How to write an SEO article for a blog?

Writing texts

Writing an SEO article requires 5 things: user satisfaction , originality , web readability ,  depth of information, and author prestige . In this part of the guide we will explain how to stand out in each of them. 

How can you optimize an article for SEO?

  1. What is an SEO article?
  2. How to write an SEO text?
  3. SEO search intent and internet user satisfaction
  4. Originality: How to create content of unique value for your Blog?
    Present the topic in a creative, simple and sustained way
    Offer exclusive information and unpublished content
    Use your brand voice and style to dramatically differentiate yourself
  5. Legibility, information architecture and web design
    Create organized and easy to scan content (4 keys)
    Write an ideal text for the web (5 tips)
  6. Evergreen content: How to position yourself in the long term in Google?
    ¿How to create evergreen content? (2 great tips)
    Produce content 10X: How to dominate Google according to Rand Fishkin
    Avoid angles or references that are going to expire in a short time
  7. The importance of the author when positioning in Google (SEO)
    Experience
    Authority
    Trust
  8. Resume (PDF)

What is an SEO article?

An SEO article is a text that is usually published on the blog of a website with the intention of attracting interested visitors.

SEO articles are used by companies to position themselves in Google and answer all those concerns that prospects or customers may have.

How to write an SEO text?

“Content is king.”

Many repeat the phrase endlessly, but few explain why.

In its ‘ Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines ‘, the Californian company explains to its employees how to evaluate a website to determine what position it should occupy on the results page.

Among the various factors that are indicated in that guide, the main one is the following:

A Satisfying Amount of High Quality Main Content. 

Namely:

A satisfying amount of high-quality content.

Paraphrasing Google, that part of the text says the following:

Content quality is one of the most important criteria for measuring the quality of a page . For any type of website, creating quality content requires a significant amount of at least one of these factors:

-Weather.

-Effort.

-Expertise.

-Talent/skill.

Depending on the topic, the content must be precise, its veracity verifiable and must be supported by the consensus of the experts in the area.

The purpose of the page will help you determine what quality content means in that context.

For example:

-Quality content for educational pages should be accurate, well written and understandable.

-Quality content for shopping pages should allow users to easily find the products they want and make transactions easily.

-Quality content for humor pages should be entertaining, regardless of whether the information is factual or accurate.

Now, how to write a post for SEO?

We are going to divide this point into several parts:

SEO search intent and Internet user satisfaction

Recently, Rand Fishkin, perhaps the most influential person in the world of SEO worldwide, published an hour-long guide on the key aspects of web optimization.

In it, Fishkin points out that years ago he would not have paid as much attention to user satisfaction .

However, today a section is dedicated solely to this aspect because it is one of the most relevant factors in today’s SEO.

What is this all about?

Let’s summarize it simply:

Every time a person performs a search on Google, in most cases, it is for one of these reasons:

  1. You want to solve a problem.
  2. You want to find the answer to a question.

That person, therefore, has an intention:

Your task as a content producer is to find out, based on the keywords of your industry, what the user wants to solve or answer with each query.

If you help him with that, that person will have satisfactorily accomplished the task that he went to the search engine to do and therefore he will not have to continue investigating on other pages.

This concept is called task accomplishment and it has to do with whether or not the user fulfilled the objective he had before entering Google.

This is very important:

If after being on your website the person has to go back and return to the Google results page, it means that you did NOT help them solve their problem completely.

You should avoid this at all costs.

Cyrus Shepard, in the best guide on web positioning factors that exists on the Internet , mentions user intent in fourth place .

“What he wants? Why is he looking for this? How can I offer the best answer?”

Those are the questions you have to ask yourself when writing a text.

Remember that with keyword research you can determine what people are looking for, but your work does not end there:

Then, you need to continue investigating and using common sense to pinpoint what is the intention behind that search.

Once that issue is resolved, your goal will be to offer the best solution for each query.

In your articles there should be all the answers to the questions that come before and after the search that the user is doing.

For example:

If the user puts in Google “How to change a flat tire?”, you will have to create an article that answers that question and, IN ADDITION, it would be ideal that within that same text you explain what are the best places to repair tires or buy some new.

The idea is that you solve everything that is around the problem that the person has.

If someone is looking for the ingredients for a certain dish, also offer them various options to prepare it.

This way you won’t have to go back to Google for another query.

Pro tip: In related searches you can see what queries people make after searching for something in particular.Búsquedas relacionadas

If you can solve all these concerns within your website, much better for you, because you will attract more visits and leave users satisfied.

In summary:

-Understands why the user does not satisfy their needs with other results.

-Write an article that meets all their needs.

