Search engine optimization and copywriting are two essential elements of the marketing mix for modern brands. You need to be able to attract organic website visitors and deliver persuasive marketing messages if you hope to grow your business. However, many business owners and marketers treat these as two separate functions. In reality, effective digital marketing relies heavily on SEO copywriting, a combination of the two disciplines.

Understanding how copywriting supports SEO and vice versa can help you to better market your business in the digital age. Below is an overview of how SEO and copywriting interact with and enhance each other as well as a short guide to getting started.

 

Understanding SEO and Copywriting

To understand SEO copywriting, you first need to understand SEO and copywriting individually. With that insight, seeing how the pieces of the overall puzzle fit together is much easier.

 

Search Engine Optimization

When you search for something on Google or another search engine, a complex algorithm analyzes billions of web pages to find the most relevant ones. This process happens slightly differently for each search engine, but the core functionality is the same: the engine finds pages in its database that may be applicable and ranks them based on what it thinks will be the most relevant to the user.

According to Google, there are over 200 factors considered when ranking search results. Plus, the number of web pages that have been crawled and analyzed by Google is enormous. Google is very secretive about how the algorithm ranks pages. However, many marketing experts have figured out various strategies that help pages they create to consistently rank well for certain keywords. This is the essence of SEO.

By optimizing web pages to rank well for target keywords and search terms, businesses can ensure that their web pages get seen more and visited more often by potential customers. Of course, your competitors are also trying to rank well. So, SEO is a complex and ongoing process of targeting, optimizing, evaluating and improving.

Some of the elements that are relevant to SEO include incorporating keywords on web pages, earning links from other websites, using a good structure that search engines can crawl and understand, and having a technically well-made website. A lot of SEO is about identifying which elements need the most focus in any given moment.

 

Copywriting/Content Marketing

At a high level, copywriting is simply writing for marketing purposes. This can include the words used on advertisements, on websites, on social media, in blog posts and any other collateral that is used for marketing purposes. For the purposes of SEO copywriting, the most important forms of copywriting are creating copy for web pages and content marketing, particularly writing blog posts.

In a sense, anyone who has ever written something to promote a brand, product or idea has practiced copywriting. Of course, professional copywriters and copywriting services can spend years or decades fine-tuning the art to be capable of communicating with strong and persuasive writing. Knowing what tone to use in which contexts is also an important element of copywriting.

From a business growth perspective, the benefits of copywriting are likely obvious. When you have written content that attracts, engages and persuades an audience, you will have a lot of success growing your brand. However, copywriting isn’t just about being convincing. It is also about delivering value to the audience whenever it interacts with your brand.

 

How SEO and Copywriting Fit Together

The need for SEO copywriting is simple: search engine optimization requires content to earn good rankings on search result pages and copywriting requires SEO to achieve maximum visibility and impact online. Like many aspects of marketing, SEO and copywriting are at their best when they are used together in an integrated strategy.

This natural alignment is further boosted by the goal of search engines. Google and other search engines are trying to deliver value to their users by providing relevant, high-quality search results (of course, their main goal is to earn revenue by selling ads on their search pages, but that requires engaged users). Therefore, search engine algorithms are primarily looking for web pages that are useful to human beings.

The upshot of this is that good SEO and good copywriting often look very similar. Effective SEO needs to deliver pages that searchers will want to read and interact with. After all, there is no point in attracting website visitors if they aren’t interested in the content of your website. Similarly, good copywriting needs to deliver marketing writing that is engaging and effective.

 

Four Steps of Effective SEO Copywriting

With the above information in mind, it is easy to see why SEO and copywriting fit together so naturally. Plus, if you are familiar with one of them, you have a great head start on mastering the other.

The following are four steps for writing effective SEO copy. Everyone’s process is a little different, so the right steps for you may look a little different. Nonetheless, they will likely include much of what is explained below.

 

1. Research Keywords and Search Terms

SEO copywriting requires you to target your content for specific searches. Before you can do that, you need to spend some time researching what people are looking for. There are a variety of keyword research tools that can help you with this. There are a few elements to consider when picking keywords/search terms to target:

• How often do people search for that term?
• Is it a competitive term? Are your direct competitors also trying to target it?
• Is it sufficiently relevant to your business? Would someone searching for the target term be satisfied upon finding your website?
• Does the search term reflect an intent that is relevant to your page? In other words, are you targeting sales-related terms with product pages and informational terms with blogs and other resources?

When you have good search term selection, a lot of the rest of your strategy will start to fall into place. This aspect of SEO should be an area of focus for all digital marketers.

 

2. Plan the Content and SEO Strategy

Once you know what terms you will be targeting, you can start to plan out a more specific strategy. Your SEO copywriting will likely need a content schedule for new blog posts and other releases. Additionally, you may need to update some of your existing pages to optimize them better and make them more useful to visitors.

You should also take some time to consider the terms you found through research. There may be some that would work well for your brand, but that you don’t currently have relevant content for. Planning some new SEO copy for those terms could help drive your strategy.

