Your Definitive Guide To Rank Articles On Page #1 Of Google
It comes down to 2 things
Any SEO article writing service will tell you the same thing: SEO is a gamble; you can never guarantee top rankings. If they don’t tell you that, that’s a red flag. Because the thing about SEO is, it’s everybody’s best guess. Google considers over 200 ranking factors. Sometimes you write a remarkable long-form article and it tanks; other times, it goes through the roof.
I write SEO-optimized content that appeals to Google and readers. That’s how I got this article to rank #1 on the first page of Google for the keyword phrase “get more claps”.
… and this one
… and this one
I’m not saying this to brag. I just want you to know that SEO works. Because when I wrote those articles, I had every intention to make them rank on Google — and they did.
SEO is easier than you think.
Article SEO, or on-page SEO, is a tiny piece of the puzzle. No need for it to be overwhelming. Not to mention, SEO drives 1000% + more traffic than organic social media (BrightEdge). In other words, if your business is not leveraging an SEO content strategy, you’re missing out.
You can do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Point is, SEO is gold.
Sixty percent of marketers say that inbound (SEO, blog content, etc) is their highest quality source of leads (HubSpot). You want your articles to show up first because only 0.78% of Google searchers click on results from the 2nd page (Backlinko). According to a newly published study, the first organic result in Google Search has an average click-through rate of 28.5%.
If you’ve never heard about article SEO, This is your chance to learn more so you can implement it in your business.
This is a complete guide to writing SEO-optimized friendly content, and my personal process I use for articles I want to rank for.
Table of contents:
· 1- What is an SEO article writing service?
∘ How to do SEO content writing
∘ 4 types of keywords
· 2- Keyword Research
∘ How to do keyword research
∘ Best paid tools to use for keyword research
∘ Best free tools to find valuable keywords
· 3- Write epic posts
∘ How to create epic posts
∘ Optimize your posts for SEO
∘ 6 places to put your main keyword phrase:
∘ 12 Best practices for article SEO optimization
· 4- Big sites take care of technical SEO for you
∘ 3 things you need to optimize before publishing on Medium
1- What is an SEO article writing service?
An SEO article writing service helps your content rank high on the SERPs (search engine results page). Like I said before, you can never guarantee if an article will do well on Google — at least not 100%. There are many elements to consider: promotion, off-page SEO, quality of writing, etc.
Only 22% of pages that rank in the Top 10 were created within 1 year (Source).
To rank on the 1st page of Google, take two things into account:
- The searcher’s intent: the keyword phrase people are typing into Google. That’ll give you the end goal of the search query.
- How Google scans your content: article length, grammar, images, keywords, etc.
You’re writing for these two, so you’ll have to optimize everything accordingly. Content not optimized for the reader gets no attention from search engines. Always keep that in mind. Google wants to serve the reader the best content there is.
“Google makes changes almost every day,” John Mueller, Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google.
From Google’s perspective, good content is only good if it answers the reader’s search query in great detail.
How to do SEO content writing
To write SEO articles, you need to be good at 2 things above all others:
Keyword research and writing.
In this article, I’m going to focus on these two skills. Master them both and you’ll be well on your way to rank your first article on Google.
Later on, I’ll show you a trick that takes care of everything technical about SEO. No need to worry about that part.
Before I talk about keyword research and writing, let’s go over the types of keywords the searcher types into Google.
4 types of keywords:
Before writing an article, it’s essential to know what you want from your readers. Do you want to make sales (transactional), inform (informational), make money through ads (commercial), or generate brand awareness (navigational)?
1. Transactional and commercial keywords
Commercial keywords (like best, review, free shipping) are only relevant to transactional queries. If a searcher types in “buy dumbbells” into Google, the intent is transactional, that is the searcher wants to make a purchase. An article on how to work out using dumbbells wouldn’t match the search’s intent.
