Explore our beginner-friendly guide on SEO content, providing actionable tips to help your website rank higher in search results, attract more visitors, and convert leads.
Attracting organic traffic to your website is an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) , and one of the best ways to do this is through SEO content.
SEO content employs optimization best practices to help your site get noticed by search engines. But the question is, how do you write good SEO content? That’s the question we’re answering today.
Stay tuned to learn more about how to write great content for search engines (and people!) in this SEO content guide:
What is SEO content?
SEO content is online content created to reach users through search engines. Also known as SEO writing, this type of content is user-focused and written with SEO best practices in mind to ensure quality, readability, and visibility on search engines.
Why does content matter for SEO?
So, why is content important for SEO ? Content is a vital part of any SEO strategy – after all, content allows you to rank in search results, attract site visitors, and convert leads.
When you publish a new web page, Google uses bots known as ” spiders ” to crawl your page. These crawlers determine the purpose of your page and add it to Google’s index based on several SEO ranking factors .
By incorporating SEO best practices into your content, you can increase your website’s search engine visibility and attract qualified traffic to your business.
How to do SEO content for your site
1. Write for humans
Our first tip in this SEO content guide is arguably the most important. When writing SEO content, make sure you are writing for people, not for search engines. Sometimes you can get so caught up in keywords and technical SEO that you forget the true purpose of your content: your audience.
Write for people by making sure your content is clear, readable, free of grammatical errors , and easy to understand.
Answer questions you know are important to your audience. For example, if you own an HVAC company , you could create content that details what customers can expect when one of your engineers visits their home or business site. Or if you own a law firm , you could create content that highlights your specialties and pricing.
While ranking in search results is important, you won’t get very far if you create SEO content that doesn’t resonate with your audience. It will be ignored by users and, ultimately, search engines.
2. Answer the search intent
Part of writing for people is to understand search intent , or why they search for a specific keyword or query.
Answering user search intent is an important SEO content best practice to remember because it means you understand what your audience wants. Understanding user search intent allows you to use appropriate content formats, calls to action (CTAs), and messaging on your site pages.
How well you match the search intent can also impact your ranking on search results.
Google’s algorithm places significant emphasis on search intent when evaluating the helpfulness of content. The more effectively you respond to search intent, the better your chances of improving your search engine rankings and attracting qualified leads.
3. Conduct keyword research
No SEO content guide is complete without mentioning the power of keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that people enter into search engines to find answers to their questions.
Conducting thorough keyword research with a tool like Keywords Everywhere and implementing target keywords into your content will help users and search engines better understand the purpose of your pages.
Keyword research is essential to your SEO content strategy because it helps you:
- Identify user search intent
- Understand what words and phrases people use to find your website
- Find relevant keywords to target
- Identify keywords with high or low search volume, including zero-volume keywords
- Brainstorm the types of content you should create for specific keywords
- Make data-driven decisions about your keyword strategy
When conducting keyword research, brainstorm potential keywords to target and research your competitors to see what terms they rank for. For example, if you are in the industrial industry and own a business that manufactures airplane parts, you could target keywords like “Boeing aircraft fans.” Or if you own a local service business and provide plumbing solutions, you could target keywords like “plumber near me.”
You can also use AI content tools and keyword research tools , like Ahrefs and Keyword Everywhere, to help you work out targeting opportunities and keyword variations.
4. Target relevant keywords
You can’t target any keywords in your content. Through your keyword research, you’ll identify relevant keywords for your business. This probably goes without saying, but we’re adding this tip to our SEO content guide anyway – make sure you target relevant keywords in your content.
By targeting the keywords most relevant to your business and audience, you will attract qualified web traffic to your site . Without proper keyword optimization, you will miss out on valuable traffic and leads that come from targeting terms related to your core offerings and business objectives.
5. Identify and fill keyword gaps
Once you’ve effectively optimized for your most relevant keywords, you can switch gears and perform additional keyword research to identify and fill any keyword gaps.
Gaps are inevitable, and with the Internet changing every day, you’re bound to come across keywords and phrases that may not be particularly relevant to your business during your first round of research.
Perform keyword research regularly to ensure you are taking advantage of all keyword opportunities and identify gaps in your strategy.
6. Optimize your titles and meta tags
This next SEO content best practice is all about helping your pages get attention from search engines.
The title and meta description tags are key elements of web pages because they are the first two snippets of your content that people read when browsing search results. The title tag and meta description tell people and search engines what your page is about. Optimizing them for SEO is important for proper indexing . Well-written titles and meta tags also entice people to click on your page.
Below are some title and meta tag optimization best practices to remember when creating SEO content:
- Include your target keyword in your title and meta tags
- Keep your title tag within 60 characters so that part of it doesn’t get cut off.
- Make your title tags unique and distinctive
- Consider search intent when writing title tags
- Make sure your meta description is 160 characters or less
- Write your meta descriptions so they describe the content of your page
- Include a CTA in your meta description to encourage users to interact with your page
P.S. You may notice that Google may ignore your title tag or rewrite it. In this case, it is good practice to make sure your title tag matches the search intent and is the correct character length.
