readers are more interested in reading something of their interest instead of promotional content about your business. On the contrary, a prospective vendor opening your case study is more interested in knowing your expertise and how you are good at helping customers. Thus, the content has to be written to match the expectation of the targeted audience.
Natural flow of content
This factor is very much important to serve a good experience to readers. The content needs to have targeted keywords, but it should appear natural. Forcefully stuffing keywords would annoy readers and wouldn’t reap the expected benefits from the content because the goal of SEO content is not only to bring people to the website, but also make them perform expected business goals.
A professional content writer needs to do a lot of research and have to be up-to-date with all the latest trends and best practices to write an SEO-friendly content. After reading this article, I am sure you will realize, this is a tough job and any tom can’t do it. Give a Treat to your writers today as a token of appreciation for their hard work!
Don’t have professional writers for SEO content writing? Get in touch, we help companies and individual with our best content writing services.
5 Comments
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I am an aspiring writer and want to make a career in SEO content writing field. Couple of your articles related to content writing are really nice. Keep it up.
Thanks Nid for your comment. I wish you all success in your career.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about SEO writing. It is a complete guide on it. I loved it.
Thanks for sharing your experience Emil.