Buy is a transactional keyword, or a “do” keyword. Similar keywords include:
- Download
- Where to buy
- Discount
- Purchase
2. Informational keywords
An informational article informs the reader. Here, it’s best to use informational keyword phrases — known as “know” keywords — followed by your main keyword:
- Guide to: A comprehensive guide to SEO article writing/ The ultimate guide to copywriting
- How to: How to master social media marketing/ How to write effective Facebook Ads
- Best: best SEO content writing strategies / Best tools to rank articles on Google
- Ways to: 10 ways to improve your writing skills / 7 ways to burn hundreds of calories
3. Navigational keywords
When a person is familiar with a brand name (or a company’s website) and wants more information, they head into Google and type it in. This is a navigational query, also known as “go” keywords:
- [Brand name]: Grammarly, ProWritingAid,
- [Company website]: Contentheat, HubSpot
- Features of: Features of Trello, features of Office 365
- Testimonials: Ahrefs testimonials, SEMrush testimonials
Knowing what keywords to choose will help you outline your articles. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do I want to show my niche expertise or/and generate traffic and brand awareness?
If so, go after informational keywords. Write pillar posts, ultimate guides, listicles, and how-to articles that walk readers through how to overcome their frustrations.
- Do I want my readers to convert to customers?
If so, write about your services and products. Show your readers and convince them why they should buy. Use copywriting techniques for persuasion. Give them downloads, deals, discounts, and coupons (use them as keywords too).
- Do I want to optimize my site for relevant keywords?
Here, write about brands and use keywords related to your business. Create pages around them so your customers can find them with ease. Write comparison posts (Ubersuggest vs SEMrush), brand reviews, and brand features.
2- Keyword Research
Doing keyword research is the most troublesome part of SEO. Because it’s time-consuming, many SEO content writers avoid it or cannot do it properly. Keyword research is about finding the exact words and phrases to rank for on search engines. To do that, the first step is to find a keyword with a low difficulty score and a high search volume.
Seach volume means how many searches a keyword gets every month. Keyword difficulty score means how difficult it is to rank for. A word like “SEO”, also called a short tail keyword (1–2 words), is broad, competitive, and thus difficult to rank for. Unless you are the leading authority in the SEO space — think Neil Patel, Brian Dean, or Rand Fishkin — it’s impossible to rank for such a keyword.
Your best bet is to pick a medium tail keyword (2–3 words) or a long tail keyword (3+ words) with high search volumes.
Medium tail keywords:
- Life coach training
- SEO friendly content
- Best SEO tools
Long-tail keywords:
- SEO optimized article writing
- Article SEO writing services
- Cheap SEO content writing tools
To find the search volume and difficulty score of a keyword phrase, you need SEO tools. Some are premium, others free (or freemium). You can manually do keyword research, which might take you hours, or you can use these SEO tools; they will do your keyword research within minutes. All you have to do is type in a keyword phrase and then export the results.
How to do keyword research
There are many strategies for keyword research; I don’t want to make this post more exhaustive than it already is, so I’m only going to share my favorite strategies.
First, choose a word relevant to your industry or niche. I’m going to type in a medium tail keyword in Google keyword planner, which is free.
You want the competition to be medium or high. The higher it is, the more advertisers are bidding on the keyword.
The keyword phrase “best SEO tools” gets at least 1K searches every month. That’s good, but as you can see, there is no indicator of how hard or easy it is to rank for this keyword. That’s why SEO tools come in handy. Though this report comes directly from Google, it doesn’t show you an accurate report.
When you’re not using an SEO tool, which is okay, it’s safer to go after long-tail keyword phrases that get at least 500 searches per month.
A must-have tool for SEO is the Ubersuggest chrome extension. Download it and add it to your extensions. Once activated, it’ll give you the search volume, the SD (SEO difficulty), and CPC (cost per click) of your search queries, among other metrics.
There! The SEO difficulty of the keyword “best free SEO tools” is 14. That’s a great score. When you’re a beginner SEO writer, go after keyword phrases with a difficulty score of less than 20.
