Companies want content produced for their websites for various reasons, including to be of service to their readers. For example, if a company has expertise in a certain area, product, or service, then showcasing that expertise and explaining it to their audience to build trust.
When their audience sees their expertise, they are more likely to buy or opt into what they are selling, because they can back it up with knowledge and examples.
As a content writer, your job is to write high-quality content for those companies. To write lots of blog posts, articles, buyers guides, generally using an editorial style of writing.
The better the content, the more people will appreciate it and value it, and have a higher regard for the company.
But also, that is what Google looks for: high-quality content. This brings us to the SEO side of things.
Content and SEO are very closely aligned. This is why we have SEO content writing. So, what is SEO? It stands for Search Engine Optimization.
If you have any type of business online, then you would ideally like to be on page one of Google search results for one or many of your pages on your website.
Why is SEO Content Writing important?
Because this brings in free traffic to your business. Google is where people go to search for anything and everything.
For example, if you own a business that sells espresso machines, you want to be on the first page of search results when someone types in “what is the best espresso machine” or “where can I buy an espresso machine.”
It is great to have your website rank on the first page, because that is where the majority of clicks come from, and this is “free”, consistent organic traffic coming to your company’s website.
In order to get on page one of search results, we have to optimize for the search engines (SEO). This means using keyword research tools and other tools to find out what people are searching for and what terms they are using.
Related: Keyword Research Services done for you →
Are they typing “best espresso machines” or “best espresso makers?” We can learn how competitive certain phrases are, and then perhaps use other keywords that are less competitive to rank higher.
This is one of the key focuses of SEO, to help us find keywords and key phrases to use in our content to help us get on to page one of search results.
Keyword research not only gives us an idea of the volume of monthly searches for each keyphrase, but the difficulty to rank for that term, the seasonality and some tools allow you to understand the context, the relationship with other keywords and the intention behind that term.
Related: 10 Best Free Keyword Research Tools
This allows you to plan the format of the content if it’s a video, an article, a guide or images. For the intention behind the keyword to understand if it’s an informational, transactional or navigational search.
After a content writer has done their SEO research and has narrowed down the keywords and phrases that will help their article rank higher in search results, they can now optimize their content both for the reader and the search engine.
In order to optimize content, keywords should be included in the title of the page, the description, and various times throughout the content (depending on article length). Always keep in mind the reader, they will read the article so make it valuable and actionable (use our word counter tool).
There are two sides to creating really powerful content for publishing on the internet. One is to create really good content in its own right, and the other is to do the on-page technical optimization process for search engines (SEO).
If you are able to write quality content and optimize it for the search engines then your work is much more valuable to your client. Not only do you please your client, but you can charge at a high price point.
Normally, there is one rate for writing content, and another separate fee for optimizing that same content for the search engines. Clients understand that this is a very valuable marketing service.
Conclusion
In summary, SEO content writing uses keywords and phrases to optimize web content to rank higher on search results. Copywriters, content writers, and marketers use SEO to grow their website’s organic visibility and search rankings (what are the differences between content writing and copywriting?).
Overall, the most effective way to write for SEO is to combine great content or copy with targeted search terms.
We can help you create content for your website, blog or ecommerce with our professional SEO writers, we help the biggest companies in ecommerce and travel. Get in touch.
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