How To Write SEO Friendly Content [5 Proven Ways I Use]

So how to write SEO friendly content that brings you more visitors from search engines? Did you know that there are over 2 million blog posts are getting published every single day?

That’s a lot of competition, right?

Creating an article that ranks well in search engines like Google is a skill. It’s an art.

Well, just follow the tips and techniques mentioned here and you’ll be attracting a ton of traffic from search engines.

5 Proven Ways to Write SEO Friendly Content In 2023

Here are 5 incredible ways to create SEO friendly articles that perform well in search engines, so make sure to implement them for better rankings.

#1. It all starts with proper keyword research

First things first: if you’re not doing keyword research, you will never be able to create SEO friendly content. It’s as simple as that. Keyword research is one of the biggest beginner blogging mistakes that you should avoid at all costs.

Finding and using the RIGHT keywords is the key to getting more traffic from search engines. How can you expect to increase your website’s search traffic without using the keyword phrases that people are actually searching for?

That’s why it’s so essential for you to find great keywords. So how can you do proper keyword research to increase your website’s organic traffic?

Start with long-tail keywords

Focus on finding long-tail keywords (which contain 4 or more words, ex: “best fitness apps for bloggers”) while doing keyword research so you can easily get first-page rankings with minimal effort.

Why should you target long-tail keywords within your content?

• They are easier to rank for
• They have lesser competition when compared to short-tail keywords
• They attract more visitors (because you’ll be using multiple keywords)
• They convert well (so more sales to you!)

Is that being said, how to find long-tail keywords?

You can use keyword research tools to easily find profitable long-tail keywords. Here are a few recommended keyword research tools that work like a charm.

• SEMRush
• Long Tail Pro
• KWFinder
• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
• Keywordtool.io

If you’re just starting out and don’t have the budget to spend money on premium tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs, you can always start your keyword research with free tools like UberSuggest, Keywordtool.io, etc.

These tools work effortlessly where you need to enter a keyword of your choice and they return you a ton of useful long-tail keywords along with the monthly search volume no matter what niche you are in.

Here’s an example of finding long-tail keywords with KWFinder.

In the above example, for the keyword “WordPress hosting”, the tool is showing us so many great keywords along with the search volume, CPC, and other details. So that’s how you find great keywords.

if you are not good at content writing, and looking for top-notch content writing services for your blog, or for your business services pages, etc then you can hire freelancer writers or you should choose the best SEO company

#2. Long-form of content ranks well

The long-form of content = More search traffic

Gone are the days of writing 500-word blog posts to get more traffic from Google. In 2018, the content marketing game completely changed for GOOD.

Long-form of content with typically 2000 or more words is ranking well on search engines like Google. Just have a look at the following case study illustration for more understanding.

As you can see from the above, the articles with 2000+ words rank far better in contrast to less than 1900-word posts.

So how do you create long-form of SEO friendly content that ranks well on Google search?

Here are a few amazing tips for writing in-depth content that performs well.

Come up with great ideas

Writing in-depth content is possible only when you come up with great blog post ideas. It all starts with brainstorming your ideas. While it’s not so easy to get blog post ideas but here are a few proven ways to never run out of blog post ideas.

1. Use Quora: Quora is the best platform when it comes to finding great ideas for your next blog posts. Just enter any topic idea and you will find a ton of questions relevant to that keyword so you can easily pick the best content ideas among them. You can also use it to write quality answers to generate more traffic to your sites.
2. Use Buzzsumo: Enter any keyword and it will give you a ton of content around that particular keyword including articles, infographics, links, etc you can also find out the popular content by using filters like more social shares, backlinks, etc. A great tool for finding blog post ideas that are already performing well.
3. Read popular blogs in your niche: Reading your competitor’s websites or popular blogs in your industry can give you a ton of ideas. You can also find out their most popular posts to see if you can create content along with similar lines.