As Marcus Sheridan, one of the best content marketing consultants in the world, says, don’t stop at fancy technicalities. In the end, SEO is going to be about who is the best teacher in your industry. If you are the number one teacher, you will gain the trust of your audience, you will receive a lot of traffic and you will close more clients.

Originality: How to create content of unique value for your blog?

Compared to everything else on the web, does your article provide special value?

What sets you apart from others?

Why is your text better?

Is it more aesthetic? More functional?

You need to get into the user’s mind and see how you could delight them.

Rand Fishkin explains that there are three factors to making content unique:

1) Expose the topic in a creative, simple and sustained way:

What you are writing may not be new or revealing. Perhaps the topic has been covered a thousand times before and is available anywhere on the web, but the way you are approaching that topic is unique because:

  a) You are adding audiovisual material that complements and facilitates reading: infographics, videos, charts, tables, summaries.

  b) You took the time to collect content from the most authoritative voices in the industry and made the most robust, solid and complete text that has ever been done on that subject.

  c) The way your website is designed and that particular page delights the user by the ease of navigating the text and enjoying the information.

An emblematic example of this is Tim Urban’s texts in Wait But Why.

You must cause the user to say or think the following:

“Wow, I had read about this before, but never in this way. So well explained, so easy to understand, so much fun.”

2) Offer exclusive information and unpublished content:

In this section you will find the case studies, the investigations and any other type of investigation that you have done as a brand, as a company or as a blogger.

This type of text results in a conclusion that had never been published on the Internet.

For example, an article that offers information that is not found anywhere else could be:

“Changing the titles of your articles with this technique can increase your traffic by 1249% (Case Study – Pencil Speech)”

In this case, the title is very specific and implies that it is an investigation carried out by a particular company, so the result of that work can only be read there.

You must cause the user to say or think the following:

“I won’t find this anywhere else.”

3) Use your brand voice and style to dramatically differentiate yourself:

Here comes the talent and ability of the writer.

The information may be elsewhere, it may not be the most complete content, but you will not find another text on the Internet that addresses that topic in such a fun, unique or entertaining way.

It is the same difference that exists between reading a poorly written piece of news versus reading a chronicle by Gabriel García Márquez that details the same event.

The fact may be the same, the information may not change, but Gabo’s talent will make the experience totally different.

Each one of us, respecting the distances, can generate that feeling. It is about training the pen, about writing better and better, about developing the artistic side of writing.

It is not the same to read who Elon Musk is on Wikipedia, than to do it through the texts of Tim Urban .

The same goes for videos, podcasts, or other ways of presenting content.

Shall we explain?

You must cause the user to say or think the following:

“Never had a text like this marked me so much. I’ve never enjoyed reading things like this so much.”

If you achieve this reaction, it is very likely that your work will be shared on social networks.

In addition, you will gain links from other websites and your brand will grow in Google, because people will associate the name of your company with the industry of which it is a part.

For example: Pencil Speech stands for SEO, so if I want to search for something about SEO, I can put the name Pencil Speech and that’s it.

The same goes for Starbucks = Coffee or Netflix = Movies.

Creating unique content is the fundamental piece to activate the snowball (flywheel) of your business.

If you only kept one thing from this guide, one piece of advice, one single obsession, let it be the following:

PRODUCE CONTENT THAT CANNOT BE FOUND ANYWHERE ELSE!

Legibility, information architecture and web design

Steve Krug, one of the most authoritative voices in user experience worldwide, says in his book Don’t make me think that people on the Internet don’t read, they scan.

It is important to take this into consideration when writing and organizing a text.

The above does not mean that your articles have to be short, empty and of little use. You will simply have to organize the information in such a way that the user can, if he does not have time, take a quick look at the content and get what he needs in the blink of an eye.

How can you achieve this?

Here is a series of tips that go hand in hand with the best practices that exist on the web:

Create organized and easy-to-scan content (4 keys)

Place the heart or the answer of your article right in the first paragraph of the entire text :

For example: if your title is How much does it cost to position your website in Google? The first paragraph should be:

“An SEO project to get your site on the first page of Google can cost between $250 and $2,500 a month.”

Why do this?

Because if the person only read that first paragraph and then left the page, they would leave satisfied. In the first few lines he found the answer to his question and solved his problem . He already knows, more or less, how much an SEO project can cost.

This has to do with what we write about the user intent.

In addition, having a good first paragraph that answers the consumer’s question will allow you to compete for Google’s position zero, through a feature snippet (featured snippet).

Posición cero de Google

Divide the text with titles and subtitles and implement a table of contents at the beginning :

This will allow the user to navigate through the article more easily and, as a bonus, you will rank in Google for many more terms .