 

3. Write SEO-Optimized Content

Next, you will need to create your planned content. This should be search engine optimized content. So, you will need to create high-quality pages and blog posts that will be useful to visitors and write them so that search engines rank them well. Fortunately, these two goals are often aligned.

There are a variety of factors that can play into how well you rank for keywords. These are a few of the most important:

• Canonical Organization: Search engines like web pages with well-organized headings. These should use H1, H2, H3, etc. headings. Make sure the headings reflect the content that follows them.
• HTML Tagging: Use HTML features such meta descriptions, page titles and image alt text. These will help search engines to better understand what is on your page.
• High-Quality, Relevant Writing: The quality of your writing matters too. Lots of spelling mistakes or confusing language will turn off not only visitors but also search engines.
• Keywords: Your target terms need to appear in your content. However, they shouldn’t be stuffed in there. Make sure they are used naturally. You can also experiment with different densities or frequencies of use.
• Links: Having links to your pages from other websites can greatly improve your rankings. You can earn these by having high-quality content. It can also help to link to others from your website.

 

4. Publish and Promote Content

Finally, you will need to make your content available online. It can be helpful to promote certain types of content with ads, social media posts and other channels. These won’t directly improve your search engine rankings; however, they will increase visibility and potentially earn links, shares and more organic traffic.

You will want to measure the impact of your SEO copywriting. Having a robust analytics strategy will help you to test both your writing and your optimization.

Keep in mind that the above four steps are not necessarily a perfect series. In many cases, you will jump back and forth between different steps. Plus, it is a continuous cycle that should be regularly repeated and improved. With time, you will master both SEO and copywriting, earning your brand more visitors and conversions.

 

Get Help With SEO Copywriting for Your Brand

Creating great content and getting noticed online is not easy. It is made even harder by the fact that millions of other businesses are competing for attention. Consider using copywriting services to help. BKA Content can provide high-quality, professional writing that is optimized for maximum search engine visibility. Contact us today to learn more.

I get asked all of the time about the things that writers can do to help their SEO content writing stand out from the saturated internet content landscape. What a loaded question! Do you have a few hours to spare while I get into it?… JK

While I can think of numerous things to increase content writing quality, I thought I would come up with a “readers digest” version of a few key tips that companies/writers can use to make high-quality content for SEO.

 

How To Create High-Quality Content for SEO

Oh man, where do we start?! There are so many factors that can go into how to write high-quality SEO content ranging from the industry you’re in, to the subject matter, to the white space in your post! Rather than get into every single detail of what makes a piece of content high quality, I’ll address the biggest things I think you can do to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

Again, this isn’t an end-all list for how to create quality content, but doing the following things will help the search engines, as well as the readers, to pick your content out from a crowd.

 

1. Write for a Reader, Not for an Algorithm

In my day-to-day responsibilities, I’m continually shocked by companies that call and ask if we “spin” content or “keyword stuff” here at BKA Content.  While the majority of the SEO community knows that these things have no long-term value, there apparently is a large majority of the industry that still hasn’t come to grips with algorithmic changes in search engines that prioritize content that accurately answers user queries.  While it is very important to know how to use keywords within your writing, don’t make the mistake of focusing the entire meat of your content around a search engine algorithm.  Instead, focus your writing around the person who will be reading it.

The main reason for this is to increase user engagement. If readers enjoy the high-quality content and consider you an expert in the space, they are then more likely to share your piece with colleagues/friends. If content writers really understand the target demographic they are writing to and accurately describe pain points, needs and solutions, content becomes much more valuable.

I know that many SEOs continue to have a hard time shifting into this new SEO paradigm, but the sooner you accept the fact that Google is trying to single out more user-friendly content, the sooner you will start seeing much more SEO content success.

Use Keywords To Drive Your Formatting

As far as keywords are concerned, the best SEO content writers know that high-quality content is a merge between both reader and search engine expectations. When I’m creating content for SEO, I use the keywords as a guideline for formatting, but other than that, I wait until after my piece is completed to go back into the piece to optimize.

Using keywords in headings, beginning and ending of the article, titles and descriptions is crucial to organic rankings, but it can (and must!) be done in harmony with writing specifically for a human reader in order for it to qualify as being “high-quality”.

 

2. Build Content Authority

While random SEO content pieces can still provide value, it is important to also give your company a voice of authority.  This means that you should give yourself credit on content pieces using the “rel=author” tag to link with the author’s Google+ account. By building authority this way, you can create a following of readers who are interested in what a specific author has to say.

Many companies are scared to do this because they don’t want to be judged for their work, but one indicator of high-quality content is that the author stands by their writing whether people agree with them or not.  Having authors who genuinely take credit for their work is a great way to increase the quality of the content that is written.

Brand Authority Comes Also Comes With Well-Researched SEO Content

In addition to using SEO authority tools like the one mentioned above, you can build brand authority by making sure your content is well-researched, properly cited and data-driven. Rather than just telling someone to believe a certain way, high-quality SEO content has the ability to show them as well. Take the time to search out relevant studies and statistics that help back up your points and make them really hit home.

