​If you’re like most people, you’re frequently planning future epic changes and life-altering decisions, all fueled by a simple list of goals. While most people will include strategies for getting healthy, improving relationships and upping productivity at work (especially at the beginning of the year), you can also apply link-building resolutions to your SEO content marketing strategy at any point in the year to improve the strength and effectiveness of your content. Here are a few do’s and don’ts to consider when creating your top link-building strategies.

 

5 Link-Building Strategies You Should Avoid

SEO link-building tactics aren’t just about incorporating a lot of good things, they are also about avoiding strategies that diminish or minimize your efforts. Here are 5 don’ts you should be aware of.

 

1. Don’t Overlink

More links equal more connections and more credibility, right? While adding links can give your page a boost, adding too many will push it the other way. Google’s ranking algorithm makes sure that the type of links you use affects your place in search results. Neil Patel states that “five quality links from authority sites will weigh more heavily in your favor than ten mediocre links from generic sites.”

2. Don’t Use Paid Links

One part of creating successful SEO link-building strategies is knowing where to put your money. While paid links are okay in some situations, you do want to exercise caution when using them. You must make sure that your source is going to use best practices and follow Google’s webmaster and advertising guidelines, otherwise, it is best to just avoid paid links.

 

3. Don’t Use Keywords As Anchor Texts

There are certain words that you should avoid using as your anchor text when creating links. While it is okay for some of these to be included in the link, you should never use the following on their own:

• The word “link” or “website”
• The URL
• The name of the company or site
• The domain

Instead, choose a relevant phrase to create your link that will catch the reader’s eye. It’s also important to make sure the anchor text you are using does not contain keywords you are trying to win. You want readers to come to your site when they see that keyword, not be directed elsewhere.

 

4. Don’t Use Any Form of Manipulation

If you are considering doing something that may be frowned upon and you aren’t sure if Google will penalize you for it, the best idea is to refrain. Trying to “work the system” rarely works with the ever-changing algorithms and constant updates. Taking shortcuts to get to the top usually results in a quick trip to the bottom. A better choice is to follow Google’s rules and go for sustainability rather than speed.

 

5. Don’t Overlook the Value of Natural Links

While you may be focusing heavily on contacting other bloggers and businesses to trade links, don’t overlook the value of natural links. Higher placement in Google’s search results can mean more natural links by bloggers who are searching. These will come as your page gains credibility, but they shouldn’t be overlooked in your zest for creating reciprocal relationships.

 

5 Link-Building Strategies You SHOULD Use

Now that you know how to avoid some big link-building potholes, get started on finding the best SEO link-building strategies out there. We have 5 do’s you might want to investigate.

 

1. Do Learn How to Monitor Your Backlinks

While it may seem obvious, there are actually several marketers who have no idea how to find out who is linking back to them. Educating yourself on this can give you a much clearer idea of where you stand in the blogging world. It will also alert you to the type of posts that generate the most traffic and the sites that are most often linking to you.

 

2. Do Link in Lists

According to EarnedLinks.com, the top type of content that was linked to was lists, which were linked to 74 percent more than any other type of content. The next most frequent type was infographics. If you want a piece that is shareable, the statistics point to the fact that pictures and lists are the biggest draw for linking. Incorporate this knowledge into your link-building strategies and be sure to mention this to your blog writing service so they can cater to your needs.

 

3. Do Develop Relationships

Did you write a great post that got mentioned by another blogger? That’s great, but there is more to do now. Rather than just patting yourself on the back and moving on to your next topic, start developing a relationship with this blogger. Start by contacting them, either through email or by phone. You can request additional links, or you can begin building a solid reciprocal relationship by asking to do an interview or allow them to guest blog on your site. This can open up your page to an entirely new audience of devoted followers. Content collaborations are also great opportunities to work with established bloggers. Expert roundup posts can also allow you to mention several bloggers at once and plant the seeds of many reciprocal relationships.

One type of relationship that is often overlooked is the one created with editors. By having an established line of communication with the editors of certain sites, you will be more likely to have your article picked up and republished. Before you contact any blogger or editor, search carefully for the site owner’s name. Using manners and courtesy can get you far when requesting backlinks. Be sure to let them know the exact place you think your link would fit on their site or the topic you think they could guest-blog about.

 

4. Do Make Your Link Building Content-Based

While you can insert whatever type of links you choose, almost all marketing managers stated that the most effective and popular tactic they used was link building that was based on content. Part of the reason for this is that the sites you link to are more likely to return the favor if the move makes sense, and that is unlikely to happen if your link was not based on content. If you use content writing services, be sure that they are aware of this and create appropriate links.

 

5. Do Create Client Links

While you generally want to link to reputable companies, linking to your current customers is another great way to expand your client base. Offering incentives for past customers to leave reviews, then posting those to your website and linking back to the author gives you easy links. If they give a testimonial, they may also be interested in sharing their statement on their own website.

 

Use SEO Link-Building Strategies That Work

While getting sculpted calves or going strictly paleo might top your friends’ yearly resolutions, making better link-building strategies the top of yours can lead to increased traffic, improved relationships and bolstered sales.

The key to finding successful SEO link-building strategies is by creating a plan and following the footsteps of businesses and websites that have seen great success in their SEO link-building tactics. Follow the guidelines that Google suggests and avoid using any linking strategies that result in fewer followers or decreased credibility. By following these strategies, you’ll be on your way to the best year yet for you, your SEO and your entire company.

Contact BKA Content today to see how our white hat link building services can help you get to the next level in your organic marketing efforts!

As you build and manage your e-commerce website, establishing a powerful online presence is crucial in today’s competitive market. It’s estimated that over 20% of all retail purchases will occur online in 2023. That means you must be at the forefront of design, search engine optimization, and organic marketing to effectively boost your online store’s visibility and attract potential customers.

SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results, which increases the chances of potential customers finding your products or services. Our clients often ask us, “Is WordPress or Shopify better for SEO when building an online store?” The answer is nuanced. Consider the pros and cons of each platform so you can make an informed decision before you set up your e-commerce shop.

SEO for Shopify

Shopify is a popular B2B e-commerce platform that allows online retailers to build, customize, and manage their virtual stores using an array of tools and features. According to DemandSage, over 4.5 million websites use Shopify to run their e-commerce businesses. Additionally, almost 649 million people purchased something from a Shopify store in 2022.

Pros of Shopify

Shopify’s simple built-in features are the biggest reason for its popularity. Retailers can easily build their storefronts, optimize their online marketplaces for search engines and improve their organic marketing.

Shopify also automatically generates sitemaps and handles canonical URLs. These steps ensure that search engines can efficiently crawl the website. Additionally, the platform allows you to easily edit title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text, which will contribute to your website’s SEO performance.

Plugins can also help with keyword research, on-page optimization, and content creation. Shopify also supports social media integration and email marketing campaigns that can enhance a retailer’s reach.

Consider some additional benefits of using Shopify:

User-Friendly

Shopify’s basic interface is easy to use, even for people with limited technical skills. This means you can set up and manage your online store without the help of a web developer.

Fast Load Times

Shopify’s infrastructure ensures fast load times for your online store, which is essential for providing a good user experience and improving SEO rankings.

You’ll also get a daily speed score to show you how fast your store is performing. You can work toward increasing the score to improve the experience customers will have on your site.

Automatic Updates

Shopify regularly updates merchant themes for you, ensuring that you always have access to the latest features and security patches.

Cons of Shopify

Using Shopify for SEO and organic marketing comes with some drawbacks.

Limited Customization Options

Shopify’s design templates and themes may not be enough for businesses with unique branding or blogging requirements. Having access to limited customization possibilities can be frustrating when you want to create an optimized website that also fulfills specific brand requirements.

Duplicate Content Issues

Shopify’s default setup can create duplicate content issues, which will negatively impact SEO. For example, your product pages may have multiple URLs based on different category page filters, which can result in Google penalties. Fortunately, there is an easy fix for this, but you have to be comfortable getting into the theme’s code editor.

Basic Blog Functionality

Shopify’s basic blog functionality is limited compared to other blogging platforms, which can make it difficult to create and promote your blog content for organic SEO content marketing. Some people prefer to install a WordPress blog onto their Shopify store because they like WordPress’ robust blogging features better.

SEO for WordPress

WordPress is a highly customizable content management system that runs 43.3% of all websites worldwide, making it the most popular CMS platform available. In fact, more than 500 new WordPress sites are built daily, compared to the approximately 70 new sites built on Shopify each day. Because the WordPress community is so prolific, businesses have access to a lot of support to help them build their e-commerce store or blog and improve their online presence.

Pros of WordPress

WordPress is well regarded for its blogging tools and SEO capabilities, making it a popular choice for businesses looking to improve their website’s search engine ranking. For example, WordPress provides a wide range of SEO-friendly themes designed with clean and well-structured code, which makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your website.

Additionally, WordPress has over 58,000 free plugins, such as Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack, which help you easily optimize your blog content, meta tags, and other on-page elements, ensuring a solid SEO foundation.

Consider these additional benefits that WordPress has on your SEO efforts.

Extensive Customization Options

Unlike Shopify, WordPress has virtually limitless customization options via thousands of free and premium themes, allowing you to create unique online stores and publication websites tailored to your needs.

If you have coding knowledge, you can dive deeper into customization with custom CSS and child themes, which enables you to make more extensive changes to your theme’s code without affecting the parent theme when it gets updated. This flexibility empowers you to create a truly unique and personalized website.

Cost-Effective

WordPress is an open-source platform, meaning it’s free to use. This makes it an attractive option for businesses on a budget and allows anyone to get started immediately. Because WordPress is free to start, you can check out the pros and cons of the platform and see if it’s the right fit for you before you invest valuable resources into running it.

Custom Post Types

WordPress allows you to create custom post types, categories, and tags. These enable you to organize and display your content in a way that best suits your website’s purpose. For instance, you can create posts for events, products, or customer testimonials. You can then assign those custom classifications to categorize and filter the content, making your page as user-friendly as possible.

Cons of WordPress

While using WordPress has a lot of advantages over other platforms, it’s essential to consider some of its limitations before deciding if WordPress or Shopify is better for SEO and content marketing.

Steeper Learning Curve

WordPress’ basic platform is relatively easy to manage for simple websites, but if you want to build an online storefront and start accepting payments, you must utilize e-commerce plugins. They are not automatically built in.

Finding specific plugins and getting support for them when things go wrong can often be a frustrating experience if you’re first starting out. Doing so requires a lot of research to make sure you’re using the right tools in the best way possible.

Security Concerns

While Shopify ensures that its servers are secure, WordPress users are responsible for setting up their own SSL encryption. Due to its popularity, WordPress can be a target for hackers who can take over your site. If your website is attacked, customers may feel uncomfortable giving you their financial and personal information, which means you will likely lose profits.

Typically, hackers cannot get in through WordPress’ core software; however, the plugins you use pose the biggest security risks, especially if they are unsupported or outdated. Regularly updating plugins, which is your responsibility, is a must when using WordPress. You may also need to consider additional security measures to protect your e-commerce business.

Slow Loading Speeds

Some WordPress themes and plugins can slow down your website. This is especially true if they have a lot of built-in features. Slower loading speeds can negatively impact user experience and hurt search engine rankings. To mitigate this issue, choose lightweight, optimized themes and use plugins that help with caching and image optimization.

Is WordPress or Shopify Better for Your SEO Needs?

