When writing SEO texts, you must first take care of the value for the user and the appropriate for the search engine optimization algorithms. If you consider both of these elements, you can rank high on Google and catch the user’s attention. How to do it?
What Is SEO?
SEO (Search engine optimization), i.e. optimization for search engines. They are often referred to as positioning. You take these actions on a website to rank high in search results.
What exactly does positioning do? In a nutshell: you create valuable optimized content, plan and implement the proper structure of links on the website, get links from other places on the Internet and make sure that the website is “efficient” and available to Google robots.
What Are SEO Texts?
SEO texts are valuable content for the user, optimized so that Google presents it in search results. It means that they contain relevant keywords, good linking and are accessible to search engines.
What distinguishes them from other types of content is that, first of all, you create valuable text for the user, but you take into account the “needs” of the search engine. It is important because it is what connects our website to the audience. Optimization helps its algorithms “understand” our text and present it to the user looking for information on a given topic.
Sample SEO Text
The article you are reading right now is an example of SEO text. 🙂 I’m giving you some knowledge in the form of text. While writing, I went through the entire process, which I describe below, and took care of optimizing the most important elements.
SEO Texts Are Usually Well Prepared:
- blog articles,
- descriptions of products and categories in online stores,
- reports of the offer on company websites,
- sponsored articles.
If you want to find more examples, you can read other posts on our blog or enter an SEO-related query (e.g. “how to choose keywords”) into the search engine and check the first few results.
Rules Of Writing SEO Texts
There are a few simple rules to keep in mind when writing. Thanks to this, your text will be user-friendly and search engine-friendly. We will also dispel the myth of the length of the text so that you can focus on the most important things when writing.
Remember The User
In the past, to be high in Google, it was enough to have many links and a keyword repeated in every possible place on the page. Today, algorithms are “smarter” and understand complex content quite well. So all you have to do is write a text that comprehensively describes and optimizes the topic.
Step into the recipient’s shoes and briefly put aside the specialist vocabulary. Make the text understandable and answer all the reader’s doubts. Do everything so that he does not click “Back” quickly when you enter the page.
Third, Looks Matter Too
Readability is very important. Have you ever looked for specific information and escaped from the page when you saw one large text block? For me, yes! It is worth constructing the reader so that it is pleasant to read, not only in style and content. Divide the text into paragraphs, add lists, highlight important fragments in bold, and add graphics – so that the user has something to “hang his eye” on and can
Keywords are short phrases of a few words that users use to search for information on Google, e.g. “properties of chocolate”. Use them in the text, but as suggested above, in reasonable amounts and appropriate places.
Also, use auxiliary keywords, e.g. for “properties of chocolate” this list will include, among others, “nutritional value of chocolate” and “chocolate calorific value”. It will be all related terms to the main topic. (You’ll learn more about the writing process in a moment.)
Instead of counting words, consider whether your text answers all the basic questions your audience might have. Check that the entirety of the text leaves the user in no doubt whether any information is missing. Either of these may cause him to look elsewhere.
Quality Matters
Remember always to check the text carefully. Linguistic or factual errors may make someone consider you unprofessional and may result in a quick user evacuation on your part.
Lost trust is hard to rebuild. Therefore, when writing, use tools that will help you detect errors. Also, use the help of others – often, the eyes of the author need help to catch typos or stylistic mistakes.
If you are writing a specialist text, consult someone who knows the matter or do thorough research in industry portals, magazines, etc. When creating reports or presenting research, survey or test results, describe how they were made in detail. Include information about the study group, method, and then share your conclusions. It will increase the credibility of your text, as well as trust in you as the author.
Take Care Of Availability
It’s not directly related to writing, but it’s very important. You can have very prepared content, but no one will read it because it will not be available to the recipients through oversight.
Check that the site is not displaying an error and that the server is working properly. If you use an SSL certificate, remember to renew it on time. Expired websites are usually preceded by a very “dissuasive” danger message.
You lose the user right from the start when something does not work. The next time he comes across a different link to your site, he may not click it because he will remember that something was wrong.
It is also important for the website’s visibility in the search engine. If it is unavailable for longer, Google robots will not get to it either, and as a result, they may move it to a lower position or remove it from the ranking.
Therefore, monitor the website’s status and remember to renew the SSL certificate, and pay for hosting and domain on time.
How To Write Texts For SEO?
With the basic principles at the back of our heads, we can finally write. In this part, we will go through the entire process of creating SEO texts, from planning and searching for key phrases to publication and promotion.
Preparations
Writing the text is a simple matter. However, a few elements related to optimization in SEO texts should be kept in mind when writing. However, above all, we want to create effective readers that have value for the user, and this requires work and the help of tools.
