We have shared with you a number of articles on SEO, the 2 key ones being How To Do SEO and SEO For Beginners.

Today, I want to share the key secrets of good SEO content writing.

1. Always Start With Keyword Research

Every time you post out some contents, you would hope that there is good readership and that the contents are of value. Good contents are shared, archived and become valuable resources to your readers.

But first, people must know new contents are available for consumption and these can be shared on social media, on newsletter and broadcast to your subscriber base or of course through SEO organic search.

For organic search, you always start with keyword research. You must know what your likely readers are searching for, and then you intentionally compete for those keywords. In this regard, I have already mentioned the powerful use of long-tailed low competition keywords as one of your SEO strategies.

2. Original And Valuable Contents

I take notice of great contents I come across on the web. I start to browse the entire website, the owner of the website and other values I can derive from the website. And more often than not, I start to share the contents through my network. More traffic means better SEO ranking!

It therefore pays to write original and valuable contents that best provides solutions and answers to what your readers are seeking.

I do understand that sometimes it is difficult to always be totally original with your contents. My guideline is always that my article must be substantially different from what is available as a link to some another website. Or at least, my contents are re-written in such a way the context and the presentation is more suitable for a different audience segment.

3. Articles Must Be Long Enough To Count

Often, I get asked how long SEO articles should be.

If you scan through the articles here, you will find articles of various lengths. For the purpose of SEO requirement to regularly update your site, I understand it can get daunting if every single article is more than 1,000 words. Unless you have a big team dedicated to content writing, you also get burn-out.

Therefore, my recommendation is that there must be a number of articles which “represent” the main stories of your website, the key values you provide, the main money making pages if you will.

For these articles, 1,000 to 1,500 words are required to provide substantive and relevant contents which will be useful for a particular subject matter. And I would usually proportionally spend more time on the keyword research and keyword selection for such efforts.

4. Feedback Loop With Analytics

Some buzzwords and new technologies you hear nowadays are likely going to be data analytics, artificial intelligence, big data etc.

I am a big fan of analytics, not because I like number crunching but because of the insights I can derive from the analytics tools.

Besides Google Analytics which provides valuable information about the website traffic, the other essential tool is Google Webmaster.

Google Webmaster search analytics gives you a glimpse of the keywords your readers are clicking through to reach your site.

How I make use of this is how well I am actually getting traffic for the keywords I am hoping to rank for. And even if I am ranking well, whether the search volume is meaningful enough. While keyword research is done at the beginning, often this part of the analysis will guide you as to perhaps more SEO enhancement work for selected keywords, and SEO work for keywords you might not be currently targeting.

Please do share below your comments on this article or that additional 1 or 2 secrets which may enhance this article.

We are passionate about digital marketing services, so do get in touch with us if you have questions regarding your SEO efforts.