So, is WordPress or Shopify better for SEO? Both WordPress and Shopify have their advantages and disadvantages. The best platform for your business should be made on a case-by-case basis. Keep in mind your technical expertise, budget, blog goals, and store design when determining which platform is the best fit for your SEO and organic marketing needs.

If you have limited technical abilities and a heavy focus on making online sales, Shopify may be a better choice for you because it offers a user-friendly interface and built-in SEO tools.

However, WordPress may be the preferred choice if you want more control over your SEO efforts, extensive customization options, and access to comprehensive blogging tools.

Start Optimizing for SEO on WordPress or Shopify 

Whether you choose WordPress or Shopify for your content management system, prioritizing SEO will be vital to your online success. Mastering effective SEO strategies can require a lot of time and resources to stay up to date with the latest trends and ensure optimal website performance.

Let BKA Content help you with your SEO and organic marketing needs on any platform. As experts in the field, we have the tools and resources necessary to achieve your SEO goals, no matter how lofty they are. Check out our organic SEO packages designed to help you improve search engine rankings, drive traffic, and ultimately succeed in a competitive online marketplace.

Do you feel that keywords are passé, having landed in a grave years ago when Google decided to stop primarily using them for ranking? The latest algorithms from Google focus on topics to find relevancy rather than words. The way people search also reflects an emphasis on topics (or queries) rather than matching words. This has led to many marketers saying goodbye to keyword research. However, researching keywords and keyword phrases remains just as important as it did back when SEO first started to become mainstream.

 

What is SEO Keyword Research?

Keyword research is about much more than simply finding words to sprinkle throughout your content for increased rankings, which is how keywords were traditionally used. Putting in the time and effort remains an important component of your digital marketing campaigns, especially your SEO strategy. SEO keyword research today is about combining user search queries with relevant keyword phrases to create a topical structure for your content. Blog posts written in a format that covers all of the relevant questions and topics surrounding the main keyword phrase reinforce to Google that the piece will provide readers with something valuable.

SEO keyword research has become an art form of sorts. It begins with data and research, moves to topic ideation and ends with natural optimization and subtle reinforcement. These components have to be weaved together in a way that appeals to both reader and search engine without one taking precedence over the other.

 

Things to Consider When Conducting Keyword Research

Because of all that keyword phrases need to accomplish in today’s SEO landscape, it can be easy to get a little lost when learning how to find appropriate user queries to focus new content around. Here are some of the main things to master when getting started on your SEO keyword research.

 

Understanding Relevancy of Keywords/Topics

Relevancy is an essential component of content marketing for many reasons, especially as it is one area that Google uses to match pages to searches. Using keyword research provides you with a larger understanding of all the relevant terms associated with a particular topic. For example, if you are writing about cars, you also want to include relevant terms such as vehicle, automobiles and auto. Simply including a diverse array of relevant terms increases the ranking of your page. Furthermore, incorporating a variety of relevant terms enhances the content and boosts your rankings by demonstrating your page has a more comprehensive understanding of the topic.

When performing keyword research, it’s a best practice to focus on a primary phrase for the overall structure of the post. That being said, it’s important to have 4-5 other related keyword phrases that help expand upon the ideas in that primary phrase you’ve selected. For instance, if the primary keyword you’ve decided to focus your blog on is “How to take great pictures”, you might consider secondary keyword phrases along the lines of “When to take pictures”, or “what camera to use to take pictures”, as well as interchange the word “pictures” with “photos” or “images” to cast the widest-reaching net of keyword phrases in your piece.

 

Learning the Nuances of Your Topics

No matter the nature of your business, the topics about which you write are multi-faceted. It is difficult at times to fully comprehend all sides of your business and adequately include those in your SEO strategy. Working with keyword research provides you an opportunity to learn more about all of the niches and nuances within your business, including those you might not immediately realize. Then, you can include this in your content by writing about more diverse topics, which provide even more ways to be found by potential customers.

Half the battle of content writing is just coming up with a topic in the first place. The better you understand your industry, the easier it will be to spot the holes in great informational content. While one strategy for SEO keyword research is to just take the top-performing words and make better content than everyone else that focuses on that phrase, another great avenue to take is to find keyword phrases with less competition and be the first to make original, great content about it.

 

Discovering Opportunities for Targeting Traffic

Not only does keyword research help you remain relevant and discover additional nuances of your topic, it also helps you to find better opportunities for targeting traffic on your site. You can also find keywords and phrases that have the highest-volume for traffic. Often, these are highly lucrative keywords but also highly competitive and potentially expensive.

As was mention above, you can also find terms that have less competition that might provide additional ways to find traffic. By performing adequate research, you have the information you need to create a strategic SEO strategy that intelligently uses your budget to attract the traffic you want with a combination of high-volume and low-volume terms.

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to SEO keyword research strategy, so coming up with a custom plan that best suits your business and it’s current placement in the industry you’re in is the best way to go.

 

Knowing the Language of Your Customers

No matter how brilliant your content or how much of an expert you are in your industry lingo, if it does not match the language of your customers, you will find that your pages do not rank well. Although you might feel that you have a strong sense of the language of your customers, keyword research provides invaluable insight that you cannot always get simply by interacting with your customers or performing market research.

It includes ways that potential customers think about your products and services and the language they use to search for your products. Including this language alongside the industry lingo increases the number of people who find your information and see it as relevant, which in turn improves your organic traffic and your SEO rankings.

Companies often make the mistake of labeling a product or service a certain way and assuming that everyone refers to it the same way. On the other hand, some things may be labeled correctly but have multiple meanings. Our own company name, BKA is a great example. If you searched for “What is BKA” on Google, you’d find a lot of information about a below-the-knee amputation procedure. However, if someone searches “What is BKA Content” they’d find information about our company.

When performing SEO keyword research, always be aware of language and how user intent changes based on the words in the keyword phrase.

 

Matching Landing Pages and Other Navigational Information

When you create your website, it is important that you make it easy to navigate. If customers find it confusing, they will quickly bounce. Learning more about keywords helps you to create a navigation that matches the language and needs of your customers. For one, the keywords provide recognizable language in which to use as your menu buttons and other navigational tools. As discussed above, there might be a disconnect between the industry language and that of the customers. Using the laymen’s terms in your navigational tools ensures customers know where to go.

Additionally, keyword research also helps you to create more relevant landing pages. Landing pages are an essential component of any successful SEO strategy because they direct customers to the actions you want them to perform. They need to be relevant to the keywords so that there is no disconnect when the customers arrive. Learning more about how the competition and customers use keywords and understand them enhances your ability to create dynamite landing pages.

One great way to showcase this point is to look at how one keyword phrase may be better suited for a landing page vs another keyword phrase that’s better suited for an informational blog. For instance, any keyword that has a question attached like “how to”, “what is”, “when should”, or “Why”, would be better suited for an information blog post that can fully answer their question. Any keyword that is specifically about a product or service would be better suited for a landing page that shows them the product or service and how you can help them.

People want relevant answers to their queries and don’t want to be jerked around by having to navigate through multiple pages. When conducting your SEO keyword research keep that in mind when picking keywords and the associated content types that you’ll use to try and win that keyword.

 

Getting Inside the Searcher’s Head

To increase traffic to your site, it is important to find ways to target all potential customers. Knowing what goes on in people’s heads helps you to create content that matches all stages of the sales process from contemplation to purchasing. As was mentioned above, it is important to understand what phrases match different parts of the stages so that you create content that is relevant to the customers in their present position.

To take it a step further, think deeper about search intent and put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers. If the people searching are simply interested and looking for research, they will want to find information that provides answers to their questions. If they already own something and are looking to solve an issue, then they will search for troubleshooting content. Taking some time to see what pages rank highest for certain keywords and phrases provides insight into the headspace of customers when they use these words so that you can create content that matches it.

 

Discovering Products and Services for the Future

When you research associated keywords in your business, you might also discover products and services you can add to your business to grow and expand. You might not have the ability to expand and grow your business at the moment, but it is beneficial to continually see ways that you could expand in the future rather than only looking into today’s potential business.

For example, if you provide massage therapy services, you might find that many people who search for it also search for facials, acupuncture and other complementary services. Using this information, you might decide to work towards adding facials and acupuncture services to your massage clinic in the future to bring in additional customers.

 

Researching Your Competition

Using tools for SEO keyword research also helps you to have a better understanding of what your competition is doing. The Google Keyword Tool has a component where you can enter a website, including that of your competition. This search provides you with a list of keyword and phrase matches, as well as the search volumes for the keywords. Then, you can determine whether or not to use the same information on your content or focus on other areas based on what your competition is doing.

This might also help you find information that expands your SEO strategy, especially if you do not have a large marketing budget and wish to target areas that are under targeted. Sometimes going after your competitors’ keywords allows you to kill two birds with one stone. You can go after keywords that appeal to your target market while also gaining an advantage over competitors vying for the same keywords.

 

Creating Better Content That Owns the Topic

Search engine rankings rely heavily on strong content. It is important to create relevant content that fully includes the nuances and niches of your business, which you now know after researching for keywords. It also needs to match your customers’ expectations for the results from their searches, which you also have a firm understanding of after you have explored keyword research and learned more about how customers use different languages. Additionally, content should be diverse while relevant, full of depth while remaining current.

When you have a complete understanding of all the different words associated with your topic, you will fully own it and create the best content possible.  Keyword research opens up so many new areas of topics on which you can write so that you do not end up continually rehashing the same content over and over again on your blog or other mediums. You can also use them to improve any existing content by adding in some additional language and keyword phrases that help with your rankings.

 

Developing Better Metrics

When creating your SEO and digital marketing strategy, it is important to have a strong method of knowing what to expect. This assists you in creating realistic goals and parameters with which to assess the metrics. Researching into keywords provides you with an understanding of the efficacy of the keywords, as well as the competition. This ensures that your expectations remain realistic as you determine how to view the analytics and determine whether or not your efforts are working.

Also, by tracking the keywords you’re targeting in your content you may be able to identify keyword trends you can capitalize on. For instance, maybe writing about a certain niche product allows you to jump up the rankings quicker than another, more mainstream product. Or even just a certain type of query relating to your products and services seems to provide quicker results. Use your own metrics to help hone in on what keywords are performing better than others and take advantage of it!

 

Boosting Click Through Rates

Speaking of metrics, SEO research into keywords also helps you to improve them. The research you discover leads to creating more relevant pages, connecting better with customers, and developing the best possible content for your digital properties. Using the right keywords improves your traffic by increasing the page rankings. When customers land on relevant landing pages, your bounce rate decreases.

Appropriately using keywords also boosts the number of click-throughs you get from the SERPS. Using keywords correctly in your meta description and title tags does more than just help your rankings. It also matches your customer’s language to increase the chance that they will choose your page from the results page over your competition.

 

SEO Keyword Research: More than Meets the Eye

As you can see, there are many uses for keywords throughout the entire marketing funnel. Because of this, keyword research still plays a vital role in your SEO strategy. Although Google might not search exclusively for keywords anymore, these important phrases still have a major role to play in developing the best SEO strategy to help you reach your business goals.

Need help developing a keyword strategy for your business? Want to see how properly optimized SEO Blog Content can boost your business to the next level? Contact us to find out how we can help!

Content marketing for small businesses. Without it, will your small business thrive?

It might feel as though you are constantly told that you must implement content marketing in order to survive as a small business in the current market. But is that really the case? Many businesses continually wonder whether content marketing for small businesses is worth the time, money and effort, especially when they do not see immediate payoffs to their efforts.

