Top 9 Steps for Writing an SEO-Friendly Article

Andrea Gibbs
November 26, 2021
Read time: 7 minutes

An article is an excellent way to increase your website’s success. It contains a wealth of information that is sure to provide an in-depth understanding of a certain topic. An article is also a great way of expanding your audience. If you have an article that has drawn a good number of subscribers, then the chances are many people read the article. However, it's not always the case, even if you have quality content. You can have the best article in the world but fail to be ranked on search engines. It is because optimizing your articles is just as important as the content.

For your article to be successful, you need to make it SEO-friendly. As someone who writes and hope to get your articles ranked on the first few pages of search engine result pages (SERPs), you need to have basic SEO content principles in practice. It is important to have an article written in the right format that will attract readership. And at the same time a content that most search engines can easily understand. In this article, you will learn how to write an SEO-friendly article that you can be sure will rank well.

What Are SEO-Friendly Articles?

The term SEO-friendly is associated with the highest form of writing. Your article needs to be able to rank well on search engines to generate more traffic. For an article to be SEO-friendly, it has to adhere to certain principles determined by the Search Engines. These principles are mainly observed in making use of keywords properly, adding links and headings. As a writer, you must follow the guidelines set out by the search engines on how you should write an article. You need to ensure that you don’t make any mistakes in your content and make it easier for the search engine spiders to understand.

Some factors are associated with writing an SEO-friendly article. It is not always about putting the paragraphs with as many relevant keywords as possible. Instead, you must take note of key elements as you make your article to ensure it is placed higher in an online search. Ensuring that you write SEO-friendly articles will help visitors discover your content and stop by your website.

The SEO-friendly article must have the following key elements in an SEO-friendly article:

  • Your content must be shareable, user-friendly, and offer insights not present on other websites. Avoid it being too obvious.
  • All articles should contain the appropriate keyword density and frequency, especially page headers, body, and meta-tags.
  • Your content should offer usefulness and value by addressing the needs of your audience.
  • Promotion and link acquisition must be the center of content production. SEO-friendly content is not made for creation's sake. Efficient link-building strategies and promotions via social media and email will be the ultimate key to outreach success.

Top 9 Steps for Writing an SEO-Friendly Article

It is essential to highlight the ingredients that all excellent SEO content contains. Although it can take in different formats and shapes, all SEO-friendly content commits to boosting domain authority, search relevance, matching user intent to increase conversions.

To create your article SEO friendly, always remember to include the following into it:

1. Select One Keyword to be the Focus Term of Your Article

Your article must focus on one keyword and not multiple. It is because it will draw the attention of the search engine spiders to your content and rank your site higher in an online search.

The keyword you choose should be highly relevant to the content of your article. But make sure not to overdo it. Instead, make sure the keyword only comes out two or three times in your content. You can even consider using to include synonyms of this keyword. ​Avoid using keywords that do not match or add little value to your article. To ensure that your piece focuses on the keyword, you must use the keyword within the article title, URL, and meta-tags.

To find a keyword for your article, do keyword research. Keyword research is the term used in search engine optimization to search for a topic used in an article. It involves the selection of the most searched keyword about a particular topic. Keyword research helps ensure that your article will lead them to it when someone goes online searching for that keyword. For example, suppose your article is focusing on Coffee. In that case, you will want to research what people search when looking for information about coffee (i.e., information about coffee making).

2. Craft Your Page Title

To write an SEO-friendly article, you have to ensure that your content is properly titled. It will influence the ranking of your articles in a search engine. A title should contain a keyword that is relevant to the content of your article. It should be concise and interesting enough to draw the attention of potential readers.

The title should not have any blank spaces, as search engine spiders find it hard to crawl through a website with blank spaces. In turn, this can negatively affect how well your article ranks in an online search query.