Learning how to write high-quality content can often boil down to how well you know the subject matter and your ability to make an argument for your position.

 

3. Eliminate Writing Mistakes

Nothing turns off a reader more than bad spelling and grammar.  When these types of mistakes exist in SEO quality content, it tells the reader that the author didn’t read through it; thus the author didn’t feel like it was very worthwhile to share.

I understand people make mistakes (we’re all human!), but there is a difference between a typo or two in a piece of SEO content and multiple serious grammar mistakes within an article. Double-check your content, run a spell checker, and get a second pair of eyes to read it over before you share it with the world.

If You’re Not an Editor, You’re Not the One to Do This

Take it from a content expert, just because you have a knack for writing does not mean you also are a proficient editor. In fact, they are very different skillsets most times. While an SEO content writer can and should seek to improve their editing skills, it’s always best to have someone other than yourself go through the content once it’s completed to make sure it really does qualify as high-quality content for SEO.

 

4. Come up With Something New

New ideas, or new ways to think about something, are a great way to show your audience that you truly gave your content subject matter some thought and are trying to provide real insight.

If a reader finds a blog topic that piques their interest because of a new perspective given, they will be more apt to give your content the attention that it deserves. Creating quality content topics is something every writer deals with on a daily basis. When creating blog post topics, try coming at the piece from another angle, or pick a controversial (or opinionated) stand.

Give people a reason to read your high-quality content through catchy titles/headlines and you’ve won half the battle.

 

5. Interact With Your High-Quality Content

Creating high-quality content goes beyond just writing, editing and scheduling your post to be published. In fact, the best high-quality content for SEO is something you should go back to over and over again.

One of the biggest wasted opportunities I see is when a post starts getting traction on the internet and garners hundreds of comments from readers, but there isn’t a single response from the author.  If you truly value your content, you should interact with those that object or agree with it. If you have a piece of content that gets a response from your reader base, do yourself a favor and interact with a genuine comment. It’s a simple way to connect with potential customers on a personal level and build your brand authority.

Not only that, depending on the visibility your post gets, it may be an easy way to get a conversation started with another influencer in your industry who has left a comment.

Track, Optimize and Revise SEO Quality Content

As a subheading to interacting on a personal level with people that have something to say about your post, there is also more you can do to your content from an SEO perspective. One mistake that too many companies make is that they invest in writing high-quality content, but then never go back to see how it’s performing. The truth is that your content may not always perform the way you hope it will, but with tools like SEM Rush you can quickly see if you’re onto something or not.

In fact, many times you’ll start ranking for related keywords you weren’t targeting initially, but that can still propel your post forward. Once you see what kinds of keywords your high-quality content is ranking for, it’s time to reoptimize around those keywords. If you’re still not seeing rankings climb, you then can turn to revising the original content or adding new content sections to help build it out better.

High-quality content for SEO should be a living, breathing piece of your online marketing strategy. Make those quality content creation dollars go farther with continual tracking and optimization.

 

Start Creating High-Quality Content Today!

I know that there are many other factors to take into consideration when trying to write high-quality SEO content, but these 5 tips are a great start. If you’re a digital marketing agency or small business that’s looking to write high-quality content but doesn’t have the time to do it on your own, let us help!

If you’re an SEO content writer, then we want to know some of your own tips that you think should be used in order to create high-quality content. Share in the comment section below!

You have probably seen a ton of articles expressing the importance of effective SEO writing to your digital marketing strategy, but do you really understand what it even means? Unfortunately, a lot of people misunderstand what SEO writing entails, and their bottom line suffers as a result. Before you can create effective SEO content, or recognize it when you see it, you need to understand what is SEO content writing and what is not.

 

Basic Concepts Behind SEO Writing

Before you can understand SEO writing, there are two basic concepts you need to grasp first. The first is search engine optimization, and the other is organic searches.

 

Search Engine Optimization

You may already know that SEO stands for search engine optimization, but you may have only a vague idea of what that really means. On his website, Neil Patel gives both a very good definition of SEO and an illustration of the process involved:

As you can see, SEO writing is only part of the overall process, albeit a large part. Our objective is to focus on that part and explain what it involves, but it’s important to point out that there’s a lot more to search engine optimization than just creating and publishing content.

 

Organic Searches

The other concept you have to understand before any meaningful discussion of SEO writing can take place is organic searching. Organic searches represent one of several traffic sources by which visitors may access your site. Basically, an organic search result is one that was returned because it was relevant to the term or keyword someone entered into a search engine.

Google offers a definition of organic search traffic that is a bit more involved. Its analytics only recognize traffic that comes from certain default search engines as organic traffic. Traffic generated by other search engines is identified as referral traffic, the same as someone clicking on a link from another website might be. When paid advertisements at the top of a search page are clicked on, regardless of relevance to the search term, they are not considered organic searches.

