SEO Writing: How to Write Content That Ranks (8 Easy Steps)

When learning SEO content writing, it’s hard to know where to start. 

Should you dive deep into keyword research?

What about Google Analytics?

And how do you build backlinks?

I’ll make it easy for you. 

If you’re looking to increase organic traffic to your site, I recommend starting with one skill: writing an SEO-optimized blog post. 

In this post, I’ll walk you through my 6-step process for doing SEO content writing for my SEO clients. 

By the end, you’ll be able to:

• Conduct basic keyword research and find an attainable keyword
• Create a blog outline based on competitive analysis + unique value
• Write a headlines that make Google happy & get users to click
• Write an authoritative post that meets search intent & stands out in the SERPs
• Fully optimize your post for the target keyword before you publish

Sound good?

Let’s get started! 

Step 1: Conduct Keyword Research

Effective SEO content writing starts with solid keyword research. 

You need to know:

1 – What keywords people are searching for in your niche

2 – Which keywords are attainable for you, and which are too competitive

So how do you do it? First you need to decide on a keyword research tool. 

Pick Your Keyword Research Tool

There are plenty of powerful SEO research tools out there. But not all of them are affordable, depending on where you’re at with your business. 

Keyword research tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs are top-of-the-line, but they’ll run you $100+ per month. 

If you’re just starting out with keyword research, I suggest subscribing to Neil Patel’s tool, Ubersuggest. 

It’s $29 per month for an individual plan, and $49 for a business plan. He also offers lifetime subscriptions that are a helluva deal. 

So for this tutorial, I’ll be using Ubersuggest. 

Find Your Site’s Competitors

The easiest, fastest way to source keywords is to find out which ones your competitors are ranking for. 

Let’s use one of my freelance clients as an example. 

She’s an ADHD coach, so the niche is ADHD, with an emphasis on ADHD in women. 

So my first step when creating her content strategy was to find other popular ADHD blogs and mine them for keywords. 

You can find your site’s competitors several ways:

• You could google [Niche] + blog. So for my client that’d look like googling “ADHD blog” and see which sites rank in the top 20 positions
• Or you could google a popular topic within your niche, and see which sites rank in the top 20 positions. In my client’s case, that might look like searching “ADHD in women”.

For this tutorial, I’m going to use the first method and google “ADHD blog” and examine the search results. 

At this point, I’m looking for niche blogs that focus exclusively on the topic of ADHD (Not big health sites like Healthline or Verywellhealth, or news sites like Forbes). 

Let’s take a look at the search engine results page (SERP) for the query “ADHD blog”:

Right away, a couple of blogs catch my eye.

First, “The Mini ADHD Coach” looks like a blog from another ADHD coach, which is my client’s exact business. 

Same with “Marla Cummings” – I can see she’s an ADHD coach as well. 

Click through to any blogs that catch your eye, make sure they’ve got a lot of high-quality content, and then add them to your list of competing sites (try and get 5-10 of them to start). 

Then you’ll choose one competitor to start your keyword research. 

Find Relevant, Attainable Keywords

To kick off our keyword research, let’s take Marla Cummings’ site and plug it into Ubersuggest’s “Keywords by Traffic” tool, to see what keywords Marla is ranking for:

Once we plug in her domain URL and  hit “search”, we can see all the keywords she ranks for:

I want you to focus on 3 columns, (marked by red arrows):

• The list of keywords: These are all the keywords Marla’s site ranks for 
• Search volume: The monthly search volume for each keyword (“ADHD manager” is searched for on Google 1,300 times per month by users)
• SEO difficulty score (SD): Ubersuggest’s estimation of how difficult it is to rank in the top 10 spots (on a scale of 0-100, with 0 being the easiest). 

We’re going to look for keywords with a low difficulty score that have significant search volume. 

The first thing we’ll do is sort the SEO difficulty (SD) column from lowest to highest, by hitting the little gray arrow a couple of times. 

The keywords displayed here have an SD of 1 – which is super low – meaning these keywords are very easy to rank for (according to Ubersuggest’s data). 

The one that immediately catches my eye is the second keyword on the list, “how to stop procrastinating ADHD”. 

It’s got a search volume of 170, which for my client is significant, since she’s just starting her blog. (If you had an already established, high-authority blog, this volume might be too low). 