What To Prepare For Writing?
The text editor can be Word or equivalent; you can also use a special editor for SEO texts. I will present some of them later in the article. Here we will create the basic text.
It can be something to take notes on – a piece of paper and a pen, preferably an Excel spreadsheet or your computer’s system notepad. It will be useful in the content planning stage.
Keyword search and analysis tool – if you have access, fire up the Google Keyword Planner. If not, you can quickly set up a Google Ads account or use other solutions – you will find a list of alternatives in a moment.
Your mind 🙂 Take a little break for a mini walk, and when you return, finish other tasks and turn off notifications.
Use the note sheets created in Google Sheets, which you can find HERE (click “Create a copy” to access). The file considers the stages of writing and contains tables to help you organize the collected data. Once copied, you can freely modify it.
Know Your Audience And Their Problems
To create valuable texts for users, you need to find out what this value can be for them. Hence, stage zero concerns getting to know the recipients.
It is important because knowing your target audience helps you:
create a text that responds to their needs, problems and doubts,
adapt the language and style of speech to the recipient so that it is understandable for him,
add something “extra”, which will be an additional advantage of your text and will create a “WOW” effect in your recipient,
create content that will support your business goals, i.e. help turn readers into customers or give you profit from ad views.
If you have a strategy prepared with a precisely described target group and personas, go and find this part of the documentation. Please get to know her. The rest of our work will be based on this.
You don’t know what personas are, and you need to know who your target group is. Read an excerpt (and preferably the entirety) of the marketing goals article on targeting your customers. Answer the questions there, prepare your persona(s) and come back here.
Choose A Topic And Keywords
If you have done the tasks from the previous point, you have more or less a designated direction for searching for the topic. It’s time to take direct action and pick a keynote for the text. Where to look?
Write down ideas related to your recipients’ problems, doubts, and interests that come to your mind.
Talk to people who work directly with customers. Find out what they ask most often, what doubts they express, what they praise, etc.
Search on the Internet. It may sound silly, but contrary to appearances, it is often a good place to find a thematic gem. Browse industry blogs and portals, and visit forums and Facebook groups. Your potential recipients directly write about what hurts them and what they need!
Check on Google. How? Enter your chosen term, and in the search results, check what is in the “Related Questions” section (if any) and what terms are at the end of the list of links.
Use the tools. An example of such an application is Answer the Public – you enter a general password there; on this basis, the system gives you ideas for key phrases and topics to write about. This tool is partially free. If you have a few dollars, you can use the ” Content plan ” option in the Surfer SEO app – a more advanced tool that creates groups of keywords related to one topic.
Example Keyword Breakdown
Now that you have a list of ideas, it’s time to verify it regarding Internet searches. We optimize SEO texts for specific key phrases, which I mentioned earlier. Now we will check if the topics you have in the list are searched on Google. That is, what keywords users use to find an answer to a given topic.
Take your subject, like “How to play basketball Prepare a short list (I suggest doing it in Excel or the system notebook because we will use this data in the tools soon). Such a list may include phrases such as “basketball how to play”, “basketball rules”, “how to play basketball”, “basketball what is needed”, etc.
In this part, you can use several tools, e.g. Semstrom (free keyword search), keywordtool.io (also free), or Senuto (paid).
It’s time to verify the collected list with the “source”, i.e. Google. Open the Keyword Planner and paste the selected phrases there. Pay particular attention to the average number of searches and the trend.
Put selected keywords in the search engine and see who you will compete with. If you have a small blog and large industry portals on the first page, it is a sign that it is better to choose a different key phrase.
After sifting through the list of keywords, select one main phrase and match it with auxiliary words. These keywords are related to the topic and detail the main phrase. In our basketball example, it may look like this: main phrase – “basketball how to play”, auxiliary phrases: “basketball rules”, “what you need to play basketball”, “basketball mistakes”, “basketball types of throws”, “basketball types submissions”, etc.
Create A Table Of Contents
Every effective action should have a goal and an implementation plan. Therefore, after determining more technical matters, it is worth specifying both elements for the text we will write.
The goal will help you focus on the important aspects of the topic. It will be an indicator that will help you assess what to leave and remove from the content. He will become our “guardian of quality”. How to formulate the purpose of the text?
Answer Two Questions
- What do you want the user to know/be able to do after reading?
- What do you want him to do after reading?
This way, focusing on what you want to convey will be easier. The second question will also help you look after your interests. After all, you create content mainly to encourage insecurity or to take care of repeat customers, right? It is worth bearing in mind.
We have a goal, so now it’s time to plan. In the case of our text, this will be the table of contents. Why do we do it BEFORE writing?
