13 Tried-and-True Article Writing SEO Tips

It's no secret Search Engine Optimization and content writing go hand-in-hand.  

Without the right SEO strategies, your well-crafted article may get buried somewhere on page 47 of Google's search engine results page (SERP), where people rarely visit. Likewise, your top-ranking article can only get more clicks if you use scroll-stopping titles and meta-descriptions.

That's why your article writing should marry and love SEO. Here are our proven tips on how you can achieve that:

1. Choose a Relevant Topic

Topic research and ideation should be your first step. Whether you're a business owner, blogger, or digital marketer, you're sitting on a treasure-trove of topics- just look closer.

Be sure to brainstorm a list of the most exciting topics to write about. For instance, if you're a PPC (pay-per-click) digital marketer, here are a few suggestions:

• What are the best PPC platforms?
• How to set up a PPC campaign
• How to craft a PPC campaign copy
• What is the average cost of PPC ads?
• How to design PPC landing pages

Be as exhaustive as possible when brainstorming your niche-specific topics. Answer the Public is an excellent tool for this step.

2. Research Your Keywords

You want people searching for a topic you're crafting to find your article. So after listing those enticing topics in step 1, it's time to narrow them down and map them to searchable key phrases.  

SEMrush and other target keyword research tools can reveal a wide range of key phrases and the number of monthly searches for each of them.

The search volume of a target keyword will tell you whether or not it's worthwhile to sweat over creating content for that topic.

Also, consider the competition level. If a high-volume keyword has attracted a massive number of competitors, it won't be suitable for your upcoming website. So stay clear from it for now and target less competitive keywords. Then later, you may try these highly-competitive topics.

3. Your Headlines Should Pack a Punch

Effective headlines can increase search traffic and boost your SEO efforts, so be sure those short texts deliver a considerable impression. They should be clear, enticing, and use rich keywords.

Also, craft interesting Meta descriptions that further elaborate on your article's topic. Remember that the Meta description and title are what users see on the search engine results page. So make them count!

4. Write For Your People First

This tip sounds obvious. However, many businesses and organizations craft articles for all the wrong reasons.

Write articles that your target audience is interested in and strive to answer their questions. Even if the article isn't about your offerings, be sure it's informative, engaging, and covers industry-relevant topics that your target market can relate to. Here are some of the best examples to get you started and inspired.

That way, you'll assert your brand as an authority in your industry, leading to more shares among the audience. Eventually, Google and other search behemoths will notice that your articles are beneficial and worth ranking highly.

5. Use Keyword-rich Phrases

Sprinkle relevant and well-researched keywords in your headlines, meta descriptions, images, and the entire content. This tactic will let Google and human readers know what your article is all about.

But avoid keyword-stuffing your piece of content with keywords, lest users fail to trust you due to robotic-like content. Also, this old tactic no longer works since Google has become better at ranking content that delivers valuable and exciting content. You don't want your article to get pushed further away from the top.

Instead, use the relevant keyword sparingly and thoughtfully, maintaining a natural feel. And apart from spicing your article's body with keywords, tag a few relevant keywords for each piece to leverage blog tags. Fortunately, WordPress and other platforms have in-built tagging capabilities.

6. Structure Your Articles

Browsing and finding your most engaging content should be a breeze. Therefore, remember to enhance the user experience by organizing your articles efficiently. 

Categorize your different types of articles and break up the content into headlines and smaller paragraphs for easy digestion. Google also loves back-end organization.

The trick is to tag headlines using proper tag hierarchy (H1 for the title, H2 for subtitles, H3 for sub-sub titles, and so on). That way, your article's structure will be top-notch. For further clarity on this, check out our exclusive guide on the art of writing sensational articles.

7. Pictures (and Media) Speak Volume

Human beings are visual. So to boost your organic traffic and engagement game, incorporate high-quality media in your article. Add well-illustrated media with relevant information, and the readers' information bank will be richer. We are talking about:

• Original photography
• PDFs
• Surveys
• Infographics
• Digital tools
• Graphic designs
• Stock photos
• Pre-recorded videos
• GIFs

Are you on Pinterest? Apart from promoting your articles across social channels, you can pin posts that have images. The result is an extra avenue for high-quality website traffic.