 

Is Content Marketing for Small Businesses Worth It?

The answer is: yes, content marketing absolutely works for small businesses. Not only that, it’s the great equalizer in marketing. While larger businesses can throw hundreds of thousands of dollars a month at ad spend to come up first in search engine rankings, small businesses can own the market on certain keyword phrases when thy have long-form, quality, valuable content to offer consumers.

A couple hundred dollars put into a really good blog post can eventually rank near the top for a keyword phrase that another company is spending thousands of dollars in ads for. If you’re a small business, this is the best way to get the most long-standing value for your marketing spend.

With that in mind, the question becomes more about whether or not small businesses can afford NOT to do content marketing.

 

What is Content Marketing for Small Business?

To start, it’s important to define what content marketing actually is. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing for small business as a “strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.” Essentially, instead of blatantly pitching your products and services to your customer base, you’re providing relevant, valuable information to your prospects to help them solve their own issues.

Seems a bit counter-intuitive, right? Why would you tell someone how to do something themselves when you want them to use your product or service instead? The answer lies in building trust, authority and brand recognition. Chances are the product or service you provide solves a pain point for your customers. Just because you give a potential customer some tips and tricks to use to help solve their own problems, doesn’t mean that they will do it themselves. Rather, you’re building trust with your customer base that you care about them and want to provide good, accurate information.

When the problem does arise again, they’ll usually opt for a professional, someone they trust, to come in and do the job right. If your content has been able to reach them before this point, your small business is much more likely to come to mind when they’re ready to purchase.

 

What are the Benefits of Content Marketing for Businesses?

As a small business owner, you have to constantly determine what is worth implementing to grow your business. Many factors are involved, including time, money and manpower. But the underlying truth is that if you don’t continually bring in new leads to your business, you’ll eventually run yourself out of business. And with the internet becoming more and more prevalent for savvy customers, being found online is becoming a must.

Small business content marketing (or SMB content marketing) is actually great for your bottom line. Initial costs are relatively low for what it can produce in the future. The key is being consistent, persistent and, ultimately, patient. Most of the benefits of content marketing don’t come until months down the road.

 

There are many benefits of content marketing, including the following:

• Increased leads
• More sales
• Higher SEO rankings
• More traffic to your sites
• Brand awareness
• Reputation building
• Develop an authoritative voice
• High ROI

Let’s break this down one by one (in no particular order) so you can see exactly how these content marketing advantages can help your company.

 

1. Increased Leads and More Sales

As a small business, it is important to find more potential customers to convert into sales. With content marketing for small businesses, you have the chance to expand your reach. This gives you an opportunity to bring in more leads that can then be sent through your sales funnel. With more leads, you have a higher chance of converting them into sales, thus increasing your revenue.

Want some small business examples? Here you go:

According to a study from HubSpot, businesses with a regularly updated blog found an increase in leads of 126 percent compared to those who did not blog. Imagine what you could do with that many more leads! In fact, the conversion rates are about six times higher for those businesses who have content marketing campaigns than those who do not.

 

2. Higher SEO Rankings

The algorithms for Google and other search engines are very involved and complex. Content marketing for small businesses helps with a couple components. First, it expands the amount of information about your company that could be pulled during a search. Content marketing for business gives you more online real estate to help end up as part of search results. It gives you a chance to give visitors specific information that answers the queries they’ve typed into Google.

Additionally, best practices in content marketing include creating fresh, new content. This helps improves your chances of increasing organic search rankings.

 

3. More Traffic

When you increase your ranking on search engines, you increase your organic traffic to the site. You also have the ability to gain traffic for a variety of topics, all of which end up on landing pages from where consumers can then navigate to other areas on your site. According to one study, small businesses that are considered content marketing leaders had 7.8x more traffic on their sites than those who were non-leaders.

The key comes in doing some really great keyword research for your smb content marketing campaigns. What are your existing customers searching for? What are prospective clients searching for? What keywords have a lower level of difficulty than others and are therefore more winnable? A lot of the strategy comes down to which keywords and queries you want to focus your content marketing ideas on. Once you start putting out the article content, you’ll quickly see the benefits of this sort of article marketing if you’ve done great keyword research beforehand.

 

4. Brand Awareness and Reputation Building

An important benefit of online marketing for small businesses is that it helps to build your brand. You have multiple platforms in which to build your brand identity and voice. Then, you promote it and raise awareness about your company, attracting more customers from a wider pool of potentials.

In addition to simply putting the word about your company out into the public, you also have a chance to create the reputation you want through developing positive content. Part of this goes hand in hand with developing your brand identity.

Additionally, you can create content that makes you stand out as a leader and authoritative voice in your industry. This increases the chance that others will share your content, building even greater awareness of your brand. Furthermore, as an authoritative voice in your industry, you also become a safer, more reliable company with which to do business.

What do all of these content marketing benefits have in common? They boost your small business, help you compete and drive sales. This helps your bottom line, and it does not cost as much as many other forms of marketing. Brand marketing done through content marketing for business makes it easier to compete, even with some of the larger businesses in your field.

To gain the maximum advantages of this, it is essential that you do it right.

 

What are Content Marketing Best Practices for Small Businesses?

There are several best practices in content marketing for small business that ensure you gain all the potential advantages of the medium. Whether you choose to invest in website content writing solutions or handle it in-house, there are some key steps to take to develop your properties:

• Create a goal or objective
• Research the target audience
• Plan
• Develop content
• Promote
• Measure
• Make changes

 

Create Goals

It is common for small businesses to jump into running a content marketing campaign with no real objective in mind. This makes it harder to bring in the rewards and replicate any positive results in the future. It is best to develop an objective or goal using the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely) goal method.

Some small business examples of good content marketing goals might be sitting down and identifying the number of blog posts you want to create and the word count length of the blog posts. Next, schedule the posting times of the content and how many pieces of SEO content you’d like to create a month. After that, get into the specifics of keyword research and identify the top keywords to target in the content creation. Lastly, set times to measure, report and adjust the content and ultimately track the increase of rankings and traffic for certain keywords.

 

 

Identify Your Target Audience

Then, determine who your target audience (or audiences) is. This might require some market research into your current customers and those you wish to bring into your business. You might consider doing some surveys of existing customers or using outside help to gather data of your ideal customer. Knowing your audience is crucial to content marketing for business and should be done before you write any content.

You’ll want to know who you’re speaking to and what they’re looking for in order to connect with them on any sort of level through your writing.

 

Prepare a Content Marketing Plan

Once you have a goal and audience in mind for your small business content marketing strategy, develop a plan. This might include who writes the content, what topics it will cover, the voice of the pieces, the type of SEO content you’ll need to write, and other components. Content marketing best practices include creating an editorial calendar where you can track the keywords you are targeting, where the content is in the development process, and when it will be submitted.

Marketing strategy best practices also include the creation of a style guide for whoever writes the content. This includes going over brand guidelines, outlining your target audience and explaining formatting, voice and tone. These tools are essential to getting content out timely and just the way you want it.

To build a “brand voice” you have to stay consistent to who you are. If every piece of content looks, feels and sounds different, you’ll lose customers who don’t feel they can trust who you are trying to be.

 

Create High-Quality SEO Content

Once you have a basic structure/template in mind that determines the program, it is time to start developing content. This might be through a blog writing service, in-house staff or a combination. If you’re trying to scale your content marketing efforts to any degree, using in-house staff (or writing it yourself) goes out the window pretty quick. Be sure to have a content development budget in place so you don’t run into any surprises when you get to this stuff. Getting the content written can be half the battle. Find a good writing partner and get to work.

 

 

Promote Your Posts

You are not done once the content is written. No matter how strong the content is, it is just as important when engaging in content marketing for small business that you promote it in the right places. Otherwise, no one will find it. This might include some combination of social media promotion, featured posts, PPC campaigns, SEO and keyword optimization. More advanced content marketing campaigns use internal linking as one tool in order to drive ranking to “pillar” pieces that target the highest value keyword terms.

Until then, get creative with your promotion and leverage your existing following and networks to spread the word.

 

Measure The Results

Once the content is posted and promoted, your job continues. It is essential to any online marketing campaign that you continue to monitor it using different metrics, such as conversation rates, traffic, bounce rates, keyword rankings and more. This will tell you what works–and what does not. Then, you can tweak your small business content marketing program so that it continues to improve and helps you to meet your goals.

 

Elements of Strong Content Marketing for Business

When developing your content marketing strategy for your small business, it is important to remember that there are some key elements involved in a strong content marketing campaign. Content marketing for business is more than just creating well-written, interesting content every once in a while. It also includes:

• Ideal timing and frequency
• Relevancy
• Value
• Visuals like infographics
• Optimized keywords

 

Frequency and Timing

There are many facets to how frequency and timing play a role in online marketing for small businesses, but one of the most important is a point we’ve referenced to above – the frequency of posting. Studies have shown that companies that blog 16 times or more a month see 3.5 times the traffic of companies that only post 0-4 times a month! So not only is having a single really good blog post here or there beneficial, it’s important to be putting out new content frequently to maximize your results.

That being said, most small businesses can’t start out at creating 16 blog posts a month right off the bat when beginning an online marketing campaign. This could either be due to budget constraints or bandwidth constraints. If bandwidth is the issue, you may consider looking into hiring SEO content writers or a content writing company to help you scale your content creation efforts. If budget is the issue, you’ll want to look at reallocating some of your other expenses to be able to put more towards content.

But until you give content marketing for small business a real chance and put some money towards it, you[‘ll never know the benefits it could bring to your business. Don’t be that business owner!

 

 

Relevance

The next thing to consider when looking at elements of a strong content marketing strategy for business, is the relevance of your content. Are you picking topics to focus on only because they have high search volume traffic every month? Or are you picking keyword phrases and topics that are specifically relevant to what you do?

While there can be some value in getting lots of traffic to your site, no matter what the keywords are, if your small business and its products and services aren’t relevant to the content you’re putting out, it won’t net you too much of a return. Remember, a very specific keyword phrase that would point someone specifically to you is much more valuable than a broad, high volume, winnable term.

 

Value

Successful content marketing for small business hinges largely around the amount of value the content provides potential customers. You may be an SEO optimization king, and get your posts to rank by injecting keywords all over your content, but if the article isn’t providing value to the people reading it they’ll jump ship and go to other websites (your competitors) to find content that’s actually worth something to them.

Make the most of your content marketing opportunities by creating high-quality, valuable information first and then optimize for search engines second.

 

Visuals

Additionally, do not forget that content is not just written words and blogs. Some of the most popular content forms today include webinars, infographics, videos, podcasts and similar content forms. Depending on the way your customer base prefers to digest information, you may find that visual content is a huge needle mover for you. This is where the really creative side of content marketing comes into play.

Example of an Infographic in Content Marketing for Small Business

 

 

Content marketing ideas for visuals don’t have to be limited to what we’ve suggested here – try some new ways to educate and inform your followers and you may be at the forefront of the next content marketing trend. Storyboard animations, video scripts and many other forms of media have been used to convey information and can be successful avenues to pursue.

 

Optimization

Last, but not least, to make the most of your content marketing for small business, you’ll want to make sure you’re constantly optimizing your content for both readers and search engines. We’ve previously written about how to use keywords in your SEO content, so take the time to make sure you understand the why and how of keyword optimization, and then ultimately hire a great writer to create high-quality content with those SEO principles and keywords in mind.

