Content marketing is one of those strategic marketing areas involving all types of tactics. Your blog writing won’t get any traction without at least a basic understanding of organic search optimization. Here are 40 simple SEO content tips for beginners — they’ll get you started in the right direction.
I’ve spent the last seven years learning how to improve SEO content from every angle. Your business website should be ready to attract visitors, create new customers, and help your business grow.
But your website is never going to get found on Google without investing some time into high-quality content. That type of content earns trust before you even hop on a phone call.
1 – Keep a running list of your favorite clients’ pain points—and answer them as blog posts to generate organic traffic.
2 – Don’t start writing until you have a clear goal for the reader.
3 – Don’t start writing until you connect these key items: your audience, the stage in their buying journey, and the next step you want them to take.
4 – Do your research and build a thorough outline of your topic, before writing anything.
5 – Don’t hedge your position — be bold and say something worth saying about your topic.
6 – Make strong statements and support them with cited data (link to the best sources).
7 – Be as specific as possible when choosing your blog topic so you can write the most remarkable piece of content on it.
8 – Include visuals in your blog posts, with descriptive alt tags.
9 – Spend significant time prepping your headline — go through 10 different options before picking the best.
10 – Write a killer intro paragraph for every blog post, and include your keyword phrase within the first 100 words.
11 – Use numbers whenever you can; they help build trust.
12 – Write a remarkable blog post first, then optimize for SEO after it’s already great writing.
13 – Run your blog draft through Hemingwayapp.com to remove confusing sentences, excessive adverbs, and industry jargon.
14 – Focus on consistency if you’re new to blog writing. Write often enough to notice what works and improve your process.
15 – If you’ve already built up some skill, focus on quality content over quantity.
16 – Don’t write content for keywords you can’t compete for; focus tightly on your niche to build initial momentum.
17 – Blog posts are not the only game in content marketing; make sure you connect a strong email, podcast, or YouTube strategy.
18 – Use expert opinions and well-respected data whenever you’re building a complete guide on your topic.
19 – Build a consistent, quality content process by writing a higher quantity in the beginning.
20 – Your clients only care about 3 things when they’re ready to buy. So make sure your content shows how you can (1) make them money, (2) save them money, or (3) save them time.
21 – People buy from people they know, like, and trust. Remarkable content will build progress in all three of those areas.
22 – Make sure every sentence has earned its spot on your page or article, trim the fluff aggressively.
23 – Publishing in a competitive industry? Survey your network to gather that expert opinion and bring out your unique perspective.
24 – Piggyback (newsjack) popular stories and trends in your niche — and share a thoughtful response to them.
25 – Write a messy first draft to get your raw thoughts on the page, and sleep on it before editing. Your brain needs to be in a different gear.
26 – Use a grammar proofing tool like Grammarly to catch the typos — but remember that great writing starts with great ideas (not perfect grammar).
27 – Develop outlines and writing templates for various article types — so you never start with a blank page again.
28 – Map out your ideal customer’s journey through your content network. It’s never going to happen as you planned, but it will keep you focused on the goal.
29 – Create content upgrades to use as lead magnets, but only build one for each main topic (don’t build a unique one for every article).
30 – Organize content clusters around your pillar (main topic) pages.
31 – Create content hubs once your number of articles and pages starts growing, and use internal linking to connect them.
32 – Sometimes a guest post on another reputable website will give you more traction than publishing the same article on your site. Don’t be greedy.
33 – Use a clean and simple on-page SEO optimization checklist. Rank Math is a good place to start, and download my personal On-Page SEO Cheatsheet right here if you want to take your SEO content even deeper.
34 – Schedule a content review & update for 12 months (max) after you publish every piece of content.
35 – Block off a couple of days every December to update the new year in your blog titles, footer copyright, service pages and anywhere else the current (ending) year is mentioned.
36 – Start with a distribution plan first, and create the type of content that will fuel that distribution strategy.
37 – Request Google Search Console to re-index your articles and pages whenever you make major changes. This will speed up your ranking in search engines.
38 – Remove (or update) any articles or pages that didn’t get search traffic within the past 90 days.
39 – Remove the word “that” as much as possible — it will make your writing better, 95% of the time.
40 – Start writing about your business and niche in public — today.
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