Plus the topic is highly relevant to her coaching practice – procrastination is a common struggle for her clients. The “how-to” format is also a great framework for blog posts. 

You want to scroll through the list of low-difficulty keywords and make note of the ones that catch your eye.

Do this with all the competitors you found in the previous step, and you should have a nice list of attainable keywords to choose from for your first blog post! 

Which brings us to our next step…

Step 2: Uncover The Search Intent Behind Your Keyword

I’ve chosen the keyword “how to stop procrastinating ADHD”, as the target keyword for my blog post. 

Now what?

How do I know what to include in my post?

The best way to do that is to figure out the search intent for your keyword. 

Search intent is the “why” behind the search query. 

In other words, what is the searcher looking for when they type the phrase “how to stop procrastinating ADHD”?

That answer = your search intent. 

And why is search intent important?

Because Google will rank your content based on how well it answers search intent. 

There are several types of search intent:

• Informational search intent: The searcher is looking for information on the topic (i.e. blog posts). Examples: “How to grow a garden”, “What is freelance writing” or “Why am I so tired”
• Commercial search intent: The searcher is looking to buy a product or service (so they’re looking for a sales page). Examples: “Iphone 16”, “womens jeans”, “lawncare in Dallas, TX”
• Navigational/Branded search intent: The searcher is looking to navigate to a specific site or brand (They’re looking for a home page). Examples: “Smart Blogger”, “Seth Godin Blog”, “Nike”.

If you’re writing a blog, you only want to target keywords with informational search intent. 

“How to stop procrastinating ADHD” has informational intent, because the searcher is looking for information about how to stop procrastinating. 

We know that by looking at the wording of the keyword and taking a glance at the at the top headlines in the SERPs:

But we can’t stop there – we need to go further and find out: What specific information are they looking for on this topic?

After reading these headlines, we can get even more detailed with our search intent and say “the searcher wants to know if procrastination is associated with ADHD, along with specific, actionable tips to stop procrastinating.”

You can refine search intent even more after reading through all the top-ranking posts, which we’ll cover in the next step.  

Step 3: Do a Competitive Analysis for Your Target Keyword

We’ve established that Google ranks articles that best match search intent for the keyword. 

That means you need to pay attention to what these articles are doing – since they’re clearly doing something right! 

This is where “competitive analysis” comes in – which is a fancy way of saying “read the other blog posts ranking in the top 10 for the keyword and take notes”!

Click through and scan all of the top-ranking posts for your target keyword. 

Take note of:

• Topics covered: What subtopics are being covered most frequently?
• Topic gaps: Are there any points they’re missing about the main topic?
• Dominant post format: What is the most common blog post format being used? Are they mostly step-by-step “how to”-style posts? Are they numbered lists of tips? 
• Angle: Are any of the posts taking a unique “angle” or approach to the topic? For example “for beginners” or “ultimate guide”.
• Word count: How long is each post?

You can grab a notebook or open a new document and take notes as you read through the post, or you can take the easy route and…

Let ChatGPT Do Your Competitive Analysis for You

These days, I always let AI do my competitive analyses. It saves a TON of time. 

If you’re using ChatGPT, which can scan the internet, you can use this prompt:

I’m writing a blog post targeting the keyword:  [INSERT KEYWORD HERE]. 

Please conduct a competitive analysis of the top-ranking posts for this keyword. 

For each post, please include:

• The headline
• Word count
• A summary of the post
• A list of subheadings
• Any unique value the post brings to the table

At the end of your analysis, please let me know about any content gaps among these competitors that my post could fill, and give me some ideas for unique value I can add to my post on this topic. 

It will generate all this information for you in less than 30 seconds! 

If you’re using Claude, which can’t actively scan the internet, you can use the same prompt but add: I’m going to copy/paste each of the top 10 ranking articles. Are you ready?

It’s a little more tedious to do it this way but still saves you a lot of time. 

How Closely Should You Follow Other Posts?

Like I said, top-ranking posts are certainly doing something right – probably a lot of things! 

But you don’t want to be a total copy-cat, and you definitely don’t want to plagiarize their exact content.

You want to generally cover all the topics top-ranking posts are covering, and you should match the dominant format in most cases (How-to, list, etc). 