 

Content Marketing for Small Business Works!

The short answer to whether or not content marketing for small businesses works is yes. You will gain valuable benefits of content marketing that will help your business grow. For even better results, develop an online marketing program for writing high quality content with all the important elements listed above.

If you need help with the website content writing services portion of content marketing for business, we would love to help! In fact, we’ve even created blog writing subscription plans with built-in strategy, editing, visuals and SEO-optimization geared specifically for small businesses. Contact us today to see how we can best work together on how to create a content marketing campaign for your small business.

Good SEO content is the backbone of any content marketing strategy. Great content can improve your visibility in searches, generate leads, build your brand and help you form lasting relationships with customers. Learning how to write SEO content is essential.

However, how do you write effective SEO content? Simply churning out content is not enough. If content marketing was that simple, everyone would excel at it — and if everyone excelled at it, no one would benefit from it. So, what separates the good SEO content from the great? Quite a few things, actually.

 

What Is SEO Content?

In the most basic sense, SEO content is designed to rank in the search engines. Though any type of content can be SEO content — think blog posts, landing pages, static website pages, e-books and even videos — not all content is SEO content. This kind of writing is designed specifically to help visitors find your website.

Think about how you conduct a search … First, you type in a specific term, word or phrase. Google will then deliver hundreds, thousands, and even millions of results.

However, it is unlikely that you’ll get through even 20 of those results. In fact, most people only ever make it through the first page (which equates to 10 results). If they don’t find what they’re looking for there, they’ll typically rephrase their inquiry. That’s why learning how to write SEO content that people find is vital to performing well online.

SEO helps Google deliver the best possible customer service to searchers. Though the search engine uses several different factors to determine rank, content relevancy carries the most weight. SEO content is all about creating the kind of content that will be picked up by Google and delivered to interested viewers.

So how does Google determine which content is relevant and which is not so much? That’s one of the questions we hope to answer here today. Ultimately, the best way to write SEO content is by using excellent content writing. Now is the time to get the most out of your SEO content.

 

Why Should You Care About Writing SEO Content?

Once upon a time, writing content was a way for businesses to set themselves apart from the competition. Today, however, content is a crucial element of any successful digital marketing strategy. You can take our word for it, or you can just look at the numbers:

• 78% of consumers say they prefer to get to know a brand through content rather than paid advertisements.
• 70% of consumers believe that brands that regularly publish relevant content are interested in forming authentic relationships with them.
• More than 75% of internet users say they regularly read blogs, though 43% admit to skimming articles (the reason why lists, headers and bullet points are key).
• Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid advertising.
• Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to see a positive ROI than those who put content writing on the back burner.

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Leads and sales are just the tip of the iceberg, though. If converting leads into paying customers was all SEO content could do for you, you may as well pay for pay-per-click ads or social media advertising.

What sets content marketing apart from standard marketing is its ability to work for you long after its publication date. That means you need to know how to write effective SEO content that stays evergreen.

 

How To Write Effective SEO Content

Not just any old blog post or landing page can help you realize the benefits mentioned above. To rank in Google, Yahoo and Bing, you need to write blog content that appeals to both your audience and the search engine spiders.

Though every marketer has his or her own step-by-step content marketing strategy, some elements are more common across the board than others. Here are seven steps you can take that will help you write effective SEO content:

1. Understand Blog Post Anatomy
2. Do Extensive Research
3. Create Practicality and Relevance (i.e., value)
4. Do On-page SEO
5. Include Visual Appeal and Format
6. Write a Meta Title and Description
7. Use Content Writing Services

We’ll go into depth with each piece of advice explaining why and how you should incorporate these into your SEO content.

 

1. Understand the Anatomy of a Great Blog Post

Think of a successful blog post as you would a successful business endeavor — it’s backed by a deliberate and proven strategy. When studying how to write good SEO content, notice that though the content of each blog will vary, each should follow the same structure. (This structure has been generously provided by Neil Patel.)

 

Headline

Your headline is the first thing people will see, both in the search results and on your page. Make sure it’s click-worthy, meaning it’s interesting enough to make people want to see what you have to say.

It’s tough to write good SEO content, but then to have it overlooked because of a poor headline. In fact, you may have great content out there currently marred by bad headlines. It may be time for a content audit…

 

Visual

Knowing how to write SEO content includes knowing how to add visual aspects to each piece of writing. A stunning visual is a great way to capture readers’ interest and set the stage for what’s to come. It also breaks up big blocks of text, which can appear daunting to some.

Most importantly, images add to your on-page SEO and are shareable across image-sharing sites, such as Pinterest. You can add SEO keywords in image alt-text, improving your ability to be found by search engines.

Introduction

The headline encourages people to click on your article. The introduction, however, convinces them to stay and keep reading. When writing your SEO content, write a few compelling paragraphs that encourage readers to learn more.

Don’t try to tell your whole story in the intro, as this will overwhelm visitors. Rather, make sure the intro to each content writing piece is short, sweet and to the point.

 

Lead In

Intros should always conclude with a lead into the main points. When you’re first learning how to write SEO content, it may seem repetitive to have a lead in. However, if you just jump right in without creating some context or explaining that you’re about to jump in, you may confuse your audience.

A decent lead in can be something simple and straightforward, such as, “The main points are,” while a strong lead in many read something like, “We’ve compiled a list of the top tips for creating content that ranks.”

 

Your Main Points

This is the nitty-gritty of your article, the section in which you can let loose and speak on the given topic without reserve. The more info you can share on a topic, the better. However, stay organized.

Use headers, paragraphs, numbered lists and bullet points to break your website content into subtopics. Write in a clear, concise and engaging manner. Write to inform, not to impress the search engines (the latter will happen naturally if you can accomplish the former).

 

Conclusion

Your blog post is not a college essay, so no need to reiterate every point you covered. However, it’s always nice to wrap up your post with a brief closing paragraph. A strong goodbye will prevent readers from feeling as if you left them hanging.

 

Invitation for Engagement

It’s common practice to encourage readers to contact you, comment, ask questions or leave their two cents. This call to action (CTA) creates an opportunity for engagement with your content with little extra effort on your part. Knowing how to write an effective CTA is a great skill for your SEO writing.

 

2. Great SEO Content Requires Research

Now that we’ve gone over the basic skeleton of great content, let’s get into how you write the meat of it. When it comes to learning how to write SEO content, there are three stages of research you should conduct: topic research, search intent research and keyword research.

 

Topic Research

Sometimes, topics will just come to you, in which case, you can skip this step. In many other situations, however, you may find yourself hard-pressed for things to write about. How do you write SEO content without a topic? In these instances, you may need to turn to Google.

Writing for the sake of writing won’t do you any good. You need to find a relevant topic with “traffic potential.” Begin by thinking of broad topics your customers want to learn more about.

For instance, say you sell LED lightbulbs online. Don’t write about the bulbs themselves, as that would be a snooze fest. Instead, write about energy saving tips, how homeowners can decorate with LED Edison bulbs or how creatives can use LED bulbs in their next craft projects.

Depending on your industry and what you sell, you may have to get more creative than others when writing good SEO content. However, a great way to find topics is to think of your customers’ frequently asked questions, their pain points and ways in which they might use your products or services.

There are also TONS of topic creation tools online to help you find a great topic. One that we love to use is answerthepublic.com, where you can get an ideation wheel of different search queries involving that topic.

You’ll also definitely want to have your topics based in keyword research so you’re maximizing your potential when writing articles, blogs or any other type of content. We’ll get to that in just a minute.

 

Search Intent

When it comes to writing SEO content, search intent is key. If your content doesn’t align with searchers’ intent, it won’t perform well.

So, how can you identify intent? Take clues from the top-ranking results by analyzing the three Cs of search intent:

• Content Type: When you type in your given topic, what type of content fills the first page of results? Is it blog posts, product descriptions, category pages or something else? Align your topic with your findings.
• Content Format: Next, determine what type of posts rank. Are they listicles, opinion pieces, news articles or how-tos?
• Content Angle: Finally, decide on an angle. Who is conducting the search? What do they value? Do they want a quick fix or something more elaborate? For instance, are people searching for LED lightbulbs because they want to save money, or do they want to redecorate using high-end bulbs that cast a warm ambiance?

 

Keyword Research

Finally, conduct keyword research. This will help you learn how to write SEO content that can be ranked for high-volume keywords. Some marketers use this as the first phase of research in their content writing and let the results dictate the topic. You, however, may decide to base your topic off your marketing goals (to sell more LED light bulbs) and choose popular keywords based on it. Either method works.

There are dozens of free keyword planning tools you can use, including Google AdWords Keywords Planner.

These tools not only tell you what your target audience is searching for but also what their intent is — i.e., comparison shopping, just browsing or ready to purchase.

 

3. The Best SEO Content Has Useful and Practical Value

Great content delivers value to your audience and inspires them. Audiences these days aren’t just looking for answers to their questions but rather a nudge to get them to act on an idea or impulse that they’ve been harboring for a while.

So how do you write good SEO content with that appeal in mind? A great way to deliver value to your audience is by using the AIDA model of marketing: Attention (or Awareness), Interest, Desire, Action. In terms of content marketing, the AIDA model might go something like this:

 

Attention

Grab your audience’s attention with an engaging article headline that promises to solve a problem or answer a question. The headline is so crucial that it dictates nearly 75% of consumers’ buying decisions.

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The headline of your content is so critical that it dictates nearly 75% of consumers' buying decisions. #ContentMarketing #SmallBusiness
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Successful headlines, like blog posts themselves, use proven elements. The top five are as follows:

• Numbers: Headlines with numbers generate 36% more engagement than those without. Odd numbers are particularly effective.
• Addressing the Reader: Addressing the reader by using “you” generates 21% more clicks than other types of headlines.
• How To: How-to article content  sees 17% more clicks than other types of content.
• Normal: Standard headlines without numbers, the use of “you” or questions get 15% more clicks than other headline formulas.
• Questions: Headlines that pose questions generate 11% more clicks than non-question headlines.

 

Interest

Once you attract a reader with these SEO writing best practices, you need to hold his or her interest. Build readers’ interest immediately after they click on your article via a secondary headline. Continue to build interest throughout the page with subheadings that also drive home the benefits of reading your content.

 

Desire

You can build desire with your SEO content by using bullet points, which are a copywriter’s best friend when it comes to building search engine rankings. In fact, you may notice that any type of persuasive copy — whether in print or on the web — will contain bullet points.

Bear in mind that bullet points are only effective in moderation. Use them sparingly and limit the number of bullets in a list, so you don’t overwhelm the reader.

Bullet points also make your content more scannable, which is crucial for web writing. If you’re discussing a complicated topic, bullet points can make your content more easily digestible and understandable.

 

Action

Finally, conclude your SEO article with a call to action. The CTA tells the reader of your article which action to take next. Your CTA may vary from content type to content type.

For instance, your product pages may have a more straightforward CTA, such as “Order Now,” whereas your blog posts may end with a soft call to action, such as “Sign up for our email newsletter to get more product information and discounts.”

Whatever CTA you choose to use, note that readers want to take action. That’s why they’re on your site in the first place. Don’t disappoint them, instead use what you know about how to write SEO content, and find a way for them to engage further with your brand.

 

4. Use SEO Practices When Writing Your SEO Content

The purpose of writing SEO content is to increase your presence in organic search. One way you can do this is by performing on-page SEO.