First, it helps us establish a logical sequence of threads. It will make the text more consistent. It will also be easier for us to assess whether we have not omitted any significant aspect of the described issue.
Second, we have a list of keywords to use. One of the places to put them is in the headlines. Thanks to planning, we can fully exploit the potential of selected phrases.
After Creating The Table Of Contents, Revise The Following
- Are you sure it includes all the important issues?
- Is something unnecessary?
- Does it contain selected keywords?
- If you have the opportunity, you can ask others to do the same at this stage. Two heads are better than one!
Write The Text And Take Care Of Optimization
It is a phase that requires full focus. All materials are ready, phrases selected, and a plan prepared. It’s time to fill the skeleton of the table of contents with substantive “meat”.
When Writing, Remember About:
- The purpose of the created text,
- recipient (you can imagine your persona sitting next to you and you explain a given topic to her),
- and keywords, but not too much. Use them naturally – where you see fit, and don’t be afraid to use synonyms.
Written?
Check the text for errors. Use tools for this (I recommend, among others, LanguageTool). Also, send the text to others – not only can they help catch typos you or the application do not notice, but you can also get specific feedback on the content.
You can also think about an element that will make the WOW effect. It can be graphics, a video with instructions, a downloadable Excel template – anything you find valuable and able to provide.
Time for the final touches, i.e. optimization. We’ve already partially covered it and included specific keywords in the text and headings. What’s left to do?
If you add images, set alternative text for them (an option usually available when inserting a photo on a page). Please describe what’s on them. You can also add a matching keyword there.
Set your URL for the page and include the main keyword in it. CMS systems often automatically convert the entry title into the website’s address. It makes it long and hard to remember. Therefore, it is worth changing it to a shorter version.
Publish the text and promote it.
At last! I have written a valuable text of agreement with SEO rules. Click “Publish”, and you’re done! Theoretically, yes, but… there are still a few things that are worth doing.
We will fully use the potential hidden in your website’s new content and other elements. This way, we will ensure Google robots that your text is the best answer to the searched phrases. In addition, we will increase the audience and the chance of getting external links.
How To Do It?
Internal linking – adding links to a new product/description/SEO article from other places on your website. Add a link in places where it will be useful to users and where content is thematically related to what you just published. Avoid anchors (i.e. text that “hides” the link) in the form of “Read more” or “Check”; rather, try to use one of the key phrases that are included in the new content.
Promotion in other marketing channels – show off your new content on social media, and add a link in the newsletter. If the text is valuable, it will not be received badly; on the contrary!
Try To Get External Links
- Hit blogger friends from the industry.
- Prepare a sponsored article related to the content of your new text.
- Present it on an online forum.
These actions will help you increase your website’s authority in the eyes of Google. External links are treated as votes. Many high-quality links indicate that your content is trustworthy and ranks higher in search results.
Useful tool – SEO text editor
The SEO text editor is nothing more than an “ordinary” system notebook enriched with additional functions related to optimization. Most often, it suggests which keywords to use, what elements should be included in the content, and what the average length of the text should be.
Content Editor By Surfer SEO (Paid)
It’s part of content marketing software. You can check the quality of your content, analyze the competition, and plan and write texts for the website.
Key Phrase Suggestions
proposal of general content parameters (text length, number of graphic headers, etc.)
data based on competition analysis, mainly TOP10 and data collected using artificial intelligence
- Content Score – helps you compare the quality of your content with competitors
- to optimize existing texts and to create “from scratch.”
- browser application
- Website Auditor Content Editor (Free)
- Website Auditor is one of the SEO Power Suite applications. It is used for website auditing and SEO analysis. The Content Editor is available in the section for checking the optimization of a specific subpage (Page Audit).
Key Phrase Suggestions
- suggestions for topics and questions
- a field to complete the meta description with a preview in the search engine
- creates a cloud of the most frequently used words and phrases in the text
- content optimization index for text evaluation
- Displays alerts, e.g. about excessive use of keywords or their absence in important places
- to optimize existing texts and to create “from scratch.”
- application to download and install
SEO Copywriting Summary
SEO copywriting, the art of writing so that users and search engines like the text, requires much work. The basis is analyzing data from the search engine and good preparation, then writing effective content.
You already know how to write SEO texts. It’s time to test this knowledge in practice! Return to “How to write texts for SEO?”
Also, see the list below. There you will find articles and other tools to help you write.
Do you have questions and have not found an answer to them? Feel free to write in the comment. And if you need help creating valuable texts – contact our consultant. We will try to find a solution during the consultation or create content for you as part of SEO activities.
