In this article, I provide you with the ultimate guide to SEO writing. After reading this article, you will immediately be able to write web-optimized texts that will not only please visitors but will also appeal to search engines.
Essentially, an SEO text is nothing more than a text that has been optimized for presentation on the Web.
In order to understand the phenomenon of SEO texts more closely, one should first look at how search engines, in this case, Google, actually work and why in the past certain keyword densities or keywords had to be built into the text.
So before we go into the subject of search engine optimization texts, let's take a quick look at how they actually work or what the search engine's goal is. For the sake of simplicity, I'll limit myself to Google in this example - but the system behind it fits most of the other search algorithms as well.
At the end of the article, there will be a little digression into the topic: "What are the costs of good online texts?". For me as the owner of an online marketing agency with a focus on content in text form, this is a question that I deal with every day.
What does Google want to achieve?
Google is simply a company that wants to offer its customers the best possible service. So, if I'm searching for Google as a user on the weather in Porto for the next week and I see the weather for Lisbon, then obviously Google did not do its job properly. This may be quite easy for this type of query, but for others, it is much more difficult.
Google has been collecting a lot of data over the last few years, which makes the algorithm more and more complex, but also more accurate. That's why Google does not like to see simple SEO tricks because of course, they violate the quality guidelines and thus do not help Google achieve the company's goal.
Keep the following Google goals in mind:
- Provide the user with the search result that deals with a topic most completely
- The intention of the user to meet 100%
- Deliver content that is correct in terms of readability and spelling mistakes
Our claim as webmaster must or should be to work in accordance with the guidelines of Google. That's why I also believe that high-quality content that satisfies the user will have the greatest long-term success.
The so-called Google Quality Rater Guidelines provide a perfect basis for these findings. These were updated in July 2018 after a long time and should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in the topic of websites or search engine optimization.
The contents are too complicated and detailed to depict them in this article. Ultimately, Google's content-centric concerns are these factors:
- transparency
- expertise
- completeness
- Meeting the search intention
- Timeliness (not for all queries)
The following quote shows what perspective an author should take in order to be ahead of the competition or to stand out from the competition:
Think about the topic of the page. What kind of expertise is required for the page to achieve its purpose? The standard for expertise depends on the topic of the page.
Writing SEO Texts - The Ultimate Guide
After we have taken care of the basics, let's take a look at how to put good SEO texts into practice. Anyone who really understands this tutorial will quickly realize that it really takes more for really good lyrics today than simply adding a few keywords.
Google's focus will continue to focus on the quality of content in the coming years, so you should be very familiar with this guide.
Step # 1: Keyword Strategy / Macro Strategy
The first step in creating SEO texts is to define the intention, ideally in the context of the page's macro strategy. Because that's hard to explain, I'll give you a little example:
Of course, an SEO text primarily aims to rank well with Google, so we look at the same keyword strategy or keyword focus. However, a text that works well is by no means a text that truly fulfills its goals.
So, if I want to achieve specific business goals with a bottom, I should make sure that the text does justice to this business goal.
In our agency The Web Experts, we have already implemented a number of projects in which the topics of sustainability, ethics, and morality play a major role. Of course, the company wants to rank for specific keywords, but above all wants to present its own values in these texts.
That's why an SEO text always has to fit into the overall strategy of a company - mere rankings and content do not always count.
Once these points have been clarified and keyword research carried out, you can start creating a keyword map for the project.
Excursus: What is a keyword map?
A keyword map is essentially an overview in the form of an Excel file. The keyword map is used to assign a specific target keyword to each URL or subpage, for which the page should rank later. In addition, the SEO process can be monitored and optimized in the keyword map.
But how does such a keyword research work? I would like to go into this article only on the absolute basics, as it would otherwise go beyond the scope. The goal of any keyword research should be to identify specific keywords or keywords that are searching for users on Google.
In principle, the later website has its own subpage for each keyword we want to rank for.
With the help of the KW Finder, for example, you can generate tons of interesting keywords and keyword ideas - a tool that I do not want to think away from my daily SEO routine.
Please do not get it wrong: A subpage can rank for hundreds of keywords - that's no problem at all. Nevertheless, a so-called main keyword or focus keyword should be defined for each subpage, to which the strategy of this subpage is aligned.
Note: Of course, it is not worthwhile to create a separate subpage for each keyword. The rule of thumb is that a subpage makes sense from about 600 to 800 average searches per month - but it depends very much on the overall macrostructure or the individual theme silos.