Organic web searches capture over 40% of all revenue, making them extremely powerful. The goal of search engine optimization is to create content that will rank highly in organic searches. In other words, the search engine algorithms must recognize the content as valuable and relative to the terms entered. SEO writing involves creating optimized content that will show up in search results.

 

Essential Elements of SEO Writing

A lot of people try to boil SEO content down to keywords. Yes, it is true that keywords are an essential element, but they represent only one aspect of search engine optimization. For SEO content to be truly effective, it has to be useful to the audience. Here are a few of the elements your content has to have in order to connect to your audience and convert to sales.

 

1. SEO Content Has Relevance

Part of what makes a piece of SEO writing relevant is the keyword used, but there are other aspects that are at least as important, if not more so, than keywords. A study of Searchmetrics General Ranking Factors demonstrated that keywords and word count, both frequently touted as important ranking factors, were less significant than the overall relevance of the content.

So if relevance isn’t synonymous with keywords, then what does it mean? Relevant SEO content offers information that is valuable to your intended audience, and it is written in a way that is comprehensible to them.

Google makes hundreds of changes and updates to its search algorithm every year with the goal of improving access to useful content. The Penguin and Panda updates are famous for penalizing content that emphasizes keywords over quality content. At one point, it was easier to rank in Google search results by just stuffing your articles with a lot of keywords without regard for how well-written or informational they were, but pages such as these have been penalized since the updates.

However, even if Google was not penalizing pages that lack useful content, it wouldn’t be a good SEO strategy to publish blogs stuffed with keywords and very little else. Audiences know, or at least have a pretty good idea about, what they are looking for when they perform a web search. They can tell right away which content is useful to them, and they don’t have patience with incomprehensible, worthless content. They are unlikely to linger long on the page, and they certainly aren’t going to trust the goods and services of the company.

 

2. SEO Writing Is Authoritative

This one is a little tricky. In the wider context of search engine optimization, the authority of a web page refers to how many other sites are linking to it, as well as the quality of those sites. Once again, you can’t just work with your friends to create a bunch of links to boost your authority. Google has caught onto that scam and has updated its algorithms to detect and penalize sites that attempt this shortcut at granting a website authority.

In the narrower sense of SEO writing, authoritative writing is content created by a writer who knows what he or she is talking about. The writer is either an expert in the field or has done the necessary research to be able to speak confidently and accurately about the topic.

While the two definitions are different, there is an important relationship between the two of them. At least in theory, writing that is authoritative will receive more links from quality websites, thereby making it more authoritative according to search engine algorithms, which will presumably reward it with higher rankings.

 

3. SEO Content Includes Business-Relevant Keywords

SEO content is frequently misunderstood to be writing that is meant to be read by computers. In fact, it is primarily content created for humans, by humans. The keywords are to attract the attention of the algorithm so that the search engine will point your audience to the content. To put it another way, if search engine optimization was an automobile, the keywords would be the fuel that makes it go.

In the past, I’ve written in detail about how to find effective keywords for your SEO content. Here, I’d just like to review a few important qualities that keywords should have:

• Relevance to your business
• High monthly search volumes
• Low keyword difficulty

The keywords you choose should relate to what your business does in some meaningful way. For example, assume that you run a business that sells umbrellas. “Umbrellas” is a good seed keyword to start with as you do your research to find a more valuable keyword.

However, “umbrellas” alone probably isn’t a good keyword because it is too general to rank well for you. You will probably need to add something to the keyword to make it more specific, maybe the type of umbrellas you sell or the location of your store. While looking for more marketable keywords, you should pay attention to the search volume and the keyword difficulty.

The search volume shows how many people are looking for that particular term on a monthly basis. The higher the volume is, the more people are looking for it. The keyword difficulty shows how easy or hard the search term is to rank for. A keyword with low difficulty is easier to rank for, making it potentially more valuable to you.

Once you’ve chosen your keyword, don’t confine it to your main content alone. It is at least as important to include your keyword in your metadata, i.e., the title tag and meta description, because these are the elements the search engine looks at first to determine relevance.

 

4. SEO Writing Is Original

Original content may be the most essential aspect of any writing created for purposes of search engine optimization. Search engines typically penalize articles that contain duplicate content so that it doesn’t rank at all. Keep in mind that in an SEO context, duplication doesn’t just mean plagiarism from someone else. Your content is also unlikely to rank if it contains content copied from another blog that you wrote. Fortunately, there are multiple online tools available that help you check for plagiarism in your own writing as well as identifying pages that may have been copied from you.

 

Resources Available for Effective SEO Content

When you know about the essentials of good SEO writing, you can tell that creating it takes a lot of hard work. Many business owners find that they don’t have the time to focus on content creation themselves and run their companies at the same time. Outsourcing to a content company assures quality SEO content written by people who understand the essentials, freeing you up to take care of other business matters.

Content marketing has forever changed the way in which brands advertise their products and services and, more notably, leveled the playing field for businesses of all sizes.