We recommend the Table of Content Plus plugin .

Use audiovisual resources such as images, videos, tables and graphs that facilitate and complement reading :

Some recommend placing a visual element every 100 words.

How to know what images to put in an article?

Cyrus Shepard has a golden rule:

“Only use an image if you think it’s going to be stolen (copied) to put elsewhere.”

When the explanation of a topic is very long, use summary boxes at the end of each subtitle or point of the topic :

Healthline is a perfect example:

In addition to this, writing on the Internet has its own conventions. When reading, users prefer certain features.

Write an ideal text for the web (5 tips)

1.- Use simple words and short sentences. Most people who are searching for information on Google do not want to be complicated by a super academic text. Forget the swearing.

2.- Related to the previous point: write as you speak. Don’t give yourself a bad life trying to appear intellectual. Keep it simple.

3.- Separate large paragraphs to avoid huge wands of information. This speeds up the reading and facilitates the scanning that we described in the previous point.

4.- Use a font and font size that make reading more enjoyable. Verdana, Arial, or Raleway are good options.

5.- The more white space your website has, the better. We do not recommend a background of another color.

Evergreen content: How to position yourself in the long term in Google?

One of the keys to deciding what content to produce for your brand, company or project is to stop and think about the following questions:

Will this text be relevant in the coming weeks?

And in the months to come?

Will anyone care in 5 years?

If the answer to these three questions is yes, then you are facing a potential evergreen content .

This concept comes from nature: it is the name given to those plants that have green leaves during the four seasons.

An evergreen content , therefore, is one that has a high value regardless of the season or the year in which we are.

What does evergreen have to do with content depth?:

A text or article that covers the whole of a topic in detail is supposed to be a useful piece of information beyond new discoveries in that field over time.

How is the thing?

Take this article as an example:

Google may update the algorithm and some tips may become outdated, but since this text covers a topic in such detail and depth, it will continue to be a valuable source of information for those who want to study the topic of how to write an article. Perfect SEO?

Over time, we will have to refresh some sections, but even if we don’t, we know that this text will be relevant for a long time and will rank in Google for years.

This type of content is the key to building a favorable reputation in the search engine.

Why?

Here are some reasons:

1) You will rank for many keywords in your market.

2) For years you will receive many visits with that same article.

3) It is the best way to get other pages to link to your site ( link-building ), so you will rank higher in Google and gain exposure.

4) The search engine will see you as an authoritative voice of the industry and you will start this cycle again, only with more force.

Why more strongly?

Because as you have improved your reputation and have earned the privilege of being a prestigious voice within your niche, you will begin to position yourself with more words, you will receive more traffic because you now occupy higher positions in the search engine and, consequently, more Brands will mention you on social media and link to your page on their websites.

Thanks to evergreen content you won’t need to be posting all the time to keep the traffic flowing to your website. On the contrary, you will write less and less and your visits will continue to increase.

Evergreennot evergreen
Chronicles (How was the 1967 earthquake experienced in Caracas?)News (An earthquake occurred in Caracas that left more than 2000 injured)
Research (What will happen to global warming in the next 100 years?)Rumors (In 2020 there may be an average temperature of 35 degrees Celsius)
Analysis (Why did France win the 2018 World Cup?)Results (The French team won the World Cup after defeating Croatia)

Pro tip: If in addition to creating an evergreen content , you do it on an evergreen topic , you will have to edit and update even less. A couple of examples of topics of this style are ‘how to iron a shirt properly’ or ‘how to cook the perfect fried eggs’. As you can see, these are questions that will not go out of style and that many people will continue to search for decades.

How to create evergreen content ? (2 great tips)

To begin with, remember that the secret is to produce a text that stands the test of time. That should be your priority.

If you want Google to consider your content to be evergreen , you have to aim for your article to be the best today, tomorrow and the day after .

For this reason, hiring a freelancer to do your work overnight may not be the best idea.

Do not forget that you need two things:

1.- The knowledge of an expert in the field ( subject-matter expert ).

2.- The pen of a journalist or writer.

So, if you are going to hire someone on platforms like UpWork or Fiverr keep in mind that:

a) The expert when talking about your business is you, so you will have to transmit that knowledge to the writer.

b) It is very important that the person you hire writes VERY well and knows about SEO.

Now, once you are clear about who will write the article (a freelancer, an agency or yourself), follow these recommendations:

Produce content 10x: How to dominate Google according to Rand Fishkin

10X content is a concept created by Rand Fishkin .

What does it mean?

It refers to all those pieces of information that are 10 times better than what is currently on the Google results page.

