How can you write with SEO in mind?

Don’t overdo keywords, but do the keyword research so you know what the terms are that people use when they’re searching for the topic that you’re writing about. Then use those to ensure people searching can actually find whatever it is you’re writing about.

Do the keyword research. Now, put yourself in the shoes of the person searching and try to understand what exactly they want to know about when they put that particular keyword on the search engine. Whatever your findings are, try to put most, if not all, in the blog.

A tip I swear by: If you’re only starting out, you may want to target mainly long-tail keywords. These are typically less competitive, giving you a better chance at ranking well in search results.

Incorporate your target keywords naturally throughout your content, including in the title, headings, body text, and meta description.

After you've done your keyword research and decided which one you will use, try to find the questions people ask about them. One great tool to use, and very budget-friendly, is the "Answer the Public" by Ubersuggest. Another excellent source is forums and groups where people talk about your subject. Find out what is troubling them, and provide the answers they need in your articles. Use your target keywords, but focus on using a natural language. Most importantly, don't use long tail keywords precisely as people search for them (with mistakes, absence of verbs, etc.). Google can recognize valuable content about a keyword. You don't have to write exactly as people search for your niche; instead, try incorporating their intentions.

Optimize your headings in a way that it serves two purposes: 1. A reader gets a fair idea of what the blog entails just with a simple scan of all the headers. 2. Write headers in such a way that it compels the reader to read the description part.

Another way is to provide a clickable table of contents at the top of the blog post. It’s a guide to the rest of the article for the search engine and the reader.

Craft a compelling and descriptive title for your content. Include your primary keyword toward the beginning of the title. Place keywords in headings where relevant to help search engines understand the content hierarchy. Write an enticing meta description that includes keywords and summarizes the content's main points.

Also, your headings must be in descending order. You can start from H1, then move to H2, then break down your H2, use your H3s and then your H4s, etc. The incorrect way to do that is to descend from H2 to H4 without a previous H3. This is the right way to do it: H1 H2 H3 H3 H4 H5 H2 And this is the incorrect way to go: H1 H2 H4 H3 H2 H6

One of the best advice I received as a writer is to identify your customer's voice. If you are not familiar with that, try to search the term: Voice of Customer. While VoC methodology can give you valuable information about how your customers actually feel about your product and help you become better, it can improve your content production by far. As an example, when you know the concerns of your customers, you know how to produce content that it's actually helpful. That way, you are saving your resources by minimizing the cost of your content marketing endeavors, and you build strong authority within your audience. When we writers dig deeper and invest in the research progress (questionnaires, interviews, etc.) is where we thrive.

What I'm seeing today in the content and search landscape is that "trust" is increasingly becoming the defining factor that determines whether your writing is not only discovered, but ranks high amongst the plethora of existing content already out there. As a writer, it's tough to re-invent the wheel and to discover ways of making your content stand out. While trust is a subjective goal, it is something worth keeping in mind when writing for your audience today. Ask yourself: how can I make my writing more trustworthy? How can I make my content more trustworthy than the competition? A lot of this comes down to stories and anecdotes you can share by professionals who have the reputation for the topic you are publishing about.

Focus on creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience. Understand the intent behind the keywords you're targeting. Are users looking for information, products, or solutions? Tailor your content to match their intent.

Maybe but don’t overdo it. Have a good mix of short, middle of the road long sentences and longer sentences. Whatever makes your content flow and there’s tools out there that help you measure if you’re hitting the right mix.

To make the content scannable, I use a thumb rule of not having more than 3 lines in a paragraph. The usage of bullet points also helps to add more white space, enabling you to break the wall of text.

Keep your sentences concise and straightforward. Use active voice when possible. Aim for a readability level that suits your audience. Break up long paragraphs with subheadings to make your content more scannable and accessible.

Images explain better than words. Moving images (Gifs & Videos) explain better than images. If you feel a particular concept is really tough and just a description won't do a justice, add a video explainer or a gif. Similarly, if you feel a concept is fairly simple but needs a bit of explanation, use static images.

Incorporate relevant images, infographics, videos, and other multimedia elements to enhance your content's appeal. Include descriptive alt text for images, using keywords where appropriate, to improve accessibility and SEO.

Unique images should deliver your message or content in a better or a supportive way to the content. Don't create images just to add them as images, create them to enrich the experience. Videos are the strongest multimedia you can use for SEO. Multimedia's titles, filenames, alt texts and text surrounding them are also very important for them ranking in rich results.

Try to keep the quality of your multimedia high, but their size small. There is nothing more important than loading speed in the digital world. It would be a waste of time doing everything right (using good photographers, talented graphic designers, keywords at your descriptive alt texts, following good practices in naming your photos and providing captions when needed, and..... ruin it all because the speed of your website became substantially low and the users are leaving at the first 2 seconds. What to do? Use tools like Squoosh to convert your photos to webp, instead of using JPG and PNG formats, compress your videos, make their resolution scalable, and always, choose fast hosting options!

But remember: Use Anchor Text Wisely! (The anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink.) Make sure it is relevant to the linked content and includes keywords. Also, too many outbound links can distract readers and dilute your content’s value. Balance is key. Make sure you check for Broken Links because they can harm your SEO. Regularly check your content for broken links and fix them. Understand the difference between nofollow and dofollow links. Nofollow links tell search engines not to follow the link, while dofollow links do the opposite. Instead of always linking to a website’s homepage, consider linking to specific pages or articles on that website. Linking to Deep Pages is much more rewarding.

Write for humans first, and format it well for both humans and machines to be able to read it. Your end goal is not just a click but the user converting, and writting meaningless text just to rank will not help to grow your business. Rememver that you are writing to attract your end customers, and fewer clicks some times can be more valuable if you are selling a product (this might not apply to some publishers, blogs, and media).