It’s obvious that content marketing has finally evolved into THE way of marketing, with more than 90% of businesses adopting the technique. It’s one of the best ways to reach potential clients organically. A huge part of this success is through SEO writing.

What is SEO writing, why does it have such a large effect, and how do you write it? Here’s our take on SEO writing and how to use it to market your business.

 

What Is SEO Writing?

SEO writing involves creating content with a focus on specific keywords and phrases in order to help searchers easily find said content on the search engines. The best SEO writing uses high-quality copy as a foundation and optimizes it for targeted search terms. It also appeals to both users and search engines.

The keyword of this style of writing is SEO. With knowledge of how search engines come into play in connection with marketing, you can have a large effect in the digital sphere.

 

What Is SEO/Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process marketers use to increase their visibility in the SERPs and boost their site’s organic search rankings.

In short, Google and other search engines collect information from websites, which helps them index pages. This is done through digital bots that “crawl” pages and collect all sorts of data. Then, complex algorithms rank pages based on hundreds of factors to find the best webpages for a specific search query.

It’s a lot to process- literally!

Though there are several methods by which one can use SEO to help their business, the best way to obtain enduring results is through SEO writing.

Think about it. Millions of search queries happen every day. People are constantly looking for answers, suggestions and entertainment. If your blog posts and webpages can get on a readers’ radar, your company is only a few steps away from getting a sale.

 

How Do You Write SEO Content?

Once upon a time, it was common for SEO writers to ignore the user experience entirely and write strictly for the search bots using “black hat” SEO techniques. Common techniques included keyword stuffing, buying backlinks and cloaking. The end results typically included keyword-dense blocks of unintelligible text that didn’t provide much, if any, value to the reader.

Today, the search engines (specifically Google) have no tolerance for black hat SEO and penalize websites that engage in black hat techniques. Google wants to rank content that was created with the user in mind and in which searchability is an added bonus. To create this type of content, there are a few components SEO writers should focus on.

 

Write for the Reader First and Foremost

SEO writing is a continually evolving discipline. In the middle-ages of content marketing (after the era of keyword stuffing), SEO writers attempted to squeeze the same keyword or phrase into a piece of content as many times as possible. This is because, back then, Google ranked websites based on keyword density.

In the past five years or so, however, Google realized that by ranking websites based on how many times they could repeat the same keyword, it was actually rewarding site owners for publishing spammy content with little to no value. So, it shifted its approach.

Now, it’s completely focused on the reader. Google services almost the entire world. In order to make users happy, Google finds content that will likely best answer a search query.

 

Factors of Search Engine Ranking

Today, Google considers five key factors when determining which pages to rank for particular queries:

• Meaning of the search query
• Webpage relevance
• Content quality
• Webpage useability
• Context

As you may notice, each of these ranking factors is geared toward ensuring the user has a seamless search experience. You can help Google achieve its goal and, therefore, earn its favor, by writing with the end-user in mind. How can you do that and still achieve maximum searchability with each piece you publish? Two words: Keyword research. This brings us to our next point.

 

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

Ideally, you will focus each page on a single keyword or keyword phrase. That keyword needs to do a lot of heavy lifting, so it’s important that you choose wisely. For starters, you should choose a keyword or phrase that people use to search for information about your products or services. However, don’t assume the most obvious keyword is best.

 

The Best Keywords For SEO Writing

Often, the best keyword for any particular piece of content is popular but not too competitive. It also creates the opportunity to answer a user’s initial search query, and then to expand on the topic by addressing additional questions the reader may have.

For this reason, you should conduct your keyword research with not just the main topic, but also with subtopics, in mind. If you can only go so far with a particular keyword — even if it has a high search score — you may want to keep looking.

The goal is to create the most thorough and value-driven piece of content possible for the word or phrase you choose. When creating this piece, you should not have to worry about how or where you will incorporate search terms. Rather, inserting them should be natural and almost effortless.

Be careful not to choose too many keywords for one piece of content. Your SEO writing should be focused, which helps search engines recognize the value of your content.

 

Write With Google’s Ranking Factors at the Forefront of Your Mind

We know, we know … we told you to write for the reader first and foremost, and while we stand by this advice, you should also know that pages that rank well also cater to Google’s preferences. Though Google looks at more than 200 ranking factors, there are 10 that have more influence than others:

• Value: Is your content relevant, user-friendly and accurate?
• User Experience: Does your content create a positive user experience? In other words, is it visually appealing, easy to engage with and does it address the user’s query?
• Mobile-Friendly: Is your site accessible across multiple devices?
• Backlinks: Is your content worthy of backlinks from other reputable sites?
• Traffic: Does the majority of your site’s traffic come from direct searches, or do visitors find you through a Google search?
• Page Speed: Does each page load in 2 seconds or less?
• HTTPS: Is your site secure?
• Behavioral Signals: Are people interacting with your content, meaning do they mention it, comment on it or share it?
• Schema: Can the search engines easily understand what your content is about?
• Content Depth: Is your content more thorough and helpful than similar pages on the internet?