7. Change your content types
SEO writing isn’t the only way to provide information to people. Change up your SEO content strategy by using videos and infographics to explain topics. Doing so breaks up the monotony of written content and gives people new ways to interact with your brand.
For example, instead of writing an entire blog post on a topic, you can create a video that covers it and post the transcript along with it. This doubles your ranking power and allows you to show off your business’s videography skills.
8. Break up the text with images and videos
You can also use multimedia elements such as videos and images to enhance your website’s written content. Visual elements can be indexed by Google, giving your pages another chance to rank for keywords.
When adding images and video to your writing, keep these SEO content tips in mind:
- Include images and videos that add additional context to your written content
- Create an infographic for more technical pieces to reiterate key topics .
Plus, multimedia content breaks up the written content on your website, making it easier for users to scroll without being overwhelmed by walls of text.
9. Optimize for featured snippets
A featured snippet is a highlighted excerpt of a page that immediately answers a search query. Appearing at the top of search results, featured snippets are coveted positions because they are the first thing users see when they enter a search query.
Typically, you target featured snippets by answering a question with a dedicated H2 heading, followed by a concise, to-the-point answer. In other words, featured snippets are short and sweet paragraphs of one to two sentences that give people exactly the information they’re looking for.
Featured snippets don’t just benefit searchers – they benefit you too. As mentioned earlier, featured snippets provide increased visibility for your site by appearing at the top of search result listings. They also help train you to respond to search intent quickly, making your content more useful.
10. Consider including an FAQ section
This next SEO content tip is a great way to increase the helpfulness of your content.
Consider including FAQ sections at the end of some of your content to answer questions related to your target keywords that you haven’t yet covered clearly earlier on the page. FAQ sections are an easy way to add some extra ranking power to your content and give people quick answers to some of their questions.
11. Create skimmable content
In an ideal world, people would read every word you write on your website. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. When people click on your page after finding it in search results, they’re looking for something specific. So, make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for by creating skimmable content.
Creating skimmable content is all about using your headings strategically and remembering our first SEO content tip – write for people.
You can make your content structure skimmable by:
- Using clear and precise headings (H1s, H2s, H3s, etc.).
- Create bulleted or numbered lists
- writing short paragraphs
- Inserting tables or infographics for more complex topics
- Adding images and videos
12. Optimize your images
When it comes to multimedia content, images are important elements to optimize for SEO . Images and infographics create a better user experience and can appear in image search results. While videos can also appear in search results, images have a distinct advantage: Alt text.
Image alt text describes an image on your site and appears on the page if the image fails to load. Alt text helps site crawlers understand and index your page, and it helps screen readers describe the image to visually impaired users.
Check out some SEO content best practices to remember when optimizing your site’s images:
- Include relevant keywords in your image alt text (but avoid keyword stuffing)
- Describe the image accurately and be specific
- Add context about the image in relation to the topic of your page
- Try to keep your alt text brief – aim for around 125 characters maximum
13. Add unique value to your content
Part of creating great SEO writing is demonstrating the value that people get from reading your content. People turn to search engines to find answers, and value will set your page apart from other pages in search engine results pages (SERPs) and encourage clicks.
You can demonstrate the value of your content in a few different ways. First, make your qualifications clear – if you have an experienced team of locksmiths at your company , make this known to readers through author bios that show off your experience and credentials.
Another way to prove the value of your content is to present original research that provides a new perspective or interpretation of a topic.
14. Include internal links
This wouldn’t be a good SEO content guide if we didn’t discuss links — specifically, internal links . Internal links are hyperlinks from one page to another on your site, and they’re important because they help outline your website’s page structure, making it easier for search engine crawlers to index your site.
In addition, internal links can improve your site’s user experience by helping visitors find new and related content. With an internal linking strategy, you can increase visit duration and improve your SEO.
Be sure to add internal links to relevant pages on your site in your content. You can also optimize for first link priority by placing internal links to your highest value pages closer to the top of your page.
15. Links to high-quality sites
A backlink strategy is essential to creating great SEO content because it helps give your site credibility and trustworthiness. As you create content, find places to link to other trusted sites.
Google prioritizes high-quality, useful content. By linking to trustworthy sites, you are showing Google that you are connected to those trustworthy sites and presenting trustworthy information.
For example, you wouldn’t trust medical information from a page that cites a random blog as a source, but you mightYou would trust someone who links to WebMD or Harvard Medical School. Google uses the same logic when evaluating a page’s backlinks .
16. Stay on top of SEO trends and updates
Our final SEO content tip can be applied to your entire SEO strategy.
Stay on top of the latest SEO trends and algorithm updates by following SEO professionals on social media, signing up for alerts on Google, or following the Google Search liaison (@searchliason) on X. There, you’ll find algorithm updates directly from Google.
Another way to monitor changes in Google’s search algorithm is to use an SEO tool like Google Search Console or GA4 to monitor your site’s search engine performance . If you notice significant fluctuations in your page rankings, it may mean that an algorithm update has taken effect.
You can also check out our SEO resources or SEO FAQs for free guides, templates, and more!
