Writing isn’t just writing anymore. Now, the e-space is dominated by something you may have heard of: SEO.
Ah, yes…SEO. The great (and terrifying) group of concepts that any blogger and copywriter worth their salt should be acquainted with.
It’s often overthought, and too-frequently feared. In the next few weeks, I’m going to take you through my top tools and concepts that have helped me tackle the beast, and boost my organic reach.
Nope, I’m not about to tell you to stuff your beautifully formatted articles with keywords, either!
What’s been commonly seen around e-world are writers who attempt to break the algorithm with “SEO-centric writing.”
What Does That Lead To?
Mass creation of small content marketing assets stuffed to the brim with about 20+ keywords, and containing backlink after backlink...whether or not the sites are relevant.
This is not how you deliver results…in fact, this can create a massive devalue of your content and link within Google’s algorithms.
You first have to create your content as you normally would, briefly forgetting ALL GOALS you have of making SEO oriented content.
Why?
Well, because of two reasons:
- No one knows your target audience quite like you – nor do they know the content and promise that only your skill set and content can deliver on.
- You have, at this point, created the tone and cadence you want to set so that your audience gets an authentic feel for who YOU are.
Once you have your baseline content, it can always be tweaked and tuned to fit SEO’s guidelines – but SEO should not be the dominating factor that your content and story simply “fits into.”
In essence, you want to make the system work for you – not minimize your skill to work within the system.
If you’re new to SEO, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the free courses available to you.
Moz has a great free 1-hour SEO course, and several informative articles that can help you get started.
After you start there, you should walk away understanding that SEO is just a matter of Google’s preference with your writing, backlinks, and a few other factors.
There’s a lot of SEO resources out there, but I’ve identified a top one that will help you – with every blog post, every time.
Use this tool, and check out your analytics 24-48 hours after posting. I guarantee you that you’ll see results almost instantly.
Yoast’s Real-Time Content Analysis Tool provides you active feedback and writing recommendations to help you get the most organic and sound SEO-styled article.
When writing for clients, this tool is just as essential for you as Grammarly Pro.
You are able to work through several samples of metadata, perfecting your style until it adheres to the recommended guidelines for ranking.
Yoast will also help you dial in your headlines and optimize your link strategy, helping you build up your blog with articles that will yield return even months later.
Have you come across any awesome tools? Feel free to share with us!