As you take time to incorporate these factors, you can expect to see your SEO writing rise in the rankings of relevant search queries.

 

SEO Writing FAQs

Now that you know what SEO writing is, it’s important to address frequently asked questions about this type of content. The more you understand how to utilize SEO writing, the greater impact your company can have when ranking on search engines.

 

How Is SEO Writing Connected to Content Marketing?

In the most general sense of the term, content marketing refers to the process of creating and publishing content for the purpose of attracting and engaging website visitors and converting them into leads.

The content itself can take various forms, including but not limited to blog posts, website pages, landing pages, email newsletters, press releases, videos and infographics. Social media posts, title tags and meta descriptions are also considered “content,” as are product descriptions, category descriptions, paid ads and headlines.

Regardless of the type of content you create or what it looks like, it all involves one crucial element: the written word. And to help people find and utilize your content, this is where SEO writing comes into play.

 

Why Should My Business Focus on SEO Writing?

Whether or not you have a strong content strategy, it’s important to optimize all the content on your website to boost traffic, build brand authority and gain leads.

However, we strongly suggest you look into building your content strategy. There are numerous benefits of producing consistent quality content on your website. With the help of SEO writers, your company can have a stronger online presence as your website begins to rank higher and higher for search queries.

Additionally, you can help improve the experience of your readers and customers. Engaging content that is concise and error-free does a lot more good for your business than error-filled paragraphs that are confusing. Your writing reflects your brand, and as you increase the quality of writing, you also increase your standing in the industry.

 

How Do I Get Started With SEO Writing?

Our first suggestion is to make sure your main website pages are optimized for SEO. You may need to start with Google’s webmaster guidelines to help search engines find your pages. Additionally, make sure your content on home pages, landing pages and product descriptions are well-written and focused on your target market.

Next, we encourage you to start blogging. Each blog post you create has potential to rank for keywords that leads are searching. In addition to increased traffic, a strong blog presence can help build up brand authority. As you expand your business, your online authority can complement and enhance your company’s growth.

SEO writers can help you craft great content for your blogs, products, landing pages and any other of your writing needs. They know how to target keywords, format in an SEO-friendly way and write content focused on the readers.

 

Is SEO Writing the Best Kind of Writing For My Website?

Though each marketing asset requires writing, not all should be written in the same style. For each deliverable to achieve the goal you set for it, you need to write it for the intended audience.

To understand what we mean, consider the way in which you would tell a story to your mother versus how you would recount it to your best friend. You might embellish more for your BFF, as s/he may appreciate a dramatic tale every once in a while. For your mom, however, you would keep the story short, simple and free of fluff, as her days for drama are long gone.

This same concept applies to SEO writing and other forms of writing such as copywriting. Though you want to convey the same message across all marketing channels, you may need to tweak the language, format and other aspects of the delivery to appeal to specific audiences.

That being said, SEO writing can be another form of copywriting, just with search engine optimization in mind. In general, SEO writing should be used for any digital writing so that search engines can help you advertise, promote and inform your customers and readers.

 

SEO Writing: Get Professional Help!

So, what is SEO writing? It’s the solution to gaining more leads, building brand awareness and scoring online sales. It is the future of content marketing, and you can get started today. With a strong SEO strategy, you can get ahead of competitors and start building expertise in the industry.

If you want to improve your SEO writing, consider getting professional help. SEO content writers are trained to write blog posts, articles and pages with SEO best practices in mind. Instead of spending the time and effort to create engaging content, content companies like ours can do the work for you. Learn more about what we offer at our Content Shop and get started today.

Do you have trouble coming up with interesting ideas to write about? While many successful bloggers can tell you that they often make lists of things they want to write about, they also know that they can’t just write about the things they want all of the time. No matter how much you may like the subject you are writing on, there will be times where your mind draws a blank. What do you do on days where coming up with a topic is like finding a needle in a haystack? It’s simple! You just need to find another way to come up with ideas. Here are some ways to find the best topics for your blog.

Research

While the fastest and most convenient way to research something nowadays is the internet, don’t forget to read newspapers, magazines and even the tabloids for some new ideas. Go to the library and check out books from the reference section to see what subjects they have that pertain to your blog.

See the Scenery

Sometimes the best way to become inspired is to change your scenery. Go for a walk, jog or take a drive and take the scenic route to your destination. Turn on the radio or your favorite CD and let the change of pace and music free your mind so that your thoughts just flow.

Go Out

Surprisingly, one of the easiest ways to hear a myriad of point of views and ideas on any topic is to go outside and talk to others. You don’t need to hunt down scholars and professionals just to find out what someone thinks about something. The most interesting and newsworthy blog posts are those that come from regular and everyday conversations with people.

Look at Other Blogs

Sometimes the best way to come up with an angle to write about is to visit the blogs of your competitors. Visit different websites and blogs to see what they are writing about. While you don’t have to write on the same things, you may find that their blog posts inspire you to write about a topic that they briefly touched on or something similar.

