Every business wants to tap into the power of SEO for their business, but not many know how to do it. This is understandable because there is a lot of mixed advice out there when it comes to SEO. One thing that is for sure and has been confirmed by Google many times is that content remains at the center of it and blogging is the best way to accomplish that. Having a good SEO blog strategy can help you drive relevant traffic to your website that can be converted into customers.In this post, we’re going to dive into creating content for SEO that is sure to get you page 1 rankings.
Types of SEO Blog Writing Services
When it comes to SEO blog writing services, not all services are created equal. Here are some things you can expect when shopping around.
Writing Only
One type of blog writing service offered that you will come across often is the writing only service normally offered by freelancers. This will be a service that requires you to do a lot fo the upfront work. You will have to do the research, pick the keywords, title, and requirements for the post, and hand it off to the writer to create it. Once it’s done, you will have to optimize it yourself and then publish it. This type of service is offered by writers who have no knowledge of SEO but can create good content. They normally require a lot of guidance to make it successful for SEO.
SEO Optimized Posts
This is one step above the writing only service and will include SEO optimization of a keyword that you tell the writer you want to target. They will optimize the headings for you and plug the keyword for you within the article. This type of service is often offered by someone with very moderate knowledge of SEO, mostly on-page optimization. In some cases, they will optimize your meta tags, but the burden of research and keyword targets will still be very much on you. You will also have to still publish your posts and add graphics in most cases.
Keyword and Competitive Research
In very rare instances the blog article creators will offer to do the research for you and create content on a monthly basis for your website. With something like this, you want to make sure you get a list of the keywords upfront and see past work of success. These posts tend to be ones that can be successful but only if done right. There will be work involved on your end with the publishing of the post, which can lead to structural SEO errors.
Full Service
This is the type of SEO blog writing service that we offer. This will include the keyword research phase, competitive research for each keyword targeted, content creation, content publishing, photos, and content optimization. With this service, you don’t have to do anything but review the keyword targets and are happy with the ideas. The rest will be done month to month based on how much content you want to be created per month. This is the type of service you can usually expect to receive from an agency but be aware, not all blog writing services are created equal. Don’t just price shop and really lookout for what you’re getting for what you’re paying. Often cheaper services provide thin content. Make sure that word count is specified in the pricing because it plays a big role in the depth of the content, which is an important ranking factor.
Stay Away From
There are a few things you want to look out for when shopping for services. The following won’t just waste your time and money but can damage your website and get your website banned from the search engines.
Spun Content
This is when software takes an existing piece of content on the internet, probably from your competitors, and “spins it.” It basically moves all the words around and makes it seem like a brand new article. In most cases, this doesn’t make sense and is a low-quality post even when it does. This tactic worked once upon a time but Google has become incredibly good at catching spam. These days writers do this manually, and it often hard to tell, but its plagiarism in the least, and a site ban at the worst.
Duplicate Content
This is when the writer either copies entire posts or just copy and paste certain paragraphs into the post and write some of it to make it harder to tell that it’s plagiarized. This is one of the main reasons websites tank in traffic. Every piece of your content has to be 100% original and usually better than all the page one rankings in order to have a shot at ranking. The good news is there is an easy way to tell if your content is original or not by using tools like Copyscape.
Fiverr Writers
If you’ve either come across or have already come across Fiverr in your blog writer search. This is a good website that can help you accomplish many things, but SEO blog writing is not one of them. Stay away from services that seem too good to be true, because they are either one of them to tactics above, or are not in the native language you’re looking for.
Cost of SEO Blog Writing Services
The costs of blog writing services can vary and can range from $20-$200 per post. Within that range is the quality of the post but be careful to think that more means better, as that is not always the case.
Where to get the SEO writing services you need
There are a few places you can go to get your SEO writing done.
Agencies
This will be your best bet if you’re looking to do less thinking and deal with fewer headaches. That’s only if you pick the right agency. The good news for you is that we’re the right agency and you’ve already found us. We provide full-service SEO writing for your blog
Freelancers
Your other option is to find a freelancer who is not only well versed in SEO, but is also willing to do the writing. This is very hard to accomplish so you will most likely have to be involved in the research and publishing process.
Upwork
Upwork is a freelancer platform where you can find good freelancers with reviews. The costs can vary and you may have to go through some trial and error before you find your perfect match.
Next, let’s talk about what good writing for SEO looks like.
Why Is Content Important?
Of all the buzzwords, the one that holds weight is that “content is king.” This isn’t only because you can use it to rank in the SERP’s, but also because your website content can be repurposed in many different ways and used across multiple channels. It has the potential to be one of the main sources of customer acquisition for your business.
On the SEO side of things, many factors can make you rank, but the two most important of which are on-site content and off-site content (link building). A huge part of that is the content you create on your website. Google is all about returning the most valuable results for their users to keep them coming back, so the way to earn those rankings is to provide them content that they will find useful for each query.
Let’s dive into creating content for SEO.
Step 1 – Keyword Research
Arguably the most crucial part of the content creation process is figuring out what to write to you about. This is why doing keyword research the right way is a must. You want to focus on targeting the right keywords. In short, a good keyword will check off the following boxes two boxes.
Has Volume
You want to make sure the article you’re writing about gets a decent amount of search traffic. Avoid keywords with little to no volume as you will have a hard time generating significant traffic. Those are best pursued once you have maximized all high volume opportunities.