In the next step, all synonyms or long-tail keywords are subordinated to this single parent keyword or topic - this is called the construction of clusters in technical jargon.
As a result, one succeeds later in writing to create the maximum possible relevance and to cover a topic completely and semantically.
Step # 2: Understand the search intention of the users of Google
Before we can start writing a text, we need to understand the search intent of our target keyword. The search intent is nothing more than the type of search result a user would like to see typing in the keyword on Google.
So the goal of our content must be to satisfy the user and answer his questions, when he enters the keyword on Google, or when we provide him with exactly what he wants to see.
By analyzing the search intention, there are practically two different levels on which we should build our later text framework:
- The type of content (long text, detailed text, etc.)
- The language of the text or the content itself
- While analyzing the search function you should definitely answer the following questions:
- Who is the user?
- What fears or worries does the user have?
- For what reason does the user search for this keyword?
- How can the user be satisfied?
- Which background does he have?
Google has, of course, collected some data on this search intent over the years and therefore plays out for each keyword those results that have satisfied users in the past.
This means that if our content is similar to the average result of the top 10 rankings for our focus keyword, the search intent should already be pretty good. So the first step in the search effort is to simply enter our focus keyword on Google and look at the top 10 rankings.
The first search results page for the Matcha Tee keyword clearly shows that the keyword's primary search intent is information-driven - that is, an online store or a classic affiliate website will find it hard to rank for the term.
Excursus: Why is understanding the target audience so important?
It is essential to understand which users are actually looking for this keyword and what their level of knowledge actually is. It makes no sense to make a very specialized article when the visitor is just at the beginning and looking for a beginner-friendly article.
If you're setting up your content for the sample text on professionals, but in fact bringing complete newbies to your site, they may (or even very likely) be unconvinced by your content and quickly jump off.
Step # 3: First Competitor Analysis
In the third step of our preparation for the perfect SEO text, we take a close look at the content of our competitors and assess them on the basis of various questions.
The aim of this competition analysis is to find out how good our competition is or to find aspects that we may be able to improve on in our later article.
After looking at the content in step 2, we will go into the deeper analysis and take a closer look at the topics.
- The following questions are our guide to this step:
- What kind of content is right?
- Which sub-topics are covered?
- Which media (videos, pictures, podcasts) are used?
- Are there sources? Is the text written by experts or an editor?
- How profound is the topic treated?
Following these questions, we will once more go into the preparation and look at how much "love" has been put into the presentation of the content. The subject of content design plays an increasingly important role in times of Mobile First and should, therefore, be underestimated under no circumstances.
- The following questions serve as an orientation for this step
- How user-friendly is the page edited?
- Are there special designs like boxes, accordions, tables?
- What does the page look like on the smartphone?
- What is the arrangement of the contents
- Are there any special features? (Filter possibility)
- Are there any other features? (Interactive elements)
- Are there any trust elements? (Reviews, testimonials)
After reviewing the top 10 and asking ourselves the questions, we should have gained a very accurate insight into the profundity and quality of our competition, which is the foundation of the content strategy.
We should now have a relatively clear overview of the nature of the content and its profundity of our competition and therefore already know approximately how we need to build our text in order to later rank for the keyword in the top 10 can.
Step # 4: Second Competition Analysis
Now that we've got the first overview in step 3, we'll go deeper into the keywords. In the second competition analysis, we identify the page in the top 10, which ranks for most organic keywords on Google.
This type of keyword research is called "competition-based keyword research". It is a very powerful tool and makes you discover some keywords that you did not even have on screen before.
This can be done either with the tool Ahrefs or Sistrix. Unfortunately, I do not really know any free variants for this step - I have to say that it is not really necessary.
Once we've found the URL that ranks in the top 100 for most organic keywords, we'll analyze those keywords and use them later for the structure or body of our article.
If you have looked at all the competitors in more detail, so it's about to form the appropriate intersection.
For example, competitor A may have dealt with a sub-topic less extensively, but has much more content on a different sub-topic than competitor B. Our goal is to create the perfect symbiosis of all competitors, which is why we need to build an intersection.
The larger the intersection, the more accurate the result becomes.
Excursus: How do you manage to prevail against big brands and publishers with your content?
If you've already done some keyword research and competitor analysis, you know that some search results are dominated by large magazines or industry news.
Of course, such publishers have the small change and manpower needed to cover many different keywords. So they have their large number of articles that they publish every month.