Shift Your Focus

If all else fails, it may be best for you to call it a day. That doesn’t mean to give up and scratch that blog post from your to-do list, it means to go and do something else or rest. You need to remember, your brain is a large muscle and it requires a fair amount of rest too. If you are tired, stressed or simply have too much on your mind, you are less likely to be successful at coming up with fresh, new, and interesting ideas for your blog. Taking a nap or simply calling it a night gives you the opportunity to wake the next day feeling refreshed. You’d be surprised at how many fresh and interesting ideas you come up with for blog ideas first thing in the morning. Just make sure you keep a pen and notepad nearby to jot those ideas down before you forget them.

Now Start Writing

You don’t always have to take the traditional approach to a blog topic, loosen up, think outside of the box and don’t be afraid to take a controversial point of view to create a truly thought provoking and sensational blog post. If all else fails, don’t hesitate to contact a content writing service for assistance.

In 1958, Ernest Hemingway did an interview with The Paris Review in which he purportedly admitted that he had rewritten the final section of “A Farewell to Arms” 39 times before he was happy with the result. If one of the world’s most talented and renowned writers had to do that much revision, what does that mean for us regular writers? For some of us, it means that we are still about 38 rewrites away from perfection.

I will be the first to admit that when I have a tight deadline, I don’t always go through multiple drafts. Still, I always write with integrity, which means that I put my heart and soul into the words on the page. Even though I know my writing is far from perfect, feedback can sting a little.

Don’t Take it Personally

If you have a hard time taking criticism, the first thing I would tell you is to cut yourself some slack. Remember that even the best content writers get critique from editors and friends. In fact, their ability to apply that critique may be what makes them the best. When editors give you suggestions, don’t let yourself get defensive. Remember that it’s not meant as an insult. It’s meant to help you take your writing to the next level.

Ask Questions

If you don’t understand something your editor says, don’t hesitate to ask for clarification. If you honestly want to improve, take full advantage of the opportunity you have to get someone else’s perspective. You might be surprised at how willing an editor is to help you out.

Express Appreciation

If you approach criticism with humility and gratitude, you will find that you are a lot more open to improvement. Here at BKA, all of our editors are also experienced writers, which means that they know what you are going through. They undoubtedly agonize over the exact feedback they should give and the way they should give it. Mutual appreciation will enable you to build a bond of respect as you work together to become better.

Make Changes

Once you have a good grasp of the things you can do to improve, look for ways that you can implement those suggestions. Whether you are just trying to remember the correct spelling of “complements,” or you are giving your writing style a total overhaul, dedicated practice will make a big difference. While you still may not have time to do several drafts of your articles, learning how to take critique gracefully will help you become the kind of writer that you want to be.

What are your thoughts on receiving constructive criticism on your content writing? Please share below!

When you work from home, all kinds of things can be distracting. Whether it’s the kids who need you, the constantly ringing phone vying for your attention, Facebook pop-ups luring you into the tangled web of social media, or the laundry buzzer reminding you that you’ve already reset it 3 times, trying to work at home can be a challenge.

The problem becomes even worse when you aren’t in the mood to work, or have a personality that is easily distracted. And . . . that pretty much describes me.

I am one of those people who loves life and likes to have fun. However, I’ve also got a job to do. . . several jobs, actually. For starters, I’m a mom of 7 amazing kids varying in age from 21 to 8, and let me tell you, if that isn’t fun, I don’t know what is! Besides trying to keep myself sane while raising my children, we own a 2.5 acre piece of property complete with a smattering of assorted farm animals that need to be taken care of every day. My husband works in international agricultural business consulting and travels every few months for his employment, making things just that much more exciting! Besides all that, we both hold busy church callings and serve in the community. To help make ends meet between my hubby’s big clients, I design websites and write SEO articles for BKA. Are you feeling tired yet? I feel tired just typing about it!

I love working from home because I can choose my own hours and work around my always-hectic schedule. But as I said before, working from home can be very challenging because. . .  well, because you choose your own hours and can work around your always-hectic schedule!

Working on Your Own Schedule

It’s one of those double-edged-sword kind of things to work on your own schedule. If you’re really good at following a rigid timeline, and your life happens to roll along at predictable hour-long chunks, then it’s no problem to work, be a mom, and keep up with all the other demands such as church and community service, lawn care (ugh), and making sure the pets aren’t starving. But do you honestly know anyone whose life is perfectly scheduled and always on time?

Okay, I admit, there are a few people I know who are extremely good at keeping life on a tight schedule, and they seem to be always on top of everything. But . . . not me. I admit it! And I’m okay with it. Why? The answer is simple, there’s just too much good stuff out there in the world to let yourself get anxious or depressed about a rigid, self-imposed, silly little schedule!