But other than that, your post should embody your own unique take on the topic. Which brings us to the next step…

Step 4: Decide Your Angle

The angle of your post is your approach to covering the topic. 

Here are a few examples of common angles:

• Beginner’s guides – these posts are aimed at people who are new to the topic. Example: “A Beginner’s Guide to Organic Gardening”.
• Ultimate guides – these posts cover the topic extensively and are often 5,000 words or more. Example: “The Ultimate Guide to Positive Parenting”
• Expert round ups – these posts curate quotes and opinions from experts. Example: “10 Best-Selling Authors Weigh-in on AI Writing”
• Personal case studies – these posts explain how you’ve achieved desirable results. Example: “How I Made My First $1 Million Blogging”
• Contrarian angle – contrarian posts go against the grain of popular thinking on a topic, usually causing readers to raise an eyebrow. Example: “Why Your Goals Don’t Matter”

You can also look to the SERPs for your keyword to get angle ideas. Let’s see if we can find one for “How to stop procrastinating ADHD”:

One common factor here is “tips” – it’s clear that Google likes posts that offer lists of tips. So that’s likely going to be part of my angle. 

Step 5: Write Your Headline

You’ve got your target keyword, and you know what angle you want to take. 

Now it’s time to write a crucial part of your blog post: the headline. 

Headlines are the first thing your readers see, so they need to check a few boxes to make sure they appeal to Google and get readers to click. Here’s how to do it. 

Pick The Right Format

Your post’s format is how you choose to organize and present the information about your topic – and your headline needs to reflect your chosen format. 

Common formats include:

• How to – a step-by-step guide teaching the reader how to do something. Example: “How to Get More Followers on Twitter” 
• List – a numbered list of items – tips, strategies, or really anything at all! Examples: “10 Tips for Finding High-Paying Freelance Jobs”, or “10 Parenting Podcasts to Listen to in 2024”
• Basic Explainer – these posts explain a topic using straightforward subheadings, answering common questions. Example “How Long Should a Blog Post Be in 2024?”
  “Illuminator” – These posts aim to change your mind about something or open your eyes to a new concept. Example “Why Americans Are So Lonely”
• Case Study – These posts tell the story of a problem and how it was solved with a unique method. Example: “How I Went From Zero to 20k Twitter Followers Using One Simple Hack”

For my post about procrastinating, 2 options stand out to me:

• How to –  The format is built into the keyword itself
• List – Most of the top-ranking posts are numbered lists of tips

I could choose one or the other, but I’m going to choose a third option: both. 

I want to include the full target keyword, but I also want to include the “tips” angle and the “list” format. 

So I’m going with a how-to/list hybrid (a common combo), and I’ve got my working headline:

How to Stop Procrastinating With ADHD: 8 Tips….

Now let’s see how we can spruce it up a bit. 

Include a Benefit to The Reader

The reader needs a reason to click. They may click out of a desire to stop procrastinating, but what if there’s something we could do to add to their desire?

There is: we can add a benefit. 

Some examples of headlines with benefits:

Headline: How to Write a Cover Letter (& Land Your Dream Job)

Benefit: Land your dream job

Headline: 10 Style Tips to Feel More Like Your Authentic Self

Benefit: Feel more like your authentic self

Headline: How to Write a Blog Headline That Converts Like Crazy

Benefit: Converts like crazy

See what I mean?

Now – what benefit can we think of for “How to Stop Procrastinating With ADHD?

The issue here is length – the keyword is already quite long, and we don’t want our headline to get cut off (“truncated”) in the SERPs like this one:

See how the last part is cut off?

So we want to keep our benefits short. Here’s how I’ll do it:

How to Stop Procrastinating With ADHD (8 Simple Tips)

This headline is short enough not to get truncated, and adds a subtle but powerful benefit: Simplicity. Readers know that these tips won’t be complicated and will be easy to implement – a fitting benefit for people with ADHD, who may struggle with completing complex tasks. 

You can check the length of your headline using this SERP Snippet Optimization Tool from Higher Visibility. 

Step 6: Create Your Outline

You’re almost ready to start writing your post! 

But before you start writing, you need a solid blueprint for your post. Otherwise, you could end up getting off course, going off on a tangent, or skipping over an important subtopic. 

Here’s how to create your outline. 