Media can also boost your ranking and conversion rate in video and image-related searches.

8. Propel Your Articles Using Social Media Giants

Social media is a boon of content distribution. So after crafting an in-depth article, share it with your followers and in relevant forums.

Remember to use scroll-stopping images, descriptions, and calls-to-action (CTAs). Don't forget to add social sharing buttons on every blog article to encourage readers to share your content. That's because people trust those who they know personally more than brands.

Looking to have more control of your links' appearance when shared? Twitter's Twitter Cards and Facebook's Open Graph will come through for you. The insights can help you tweak your posts to boost shares and click-through rates.

9. Build Links Naturally

Were you there during those days of link farms and link buying? The now-smarter Google frowns at such tactics.

Natural external links and internal links are what carry the day. Here's the drill: On your social media post, blog post, comment sections, or elsewhere, link back to your relevant article that elaborates your point.

You can also embed code on your site when adding creatives like videos free tools. Images and infographics. This will boost sharing and allow users to visit the original sources.

Craft high-quality content to increase share-ability. That will increase the probability of authority websites in your industry picking up your site for linking.

And the more the shares (plus authority), the higher your article's position on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords.

10. Implement Google Authorship

You want everyone to know that you're behind the authorship of that awesome content. Right? Google Authorship offers you an easy and quick way to achieve that.

Google+ account is all that's needed. With this tactic, your content piece will pop up as insightful snippets in the SERPs, featuring your image along with the article's title.

While personal promotion profits a lot from Google Authorship, it can drive up the CTRs to your content

11. Republish Your Articles

One way of achieving clean link-building is to spread your tentacles to other lucrative areas. So don't just post on your blog- be generous and pitch some of your articles to other publishers to see if you can get a slot on their blogs.

You can try HARO, a free subscription-based platform where publishers and publishing opportunities meet. Here, publishers can post their requests for content and accept "cold" pitches.

Another trick is to request guest-posting chances on industry-related sites. An easy route is to type key phrases like "your industry (e.g., cryptocurrency) + guest posting" in Google's search box and hit that search icon. Then identify relevant websites from the SERPs and start the pitching game.

Pro tip: Pitch to as many websites as possible until a few bite. Then plug your content on your new allies' websites and watch as traffic starts coming to your website.

Then there are social blogging platforms like Medium that will give your articles and website more eyeballs. And the icing on the cake? You don't have to pay a dime to publish your article and link out to your website. The free content promotion can earn you hundreds of thousands of traffic.

Now, that's the power of being generous with your sweat.

12. Interact & Interact More

You'll have to continue giving out before seeing grandeur returns in your efforts. And that includes interacting, engaging, and following up.

 As the readers inbox you, leave a comment, share, and like your content, respond as soon as possible. here's the game:

• Respond to Facebook comments
• Reply to comments on blog articles
• Like and comment on Twitter's re-shares
• Retarget users with Facebook adverts
• Respond to your email campaigns' emails etc

You see, the online graves are full of insightful articles that didn't live long enough to achieve their greatness due to poor engagement strategies. Don't allow yours to become another treasure that gets buried in that vast internet cemetery.

Re-sharing your content as many times as possible is allowed. Give your content new life continuously, and it will continue giving you high-quality traffic for years.

12. Monitor Everything

Seo copywriting isn't a set-it-once-and-forget-it thing. You should track your efforts to find out what's working and what isn't to help you tweak appropriately.

Google Analytics is among the powerful tools to make your monitoring task a breeze. Plus, you don't have to pay a dime for it.

With it, you can check your page views, average time spent on a page, and bounce rates to understand your visitors' interaction with your content. Low average time spent on a page plus high bounce rate point to one thing- the visitors didn't find your article exciting or relevant to their pain points.

Also, track those "likes," "shares," and other social interaction signals to gauge your article's virality. Once you identify the well-received type of content, focus on replicating them down the road.

Let's Write Your Articles

All these pieces to the puzzle need time, dedication, expertise, and content creation plus SEO tools. At Zoey, we have all that. We will weave original content for SEO and drive your articles' rankings up. Contact us today!

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