And I’ll tell you what, it may sound irresponsible, but when my 11-year-old daughter wants me to play a game with her, or my 8-year-old son invites me to watch Justice League with him, I try to say “yes” as often as I can. Why? Because I have a few grown-up kids, too, and I know how fast they grow up. It’s mind boggling. Snuggling up with your child when they’ll still let you is such a precious gift. Don’t let it slip away too fast!

It’s not worth it to give up that precious time with your children just to make the house sparkle unnecessarily, or even to get one more article written. (Gasp! Am I allowed to say that here?) But truly, building relationships with your loved ones has to come first, especially when it comes to those quickly growing children.

Balancing Responsibility, Work, and Guilt-Free Fun

Now, don’t think I’m unrealistic. I realize that you can’t just fly from thing to thing all day without a schedule and still expect to get anything done. Bills have to be paid, school and sports fees have to be taken care of, and ice cream needs be purchased. So, in my case, that means that articles need to be written! And therein lies the big question. How does one balance the joy of living life and the responsibility of completing work?

I’ve found that for me, I have to have little games to play with myself. You know, “Work now, play later”. I guess I’m kind of like a little kid. My internal dialogue goes something like this:

“Write one article, then you get to play one level of Candy Crush.”

“Pay this bill, then you get to look around on Pinterest for half an hour.”

“Finish the laundry, then you can watch one episode of Call the Midwife.”

Things like that. Whether it’s a simple check-off list, setting a Pomodoro timer, keeping track of tasks at Kanbanflow.com, or rewarding myself with something I like to do, keeping it fresh and making it fun makes all the difference.

Procrastination – That Pesky Little Problem

I’ll tell you, though, if there’s something I really don’t want to do, I’m as good as anyone at putting it off. Especially if there are lots of other fun things around to get me distracted. So, when the procrastination bug hits, how can you overcome it?

According to “The NOW Habit” by Dr. Neil Fiore, there are three great ways to get past the block of procrastination. So if you find yourself avoiding your most important work and projects, maybe these ideas can help you.

Tool #1 – Three Dimensional Thinking

When we begin a large project or try to force ourselves to do something we’ve been avoiding, we often put it off because we quite simply get scared! We see ourselves trying to accomplish various parts of the project all at once, and we become overwhelmed. We procrastinate because it’s less painful to just not think about it. But that doesn’t really help because the work is still there, and the deadlines loom closer.

When you use three-dimensional thinking, it’s like extending a telescope out and projecting the work along a timeline that only needs to be traversed one step at a time. You see the beginning, middle and end of the project, instead of the whole thing at once. By creating what Dr. Fiore calls a “reverse calendar”, you can work backwards to schedule your tasks, in manageable chunks, until you get to one little thing you can do today. Maybe you can’t plant, water, harvest and store the entire garden at once. But you can purchase seeds today.

Tool #2 – The Work of Worrying

This idea fascinates me. Did you realize that it takes work to worry? It’s true. When you worry, you imagine all the problems that may occur, and all the roadblocks holding up your success. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Fiore, most people never “finish” their work of worrying. We tend to only do the first part – thinking about all the reasons why we may or may not be able to finish the task. So what do we do? Bingo! We procrastinate so we don’t have to think about the pain.

Again, this solution is temporary at best. Dr. Fiore says we need to “finish” the work of worrying by mentally carrying those worries through to completion, and finding solutions for them. For instance, you may worry that if you don’t do a good job on your writing assignment, the account manager will complain about your work. To “finish” the work of this worrying, you ask yourself, “Okay, if that happens, what will I do next?” Then imagine yourself through the situation.

Keep asking yourself “Then what will I do next?” as you imagine each part of the scenario, and carry it all the way to its conclusion, where you will realize that no matter how bad it gets, you can always pick yourself up and keep going.

Once you complete these “worst case scenarios” for your worries, you give yourself power over them. Instead of having a worry become paralyzing, your mind is freed from the “what if” syndrome, and you can get back to the real work – doing what it takes now to avoid getting yourself into that situation in the first place.

Tool #3 – Persistent Starting

This is just what it says – you must simply start on whatever project you are procrastinating. Even if you can only set a timer and do 5 minutes on the “next action” in your project, just the act of making yourself take the first step may be the jumpstart you need. If you focus on persistent starting, finishing will take care of itself.

In fact, it was the idea of persistent starting that finally got me going on writing this blog entry (on the very last day of the twice-extended deadline, no less). I thought to myself, “This is silly! I’m just going to start writing!” For weeks, even months, I’ve been thinking about what I would write about if I put an entry into the blog writer’s series. And yet, I write dozens of articles every week. So, what’s the big deal? That was it – it was time to quit procrastinating. I just started writing, and here we are!

Really Short Conclusion Because This Is Getting Too Long

So – I guess that’s all I have to say! Life is fun, working at home is amazing, getting distracted can be a challenge, and procrastinating can make life downright depressing! By finding little games and tricks to play with yourself, and using a few simple time management strategies, things can go a lot smoother. And before you know it, you’ll have written over 1500 words and realize it’s time to STOP!

So – go have some fun – and get something done!