Writing an article could be an easy task, but ranking it on SERP requires some optimization. You could be a good writer or author, but if you don’t follow some basic SEO guidelines then you will hardly receive any visitor.
And as we all know a blog without traffic is wordless, since there is no one to comment, to share and to build community.
So the question is how to write SEO articles which could help you get lots of organic traffic and at the same time help to improve your online presence.
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6 Steps to Write SEO Article Easily
Ok, so in this post we will discuss 6 simple and easy to follow steps which will help you with your content writing. But before we start make sure you have any SEO plugin installed in your website or blog. I will suggest using WordPress SEO by yoast, personally I feel it’s the best.
1. Quality Content: Analyze & Research
Inspiration: Read different blogs in your niche, use Google alert or topsy to find inspiring posts from all around the globe. Read them, build you thoughts and finally perform the keyword research.
Research: You can use tool like Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool, ubersuggest to find the perfect low competition keywords. Always try to focus on such key-phrases which have high volume searches and at the same time have less than 1000 or 5000 competitive websites. This will help you get instant organic visitors without taking too much trouble.
You can use try these two methods. Just move to Google and paste the provided phrase in the search block.
intitle:” your phrase” inurl:” your phrase “
This can simply be called as advance search to find the exact number of competitors. Once you get your result, move to first 3 website and try to check out the variation of key-phrases they have used in their post. Also try to check their backlink and social shares. Once you collect these data, you will be able to defeat them easily.
But remember; always focus in writing in depth and informative posts. Be dilute and explain as much as you can, and please don’t ever care for keyword density. If it’s possible keep your content length more than 1000 words. This will help you keep you readers stick with your content longer and will help to reduce bounce rate. Overall just be natural and you will surely see success.
2.Headlines: H1, H2, H3 Tags
Your title plays the most important role when you try to write SEO articles. But at the same time you have made sure that it attracts visitor. In simple term you have to be very creative.
Titles or headlines provide the first preview about your content. It speaks about the concept and the promise you have made to provide. But creating any magnetic headline is not a rocket since, what you just need is 3 simple tips. {Tips provided below are only for your post titles and not for sub-headings}.
Try to put your focus keyword to the first position (only if it’s possible).
Try to reduce the use of stop words like And, Or, If, The, etc.
Keep your headline to maximum 65 letters. If it’s more, it will be hidden in search results.
Now let’s talk about the sub-headings, I mean H2, H3 tags. If you are using any SEO plugin then you will always get suggestions to add at least one H2 and H3 tag declared titles in every individual post. Below are few of the most recommended tips you should follow.
Don’t always repeat your focused key-phrase in sub-headlines. Instead of that try to add related words, synonyms.
Try to divide your article with at least 2 to 5 sub divisions.
Don’t add any links to them.
Don’t ever have any other H1 declared sub-heading in any of your post.
3.Perform Keyword Research to Write SEO Article
It’s always better to first write article naturally and then finally add all desired key phrases when you take a review read. This not only saves time but also helps to make your content error free which might impact your authority.
Now here’s a biggest mistake which almost every newbie blogger or webmaster makes in their starting phase. They all try to rank for most competitive words, for which only high authority and highly reputed websites rank.
So instead of running behind high search volume, powerful and highly competitive phrases, try to rank for simple, easy and long tail keywords. You can use premium tools like Market samurai, Long tail pro and other to find perfect low hanging fruits.
You can also use AdWords suggestion to perform free research. Just check the image below on how to use this toll effectively.
Now what is LSI Keywords ?
It’s a mathematical process to find the most interconnected and concept related words. Considering the SEO they are very important and give you better rank on SERPs. You can use a free tool named lsikeywords to find them.
4.Internal & External Links
Interlinking you posts can improve your indexation rate. It helps search bots to find more articles in your blog or website and help them crawl. Finally if the external and internal links optimized well, search engines can index them, which will directly have impact on your monthly visitors and page-views.
Use few word phrases for linking.
Don’t ever add rel=”nofollow” to them.
Always open them in new window.
The best method is to use few of the most popular WordPress related post plugins.
Outbound links also plays a vital role when you are trying to write SEO articles. Linking to high authority, high pagerank and top ranking pages considering the topic can help you with your off-page SEO effort. Such outbound links tell search bots that you are really focused in providing a better and informative content to your readers.
Make sure all outbound links open in new window. This will most probably increase your total time spent per visit.
Use targeted keyword for outlining.
Add rel=”nofollow” tags to links if you are going to have multiple links to same domain.
Overall having a great connection, can help you make your article SEO friendly and can also help you rank better on Google.
5.Images and Videos
No one likes to read articles if there is no image, videos or graphics. We all know that image is worth 100 words. But they are actually the best way to engage your readers, which ultimately helps to reduce bounce rate.
And if optimized properly, you can also drive hundred and thousands of visitors from image search.
Add alternate and title tags for every image.
Don’t link image to any media page. Simply link them to their source file.
Try to add watermark in the picture which you think can rank well on image search. This will probably bring hundreds of direct visitors.
Always optimize images with lossless compression technique.
Same goes with videos, if you are able to rank better on YouTube for any particular topic, then it can help you bring lots of visitors. And you can even rank YouTube videos on SERP, with doing almost nothing.
6.Meta Description
So it’s the final and the most important step. Meta description tags are used by search engines to display the snippet preview of your content. You can say it’s all about creating most compelling and SEO rich context.
Try to add your keyword and at least one related word. But remember that you have only 156 letter space maximum, so use it to it potential. In order to add custom Meta description tags you can use themes like genesis framework or plugins like WordPress Yoast SEO plugin.
Final Words and thoughts
I know it’s really difficult to stick with anyone’s guidance when it actually comes to blogging. For me I have an experience of 1.1/2 years and I can say, I have implemented the same exact strategy to increase my monthly readers from 1500 to 38,000.
Overall you can say, if you don’t write SEO article, then you will hardly get any viewers and so it’s simply a waste of time. A blog with no reader, no comment and no social authority is almost a waste and burden on your shoulders.
So from today take a pledge to write a perfect, in depth and informative posts which not only help your readers but almost make them think about you and your site after they leave it. Finally I wish my personal tips on writing SEO article would have helped you a lot. Till then have a happy journey with your blog.