Best paid tools to use for keyword research
- Ahrefs: Considered the top SEO tool with a monthly plan that starts at $99.
- SEMrush: Great user interface and awesome tool. Its monthly plan starts at $119.
- Moz Pro: It starts at $99.
- Ubersuggest: Are you brand new to SEO? this affordable tool would be ideal for you. It starts at $12 a month.
- Keyword Finder: It doesn’t have the features other tools have, but its keyword accuracy score is on-point. It starts at $49 per month.
Best free tools to find valuable keywords
- Google Suggest: When you go to Google, type in a word and you’ll get a list of suggestions. That’s the search engine telling you what people are searching for.
- Answerthepublic: Want to know what questions people are asking? Head to Answerthepublic and type in a keyword phrase.
- Google trends: You can track what topics are trending by typing in a keyword phrase into these tools.
- Reddit: It is a goldmine of keyword ideas. Head over to Reddit, type in a word in the search bar related to something you’re selling.
For example, let’s say you sell organic dog food. Go to Reddit, search for “dogs”, choose a Subreddit, and go through the discussion threads and questions.
Find a question with lots of comments. Add the keyword “canned dog food” to your list of ideas.
You can use a free SEO tool called “Keyworddit” that’ll cut your keyword research time in half. It’ll scan Reddit and give you the search volume of words people use.
3- Write epic posts
To knock out a page that sits on the first page of Google, write an epic 3000+ word blog post that adds enormous value to the reader. Create epic guides, listicles, and how-to articles. These are the posts that do well on Google.
Long reads of 3000+ words get 3X more traffic, 4X more shares, and 3.5X more backlinks than articles of average length (900–1200) Source
To ensure your article’s quality is good, your writing and grammar must be impeccable. Use a tool like ProWritingAid to help you proofread and edit content. There is simply no room for grammatical or punctuation mistakes. That’s how good your content must be. It needs to be good enough that everyone will want to engage with it, share it online, bookmark it, link to it, and rave about it; an average 1200-word post wouldn’t achieve these results.
How to create epic posts
- Check the SERPs. Type in the keyword you want to rank for on Google.
- Go through the top 10 results on Google. They’ll give you an idea of what kind of post you’ll need to write. Read every single page and take notes of gaps and opportunities. What did they have in common? What did they miss covering?
- Create an outline based on your notes.
- Check the word count of every page using a tool like Wordcounter. What’s the average count? If it’s 2000 words, then prepare to write a 2500–3000-word blog post.
Optimize your posts for SEO
To optimize your articles for SEO, you need to know where to put your primary and secondary keyword phrases. That’s it. When Google sees the same words repeated throughout an article, it knows what it’s about.
6 places to put your main keyword phrase:
- In the title: make sure it’s unique and catchy. It needs to correspond to search intent, and it should comprise 15 to 40 characters.
- In the first 100–150 words: Mention your target keyword once here. Be careful not to stuff your article with it. Google penalizes for keyword stuffing.
- In the URL: It should be short, descriptive, and easy to read. It should also contain your main keyword phrase.
- In one heading (H1): It may include “why”, “how” or numbers
- In the meta description (140–160 characters): it must be unique and enticing. It should trigger an emotion. It should have target keywords and should convince the reader to click.
- Add LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords: These are words related to your keyword phrase. Sprinkle them throughout the rest of the article. Use a free tool like LSIgraph to generate LSI keyword ideas.
These little tweaks, of course, are only the icing on the cake. They show Google what your content is about. Before anything, your article needs to be the best. It has to satisfy the reader.
Besides adding keywords, there are other optimization shortcuts that are just as important.
For example, your article must be easy to skim. According to a study from the Webdam, only about 20% of people read the content during an average visit. And of those people, only read about 28% of the content before bouncing. So, it’s safe to say people aren’t processing most of your content.