Not General in Nature
Avoid opportunities that are really high volume because these tend to be very broad topics. You want to focus on creating content around specific topics and covering them in depth. A great example of this is a simple one. Let’s say you write an article about different colors of shoes. Within it, you write about blue shoes, red shoes, etc. This article has the potential to rank for blue shoes, but its chances of competing against an article purely focused on blue shoes are going to be slim to none of all other factors are equal.
Keyword Tools You Can Use
There are a few tools you can use to get this done, but we will focus on two. One of the tools is the good old Google Keyword Planner. This tool is absolutely free and provided by Google to let you research keywords. Another tool that we have grown very fond of is Keywords Everywhere. This tool allows you to research keywords within the Google search results. It will tell you the volume for your keyword, as well as any related searches. Lastly, you can use Keyword’s Kegg, which is a great tool to discover keywords.
You will also need to track your keywords, which is where a tool like NightWatch will come into play.
Step 2 – Competitive Research
If you want your content to rank on page one, you’ll have to scope out the competition. The competition won’t be the business competitors you think you have. Instead, it will be the competitors in the search engine that are ranking for the keyword you are targeting. You want to take a look at all the pages ranking for that keyword and look for these things:
- What the articles are covering and their quality
- The length and depth of the posts
- The intent of the post
Once you check for all these markers then you want to craft an outline that makes sure to make the content better than anything on the first page. You want to look at what they did well and exploit as well, and address any holes that the first-page content has.
Step 3 – Writing the Content
Finally, it is time to create the content you did all the work for…right after you outline it.
Before you write you want to layout the article in an outline that breaks down the article to each subheading and small points that you will discuss for each of those headings and subheadings. Now it’s actually time to write.
Focus on One Topic
As mentioned earlier you have to focus on one topic. When beginning to write, its easy to start veering off course and venture into new territory, this will end up hurting your chances. What you want to do is cover the topic as in-depth as you can. Get into the nitty-gritty details and make sure your content addresses each and every aspect of the query at hand.
Make sure to keep the content educational as that tends to please both search engines and readers. If you can educate your readers, you will earn their trust and their business.
Add Depth
This will refer to the competitive research you did early on. One thing you were to look for is things that your competitors didn’t address or didn’t cover in enough detail. Once you’ve spotted those opportunities, yeah I have to improve on them.
When you’re finished discussing each heading or subheading, re-read it and see if there is something that you can explain further or add on to. Its also good practice to see if you can create a subheading from each heading and dive into the topic even further. Leave no stone unturned. Word count is also a good way to track how in-depth your content is compared to your competitors.
Use Headings and Subheadings Wisely
Headings and subheadings serve two purposes. They help both the search engines and the readers break down the content and help them navigate it. Outside of reading the main title to determine what the article is about, the search engines and the reader will both scan past the subheadings to see what the content covers and how it compares to all the other results. The more original it is, the higher the chances of that page ranking and converting its visitors.
As you may have noticed, you’re tailoring the content so that search engines know what they’re seeing, but mainly focused on the user experience. That is what search engines want, and that is to deliver the content that the users want.
Be an Expert
You also want to include semantics in your article and in your headings. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and worrying about keyword density. What Google does now compares your article to others in that industry to make sure you’re using the right subject terms within the post. If you’re well versed in the topic you write about, then this process should happen naturally. If not, then you may want to pick up some relevant vocabulary in your research.
Optimize for Conversions
This tip is more for users than it is for search engines, however, time on site and engagement can also help your rankings as it will decrease your bounce rate. This will be most important when you start getting the traffic from SEO. What you want to do is to add a call to actions within the article as well as at the end and to the side of it. In most content, you will be helping people solve a problem, so why not offer yourself as a solution at some point?
Another thing you want to do is to try and capture your email. When people visit your content, they have one opportunity to do business with you. If you capture their email you have the ability to market to them again, as well as drive more traffic to any new content.
Getting the Content to Rank
Once you got some good content created, Google will begin indexing your content. If your website is fairly new you will notice that you may be ranking on page 2 and beyond. This is because the second most important part of SEO is link building, and this is what helps get your page ranking higher. The irony is your link building will consist mostly of content.
What you will be doing is reaching out to other websites relevant to your niche and offering them free high-quality content in return for a backlink back to your site. Google will look at that like a vote from that site to yours and that will help you push your existing content up for the keywords that you are targeting.
When doing outreach, there are a few things that you want to look out for that make it a good link:
- Relevant to your niche
- Contextual link
- Located within relevant, fresh, content
- The website has a high Domain Authority
- Optimized and varied anchor text
Link building is a vital piece of getting your content ranked. It also serves a dual purpose of letting you get in front of that website’s audience and expose yourself to their product or service.
Quick Do’s and Don’ts
Here are some good do’s and don’ts that can help summarize the tips in this article:
- Don’t worry about keyword density
- Do add the keyword into the title and sprinkle into the article here and there naturally.
- Don’t write the same thing as your competitors
- Do write content that expands and improves on all the first-page ranking content
- Don’t make general content covering multiple topics at once
- Do focus on covering one topic in-depth
Content Really is King
When it comes to SEO content is definitely king. It’s one of the major ranking factors and it’s majorly responsible for getting you traffic and conversions. What you will notice is these tips have been implemented in the creation of this article. If you’re looking for blog writing services, get in touch with us today.