How to Write Articles that Generate Search Engine Traffic

A lot of online businesses find it quite frustrating when crafting articles the generate SEO traffic.

You see, just creating content for the sake of it, is like trying to pin the tail on a donkey. You might get lucky and hit the ass, but more than likely you will miss. Wasting your valuable time and money.

In this article we are going to go help you write content that is not only loved by search engines but also by your potential customers.

Do Your Research

Understanding the objectives of your content campaign is important crafting your article.

Come up with a list of words that clearly describes what your article is about and then enter these words into search engines to analyse their competitiveness and relevancy.

For Example: If I am creating an article about the best stand up desks, these might be a few keywords to target.

• Best standing desk 2018
• Best standing desk for home office

A great place to start is to simply enter a start keyword into Google and then scroll to the bottom.

The searches related box is where I start my research. The search engine does all the hard work for you, suggesting keywords phrases your customer is already typing into Google.

Additionally, you can use google keyword planner for more in-depth research. Here is a video on how to use it.

Utilize this tool to find the relevant keywords and gauge the possibility of your website ranking for that keyword.

The keyword should, ideally, have good monthly searches with little competition.

Targeting article for a particular keyword will likely generate search engine traffic if optimized well.

More on that soon.

Don’t Forget the End-user

While keywords are very important, don’t be tempted to go “over the top” with them.

Your desire to be ranked higher by search engines may drive you to stuff your blog posts with a heap of keywords.

This technique will more than likely get you penalized by the big G.

Users will find it hard to read a post if every second sentence has “best standing desk” in it.

Your priority is to create an engaging and useful piece of content. Keywords need to be added naturally. If things start looking unnatural, the search engines might take it as manipulating their algorithm and penalise you for it.

A good rule of thumb is to never go over 1% keyword density. So that’s 10 keywords per 1000 words.

Worry About the Keywords Later

When typing my articles, I like to focus on creating quality content first, then insert the keywords in later.

If you already have the article outline and the target keywords listed, you will be able to incorporate some of the keywords as you write naturally.

Then when you go back and edit, insert keywords if you need any more. Often, I do 2 to 3 “edit” runs to ensure my keywords are added naturally.

Choose the Right Blog Format

Some blog posts perform better than others depending on how they are formatted.

When users search the net, they are looking for an answer to a specific question. Providing an easy way to navigate to their answer will give you some love in the search engines.

Here are some tips on how to format for easy readability:

• Headings and sub-headings (with the keywords in some of them). Break up your article and make it easy for users to skim read.
• Break up paragraphs to be easily read
• Use bullet points to quickly outline value
• Insert photos to help explain certain parts of your article

A great tool to I use to help is the Hemmingway App.

Make use of SEO Tools

There are a huge number of tools that make creating SEO content a breeze.

Moz’s Page Grader which will help you identify areas of your blog content that can be optimized for search engines.

BuzzSumo can help find titles to write about in your industry.

Yoast SEO is a plugin for WordPress to help your insert keywords and format your articles for maximum SEO benefit.

There are plenty more out there but along with the Keyword Planner, these are the main ones I use.

Writing for SEO

It is undeniable that SEO is fundamental when creating articles to generate more search engine traffic.

However, the user needs, and quality of blog posts should not be overlooked in an attempt to find favour in the eyes of the search engines.

In the end, the quality of your blog post should always overrule stuffing keywords in.

Remember, the goal is to rank higher while providing priceless value to the reader.

Chris Dinham

Chris is the co-owner and head of operations at Summit Web. He started his marketing career by buying and selling digital businesses. With a background in creating lead generation strategies, he is an expert when it comes to planning and building full marketing funnels for our clients. Look out for him surfing at Trigg Point or creating informational videos on his youtube channel.