Selecting a great page title is crucial for the success of your content, so assign the time to come up with a page title that:

  • Unique For Your Website
  • Includes The Target Keyword
  • Is Interesting For Users to Click
  • It has around 160 characters
  • Different Form The Existing Titles on The First Page of Search Engines

3. Make an SEO-Friendly URL

Keywords in the URL are both very important for users and SEO. The URL is the only thing that search engine spiders can read when it comes to your content, apart from the meta description. Even though meta-description has little effect on SERP, it will help search engines know what your article is about when indexing it in its database.

For every website owner out there, getting their content ranked higher in an online search implies including relevant keywords in their URL.

You can take this as an example:

https://www.colewiebe.com/top-9-steps-for-writing-an-seo-friendly-article/

but I have shortened it down to

https://www.colewiebe.com/writing-seo-friendly-article/

4. Write Your Content Long Enough

The length of an article in an in-depth piece of content is essential for its ranking. So, the longer your article, the more opportunities you will be giving search engine spiders to find out about your article and index it in its database. Also, when people see that your content is long enough, they will be compelled to read through its entirety.

The ideal article length for SEO-friendly content is around 1800. While it is true, it is not applicable for all cases. My recommendation is to search an average length of the first ten results on the first page and provide more content but much better than what is published already.

5. Place Your Keywords in the First Paragraph

Search engine spiders will read your content and index it in their database. When they come across your keywords, they will see that you discuss this keyword and index your article accordingly.

You need to make sure the first paragraph always contains the keyword you are targeting. It is because this is what search engines will use to index your article. When writing SEO-friendly content, make sure the target keyword is placed at least once or twice within the first paragraphs of your content.

6. Make Headings Using Long-Tail Keywords

Once you have placed the keyword in the first paragraph, use it again in the headings of your article. It will make your headings SEO-friendly and create a great opportunity for search engines to index your content. In addition, it will ensure that readers find it easy to navigate through your article.

Search engines scan the page and search for particular elements to understand how your page is structured and what keywords or topics your content covers. To make their job easier, you can utilize predefined heading tags in the HTML like the H1, h2, and h3 tags.

One SEO principle most content writers tend to fail to remember is internal linking. The internal link is a link to another page of your website. It is most beneficial for your readers as it provides an opportunity to navigate to different pages of your site with ease. It also creates opportunities for search engines to find new high-quality content. It is because when a user clicks on a link on your site, the search engine spiders will index the content on that page, and you will benefit from this if that page has words or phrases that are relevant to what you are writing about.

8. Show Your Expertise and Authority on the Subject (E-A-T)

In today's world, there is a lot of content published on the Internet. So, to protect the quality of the search results. Google algorithms detect what pages exhibit Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness on a topic.

In the SEO realm, it is regarded as E-A-T, and it's the crucial factor of SEO content and a great indicator of content quality.
How to improve your SEO content for E-A-T? Well, you can follow the guidelines below:

  • Each page must have the author's bio published.
  • A page or post must have outgoing links to reliable sources
  • A website and page, in general, must have incoming links from other trustworthy websites.

9. Add and Optimize Images

Images are an essential element of any SEO content, especially when it comes to web design. Images portray your message much better than text can. For example, in business-related content, images speak volumes about products or services being sold or offered.

When writing for SEO-friendly content, try to include one to two relevant images in your content for this reason alone. It will help to increase the usability of your page and bring a positive impact on search ranking.

Putting images in your SEO content makes it more interesting for the audience. While it is not directly related to writing SEO-friendly content, it can help in multiple ways:

  • Visitors are more likely to share content with quality images on their social media.
  • You can utilize the image alt text to give search engine clues about the content.
  • If images are correctly optimized, you have a higher chance of appearing in Google image search results.

The Takeaway

These were a few tips for writing SEO-friendly content. I encourage you to use them in your content creation process and rectify any areas that seem to be compromised. In addition, I hope you have gained a greater understanding of why quality content is so important and how it can lead to obtaining higher rankings in search engines.


Andrea Gibbs was born, raised, and is still living in New York. She's a work-at-home mom with a background in business development, strategy, and social media marketing. Andrea's a blog contributor at Brand With Care to help small businesses and new entrepreneurs grow their social presence.

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