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your content for maximum efficacy and improving the user experience.

If the user is happy, the search bots are happy, which means you’re happy. When writing SEO content articles, five elements carry considerable weight:

• Use and repetition of the primary keyword (40%)
• User experience (30%)
• Depth and value of content (15%)
• Use of related keywords (7.5%)
• Theme of page/topic (7.5%)

Use tips one through three to satisfy the final four elements. For this section, we will focus on keyword usage.

 

How To Use Keywords in Online SEO Content

Keyword best practices dictate that you use your primary keyword naturally throughout your blog post or webpage. If you’re doing that, you should be fine.

However, if you overuse your primary keyword, Google might penalize you for “keyword stuffing.” A penalty could mean your page falls to the bottom of the search results, thereby undoing all of your hard work.

Moral of the story: Don’t overuse your keywords!

So, what does natural usage of keywords look like? How do you write good SEO content without going overboard with optimization? You should use keywords in your content in the six main elements of your page:

• Title
• Subheadings
• Content of page
• Meta title
• Meta description
• URL
• Image alt text

Keyword usage shouldn’t disrupt the flow of your article writing or make your reader go, “What?” Ideally, the keyword should flow naturally from your fingertips when typing out a thought.

Using the keyword in other on-page elements, such as your meta title, meta tag, URL and image alt tags simply serve to help the search engines categorize your page.

These elements help to clearly communicate your topic to Google and your audience without either having to perform a thorough audit or read of your page.

The bottom line is, optimize your page within reason and with your audience in mind. Your job is to answer users’ questions and solve their problems. Obtaining rankings in Google is just an added benefit.

 

5. Make Your SEO Content Visually Appealing

A part of knowing how to write SEO content is to think not just about the text, but what the entire article looks like. Go through your article, landing page, blog post or website and break up the content into readable sections. Depending on your writing style, this may be something you do as you write SEO content, or it may be something you save for after you get your thoughts on the page.

We’ve already discussed using short paragraphs, subheadings, numbers and bullet lists, so let’s talk about images.

Webpages and blog posts with visuals garner 94% more page views than those without.

Images effectively do three things: They make your content skimmable, they make it more visually appealing and they help to explain complex subject matter.

The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text, which may explain why webpages with visuals get so much more attention than webpages that don’t use them!

 

Including visuals of any kind in your SEO blog content — such as standard photos, videos, infographics and graphs — can drastically increase readability of your article writing, improve reader satisfaction and, ultimately, make Google happy. All this leads to one thing: increased rankings.

 

6. Create a Compelling Meta Title and Meta Description

We already discussed the importance of meta tags and descriptions when writing articles in tip #4 (they help Google index your page and briefly tell audiences what your page is about). However, for a meta description and title tag to be effective, they need to contain more than just a string of keywords.

Both of these elements serve as your sales pitch to readers and should tell them precisely why they should click on your page.

The meta title and meta description are two elements in which your research from step two will come in handy, particularly your findings regarding searcher intent.

Whatever your searchers value — affordability, ease, convenience, fast results, savings, etc. — pitch it in your meta and title tags when writing SEO content articles. In doing so, you can entice clicks to your page, and more traffic almost always equates to increased rankings.

However, do not be deceptive in your page descriptions. Learning how to write SEO content requires both honesty and integrity from you and your company. Being deceptive in your descriptions can backfire. If your promises prove false, visitors will quickly click away. This will increase your bounce rate, and a high bounce rate is bad for your rankings.

 

Optimal Title Tag Format

Creating an effective title tag doesn’t require much creativity. The optimal title tag format is as follows:

Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name

However, some brands like to change it up and use the title tag as another opportunity to garner attention. Those brands use this format:

Alternate Title Using Primary Keyword | Brand Name

Whichever format you choose to use when writing content, note that title tags should not exceed 60 characters. Ideally, you should keep your title tag between 50 and 60 characters.

 

Optimal Meta Description Format

Creating a meta description requires a little bit more creativity than writing a title tag. The meta description should tell searchers what your page is about in an enticing way. This is a creative content writing example that has direct SEO and reader implications.

It should not exceed 160 characters, though it can be as short as 50 characters. You should use the primary keyword once and, if it fits in naturally, a secondary keyword.

Many brands like to use action verbs at the start of their meta descriptions, such as “learn about” or “read.” However, the ultimate goal is to create a readable, compelling description of what’s beyond the link, so don’t stress too much over format.

 

7. Invest in SEO Content Writing Services

If you read this (or skimmed it — we won’t be offended!) and thought to yourself, that is a lot of work for a single piece of content, you’re right, it is.

Web writing is an art form, and it requires considerable experience and strategy to know how to write good SEO articles. That’s why so many marketers outsource the actual writing portion to an SEO content writing services company.

Outsourcing content does not make a brand lazy or frivolous with its spending or whatever other stigma might be holding you back. In fact, successful brands know that by investing in SEO content services, they can count on receiving the copy they need to rank, all while being able to continue to direct their resources to other crucial business aspects.

 

Now That You Know How To Write SEO Content, Start Writing!

These SEO writing best practices can make the difference for your SEO content marketing strategy. Pay attention to the format of your articles and incorporate keywords, visuals and meta data. Remember that quality is an important factor for Google algorithms, so knowing how to write good SEO content relies on both value and optimization.

Don’t want to take the time and effort to create exceptional content? At BKA Content, we offer everything from a la carte content pieces to managed content writing services. We know how to write SEO content, and we’re willing to work with your needs. Whether you’re just testing the waters or are ready to begin a full-scale content marketing campaign, check out our content shop today!

 

Weighing in at a mere 155 characters, meta descriptions might not seem like a heavyweight contender in the content writing battle. It’s easy to gloss over them quickly. They do have their place in the ring, however, and need some muscle to do their job.

But what exactly is a meta description and why should you care? We’re here to give you those answers and help you create snippets that are sharp, succinct and effective in your content marketing strategy.

 

What Is a Meta Description?

A meta description is that tiny snippet below your article’s title in a Google search (also known as an HTML tag). While SEO has a lot to do with the way your actual articles are ranked, your meta description is an extra edge to convince readers to follow through. These snippets should accurately describe your article and how it can help your readers, thus boosting your click-through rate. A well-written meta description, in hand with a catchy title, is the secret to getting Google users to read your post.

 

How Long Is a Meta Description?

Although there’s been a few changes in the character length of a meta description, it is recommended to stay between 150 and 160 characters. This is an optimal length because it gives you enough room to describe the article while not becoming so large that Google’s algorithms cut it off. Keep in mind that spaces are included in this character count.

 

Why Are Meta Descriptions Important?

Although adding a couple of sentences to your article may seem unnecessary, meta descriptions serve a very specific purpose: they persuade readers to click on your post.

For any business or influencer with a website, click-throughs are often hard to get. This is mainly because Google users spend as much time looking at titles as flies do when they flit from object to object. In other words, potential readers usually judge your article in a couple of seconds or less. If they’re not impressed, then you really don’t have a chance.

 

What Impresses Readers?

Readers have many motives that guide the way they click on articles, such as the following:

• Wanting information
• Looking to be entertained
• Needing a specific service
• Intrigued by information that seems helpful

These are some of the most common reasons why people search the internet. Why? It’s simple: People are more often than not looking for something specific.

So how do they find information that addresses their specific needs? How do you do it? We look at the title. If the title doesn’t match our needs, we’ll move on or try a different search.

 

Why Should You Add a Meta Description?

Let’s say you can’t fit everything into the title, or you want to drive home the fact that your article is about something important. That’s where a meta description comes in handy. A strong, succinct meta description is another way to persuade readers to click on your specific article. Often, this added tidbit is more convincing than a 50-character title can be on its own.

Although meta descriptions don’t necessarily affect your search ranking, they are an important element of getting the reader’s attention and convincing them to follow through.

 

When Should You Add a Meta Description?

You may think adding a powerful meta snippet to every page is necessary. According to SEJ, not all pages actually need one. For many websites, there are thousands of web pages that just can’t be given all that time and effort to write great meta descriptions.

Google normally creates its own meta description when one isn’t provided, and this can sometimes be the smarter way to go. This is because the search engine picks out keywords (based on a user’s search) from the first paragraph of your content and creates its own description. In many cases, this may be slightly more effective than your static description, because it is directed towards the user’s needs.

However, when or when shouldn’t you include a meta description? We offer two pieces of advice: prioritize the most important articles on your website and write good meta descriptions when you can.

 

Prioritize the Most Important Articles

Some posts are more important than others when it comes to SEO. Focus your time and effort on maintaining articles that rank for lots of keywords and bring traffic. You should definitely include strong meta descriptions for the articles that are getting the attention of readers, and you should also incorporate other articles that have potential to bring traffic. Once again, according to SEJ, your homepage, product pages, category pages and ranking content should all have meta descriptions.

 

Write Good Meta Descriptions When You Can

It’s a good rule of thumb to include a great meta description with most of the posts you create, especially if you don’t have to worry about thousands of articles (and if you do worry about lots of web pages, let us do most of the work for you). That comes to our next point: Creating amazing meta descriptions.

 

How Do You Write a Meta Description?

Does the 150-character length of a meta description intimidate you? To be honest, they should be intimidating, because these snippets need to be powerful writing, despite the small size. Fluffy meta descriptions do not give your readers anything real to hold on to, and their interest might dissipate pretty quickly.

Luckily, it’s not too hard to write a meta description that gets to the point and convincing to readers. Here are a few tips that, if followed closely, can bring big results.

 

Persuade the Reader to Click Through

Just because a website earns high search rankings doesn’t automatically mean that consumers will click through to the website. In just a few words, a good meta description compels readers to visit the website, in much the same way that a two-minute movie trailer entices people to go see a certain film.

Take Gone Girl for instance. I read the book and loved the first ¾ of it, but I HATED the ending. I had no desire to go watch the movie—until I saw the trailer. Smart dialogue? Check. Amazing actors? Check. It even hinted that perhaps the ending was different than the book. So I shelled out money for a babysitter and went to see the movie. Still. HATED. The ending.

So how do you use these tactics in writing?

 

Highlight the Most Important Features

Nonetheless, I had to give credit to the marketing team for creating a condensed version of the film that intrigued me enough to go watch the feature in its entirety. There were too many things that I was interested in seeing.

By highlighting the most important features of a blog or webpage, meta descriptions do the same thing. Pick out what people will find if they read your article. These will often be about the keywords you are targeting, so don’t forget to include those.

If your content offers knowledge, skills or insight on a subject, be sure to include this within the meta description. Help readers know that your article can benefit them in some way.

 

Cut Any Fluff

With such a tight character limit, you really can’t afford to have fluff. When we talk about fluff, we mean all the extra words, frilly phrases and unnecessary verbs, adjectives and anything else that takes away from the main subject. Cutting the fluff means getting to the core of the writing, which often improves the quality of it.

As you write great meta descriptions, consider these tips to eliminate fluff:

• Avoid passive voice
• Cut any repetitive phrases or words
• Get rid of jargon

If you find yourself at a loss for ANY words, consider what makes your article different or special. Think up 1-2 sentences that really describe these unique factors.