What are the characteristics of a 10X content?

Rand Fishkin mentions the following :

-The page where the article is hosted generally has a very good user interface (UI) and provides a great user experience (UX).

-The content is of high quality, trustworthy, interesting and remarkable.

-It is considerably different both in scope and level of detail, with respect to the other articles that are on the web on that subject.

-Creates an emotional response: fear, surprise, joy, admiration, intrigue.

-Answer a question or solve a problem through precise, exceptional and exhaustive information.

-It is presented in a unique way that delights the user when consuming the information.

In this video , Rand Fishkin explains a step-by-step to create content that covers all of these features.

Bottom line:

1) Research a topic in depth.

2) See how you can approach that topic in a way that hasn’t been done before.

3) Present your conclusions also in a spectacular and unprecedented way.

Avoid angles or references that are going to expire in a short time

The folks at Ahrefs explain it perfectly:

 Some marketers love to reference pop culture in their articles. We see this with popular TV series, like Game of Thrones. For example, check out this article on What Can Jon Snow Teach You About Content Marketing? In this case, the topic of content marketing is evergreen, but the content is not. Once the excitement for Game of Thrones wears off, the item will be forgettable.”Tendencias en búsquedas

Marketers do this to take advantage of trends. It is a good short-term strategy, but it is not sustainable, it does not last over time.

Remember that here the goal is not to be viral one day, but to be a reference for years.

Pro tip: Also avoid using phrases like: “earlier this year”, “last month”, “yesterday”, “in 2017”. If your content is evergreen, when, in most cases, shouldn’t matter as much.

Do keyword research and identify which terms the user uses to learn something in depth and not the latest news related to the topic.

If there is user intent with a term that is unclear, or could change over time, then your position on the Google results page will be volatile.

Google knows that that phrase, when placed in the search engine, can mean many things.

Among so many options, it is possible that you do not appear in the results.

The importance of the author when positioning in Google (SEO)

When evaluating a text to determine its quality, Google pays close attention to who is the creator of the content.

It is not the same that Martin Scorsese talks to us about cinema as a student who is just starting out in the seventh art.

From the outset, Scorsese starts with an advantage. That doesn’t mean the student can’t produce a better piece of content than Martin, but reputation counts.

There are even critical topics on Google, such as medicine, which the search engine classifies as “Your Money or Your Life.”

Within this category are topics in which bad information could end the user’s life (health) or their money (finances).

In this type of topics it is super important that the person who writes the texts is a professional in the area.

If the text is going to be about what to do in case of a heart attack, let a doctor write it.

If the article is about how to invest in the stock market, have it written by a broker or someone with experience in the area.

To measure the relevance and pertinence of an author, and consequently position a page higher or lower in the results, Google uses three criteria, known as EAT:

Experience :

Who are you to talk about the subject you are touching?

Remember the example of the doctor.

The same happens, for example, with the news. Google will give more value to a journalist than to a person who has not studied the race.

Pro tip: Let Google know your resume somewhere in the text. That’s what we do at Pencil at the end of each article.

Bio de autor

 

Authority :

This quality is gained over time. If you start writing about desserts, you should expect several pages about recipes, cuisines or sweets to mention your work.

The same thing happens in real life: a recently graduated lawyer does not have the same authority as a renowned professional who has been working in the world of law for years.

Pro tip: Write quality content. Text or articles that cause to be shared, referenced or quoted (this is the heart of link-building ). Connect with the other people who make life in your industry. Be patient.

Confidence :

Your site must convey security to users, especially if you do e-commerce or touch on any other topic of the style ‘Your money or your life’.

Your online reputation is a treasure that you should take care of.

If you go wrong on pages where consumers can put reviews and ratings on your products or services, you will lower points in this item.

Pro tip: Having the padlock in your URL (https), showing who is behind the content and indicating why you do what you do somewhere on your website (for example, in a section called About Us ) are some of the ways to generate confidence.

When writing articles, a good practice to earn EAT if you are still a little recognized brand is to use external links.

Links to other major websites will let Google and your audience know that what you are writing is supported by other weighty voices in the industry.

That is what we have done throughout this article.🙂

In our texts you will always find references to marketing greats such as Rand Fishkin, Seth Godin, Neil Patel, Marcus Sheridan, among others.

(Google has hinted that linking to quality websites is a factor in the algorithm and that it rewards those pages that do. Source ).

blog article writing company

If you are looking for a blog article writing company, you can contact us or visit this article:

SEO copywriter course

If you want to keep improving your SEO copywriting skills, we have a free course and other paid ones .

Scroll to Top

Thanks! Your information has been sent successfully.