Whether you are a fresh content writer or have experience in this field, it’s important to have some guideline on how to write SEO content. After all, you want to keep your audience engaged while making sure that you are improving search engine rankings at the same time. Your content has to be rich with keywords but also relatable and informative for users.
In this review, I will be sharing with you examples of high quality contents and also show you some best performing websites to get your contents from. Sight tight!
Examples of High Quality Contents
Contractor License Requirements, TrustedPros
Nicole Silver, PR & Digital Marketing Specialist
Key SEO factors: Fills a content gap, answers a question, deeply researched, comprehensive
My team discovered that there was little-to-no information that answered the question, “Is my contractor licensed?” We figured that we should create some pages that satisfied this need. For us, it wasn’t so much a matter of blowing any content out of the water or writing content that was better than existing pieces. We just needed to provide a well-researched answer to a question that people were asking but had no actual aggregated resource for.
I produced the content by doing some intense research on skilled trades qualifications. I called trade boards and government agencies. I looked at every trade industry webpage I could. If there were inconsistencies in the information online, I would call a representative. I combined all that research into one page per province in an organized matter. I made sure that we had answered for every relevant trade in the home improvement industry. It worked. These pages still rank on the first page — even the first result — of direct and indirect Google searches.
How to Keep Jewelry Safe at Home, Hidden Door Store
Jon Harris, Marketing and Business Development Lead
Key SEO factors: Researched, linked to quality sources, targets long-tail keyword, image optimization, consistently updated for freshness
We created a top-ranking SERP result that really surprised me — it wasn’t intentional! And it wasn’t just any term, but rather the highly valuable and targeted “home jewelry safe” (rank two) and even “jewelry safe” (rank four). Each click costs over $3.50 with equivalent AdWords listings, so we’re essentially getting $1,000+ worth of free inbound traffic to our website monthly. For a small company, that’s a lot.
Our one-year-old website, with very few resources and backlinks, was able to achieve this unintentionally, as I was aiming for the longer-tail, less-searched and less-valuable keyword: “How to Keep Jewelry Safe at Home” (50 searches per month).
We have an extremely unusual product: We sell complete secret door systems — bookcases and mirror doors that can easily be installed in place of a closet door, for example, turning a walk-in closet into a beautifully hidden and elegantly secure area. People find it fascinating, but to find actual buyers we have to reach highly targeted demographics — those who care about securing valuable jewelry at home is a great example.
Here’s how we generated the content:
- Used Google Keyword Planner to see what people were searching in the first place
- Did a lot of Google searching on the topic of securing jewelry
- Found actual surveys of burglars’ responses
- Highlighted key facts and phrases from articles — I could fill in the rest of the content based off of that
Here’s how we (accidentally) ranked for these great terms:
- The term “jewelry safe” happened to be contained in the longer-tail keyword we were targeting
- Linked to high-ranking sources like news articles
- Repurposed existing file images and renamed and tagged them for our page’s keyword
- Created relatively long page content (compared to most product pages!) of 500+ words
- Submitted the page directly to Google
- Rewrote 25 percent or so of the content every three months
- Put the page in our main navigation
- Linked from internal pages to this page, using our target keyword (“jewelry safe” once I realized it was ranking)
- Waited six to nine months!
The Photographer’s Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing, FeedbackWrench
Eric Johnson, Digital Content Creator
Key SEO factors: Written for a specific audience, answers questions, comprehensive, visuals
I wrote a piece that surged toward the first page on Google for the search term “Digital Marketing for Photographers.” The post was written as a result of some significant mistakes I was seeing personal friends make while attempting to market their photography businesses. Soon after sharing, these friends told me that the content answered lots of their questions. And then I found it on page one for the corresponding Google search.
I came to the conclusion that no keyword optimization method will work as effectively as a great post that’s extremely relevant and niche focused. Immediately after posting the article, I got great feedback from photographers I knew and photographers that I’d never met. My company even brought on a photographer as a client as a direct result of the post.
Even so, the success in the SERPs was a surprise. It’s my theory that the page won on relevancy alone. There was just enough of a keyword focus to help Google understand the topic, and the rest of the results came from the value that the post provided. When it reached page one, it had no backlinks and no other significant off-page signals. According to Moz, our site didn’t even have a high domain authority at the time. Since writing this post, I’ve redefined my strategy to focus on relevancy first.
How Much Time Do People Spend on Their Mobile Phones in 2017?, Text Request
Kenneth Burke, Marketing Director
Key SEO factors: Answers a question, in-depth research, charts and visuals, appropriate readability for targeted audience
If you search for something like “How much do we use our phones?” the average article is from a major news source covering one recent study or announcement. The really good content covers a new report and some historical data. They answer the question, but they aren’t memorable.