 

 

Additional Meta Description Writing Tips

Because each piece of content is distinctive, meta descriptions should be pretty unique as well. However, these are a few tips you should use in each description to maximize efficiency:

• Differentiate from competitors. Sell the benefits of visiting the website.
• Incorporate one or two keywords into copy. Google bolds keywords that match search queries, making the resulting meta descriptions more relevant to readers.
• Use plain text. Avoid using alphanumeric characters such as hyphens, quotation marks, etc. as search engines often identify these things as HTML code instead of text and don’t display them properly.

After writing a meta description for an article, do a quick scan through to see if you’ve accomplished each of these. That along with your quality writing is a pretty good measure of how effective your description will be.

 

Can I Add Meta Descriptions To Old Content?

Adding a meta description to an older piece of content or webpage is simple! Depending on your website, you can add it with the help of a plugin or putting in the HTML data yourself. If you work with WordPress, their SEO plugins can make the process of adding meta descriptions easy, even for content you’ve already published.

 

Should I Update Meta Descriptions on My Website?

Although we do suggest you go and add meta descriptions to important web pages such as your homepage and category pages, it’s also important that you maintain and update your meta descriptions consistently. Every time you go back to optimize an article for SEO or marketing purposes, always update the snippet as well.

Optimizing old content is essential in any content marketing plan. Sometimes, you may try to target a different keyword that is ranking better than the ones you originally focused on. That’s okay, in fact, that’s a normal part of optimizing old content. As you go back and make necessary tweaks, give a few minutes to the meta description as well and check to see if it focuses on the new keywords.

 

Meta Descriptions Are Worth It!

A well-written meta description increases the click-through rate for the most important pages on a website. Next time you write one, take the time to craft it carefully and make it a knockout!

If you don’t have the time to do it yourself, we understand. Check out our meta description writing services, we’ve got you covered. Our vetted writers can create unique descriptions that describe the meat of your content and include keywords that users might search for.

Whether you write them yourself or let us take care of it, good meta descriptions are definitely mega-important.

 

When was the last time you used an internet search engine to look for something local? If you’re like most people, you use the internet as your primary tool for finding everything from great restaurants to dog-friendly hotels. As a local business, generating local web traffic is a necessity.

With so many people going online to find local businesses, it’s surprising how few companies understand the need for online exposure of their local web pages. Many great business owners are simply too busy building their business to take the time to learn about content marketing SEO. If you want your company to have a successful digital marketing strategy, SEO is necessary.

How To Increase Local Web Traffic

Website content writing services can help local businesses to increase their web presence and boost their Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings. Getting ranked in the top ten of a user’s search query is the key to getting leads. But how does a company get noticed by Google?

The key is to improve your metadata, identify and increase citations, build valuable links and create locally relevant content. Optimization of these SEO features ultimately leads to an increase in local website traffic.

So if you’re looking to get ahead in the local SEO game, here are some of the best practices and local SEO tips that can increase local web traffic. With a little optimization, carefully placed keywords and online connections, you can see a big difference in your search rankings.

Optimizing Metadata and Local Keywords

Local SEO begins with an in-depth study of each page’s metadata.  Each page should contain relevant, geo-modified keywords in the header, title tag and meta description. Google’s algorithms are designed to recognize words and data that will best answer a user’s search query. Therefore, it’s important to show search engines that your content and services are useful to viewers.

When you target local customers, Google needs to know how close you are to those searching for products like the ones you offer. This is done by using location-specific keywords in places where Google can find them. Incorporate the names of the cities you are in so that you can start ranking for those location-specific keywords and improve local web traffic. You can use a tool like Screaming Frog to streamline this step.

How To Pick the Right Keywords

Not all keywords are created equal. Begin by researching keywords relevant to your business. For local web traffic, study how the location of your business determines which keywords will yield the best results. Search the competitor landscape as well to determine where improvement lies for your company. The following tools can help with this process:

• Google’s SERP Preview tool – Character counts can produce inaccurate results, as Google now measures metadata in pixels. Preview title tags and meta descriptions to visualize how your metadata will appear in Google before you publish.
• Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool – Access half a billion keywords and receive intuitive suggestions and accurate volume estimates, as well as a SERP analysis for the rank of each individual page you create.
• Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner tool – Discover new keywords, compare keyword trends and create a plan for incorporating the most relevant keywords to boost website traffic and SERP.

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Checking Local Web Citations

The larger a company’s presence on the Internet, the more favorably it will appear in SERP rankings. Citations are one way to increase a company’s local web traffic. In fact, 90 percent of experts rate accurate citations as a very important or critical factor in local search ranking.

What is a Local Web Citation?

A citation is a mention of a business on a website outside of its own homepage, and each citation boosts a company’s legitimacy. It may also validate contact information and, if favorable, bolster a company’s reputation and SEO website traffic. Citations may appear anywhere, but start by getting your business listed on national directory sites such as:

• Bing Places
• CitySearch
• CityVoter
• DexKnows
• Facebook
• FourSquare
• Google Places
• HotFrog
• TripAdvisor
• Yahoo! Local
• YellowPages
• Yelp

There are countless other directories where a business can be listed and found by local users. Not all are worth the effort, and they should not solicit payment. The only citations you should pay for are the local chamber of commerce, the Better Business Bureau and any regional or national industry-related associations they may be a part of.

To use citations to your best advantage, your first priority should be the quality of the information. Check for accuracy and consistency in the spelling of the business’s name, website, address, phone number and email. These should all be the same as the company’s listing in the GMB (Google My Business) profile. If a phone number is listed in the GMB as (123) 456-7890, it should not be listed in other locations as 123-456-7890. Remember, consistency is key!

Building Up Links and Backlinks

Like citations, the right kind of links can boost your business’s SERP rank and establish your expertise in the field. They improve your credibility and local web traffic. Internal links navigate users from one page of a website to another. External links send visitors to an outside site. Both can boost SEO, but one of the most powerful tools in the SEO arsenal is the backlink.

Backlinks are links from another site to your site. They are an indication that someone, somewhere believes that your site is worthwhile enough to stake their reputation on by linking to it. To build backlinks:

• Create shareable content such as a how-to, product review, humorous post or listicles.
• Share your content with fans, colleagues and industry movers through social media and email.
• Link to other high-quality websites in your geographic area or industry and let them know that you’ve created the link. (They may be pleased enough to create their own backlink.)
• Arrange guest posts on local and industry-related blogs and podcasts.

The more followers a website has or the greater their reputation for authority the more valuable their backlink. A bakery might appreciate a backlink from a local blogger with a small following, but it would not hold the same sway as a backlink from the Food Network. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to pursue links from many sources as you build an online following and increase your local website traffic.

Creating Unique, Locally Relevant Content

High-quality content is one of the most valuable tools in generating a substantial online presence. This is where a blog writing service can really add value when it comes to website boosting. Many business owners don’t have the time or expertise to create their own content. Website content writing services can create unique, engaging content that draws customers to the website as well as to the business.

SEO Content Tips

Begin by removing redundant or weak content. Businesses that are part of a national corporation may simply copy and paste national content to their own sites. This type of content might fill out a sparse site, but search engines will typically consider the national page to be the canonical version, and even with local tags this content will do nothing to boost a local business’s SERP rank.

On the other hand, businesses with unique, locally relevant content will stand out from the competition down the street. Begin by customizing the Home, About, News and Contact pages to start seeing more local SEO website traffic. You might also consider adding a blog with regular posts related to your client’s business, such as:

• The background story of the business
• A profile of the business owner(s)
• Employee spotlights
• Customer reviews
• Press coverage
• Case studies
• Local events
• Driving directions
• Product reviews
• New products or services

Writers don’t need to live near the business in order to create engaging, locally relevant content. Simply fill out a survey with basic information that writers can use to craft professional content that is both distinctive and useful. Do your own research into the area and the industry to improve the relevancy of your content.

Your blog writing service should be knowledgeable not only in creating high-quality writing but also in employing the principles of search engine optimization (SEO) to boost SERP ranks for local businesses. And remember that content creation is not a one-time endeavor. To keep rankings and local web traffic high, content creation should be part of your ongoing marketing strategy.

Using Social Media to Boost Local SEO Strategy

Social media platforms may be the secret ingredient to a successful local marketing strategy. Your customers use social media every day. They interact with their friends, follow new accounts and are constantly looking for new information or news.

With the help of local advertising, you can target potential customers who live close to your business. Drop an ad on Facebook, Instagram or other media platforms that links back to your website. Along with other specific demographics, you can target the exact crowd you want.

One of the biggest reasons why social media is used in digital marketing strategies is the potential it has to reach customers. As you build up your brand online, you can reach out to customers and encourage interaction with them. Your fans may promote your business to their friends and family for free, just because they enjoy your services so much. And with carefully planned campaigns, you can expand your reach to potential customers.  This can help you develop strong relationships with those you already cater to.

The Final Say on Local Website Traffic

While word of mouth can still draw people to a business, most customers rely on online databases to find new places to eat, shop and play. They also find service people and reviews that persuade them to hire them in the virtual world. Local businesses cannot afford to ignore their online presence. With the help of specialists in content marketing SEO, you or your clients can build a strong and positive online reputation and increase local web traffic.

 

Content marketing is a proven method of driving traffic to your website and turning visitors into customers. As the name implies, this form of marketing is all about using SEO content writing to increase your site’s authority and improve your rankings for keywords that people search for organically.

But what is SEO content writing and how do you create SEO content that gets results? There are certain elements SEO articles must have in order to engage readers and build awareness of your brand.

Whether you plan to outsource your SEO content writing or use in-house employees to create your content, it’s essential to understand the defining aspects of effective SEO copy.

To help you recognize these and use them, we’ve created a 12-step list of the best writing practices for SEO content. Use this list to figure out how to write your content to ensure it’s the marketing powerhouse you want it to be. But first, let’s give you some context.

 

What Is SEO Content Writing?

While some of the most well-known aspects of content marketing are keywords and search-engine performance, the process of crafting SEO content is actually far more involved.

To effectively improve search rankings and capture the attention of human readers, content marketing articles must be interesting, factual and engaging.

 

There are numerous aspects that can make or break an SEO article or blog post. For example, articles stuffed with keywords don’t perform well in a search engine and quickly turn readers away from your brand.

On the other hand, a well-written SEO article that includes interesting facts, helpful data, and actionable suggestions can rank well in search engine results and also give a reader a favorable impression of you and your company.

When it comes to SEO content creation, you can write your articles in-house or outsource to an SEO content development service. While there are pros and cons to each approach, you may find that hiring expert writers to create your content frees up time for you to focus on the other aspects of running your business.

 

12 SEO Requirements for Writing High-Quality SEO Articles

Although you may know what SEO content writing looks like and how it works, it takes time and effort to create a quality article with all the components that define success. How do you write great SEO content? There are 12 specific parts of content writing that can boost any SEO article and help you see results. And to make all this information a little easier to remember when trying to craft high-quality SEO articles, here’s a downloadable graphic with the 12 key requirements you should focus on every time you create a piece of content.

So how do each of these elements work together, and how can you master each one? Let’s talk about it.

 

1. A Strong Viewpoint

One of the most important aspects of what is called “effective SEO content writing” is a strong, clear viewpoint. In some cases, it’s even better to center an article around a controversial viewpoint. The key is to say something that is interesting and intriguing to your audience, and to sound confident about it.

If you portray a strong argument in an article or blog post, chances are you will get a large number of readers. Some will click on your article because they agree with your point and want their opinion validated. Others will immediately disagree with your position and continue reading due to an emotional reaction. Either way, you have a good chance of engaging your readers and making your content (and brand) memorable.

