New to SEO? Discover simple ways to improve your website’s visibility with these 10 SEO content tips for beginners
Imagine you get a suit or dress tailored to fit perfectly. You spend hours styling your hair and making sure you look irresistible. Then, you go home and stay in your room, and wonder why no one has fallen in love with you.
That’s what a writing website without considering SEO is like.
SEO (Search engine optimisation) is the process of improving your website’s traffic by optimising the content you write for search engine visibility. Put simply, it’s helping your ideal customers find answers to their queries, and, ultimately, find you.
So how do you improve your SEO content skills?
In this article, I’ll share 10 simple strategies to boost your website's visibility and drive more targeted traffic to your pages. I’ll discuss the importance of keyword research, the significance of user intent, and tips on optimizing your title tags, meta descriptions, and URL structure.
I’ll also give you an insight into what I call my ‘sandwich SEO method’ – a way of working SEO into your content, whilst keeping the tone authentic, genuine, and human.
I know it sounds like a lot, but I promise it’s simple! By implementing these strategies, you can improve your website's visibility, attract aligned customers, and in turn, increase your conversions and revenue.
Let’s get to it!
10 SEO content tips for beginners
1. Become your ideal customer
When I onboard new clients, I spend a lot of time creating a clear image ideal customer. That’s because you need to think like your ideal customer,to attract them.
When it comes to SEO content, start by brainstorming what information your ideal customer might want to know, and what they might be searching online to find it. Some ways to do this are:
Look at your customer reviews and feedback
Read competitor reviews
Look at your industry-related search history
Bounce off your content pillars (if you have any in place)
Jot these down in your notepad!
2. Find your keywords
Based on the ideas you’ve already brainstormed, find one keyword to build your content around. This essentially means finding the exact word (or phrase) people are typing into search engines to find certain information.
You can use various software to do this. I use a combination of SEMrush and Ubersuggest. For beginners, I’d suggest sticking to just Ubersuggest.
All you have to do is type in 1-3 potential keywords, add your URL, and look for words with a high search volume and low difficulty level. Aim for long-tail keywords, for example instead of ‘face wash’, think ‘cruelty-free face wash’ or ‘face wash for sensitive skin’.
Once you’ve got your target keyword, pick 5-10 related keywords to include in your content.
3. Determine user intent
As well as what people are searching for, it’s useful to consider why they’re searching for it. This is called ‘user intent’.
There’s nothing technical to this step: type your keyword into Google and look at the search engine results page (SERP).
Is there a feature snippet? (the small bit of information in a box at the top of the page) If yes, what kind of information does it provide, and in what structure?
What kind of web pages come up? Are they informational, transactional, entertaining, or commercial?
Next, click on the top 3-5 articles:
What are their titles?
What’s their layout?
What are their CTAs?
What’s their style and tone?
This will tell you what kind of information people are expecting to receive when they are searching your keyword. It also gives you an idea of what information is missing – the gaps that your content can fill.
4. Collect search engine queries
One way to look for search engine queries is to type your keyword into Google and scroll down to the ‘people also search’ section.
A more effective way, however, is to use the free resource Answer the Public. Type in your keyword and you’ll get a mind map of all the questions people are searching concerning the word.
Select a couple of these queries to use as subheadings in your content.
5. Gather links
For each piece of content, you want to include a mix of internal links (links to other pages on your website) and external links (links to other trustworthy websites).
Prioritise internal links by only linking externally to information not already written on your website, or that needs to be backed up by a credible source.
6. Create a structure
Plan the structure of your content, starting with a main heading that includes your target keywords (H1), subheadings built around search engine queries (H2), and smaller sections.
Sprinkle in some lists too. Content with at least one list every 500 words received 70% more traffic than those without lists.
Each section should focus on one idea.
7. Sandwich method: Research and writing time!
It’s break time…kinda.
My main SEO content tip is to pause after you’ve done your SEO research. Write down all your keywords, create an outline, and gather your links. Give them a good old glance, then put your plan away.
Putting the SEO information out of sight and focusing on establishing a tone of voice and providing genuine valuable information, stops the content from sounding too obviously SEO-orientated.
Use this time to write freely and get into a flow. Use words and phrases your reader will use and write like you’re having a conversation with your customer. Once you’re done and happy, start weaving back in any keywords you missed, making sure it sounds as seamless and effortless as it did before.
Then, onto the next steps…
8. Create an optimized meta-title
Meta tags are snippets of information that describe a page’s content and appear on a search engine results page. They don’t appear on the page themselves and can easily be added on most web-hosting services.
Create a meta title that’s:
Slightly different to your H1
Max. 60 characters
Contains your target keyword, preferably at the start
Correspond with search intent
9. …and meta-description!
Create a meta title that’s:
1-2 sentences, 140-60 characters
Contains an emotion and a call to action
Includes your target keyword
I often edit the meta title and use it as a mini introduction for my content too, after the title and and before the feature image.
10. Add (and optimise) images
As well as making your content visually appealing, adding images can boost your content’s SEO.
Use small file sizes so they aren’t too slow to load (tiny png. is a great resource for this) and remember to add alt-text – a small description that describes an image, that can be read allowed for visually impaired users, or displayed in place of an image if It fails to load.
Like meta-tags, alt-text doesn’t appear on your web page but in the html code, and can easily be added on most web-host services. Your alt-text should:
Be unique and descriptive
Relate to the content topic
If possible, include your keyword
Written by Heather | SEO content writing service
Yay, you’ve written a piece of SEO-optimized content! All that’s left to do is double-check the links, triple-check the grammar, and quadruple-check the tone of voice, and voila, you’ve got yourself a webpage.
These SEO content tips have guided you through my basic process for writing website content that will rank on search engines and attract aligned customers to your website.
But I’m not going to lie, it’s a timely and costly process, depending on the software you use. If all you’d rather it’s done, dusted, and delivered to you, my SEO content writing service might be for you!
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