Do a Subtopic Brain Dump

First, open a new document and write a list of subtopics you personally want to cover. These will come from your own knowledge of the topic (if you have any). 

In my case, here’s what I came up with for procrastination:

• Why do people with ADHD procrastinate?
• Tackling projects in smaller chunks
• Addressing perfectionism
• Get over the hump of getting started

I happen to be a chronic procrastinator with ADHD (convenient, right?), so I know I’d want to know why I’m doing it (and how it relates to ADHD), and the last three points are tactics I’ve used myself. 

Check Your Competitive Analysis

Take a look at all the subheadings in competing posts. 

Which topics are covered in multiple, top-ranking posts?

If you used ChatGPT, you can even ask it:

Please make a list of the most commonly covered topics in these top-ranking posts.

In addition to the topics I brainstormed above, which were all commonly occurring topics for this keyword, here are the additional topics ChatGPT offered:

• Using timers
• Rewards and motivation
• Physical activity and breaks
• Avoiding multitasking
• Mindfulness and focus

So, if I add these additional topics, here’s what my list looks like: 

• Why do people with ADHD procrastinate?
• Tackling projects in smaller chunks
• Addressing perfectionism
• Get over the hump of getting started
• Using timers
• Rewards and motivation
• Physical activity and breaks
• Avoiding multitasking
• Mindfulness and focus

Organize Your Points So They Flow Logically

In what order should I present these points?

It makes sense to place the “why” question at the very beginning. 

The rest of the topics are basically tips – so it really doesn’t matter what order they go in. But it may make sense to place “Get over the hump of getting started” and “addressing perfectionism” first, because they occur when the reader is first starting to overcome procrastination.

The rest can stay in the same, arbitrary order. But I need to word my topics as subheadings, and save space for an introduction and conclusion. So let’s do that:

• Introduction
• Why do people with ADHD procrastinate?
• How to Stop Procrastinating With ADHD: 8 Tips to Get You Moving
• 1 – Address perfectionism
• 2 – Get over the hump of getting started
• 3 – Use a timer
• 4 – Give yourself breaks
• 5 – Avoid multitasking
• 6 – Reward your hard work
• 7 – Tackle it in small chunks
• 8 – Harness mindfulness & learn to focus
• Freedom from ADHD Procrastination is Possible

See how I’ve worded my basic bullet points as subheadings – in this case actionable tips?

You’ll also want to include bullet points for what you want to cover in each section, like this:

• Introduction
• Why do people with ADHD procrastinate?
  • Executive dysfunction
  • Anxiety
  • Perfectionism
• How to Stop Procrastinating With ADHD: 8 Tips to Get You Moving
• 1. Address perfectionism
  • Know that not everything needs to be perfect
  • Nothing is final, you can rework things after you get started
• 2. Get over the hump of getting started
  • Most of your anxiety is usually around getting started, so if you get started, sometimes that resolves the issue. 
• 3. Use a timer
  • Pomodoro method
• 4. Give yourself breaks
  • Prevents overwhelm
  • Examples of what to do on breaks – take a walk, etc
• 5. Avoid multitasking
  • Multitasking interrupts focus which is already hard for ADHDers
• 6. Reward your hard work
  • What’s rewarded is repeated
  • Ideas for rewards
• 7. Tackle it in small chunks
  • Prevents overwhelm 
  • Reduces Anxiety
• 8. Harness mindfulness & learn to focus
  • What is mindfulness
  • How it helps you focus
• Freedom from ADHD Procrastination is Possible
  • Conclusion paragraph that ties everything together and gives a call to action

Consider Word Count

How long should your SEO-driven blog post be?

The best strategy is to take the average word count of top-ranking posts, and aim to exceed that by at least a little bit. 

In my case, the average word count for top ranking posts for “How to stop procrastinating ADHD” is 1200. 

So I’m going to take mine up to 2,000 words. 

This tells me, with 12 sections in my outline, I’m shooting for around 166 words per section. 

Step 7: Write Your Post

You made it to the writing stage! 

But your work is just beginning. Here are a few tips for writing your SEO-optimized post. 

Write short paragraphs

Forget what you learned in English class about paragraphs being 3-5 sentences long. 

Make your paragraphs short – some may even be just one sentence. 