It’s essential to understand that crafting an SEO article that takes a strong (or even controversial) stand is not the same as writing a piece of clickbait. The goal of clickbait is to trick readers into engaging with a piece by presenting it in a false, misleading, or overly emotional manner.

Writing an article with a strong or controversial viewpoint is not clickbait. Any opinion is good and all clickbait is bad. #ContentMarketing #DoItRight Click To Tweet

Most readers can easily spot clickbait and will develop an unfavorable view of your brand if your marketing revolves around this type of SEO content writing. However, if you are able to create interesting articles that draw your readers in through legitimate means, it can pay huge dividends in terms of traffic and search ranking.

How To Create Strong SEO Writing

Knowing what is SEO content writing and how to avoid the clickbait trap is a smart move on your part. There are several ways to craft an article around a powerful viewpoint. You can use personal experience or vivid storytelling to draw your readers in. Another possibility is to use passionate language to clearly state a position. Either way, remember that the goal of your content is to attract readers and interest them in your brand and products/services.

By taking a firm position on a relevant topic and defending that position, you can count on encouraging strong reactions from your readers. And those reactions, even when they disagree with your point, will drive people to share, comment on, and engage with your content, thereby improving your SEO results even more.

 

2. An Intriguing Persona

Another way to get your readers to relate to your content is to develop the right persona in your writing. The first step here is to understand your target audience so that you know what kind of person your intended readers want to hear from.

For example, the tone, style, and format of SEO blog writing for millennial readers will be different than the elements of a content piece written to retirees.

The persona of your SEO content writing may be based on your industry as well.

For example, you would probably use a different vocabulary and writing style to engage young readers on fashion-industry topics than you would use to engage people of the same age on subjects related to estate planning.

There are several other aspects of developing a persona for your content marketing campaign. Refining a persona for your brand may involve imagining your intended audience and thinking about what problems they are looking to solve and what questions they are asking. You may ask yourself what SEO content writing would look like for your target audience (i.e. what are they looking for and what are they interested in?).

Once you know these things about your intended readers, you can craft your SEO content to describe how your brand solves those problems and answers those questions.

Other essential aspects of incorporating personas into your SEO content development involve using the correct language style and crafting articles that reach your audience where it is.

For example, you probably don’t want to invest in SEO content writing services to write short, informal listicles for social media consumption if most of your target audience is searching for scientific data reported in a traditional news-like fashion.

 

3. Useful, Interesting Data

Unfortunately, today’s internet is full of fake news, outlandish stories and too-good-to-be-true advertising claims. While it may be tempting to use a little bit of hyperbole in your SEO content writing or exaggerate your product claims slightly, these less-than-honest methods will likely have negative outcomes, especially in terms of your brand’s reputation.

Instead of engaging SEO blog writing services that rely on stretching the truth or using clickbait-style headlines, grab your readers’ interest with interesting (but true) facts and useful data.

What is SEO content writing without useful information? Making your content interesting and informative is a great way to encourage your viewers to keep reading and to share with their own network of peers. There are numerous options when it comes to adding data to your articles.

If your audience prefers easy-to-skim formatting and short articles, consider adding visually appealing infographics to your SEO articles. Infographics share data in an easy-to-read way, and their visual nature increases the chance your audience will remember what they read.

Longer articles directed to a scholarly audience may be better places to include case studies. Well-designed case studies can position your brand as a trustworthy leader in your industry.

Despite how you include it, the fact is that data-driven content that provides real value to the reader is one of the keys to writing high quality SEO articles.

 

4. Expert Authority

Whether you create your own SEO content or outsource it to an SEO content development service, it’s essential to make sure your content comes from a position of authority. You want your target audience to automatically think of your brand as an expert source of reliable knowledge in your field.

SEO content writing that is authoritative and trustworthy can help you develop a favorable image of your brand with your readers. There are several ways to increase the authority of your content:

• Cite statistics from reliable, unbiased sources
• Present honest information that doesn’t read like a sales pitch
• Provide concrete examples of your industry-related expertise

Writing from a place of authority can help you establish your brand as a leader in your industry and ensure it stands out from your competitors. When you can link to other sources that confirm your information, it can further increase your readers’ trust.

 

5. Lists or Bullet Points

The internet has impacted the way people find information and consume media. Studies suggest that the ubiquity of the internet has also started to lower the attention span and memory capacity of the average user.

That means that your SEO content writing can’t rely on traditional article formats that include long paragraphs of unbroken text. Modern readers prefer short paragraphs, catchy headers, and different text formats that break up the page (or screen) visually.

Fortunately, there are several ways you can make your content visually appealing and easy for the average reader to understand and to remember:

• Create a list
• Use short paragraphs
• Add bullet points
• Make a table
• Add subheaders

All of these formatting options can help break up long, boring walls of text and make your content easier for readers to skim. Search engines look favorably on lists and tables too.

In fact, using these types of formatting can increase the chances of your content being included in Google’s featured snippets.

A list style featured snippet would look something like this:

And a table style featured snippet looks like this:

The key to remember is that high-quality SEO articles don’t just read well – they look good, too. Knowing what SEO content writing is all about can make the difference. It’s amazing how far a little formatting can go when trying to improve your SEO writing both visually and from a search engine’s standpoint.

 

6. A Relevant Article Topic

Another key aspect of a perfect piece of content is the topic. It may seem like you can choose any subject that’s related to your industry, viewpoint, or products and services, but some topics perform better with readers and search engines than others.

It may be useful to figure out what sort of topics your target audience wants to see and incorporate those subjects into your content marketing strategy. Here are some other good ways to develop topic-driven content:

• Assess user metrics for your site’s visitors
• Cover tangential subjects related to your industry
• Update older blog posts with new information and fresh writing
• Follow social media hashtags relevant to your industry to keep up with current events

Some SEO content writing services may provide suggestions for topics to cover, and you can also read your competitor’s blogs and social media updates to get ideas.

Building a database of possible blog topic ideas can make it easier and faster to write SEO content. If you have a list of topics to give to an SEO blog writing service, you can ensure that the content you get fits within your overall SEO content marketing strategy.

 

7. Integrated SEO Keywords

Perhaps one of the most well-known aspects of what makes great SEO content writing is keyword integration. As the internet has evolved, however, the exact methods for how to use keywords in your content have changed.

The early days of stuffing in as many keywords as possible without regard for readability or grammatical correctness have long since passed. Nowadays, most SEO experts state that newer search engine algorithms have different requirements for effective keywords.

Rather than just focusing on using a keyword a certain number of times or including it in various places (e.g., meta description, headers, title tag), it’s essential to think in a different way.

Good SEO content development nowadays should focus on answering a reader’s key questions. Consider what your target audience is likely to search for and try to include those terms or phrases within your content. It’s also vital to balance your reliance on keywords with other top elements of effective content writing which include:

• Creating content with a high E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) value
• Writing clearly
• Publishing SEO articles that are comprehensive
• Developing content that answers a searcher’s questions

What is SEO content writing if it isn’t both optimized for search engines and readable? While it’s important to make sure you include relevant words and terms in your SEO content, keywords no longer should be your sole focus when it comes to writing high-quality SEO articles.

 

When you are looking to hire copywriting services, make sure you are paying for high-quality SEO articles that answer questions and provide valuable, relevant data, not just a specific number of keyword instances.

 

8. Originality

While the importance and usage of keywords in SEO content writing have evolved a lot over the years, the value of originality hasn’t really changed. The term “originality” basically covers two areas:

• Avoiding plagiarism and duplication
• Performing your own research

Of course, it is essential to ensure that your in-house writers or the SEO blog writing service you hire produce content that is original. Your SEO articles shouldn’t copy the format, words, phrases or ideas of other articles that already exist on the internet or in print.

It’s a good practice to use a plagiarism-checker on your content before you publish it to make sure you haven’t accidentally copied something that is already written.

Plagiarizing existing content is dishonest and can negatively affect your brand’s reputation. It can also destroy your search ranking, as most search engines don’t view unoriginal content favorably.

It isn’t enough to simply avoid plagiarism, however. Another essential aspect of what makes good SEO content writing is to perform your own research and come to your own conclusions. When you research the answers to common questions and then provide that information to your readers, it proves that you are a reliable expert in your industry.

Taking the time to perform your own research can provide benefits to you as well. You can learn what your competitors are saying about certain topics and find out what your target audience is getting from other sources.

Doing comprehensive research also gives you the tools to craft better articles: content pieces that are compelling, thought-provoking and timely.

 

9. Proper Sourcing

As discussed above, excellent SEO content writing should include data and facts that you (or your hired SEO content development service) find during your original research. The way you cite that information in your content is equally important.

 

There are several different methods and formatting guidelines for citing sources, and in most cases, you can choose the one that creates the visual effect you prefer. The most important aspects of sourcing include the following:

• Get information and facts from reliable places
• Prioritize high-quality sources: government, news, and scientific websites
• Give credit in your writing to the source of data and statistics
• Make sure hyperlinks work properly
• Include data sources in the graphic when you develop your own presentations or infographics

Information and textual data aren’t the only elements of your content that require proper sourcing. It’s also essential to make sure you provide the sources of any images you incorporate as well.

One of the easiest ways to ensure you are sourcing images in the right way is to get them from a trustworthy stock photo provider. Many of these providers offer free images that require no attribution.

The photo provider should include detailed instructions about attribution that make it easy to ensure you are giving the proper credit to artists as you engage in your SEO content writing.

 

10. An Attention-Grabbing Headline

You don’t want to dedicate your own time or spend money hiring SEO content writing services if you can’t get your intended audience to read your articles. One of the most important elements of a perfect piece of content is an exceptional headline.

According to Neil Patel, the headline accounts for up to 50% of your blog posts’ effectiveness.

Headlines are important to search engines and human readers. A good headline can improve your content’s chances of ending up at the top of a search engine list (based on its ability to include keywords and reflect search queries), and it can also encourage anyone who sees it to click through and actually read the article.

While you may immediately think of powerful headlines in relation to blog posts, they are important in other types of content as well.

The headline of your company’s landing page can make the difference in a visitor checking out your services and signing up for your email list or leaving your site immediately. A strong headline gives your content a much higher chance of being shared on social media or linked to on other sites.

According to @NeilPatel, the headline accounts for up to 50% of your blog posts’ effectiveness. #ContentMarketing #Content Click To Tweet

While the headline alone can’t guarantee that a person will read the entire article, a poor headline can pretty much ensure that a person will not read the article.

How To Create Great SEO Headlines

There are several elements of a strong headline in high-quality SEO articles:

• Length: Overly long headlines may be truncated in search results.
• Numbers: Adding numbers to your headline can intrigue a reader to check out what those numbers mean.
• Language: Powerful verbs and emotive words can immediately compel an emotional response in a reader.
• Relevance: Your headline must accurately describe the article so readers don’t feel tricked or manipulated.
• Subject: Making the reader the subject of your headline by incorporating “you” language can attract attention.
• Value: An intriguing headline provides hints about how the article will answer a question or solve a problem.

An attractive, intriguing headline is one of the most important keys to SEO content writing that performs well.

 

11. Actionable Information

While getting a viewer to read through to the end of your blog post or SEO article is a victory itself, it’s even better if you can encourage that reader to take action once he or she reaches the article’s conclusion. There are several possible responses you may want to encourage in your reader:

• Filling out a contact form
• Signing up for your email list
• Sharing the article on social media
• Signing a petition
• Writing a comment
• Browsing your online store
• Clicking on another page of your site
• Purchasing your products or services
• Making a charitable contribution

No matter what action you want your reader to take, you can encourage that action with the right information and tone in your article.