Create an outline for your content

I can NEVER write an in-depth article (say 2000+ words) without outlining it first. I personally use Google Docs for outlining the content and I highly recommend you to start using it as it also saves all your writing even offline so don’t lose anything in case of wifi issues.

Start outlining your content by using a ton of subheadings (just skim through this post again as it contains a lot of subheadings) and include reference links for further research. Then, start creating content for each subheading and finish your introduction and conclusion part at last (so you don’t struggle to write long-form of content).

For example, when I was planning to compile an epic list of the best WordPress themes for bloggers, I followed this principle:

1. I initially listed out the themes I want to test for the list,
2. Then I tested out each theme, read reviews, and chose the best ones to include
3. After that I outlined the article layout, as in a) Theme name, b) homepage screenshot, c) detailed introduction, d) Theme feature highlights (in list format for readers who are quick scanners), and finally links for theme demo and download.

This organized approach made my work less messy and I came up with an epic AdSense optimized WordPress theme list that is 6250+ words long.

You can use this same procedure to cut short the work needed for every article of your blog.

#3. On-page optimization is the key

As we earlier discussed keyword research is essential to rank higher in Google searches. Here’s where you need to properly optimize your target keywords for better rankings.

Once you’re done with keyword research for blog posts, make sure to include them in the following places to increase your content rankings.

• Title tag
• Heading
• Subheadings (h2, h3 tags)
• Image alt tags
• Introduction of the article
• And so on

Always include your primary keywords in your meta description as it plays a crucial role in getting first page rankings on Google search and make sure to use click-worthy titles to increase your CTRs (Click Through Rate).

Just make sure to use relevant keywords (also known as LSI keywords) instead of using the same primary keyword, again and again, to properly optimize your content.

#4. Take care of your URLs and links

When it comes to writing SEO friendly content, your URL and links (both internal and external) play a big role. So let’s talk about how you can optimize them for better rankings on Google.

Optimize URLs for the search

Here’s how to properly optimize your URLs for each and every page of your site.

• Use your primary keyword within your URL
• Keep your URLs short and sweet
• Minimize your permalink URL structure (avoid categories or date to keep your URLs concise)
• Avoid using common words (such as the, they, are, and so on and only use essential keywords within your URL)

Internal linking vs external linking

Always make sure to link to your older blog posts and pages while creating content. This allows Google search crawlers to easily crawl your freshly updated or newly created content to rank better for relevant topics.

Also, make sure to link out to relevant external sources (authority sites or videos) while creating content as linking to credible sources always help you in search rankings and user experience.

If you’re linking to someone else in your industry, you’ll also have a chance to build relationships and ask for reciprocal links (once you’ve built rapport with them), so don’t ignore linking out to other bloggers.

#5. Get access to the right tools to write SEO friendly content

Here are 3 awesome SEO tools and plugins that can help you easily optimize your content so you can bring more search traffic to your sites.

a) SEMrush

If you want to get ahead in the game of SEO, you need to do a lot of things including competitor research, backlink analysis, site audits, keyword research, and so on.

Here’s where you need an all-in-one SEO toolkit like SEMrush which gives you access to all of those things.

Using SEMrush, you can do everything from;

• Finding profitable keywords
• Analyzing traffic of any website
• Finding and fixing website issues
• Competitor analysis
• PPC research
• Domain-to-domain comparison and so much more

b) WordPress SEO by Yoast

Do you want to optimize your content for certain keywords but don’t know how to do that? Then, install this ultimate free WordPress plugin from Yoast. It allows you to easily optimize your content for various keywords.

Best Yoast alternatives are RankMath and AllinOne SEO

c) BJ Lazy Load

This is an exceptional free WordPress plugin that helps you lazy load images to improve the page load times of your website. This plugin uses jQuery.sonar to only load an image when it’s visible in the viewport so your site loading times don’t get affected.

Wrapping Up

So what’s your strategy for writing SEO friendly content?

Did you find the tips mentioned here useful? If yes, share this post with others, and also let me know your thoughts in the comments.