If users click on your blog post and see a wall of text, they’ll get overwhelmed and hit the “back button”, hurting your SEO. 

Format Your Post Properly

Speaking of readability, you need to format your blog post to make it easy to digest. Some tips:

• Use bullet lists for longer lists of items
• Include infographics to add visual excitement and increase readability
• Use clear and concise subheadings to divide your content into sections
• Stay consistent with font size and color throughout your post

Don’t Optimize It Yet

You don’t need to focus on how often you’re using the target keyword just yet. Just cover the topic naturally, and you can slide your keyword in when you go back and edit. 

We’ll cover that in the next step!

Step 8: Optimize Your Post

Now that you have your draft, it’s time to go through and optimize it for SEO. Here’s how to do it. 

Add Your Target Keyword

If you’re covering your topic thoroughly, you shouldn’t even have to add a lot more instances of your target keyword to the body of your post – it should be mentioned several times naturally. 

However, you do want to make sure you include your target keyword:

• In your headline
• In at least one subheading
• Once in your introduction
• Once in your conclusion

This sends a strong message to Google that your post meets search intent for your keyword. 

Write Your Meta Description

A meta description is a short summary or snippet that describes the content of a webpage. 

It is included in the HTML code of a page and often displayed in search engine results beneath the page title. 

The primary purpose of a meta description is to give users a clear idea of what the page is about and encourage them to click through to the site.

You’ll usually enter your meta description via the back-end of your site, before you publish your post. 

Meta descriptions should:

• Include the target keyword
• Preview what your post will cover
• Highlight your post’s value
• Be the right length – around 50 -150 characters

A meta description for my ADHD procrastination post could look something like:

Struggling with ADHD procrastination? Discover 8 simple, effective tips to stay focused, boost productivity, and tackle tasks with confidence. 

You can also feed ChatGPT your written blog post, and ask it to write the meta description.

Compress Images & Add Alt Text

Images with large file sizes can slow down your page load times, hurting your SEO. 

Use a compression tool like iloveimg.com to shrink those file sizes before uploading them to your site. 

You also want to add alt text to each image. 

Alt text (alternative text) is a textual description of an image used in the HTML of a webpage. It serves two primary purposes: 

• Accessibility: Provides a description of the image for people using screen readers, making web content more inclusive for those with visual impairments.
• SEO: Helps search engines understand the content of the image, which can improve image and webpage rankings in search results.

Some tips for writing good alt text for images:

• Be descriptive but concise: You don’t need to say “image of” or “picture of”
• Include relevant keywords when they fit: Include relevant keywords where you can, but don’t stuff them in. 

For example, if I include a stock image of a woman looking anxious and frustrated at her desk, the alt text might read “woman sitting at her desk looking anxious and frustrated”. 

Add Internal Links

Internal links are hyperlinks that connect one page on your site to another. 

They’re essential for both user experience and SEO, helping readers navigate your site while signaling to search engines how your content is structured and interconnected.

Internal links keep readers engaged by directing them to related blog posts, cornerstone content, or other pages you want to rank higher in search results. 

For example, if you’re writing about ADHD procrastination, you might link to a post on managing ADHD-related anxiety. 

This not only encourages readers to stay on your site longer but also strengthens your site’s authority with search engines.

Here’s how to do it effectively:

• Use descriptive anchor text: The clickable text should naturally describe the linked page. Avoid generic phrases like “click here.”
• Link to related, valuable content: Choose links that add context or value to your post.
• Keep it natural: Add links where they fit seamlessly into your writing.
• Don’t overdo it: Stick to 2-5 internal links per 1,000 words to avoid overwhelming the reader.

Thoughtfully placed internal links can boost your SEO and nudge readers to explore more of your content.

SEO Content Writing: Go Forth & Dominate The SERPs

There you have it – everything you need to know to write an SEO-optimized blog post with a great chance of ranking. 

Now you know how to do keyword research and find keywords that are both relevant to your niche and easy to rank for. 

You know how to write a headline that connects with readers and gets them to click. 

You’ve learned how to create a solid outline that makes writing your post easy. 

And you know how to optimize your post to catch Google’s eye. 

All you need to do now is practice. 

You’ll be dominating the SERPs in no time!

The post SEO Writing: How to Write Content That Ranks (8 Easy Steps) appeared first on Smart Blogger.