Your readers won’t read your article word for word until they skim it first. When they like what they see, then they’ll go back to the intro and read your article from the beginning… hopefully.
So how do you write skimmable articles?
12 Best practices for article SEO optimization
- Avoid keyword stuffing: Google penalizes content with repetitive keyword phrases
- Write epic, long-form posts
- Sprinkle your article with LSI keywords — words relevant to your industry or niche
- Publish on a high domain authority site
- Images, GIFs, and videos: For every article you write, adding a few pictures here and there will give your readers a break. Besides, readers get turned off when seeing vast blocks of text. Images make articles look appealing to the reader. Also, optimize your images for SEO by adding a descriptive ALT tag to provide alternative text for Google.
- Lists and bullet points: Instead of writing long sentences and paragraphs, use bulleted or numbered lists to break up your text.
- White spaces: Write 2 to 3 sentences maximum. This will optimize your content for mobile readers.
- Write the way you speak: Write at a 4th-grade level. Your tone must be conversational. When you write, think of yourself as you’re addressing a friend over a cup of coffee. It helps to think of one particular person — your target audience.
- Avoid weak words: “stuff”, “some”, or “thing” are weak. Instead, use power and emotional words. Also, limit the use of the passive voice. Often, it’s unnecessary.
- Use H1 to H6 subheading: Subheadings make articles skimmable. Readers can visualize your topics and jump from one point to another.
- Quotes, statistics, and infographics: They add authority, credibility, and trust to your readers. If you create your own infographics, other websites will use them and link to you.
- Internal and external linking: Getting backlinks may be the most important part of this list. They boost up a site’s domain authority and thus allow you to climb up the search rankings.
4- Big sites take care of technical SEO for you
Remember that little hack I talked about before?
That’s the domain authority. When you publish your articles on Medium or on other big sites like Forbes, The New York Times, or The Washington Post, you don’t need to worry about the technical side of SEO. High authority sites with high domain scores take care of that for you. In other words, you have an unfair advantage. If you write a pillar post and publish it on a high domain authority site, chances are you can knock out at least one website with low domain authority and a few backlinks.
There are two things you absolutely must do when you decide to publish:
- Link to your other posts within your blog (internal links)
- Have other people link to you (external links)
To identify a website’s domain authority, you need to Install the Ubersuggest chrome extension.
DA stands for domain authority. A website like Forbes has a DA of 95.
Medium has a DA of 95. The beauty of publishing articles on Medium is, it’s free; you can self-publish, and if you do everything right as far as SEO, your articles will most likely rank on Google.
3 things you need to optimize before publishing on Medium
There are 3 things you need to optimize for maximum views and rankings: tags, the SEO title, and the SEO description.
If you decide to publish here, click on the 3 dots at the top right. Go to settings.
Since you’re aiming for top rankings on Google, this step is crucial. The SEO description and the SEO title are what searchers see first. Tags are for relevancy. For example, if you’re writing an article about marketing, choose the most relevant tags, such as “marketing”, “social media”, “business”, “content”.
In the screenshot above, The SEO title is “Learn to get more claps...” The SEO description is what’s below. I included “get more claps” because it was my main keyword phrase.
If you’re new to SEO, go after a low competitive keyword phrase. Always remember that if your goal is to rank. The odds of your article ranking are slim when you’re competing with large brands. Know who you’re competing against. Check the SERPs first before you create content.
To do that, open all the pages that come up after typing your chosen keyword phrase. Then read all of them one by one. The point is to find a common gap. Ask yourself these questions:
What did they miss covering?
What can I add to my content that other pages don’t have?
What keywords did they use? What keywords did they not use?
Whether you’re looking for an SEO content writer or service — or want to learn how to do SEO writing yourself — the steps in this post are a game-changer.
Follow every step, write a remarkable article, reach out to power linkers and influencers in your niche for backlinks, and then promote your article to the moon and back.
Happy ranking!
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