In this guide, let's go over 15 best practices for SEO content writing to get your content rank faster on a new website.
Please note that these are just best practices, they give the content the best chances to rank, but not guaranteed.
1. Write SEO optimized headlines
Writing SEO optimized headlines is about writing in a way that gets the visitor to click and it should contain the main keyword that gets traffic.
Do not create random headlines without keyword volume data, because they might not rank on the search engine. Unless the article is news related on a high authority domain.
2. Always place the main keyword within the first 100 characters
A great piece of content that ranks well on the search engine should always have the main keyword placed within the first 100 characters on the blog post.
This means the main keyword should be in the introduction paragraph right away. As search engines continue to receive ranking updates, it's absolutely important to write concise introduction that gets to the point while making the main keyword visible right away to the visitors, and make it visible to the search engine as soon as it crawls the page.
3. Include main keyword in the URL
Permalink should always include another variation of the main keyword. In some SEO communities, URL keyword is one of the 3 kings to rank on search engines. They include:
- Keyword in the H1 tag
- Keyword in the content
- Keyword in URL
4. Add Call to Action
Every blog posts should have a call to action for the following reason:
- Direct traffic to other valuable website content visitor can't easily find on the search engine
- Direct traffic from an established page to a brand new page
- Direct visitor to subscribe, click, buy, learn more
- Direct visitors visitors who initially landed on non-interesting topics to something way more interesting (click arbitrage)
5. Add internals links to the blog post
Adding internal links to the blog post from hyper relevant anchor text can boost the keyword relevance of the blog post. The other reason for doing this is to flow traffic from other blog posts.
The rule of thumb is to have at least 2 outbound links and as many relevant inbound links pointing at the blog post.
When relevance is established on the website by the owner, then search engines will take that as relevant
6. Publish concise content
*Very important
Every content on the website should go through an audit to cut down until it's serving the most relevant information. This means:
- Delete all filler content if there are any
- Remove content that is the visitors already know (If someone is searching for best gaming laptop, there is no point to educate why people should play video games, just go straight to the list of laptops)
- Use active voice instead of passive voice
- Use the simplest language to get the message across (Use an content rewriter tool)
- Never overexplain something if the intent of the search doesn't match the content
Most visitors use search engines to find stuff on the internet. Based on the intent of the search, some visitors don't need to see regurgitated content.
For example: Some one searching for "best friday night chicken recipes", they want to see the list of items and steps right away. Having a back story on why they need to eat chicken, or the history behind the recipes are irrelevant, and people in a hurry will skip over that any way.
Users who have to go back to the search result page after visiting your content will provide signals to the search engine that the content didn't provide valuable content.
7. Structure your posts with subheadings
Every blog post should have relevant subheadings. Most of them will be starting as H2 tags. H3 tags will be subheadings that falls under H2 tags.
The key here is to organize H2, H3 and H4 tags in a flow, so the search engines can crawl them and understand what the page is about.
H3 tags should be related to H2.
Just follow that subheading tag hierarchy and you will be fine!
For example:
H2: How to change oil filter on your vehicle
H3: 3 ways remove drain plug if it's stuck
H3: Difference between 5W20 vs 0W20
H3: How to dispose drained oil properly
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8. Incorporate relevant keywords in your meta tags
Adding keywords in the meta tag doesn't affect the ranking signal, however, it can incentives the searchers to click on the search result page. The most simple and easy to read writing will standout on the SERP.
9. Optimize your title tags
There should only be 1 H1 tag for the entire blog post, and make sure the main keyword is placed in the front of the title as much as possible.
H2 tags should be relevant headings on a blog post that should include some relevant LSI keywords to boost the relevance of the content.
Learn more about adding LSI keywords here
10. Use social media to promote your content
Social media is a great place to send traffic to a new piece content that otherwise couldn't be found solely relying on the search engine. The best way to use social media to promote the content is to publish the content on an established account with traffic.
For example:
- Show 10% of the content, then include call to action to finished reading the rest of the content
- Show video format of the content, then direct visitors to check out the written format of the content
11.Piggyback traffic off backlinks or press release sites
Sometimes a brand new website just doesn't have the ability to rank a piece of content fast. This is where we need to borrow the ranking authority of other websites to rank immediately.
This means:
- Publishing a piece of content on a press release website, and let the press release site rank, then redirect the traffic back to the blog content
- Publishing guest posts, and expect visitors to flow to the new blog post via anchor text or other call to action elements
- Publishing content on forums
- The content must be written in a concise way with the main purpose of redirecting the traffic.
12. Create a Medium account and post the content there
Some times Medium.com can rank a keyword faster than your website. This is a great idea to leverage the domain authority of a free content site, and then link back to your newly published content.
13. Use Google Authorship to claim authorship of your content
Using Google authorship can beef up EAT for your content. EAT stands for Expertise, Authority and Trust. Google's newest ranking signals.
In addition, beef up your content with author bio that shows EA.
14. Monitor your SEO efforts with Google Analytics
Based on the traffic of your website, please use Google Analytics to sort out the highest traffic volume pages first to optimize.
Delete pages that just don't bring in any traffic.
15. Regularly update and improve your content
Publishing minimal viable content lets the search engine immediately crawl the blog post and start to rank keywords. This strategy is helpful to speed up content publishing speed, and content updates are performed based on keyword data.
Website content font, fancy plugins, fancy widgets and others don't really matter.
The key here is to publish content without having to spend too much time to make it perfect in the beginning.