For example, a blog post about the benefits of a dental checkup may inspire your reader to schedule an appointment. A piece about illegal hunting may inspire your reader to make a donation to an animal-rights organization. A carefully crafted SEO article about some aspect of your industry may propel your reader to sign up for your monthly newsletter.

You can utilize content marketing to encourage your readers to take action by providing information that elicits a response. It’s also important to make it as easy as possible for your reader to respond the way you want.

Including a CTA with a link to your contact form makes it simple for a reader to schedule an appointment. Ending your article by asking your readers to state their opinions can encourage comments. Providing sharing buttons for several social media sites lets your reader pass the article along to his or her network in a single click.

 

12. Consistent Branding

Whether your SEO content writing centers on blog posts, social media updates, how-to YouTube videos or Instagram pictures, you want to make sure every blog post and article reflects the tone and feel you want to be associated with your brand.

Even if you hire someone for SEO copywriting services, you need to make sure that your branding is clear and consistent across every element of your company’s online and physical presence. That means the tone, language and feel of your content should be the same whether it’s a quick Facebook status update or a long-form blog post.

There are several steps in forming and maintaining consistent branding in your SEO content writing. It’s essential to identify your target audience and understand how to relate to it effectively.

Once you have the persona of your brand, you can focus on how your products or services provide value to your customers. You also need to identify the things that make you better than your competitors. Focusing on how you stand out in your field should be a foundational aspect of your branding.

There are visual and stylistic elements to your brand as well. Think about how much more seriously you would take a headline written in Times New Roman than in Comic Sans. Creating a cohesive visual theme for your brand is essential; it can drastically influence how your readers feel about your company and products.

The Basics of Branding Great SEO Content

Here are a few essential branding aspects of what your SEO content writing should include:

• Title
• Length
• Structure
• Tone
• Visual elements
• Font

When talking to your SEO content writing services provider, freelance writing team or in-house authors, make sure everyone has a clear understanding of your brand. Using a consistent voice, vocabulary and tone throughout all your content ensures that the reader gets the same impression of your brand from a YouTube video as from an email newsletter.

 

So… You Know How to Write SEO Content. Now What?

Now that you know what SEO content writing is and how to write it, you realize it requires time and effort to make it exceptional. It can seem like an overwhelming task when you don’t have the time or passion to research keywords, try out different headlines or check for grammar and readability issues.

Fortunately, it’s easy to outsource the writing of SEO content to an expert content writing company. Skilled writers can ensure your content is ready to draw in your readers and present your business in the best light. If you feel overwhelmed with creating content on your own, let us know – we’d be happy to write it for you!

Whether you choose to write your own content or engage SEO blog writing services, make sure each article follows this list of essential content marketing requirements. If you have any other actionable tips for how to write quality SEO content or additional SEO content guidelines or requirements, let us know in the comments 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.

Thanks to certain global events of 2020, I have realized more than ever how lucky I am to have a job in an industry that easily allows for remote work. If there is even one thing that businesses might take away from these events, it is that online content writing is vital for continuing business even in the midst of a pandemic. But creating online content can be quite the undertaking, especially if your area of business deals more with in-person contact. For law firms, how can you find time to figure out what kind of content to write and to promote when you are also in the middle of handling cases and claims that take up all your spare time? While some attorneys take on the SEO writing themselves, others utilize legal writers for hire to create quality content to attract more potential clients.

 

Content Writing Tips for Law Firms

When enlisting a team of legal SEO writers to create and publish legal content, an understanding of the industry and how to appeal to the right audience is essential. Law firms have their own set of ethics, rules and regulations they need to adhere to, especially on their websites. With this in mind, consider implementing these SEO writing tips for law firms into your marketing strategy.

 

1. Know Your Target Audience

Getting the angle right for online legal content is vital as it is the first thing that will either draw in or drive away readers and potential clients. A firm that handles criminal defense has a different target audience than a firm that handles plaintiff personal injury claims. If your firm uses SEO writers for hire, they must keep the correct audience in mind in order to create an effective piece.

The best legal content writers for hire avoid wording that comes across as victim-blaming, as well as phrasing that assumes the target client is guilty. Instead, the legal content should reaffirm that the law firm is there to help and is understanding of the situations the clients may find themselves in. Even lawyers who want their clientele to know they will take a tough stance and fight the case in court can appeal to emotion by letting the reader know they are committed to their clients.

 

2. Write to Practice Area Topics

Figuring out what to write for a law firm is often as simple as looking at the practice area. If the goal of content writing for law firms is to have a client think of a particular lawyer or attorney for a specific legal service, then that is the practice area to write about. This varies by every firm and law office, but the end goal is the same: Keep the target audience and clients in mind.

While keywords were an essential SEO writing component in the past, search engines like Google now evaluate the quality of the search results based on search queries. By writing for a practice area topic instead of a keyword, you will organically develop keywords that aid in ranking your page. In addition, law firms that focused on a single practice area tended to rank better in search results over trying to promote all of their practice areas equally.

How will your law blog writers know what to write about? Research what the target clientele is looking for online and answer their questions in your content. Consider frequently asked questions, recent (and, if possible, local) news and other need-to-know topics for the practice area that potential clients would want to know.

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3. Ensure Statements Are Factually Accurate

Many legal professionals handle the writing of their legal website content on their own, but for attorneys using professional content writers, it is vital to ensure those writers are making factually accurate statements. A blog topic about a desired practice area, such as personal injury, might reference local laws for making a claim, for example.

The best legal content writers always ensure that whatever law is mentioned is up to date and accurately explained. It is also a good idea to link to a current source where that information can quickly be verified. Publishing out-of-date or false information could not only cause trouble for the lawyer but also lead to the page diving in search engine rankings.

The sources you use are an important component in presenting factually accurate information to the reader. Check the publication date of any sources you plan to cite or use. Reference the most recent information, and to be safe, avoid using sources that are more than a few years old.

 

4. Avoid Unethical Language

Lawyers and attorneys have a strict code of ethics they must adhere to, especially when it comes to marketing. Unethical language for law firms includes anything that may misrepresent the attorney or mislead potential clients. Different states may even have stringent regulations on the wording that legal professionals can use, so the unethical language may differ depending on where the lawyer is located.

When engaging in SEO content writing for law firms, make sure the wording does not sound like a promise or a guarantee. It is also a good idea to avoid such words as “best,” “specialist” and “expert” when talking about the attorney and offered services. Before publishing, read over the content as though you are the target audience and take out any language that may come across as insensitive or that might drive away clients.

Although you want to avoid touting an attorney as “the best,” you can still mention awards, memberships, and other accolades and successes the law office or firm has earned. While this can be tougher to include in blog content, it tends to fit in well on About Us pages or other site landing pages.

 

5. Incorporate the Target Geography Naturally

Although the topic may be more important than the keyword in terms of establishing authority and ranking in search engines, one easy way to both target an audience and generate a long-tail keyword is to incorporate the geographic location of the legal professional into the content. It can be as simple as “practice area + geography.”

Incorporating the geography aids in narrowing the target audience as well. Though some law firms have offices nationwide, a vast majority are smaller or solo practices that operate in a single location. To set your firm or office apart, have your SEO writers for hire include your target geography or service area in your content where it fits. Avoid forcing the geography into the text, though – awkward phrasing may drive away readers.

 

6. Be the Authority

Whatever your content is saying, say it with confidence. The more knowledgeable content writing for law firms comes across on its topic, the more authoritative it will sound. SEO content that backs itself up with authority is likely to rank higher in searches.

How can you establish authority if your website is new? The first step is to create more legal SEO content! It also helps to have other sites link to yours, but make sure the sites themselves are not questionable as that could come back to bite you. Basically, make your site as information-rich as possible for your client base.

 

7. Mind Social Media

There is no doubt that social media outreach is essential for any modern business, even law firms. However, according to the American Bar Association’s 2019 Legal Technology Survey Report, the use of social media to raise awareness and educate readers dropped to 42% for solo practices and firms with 10-49 lawyers. The majority of firms and practices cited LinkedIn as their platform of choice, and many others reported using other social media for personal or social reasons.

Reaching out across different social media platforms is a vital component to reaching target clientele. Social media is also the perfect place to promote new legal content, such as your most recently published law blog, and to make it shareable. You can also employ visual marketing through images and videos more easily through these platforms.

One social media tip for law firms is to employ the help of a legal SEO writer to manage the the accounts for you. This ensures that you stay focused on what makes your firm great while also making sure new law content is published regularly.

However, don’t forget the different community and business standards for promoting on different platforms. For example, if you are an attorney who handles criminal law in any form, some social media platforms could flag any content that contains references to violence and weapons. Use social media to your advantage, but make sure you follow platform guidelines so your legal SEO content remains visible and shareable.

 

8. Create Reputable Backlinks

Backlinks are links in various locations around the internet that lead back to the intended website. For legal professionals, creating backlinks is an important part of reaching more potential clients and building authority. In general, the more backlinks your site has, the more authoritative it may appear to search engines. However, it is important to also consider the quality of the backlink and where it is located.

Just as using unethical language and inaccurate sources can harm content, a backlink located on a questionable site may harm a legal page’s potential search engine rankings. One effective way to create stronger backlinks is to write guest posts for other authoritative sites in a lawyer’s practice area or industry. Not only does a well-placed, quality legal blog establish you as a knowledgeable professional, but it also allows you to reach a wider audience. While you definitely want to increase the number of backlinks to your site, make quality linking the priority.

 

9. Post and Promote New SEO Content Regularly With Legal Writers for Hire

Did you know that a law firm can increase its website traffic by 15 times simply by publishing new content regularly? Creating a site is a start, but if you are not updating its content with new blogs, you are missing out on potential clients. This can be as simple as finding legal writers for hire and publishing a single new law blog each month.

Creating and promoting new content each month shows site visitors that you are active and aware of the situations potential clients may find themselves in. This is also a great way to once again establish your authority as a professional in your practice area by writing about new or changing laws that would directly affect clients.

If creating, publishing and promoting fresh monthly content does not fit into your schedule, many law firms rely on law blog writers for hire or content management services to handle marketing for them. While each law firm should be aware of the online content that is associated with its name, you can still have an efficient SEO marketing strategy without having to shoulder all the work yourself.

 

10. Review Analytics To Determine the Effectiveness of Your Legal Content

What good is creating fantastic law content if you do not know how well it is working? Whatever program you decide to use to monitor activity, make sure you have access to analytics that let you know which content on your website is giving you the best results. It may surprise some firms to learn that certain practice areas they thought were their bread and butter do not bring in as many clients online as others. Analyzing the performance of content writing for law firms allows you to adapt your strategy over time.

A content approach that works one year may not work as well the next. To stay relevant, your SEO strategy needs to be adaptable.

 

Content Writing for Law Firms: Time To Start

Effective, efficient legal SEO writing is more important than ever, even for attorneys that tend to handle the bulk of their work face-to-face. Remember: You do not have to create all of your website content yourself. Legal writers for hire and content management options are available to make your online marketing strategy a success while you focus on your clients. Which of these content writing for law firm tips has worked for your business? What else do law firms need to know about creating web content? Have you ever used a legal SEO writer before? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.