SEO For Writers

1. How Would Your Audience Search in Google?

Start with your audience in mind. This is not about you - its about them. You need to think about what they would search for: particularly if they were new to the subject. I'm expert on travel - I also travel light. If I'd randomly written an article on packing light: I would have called it "travel packing tips" or "holiday packing tips". I'd have got some traffic but not from the US. The correct answer was "vacation packing tips". Why does the US matter? Because they are the biggest English speaking market online (by far). I'm not saying you should target only the States- but its often the easiest place to start - particularly if you are selling a product from Amazon. 

Think like a beginner - don't write about the "developmental learning steps in toddlers" instead try "when will my baby sit up" The first query will be entered in Google by a student looking to cheat on an assignment, the second one, by a new mum (or mom for the US market) who is worried about their kid. The mum may buy something - the student - not so likely. 

2. Long tail Rules! The main topic for this article is "SEO writing" - but that's only two words and probably hard to rank for. But "how to start SEO writing" or "how to do SEO writing" they also phrases people search for - and are much easier to rank for, while still having the main term within them. 

Beginners should still with terms of at least 3 words preferably more. 

3. Buying Intention. Some searchers are far more likely to buy from you than others. I don't always target them - but product reviews do make serious amounts of money.  Someone searching for "kindle fire accessories" wants to buy something. Someone searching for "can an American travel to Myanmar" is searching for information, and may or may not buy. Someone searching for "Lis Sowerbutts" just probably wants to know who this stroppy cow thinks she is! 

Do Your Keyword Research First 

Before I wrote this article I had the sub-headings - each module's heading came from a tool called Keyword Researcher.

I use a paid tool for keyword research. There are free ones - the commonly recommended one is Google's own keyword tool - I use it from time to time - but its got progressively less and less useful, not to mention its overwhelming for a beginner. 

I tried GKT with "seo writing" it came up with a grand total of 30 results - most of which were useless for this article e.g. seo writing samples, seo writing services. 

Instead I used Keyword Strategy and came up with 162 results - most of which was useful - the best of which are sub-headings on this page.

• I use the main term as the title and the url. 
• I use the related i.e. longer, terms as sub-headings for modules (including images, comment modules and polls)
• I use the main term as the name of any image plus use it as the title. 
• I link out to an "authority" site - either wikipedia or maybe the site and top of the Google results. 

Then I write competently, trying to keep my grammar and spelling under control. Really, that's it!

Google loves articles on Wizzley, so if you go for low-competition terms and long-tails you may very well rank quite easily. 

What I try to do is write about five articles on a similar topic and inter-link them, either my linking within the text module or just using the articles module. 

Then I keep an eye on where my traffic is coming from (using Google Analytics). If I start getting visitors which suggest a somewhat different keyword - then I will probably write a new article and link it back to the others - because after all that's what my audience is telling me to write about!

Find some nice long keywords you know something about, and then, as they say - just do it!  You don't need to keyword stuff, you don't need to tweet and facebook, you need a list, or a blog. You don't need to have multiple degrees. In fact you don't need to be a native-English writer. 

What you do need to do is write. A lot. Really until you have a 100 hundred pages up on Wizzley you really don't have enough data to know what you are doing. 

I can't promise - but I'm fairly confident if you use the approach I've described here - after 100 articles at least some of them will be making you money. 

There is no perfect right or wrong answer, and this is definitely not a comprehensive guide, but really SEO writing is not as hard as a lot of over-paid SEO consultants would have you believe! 

Want To Learn More About Keywords? 

Even if you don't want to buy Keyword Researcher - I do seriously suggest that you click through and listen to the videos for free - the developer of the tool  I've known for a long-time, and his marketing sucks, but his keyword research is spot on!