The only chance to succeed as a little "David" in these niches is to treat a topic more fully and intensively than these big brands can do. Of course, this applies especially to information-driven search terms in which the user wants to find out about a product or a general topic.
Especially with large publishers or brands, the content strategy is usually not perfect - either missing important SEO aspects in the search or there are deficiencies in the preparation.
This type of content usually has the problem that the content does not fully cover the search intention. At this point, small brands or companies with the appropriate know-how have a chance to assert themselves.
Step # 5: Identify content gaps
Of course, once we've determined the perfect intersection of our competitors, we want to make sure our content gets more detailed. In addition, it makes sense to identify so-called content gaps or even content gaps.
This can be done again in different ways:
Possibility: manual search
Possibility: Use autocomplete function
Possibility: Use help from a tool
Option 1 is actually self-explanatory. Research is done on the WWW until further content has been found which may interest the target group of the SEO text.
Possibility 2, so the use of the autocomplete function is possible with the help of a simple Google search. Google shows more results on similar searches both while typing in the search slot and below the respective SERP page. This makes it relatively easy to get to more content.
With option 3 you can use different tools like the KW Finder, Ahrefs or the keywordtool.io. These tools use a built-in autocomplete feature. Ahrefs has even more profound features.
Also awesome are various W-Questions tools that tell me exactly what questions there are to my chosen topic. Google puts a lot of emphasis on answering W questions, as they obviously also help the visitor.
It is even worthwhile to manually research the W-questions on various other platforms, such as in well-known forums from the respective industry. There is usually a very accurate insight into the target group. To find these forums or platforms, I recommend the use of Google search operators.
Step # 6: Create a text structure
After completing our research, for now, we can take care of the structure of our content in this step. In addition, it makes sense to create a headline structure.
The headline structure forms the skeleton of our later SEO text. The headings should be structured in a logical order. The trend towards "less important" subareas of our core topic should rather be at the end of the text.
If, for example, a purchase guide is concerned, then questions that users ask themselves before buying a product should be high on the list. Questions that they have more after the purchase, eg "How do I care xy?", Should rather be at the end.
If the heading structure is completely created, we can start filling in the texts. This step is great for outsourcing to a skilled copywriter or expert copywriter.
Step # 7: The final text optimization
Of course, if the text is finished, we are far from perfect. With the help of various methods, such as the so-called WDF * IDF analysis, an already existing text can be perfected even further.
These methods examine the semantics of our content by comparing it, for example, with keywords from other texts. The goal of this text optimization is to increase the relevance of our content for individual search terms. On the technical background, I will not go further here.
The WDF * IDF analysis is quite controversial in the SEO scene - and I'm not a big fan of her either. Nevertheless, it may make sense to review its contents with one or even several such tools.
Compress the contents
One of the most important factors distinguishing outstanding content from mediocre is the density of information for me. Because of such "rules" as "the longer, your content is, the better the ranking", many people tend to clap a lot of text on a page.
For me, the final step in my writing is therefore always a compression. I try to say things that I expressed in 3-4 sentences in the first draft, now in 1-2 sentences.
Nobody wants to read any "Bla Bla sentences". On the Internet, it is important to convey information in an easy way.
Step # 8: Select snippet optimization and the correct title
The best SEO-optimized web text does not pay if it is not found or clicked. That's why it's important that we pay special attention to snippets.
The snippets are the meta title as well as the meta description. I will not go into the technical background at this point, you can see in our glossary post read that.
The meta tags are displayed to the Google user on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). If this is designed so that the user feels appealed to by her, then the probability is quite high that he clicks on the result and gets to our site.
That's why it makes sense to think about the design of the meta tags. These should make "desire for more" and suggest to the user that he finds the best answer to his question on our site.
Writing SEO Texts - Frequently Asked Questions about SEO Texts
In this section, I would like to answer all the questions about SEO texts, which are repeatedly asked by participants in my coachings or by clients.
What role does the text length play in SEO?
The length of the content or the extent of an SEO text clearly correlates with the ranking - a study by the SEO tool provider Ahrefs has clearly shown. But why is that?
On the one hand, as already mentioned, the completeness of the content is an important factor, which has a positive effect on the user signals. The more comprehensive a topic is covered and the fewer questions that remain open, the better the user experience.
At the same time, in my view, this has to do with the functionality of the Google algorithm. It is able to hide all fill and stop words such as "and" or "as well as". He only analyzes key keywords that help him classify the text.
The longer a text is, the more such keywords will automatically appear there. That's why long content naturally also entails much more keywords than short content.
