Essential SEO Content Writing Techniques to Acquire in 2021

Wants to learn SEO content writing techniques? SEO copywriting was undoubtedly a legitimate service when keyword stuffing and density were factors to consider in making web pages more visible in organic search. Nevertheless, prominent content remained the core of successful digital marketing campaigns over the years.

You might think that the old method of creating SEO articles is a thing of the past. But in reality, content that gets extremely ranked on search engines is what many marketers are still aiming to achieve. The title of the game might have changed. The methodologies and program may have tremendously evolved as well. But the goal remains the same.

SEO Content Writing Techniques in 2021 

Target Multiple Keywords 

Pick and focus on writing topics that can target multiple keywords. This will assure that your content can consistently drive traffic through search.

It’s conventional wisdom for content to target the main keyword. However, several marketers forget to maximize their content’s potential by including and targeting secondary search terms (long tails). That’s often enough to amplify its ability to bring more organic traffic powerfully.

Just think how much traffic you can see if you have dozens of pieces of content that each rank for hundreds (if not thousands) of search queries.

Utilize Google’s Keyword Planner to identify keyword variations (with substantial monthly search volume) you can target for your content.

Strategically place your preferred key phrases on the key areas of your content:

• Title tag
• Meta description
• Header tags (H1, H2, etc.)

From the sample before, I’ve built a piece of content (a few weeks ago for testing purposes) that mainly aims to rank for the search term SEO Philippines. The topic itself is extensive (and could undoubtedly be dull). So to produce something that can genuinely present helpful information to its intended audience, I incorporated specific modifiers such as:

• Consultants
• Experts
• Agencies/Companies
• Blogs
• Conferences

This caused the content more robust in terms of utility and depth of knowledge, thus making it sounder for search engines to rank the page for the primary keyword targeting (and more expected with its other variations).

Improve Readability

Readability directly impacts user engagement metrics, which is one of the essential areas that Google looks into in ranking web pages nowadays. In the last Search Ranking Factors Survey, the reading level was seen by many experts as a mid-tier ranking signal for page-level keyword-agnostic features. But many elements have changed in Google’s core algorithm over the past couple of years, and user experience is playing a much more significant role now.

Tips for improving your page’s readability:

• Format your content for skim readers.
• Use shorter sentences.
• Break long paragraphs.
• Highlight the most interesting parts of your content (through efficient use of subheadings, bold texts, and whitespaces).
• Use active voice.
• Apply transition words to give better direction to readers.

LSI and TF-IDF

As I mentioned earlier, Google has become more competent in processing and matching queries with relevant web pages from their indices. Latent Semantic Indexing, a method search engines use to understand words and term relationships, has also evolved over the past decade.

What does that mean for marketers? It’s vital to add more semantically related terms in your writing.

• Apply more related nouns and entities (for example, mentioning popular brands or personalities in your particular space).
• Consider the use of synonyms or other close variants (use natural language), rather than using your primary keyword multiple times within the content (for example, “cat pictures,” “cat pics,” “photographs of cats,” etc.).
• TF-IDF: Include words frequently used by other buy ativan overnight delivery competing pages ranking for your target search query.

Featured Snippets – Format Content (Google Answer Box)

Include sections in your content that can directly answer question-based queries (“how-to,” “what is,” and “list of” questions).

Google has various factors in play for this specific search listing (apart from the usual organic search ranking factors), but what’s more important is to ensure that your content is well-formatted and equipped to adapt to these sets of queries. Based on several experts’ observations, below are some of the key signals Google uses to determine which pages rank first:

• Give the most logical and accurate answers to these types of queries.
• Number and quality of links pointing to that page.
• Engagement metrics matter (SERP CTR and time to long-click).

How to format and optimize your content – Google Answer Box:

1. Add a section that states the question in a header (h2, h3, or h4).
2. Provide a concise and direct answer or list of responses to the targeted query.
3. Make sure that users and search crawlers will quickly find this section.

Unexpected Hooks

According to last year’s internet statistics report, 2.7 million blog posts are being published every day. With content saturation in about each vertical, it has grown more of a challenge for actual readers to find something uniquely valuable over the web these days. That’s why offering opinions or information that people will rarely find elsewhere is so important in this age of content.

The aim should always be to give your readers the thing they’d least expect to find in your content. This could be an ingredient within your content that’s surprisingly practical, actionable, useful, or just original.

I have been practicing this method of writing ever since I started blogging back in 2010. I focus on incorporating the following aspects to make sure my content will provide unique value (or perspective):

• Personal experiences
• Your case studies
• Surveys
• Combining and connecting different publishers’ ideas (and stats) to create your own

Aim to Convert

Every bit of content you build must have its own goal and serve a purpose. Most of the time, we make content to get our sites ranked for our campaign’s target keywords. We often forget what to do with the traffic we receive from these efforts, such as:

• Interesting business leads through exemplifying the brand’s expertise.
• Making relationships with other publishers and influencers through citing their works.
• Strengthening leadership and building your social following base through consistent efforts to educate your target market.

Guiding principles to increase your content’s ability to convert visitors:

• Help readers solve their problems.
• Inspire and encourage readers to select an action (include worksheets on your guides, printable checklists, provide relevant CTAs, etc.).
• Aim to educate—it’s the best way to influence people, and it’s undoubtedly the best way to sell.

Include Stats and Quotes from Credible Sources

Linking out, especially to extremely authoritative sources or websites, is another signal that both users and Google use to assess if the information provided by a piece of content is accurate. It’s also necessary for search algorithms, as this allows them better to understand relationships and associations among topics and web entities. The topical relevance of the linked sources can also increase your content’s relevance score to their target keywords.

Lastly, citing other people’s works opens up opportunities for networking (and collaboration), mainly when you write great content. Most of all, it’s one of the best reasons you can have to engage and establish rapport with influencers and thought leaders in your industry (which can boost your content amplification efforts).