SEO is boring and painful, so SEO-friendly writing must be too, right? WRONG! Today, I’m going to explore the myths of SEO-friendly writing and break it down so that you can start writing content that works for you.
Before we dive in, it’s important to note that quality content matters far more than anything else. It’s got to be good. It’s got to be engaging. And it’s got to build trust with your audience. In fact, Google recently updated its content guidelines from E-A-T (expertise, authority, trustworthiness) to E-E-A-T, adding experience. So your content should speak from experience, showcase your expertise, come from a place of authority, and be trustworthy.
And, spoiler alert — it’s not just about thought leadership content. It’s also about delivering high quality copy, that yes–leverages SEO, but also speaks to what the audience most wants to know.
With that in mind, lets dive in!
Want to keep these myths handy? Bookmark this page or grab the infographic below!
Myth #1: SEO-Friendly Writing is Long and Boring
We’ve all seen those click-bait posts with a tempting lead story, and then you have to scroll for HOURS to find out what happens. These are super annoying and targeted at driving ad revenue. Worse yet is when the story really has no point and the ending is dumb. So, it might not take hours, but it might be 15 minutes of your life that you NEVER get back. These posts are long, drawn-out, and yes, painful.
The truth is that your content should not be boring. It should be helpful and interesting. While sometimes this does mean it’s long, this is the case because you’re spending the time you need to in order to answer the question completely. In fact, your writing should be exactly as long as it needs to be and no longer.
While long content can be beneficial for SEO because it keeps your readers on the page longer, it won’t serve you well if they get bored and frustrated and click away never to return.
Don’t try to fit 10 pounds of content into a 5-pound bag. If your content solves the problem well with 1000 words, then don’t try to stuff another 1000 words into the piece.
Myth #2: SEO-Friendly Content is Dense, Technical, and Hard to Read
This might have been true at one point, especially when keyword stuffing was a thing. What’s keyword stuffing? Well, that’s the act of shoving as many keywords as possible into every piece so that search engine crawlers saw them and thought “Hey, this must be really meaningful content.” The result was a bunch of content that was really hard to read, super-dense explanations, and highly technical content. Or worse yet, we saw lots of content written by people who were not native speakers of a language. We’ve all seen examples of translations gone painfully wrong, but for a while, people were using foreign content mills to get cheap content that people hated to read.
The bottom line was that NO ONE LIKED IT! Thank goodness SEO has gotten smarter.
Instead, what search engines like Google are focusing on is content quality. Is your content helpful to your readers? Does it solve their problems? Is it easy to read?
So while algorithms are constantly changing, the overall direction that SEO best practices are moving towards is well-written, informative content that really answers your clients’ questions. Make it easy to read, easy to digest, and helpful, and you’ll be ahead of the game.
And when it comes to copy, write to the keywords, but don’t overdo it to squeeze them in. Do your best to deliver value and make your copy engaging first, SEO-optimized second.
Myth #3 – SEO is Constantly Changing So Why Bother?
Well, this myth is partially true. SEO is constantly changing. However, it’s changing in a good way. It focuses on rewarding people and businesses that put a lot of time and effort into writing. So while there are still some best practices and strategies involved in writing good content that is SEO-friendly, your goal is meaningful content that helps your clients.
If you’re not sure where to start on strategy, consider my content planning workshop. You’ll learn my content tree method for planning up to 12 months of content in less than 60 minutes.
Myth #4 – Social Media is JUST as Valuable as Website SEO
Social media is all about visibility and networking. But here’s a hard truth: Visibility doesn’t trump SEO. Instead, while a solid social media presence can definitely lead to new business, it doesn’t actually help your search engine performance. And, if social media were to go away, how would people find you? The answer is a solid SEO strategy, which for many of us is a great content strategy.
Enter SEO-friendly writing. You can even use some of the common questions you see on social media to drive your content. For example, in some of the groups I’m in, there are a lot of questions that center around SEO and how content can deliver, so that was the inspiration for this article.
Myth #5 – SEO Doesn’t Reward Consistency
Ok, you’ve got me. This isn’t really a myth. The truth is that all the information out there is the pure opposite of this. You simply must be consistent when it comes to your content. Google and other search engines reward websites that post fresh content regularly. This does not mean that you have to post a new blog every day. It might not even mean posting every week, although that’s ideal.
Instead, what you should do is set a schedule that works with your bandwidth and then stick to it. Does this mean you can’t skip your content if life or business trumps publishing? Nope. However, you should get back on schedule as soon as possible. I went on vacation this summer and put my focus on working on some other pieces for my business, so instead of publishing every other week, my frequency went down the drain. That doesn’t mean that all is lost, however. Instead, it just means it’s time to get back on track.
Myth #6 – Writing SEO-Friendly Content is HARD!
Writing SEO-friendly content challenges many people. It doesn’t have to be any more difficult than writing regular content. And, while I know that has its own set of challenges, what I’m getting at here, is that if you can write content normally, you can easily write SEO-friendly content.
The trick is advance planning.
Instead of writing first and then trying to make it fit your SEO needs, determine your SEO needs first, and then write. Start by figuring out what keyword you want to target. Then if possible, what long-tail keyword(s) are you wanting to include?
For this article, my main keyword is “SEO-friendly content” and my long-tail keywords are “writing SEO-friendly content” and “how to write SEO-friendly content.”
Once you make that decision, you simply need to follow SEO best practices.
10 Easy Best Practices for Writing SEO-Friendly Content to Make it Snackable
With that in mind, here are some of my best practices:
- Include your keyword in the article title and aim for the front half of the title.
- Your keyword should appear in the first paragraph, ideally in the first sentence.
- Include your keyword once every 150 words or so. (This equates to no more than 7-10 times in a 1000-word article.)
- Include your keyword in at least 1 sub-head.
- Include your long-tail keyword 1-2 times in the body content.
- Make sure there are fewer than 300 words between subheadings (H2 or H3 tags, usually). If this goes over 300 words, break it up with hierarchical subheadings (H3, H4, etc).
- Focus on shorter sentences and paragraphs.
- Write a meta description that includes your keyword and encourages people to click.
- Make sure that your image titles and alt tags (alt text) include your keyword.
- Do a quick checkup before posting using Yoast’s real-time checker or WordPress plugin
It sounds like a lot, but you can see how identifying your keyword ahead of time really helps you write killer SEO-friendly content. For me, it also helps me if I have an outline of the title. Often, I find that although the title changes, it really helps me stay on task by writing content that makes sense and speaks directly to the point.
I’ve got an infographic for you here, too!
Wrapping it Up
The bottom line in all of this is to not let the terms “SEO-Friendly Content” and “SEO-Optimized Copy” intimidate you. It’s not complicated, and I have faith that you can learn how to write this way, to draw traffic, share thought leadership, and build superfans. It’s worth your time and your energy, and once you have a plan, it’s really quite easy to execute!
This article was originally published in 2019 and has been updated with current information.
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