To create something 10X better, I covered several recent and in-depth studies, gave a historical breakdown, put it all into layman’s terms, and gave our audience actionable next steps. I also included charts and other helpful visuals throughout the article. That article now shows up at the top of search results and gets around 15,000 hits a month.
Best Luxury Outdoor Furniture Brands, Decor Interiors
Bill Ferris, President
Key SEO factors: Keyword and competitor research, answers questions, semantic terms, image optimization, linking strategy, promotion
Decor Interiors is an e-commerce retail outlet that operates in the highly competitive industry of upscale home and office furnishings. We carry a number of high-end outdoor furniture brands that are not as prevalent online as their indoor counterparts, but still command a high bid for top placement in Google AdWords.
Rather than spend a lot of money on paid search and try to compete with large competitors with deep pockets like Wayfair, we decided that it would be better to create and promote robust content that would attract organic traffic as a result of top SERP performance and hopefully generate a Featured Snippet.
Topic Generation: Initially, I simply entered “outdoor furniture” into Answer the Public to see what relevant questions and phrases are most often searched. I then plugged these questions into Google search to see which ones generated Featured Snippets.
Keyword Research: I used Answer the Public, Google AdWords, Ahrefs and Google search results to identify keywords and their relative search volume. When a query resulted in a Featured Snippet, I looked to see which words were bolded in many of the results — an indication that Google found value in them.
Content Creation: Using the questions and phrases that were identified, I created an article that listed the top high-quality brands in patio furniture. A competitor had the top spot and listed their top 10, so I upped the ante and developed the top 15 (later expanded to 20). I made sure that the name of the blog post answered one of the key questions that generate a Featured Snippet — “Best Luxury Outdoor Furniture Brands.” Other questions were asked and/or answered in many of the header tags in the article.
In this particular instance, I made sure to include semantic terms like patio, deck, garden, poolside as well as high end, expensive, high quality, premium, etc. I also added many images whose filenames included the relevant keywords or brands. In addition, I made sure to have outbound links to relevant authoritative websites and internal links to other blog posts that answered additional questions or solved problems.
Promotion: Once the article posted to our main website, I elevated awareness by posting it to a variety of resources. I did promoted posts on Facebook and Twitter, as well as posted a link to the article on Google+, Reddit and industry site Houzz. Additionally, I included backlinks to the article in guest posts that we have commissioned on other authoritative sites and made comments in various forums with backlinks to the article.
Result: After a few weeks, we saw a dramatic improvement in our keyword performance and SERP of the article itself. Once we were on the first page of the Google SERP, I continued to tweak and add to the article until we replaced the previous Featured Snippet. This has generated substantial increases in organic and repeat traffic to our site and has resulted in new sales of outdoor furniture.
[Note: As of 2021, this article does not exist in the same capacity it did at the time of originally publishing this post, but the SEO examples and tips still hold true today.]
Top Companies to Watch out For
SEARCH ENGINE LAND
Search Engine Land provides insights into Google and other search engine updates and explains industry trends. It shares plenty of tactics and strategies that help its readers launch successful SEO campaigns.
From daily news coverage to in-depth analysis of new features, Search Engine Land is one of the go-to websites for SEO professionals.
MOZ
With over half a million active members, Moz is the largest community of SEOs. The company uses that community to share industry knowledge and shed some light on the mysteries of search engines.
It has endless resources for everyone from beginner to pro, so its one of the best places to start if you’re looking to learn more about SEO or hone your tactics.
CONTENT MARKETING INSTITUTE
SEO is one of those aspects of digital marketing that touches pretty much everything. It’s a very wide umbrella that includes content marketing.
Content marketing doesn’t necessarily mean SEO, but it also doesn’t not mean SEO, which is why it’s on this list.
Content Marketing Institute is a leader in content marketing education and training. If you’re new to content strategy and creation, CMI is a good place to start to grow your knowledge. It has guides and templates that will get you on the right path.
BACKLINKO
Brian Dean has made a name for himself and his blog, Backlinko, by publishing huge studies and guides full of SEO advice.
He claims to share only tips and strategies that work and will get you higher rankings. He publishes posts about how he increased his organic traffic by crazy-high percentages in a short amount of time and definitive guides for building backlinks and keyword research.
AHREFS
Ahrefs has one of the biggest databases of backlinks, and — since, again, everything the light touches is SEO — backlinks are a huge part of that.
But Ahrefs doesn’t only do backlinks; it has detailed tutorials, case studies, and articles from industry experts. It’s always a good idea to have Ahrefs in your bookmarks folder and as an integral part of your marketing toolbox.
SEMRUSH
SEMrush is another powerful tool in your marketing arsenal, made by marketers for marketers. It originated as an in-house tool for its own marketing efforts, but then it became one of the biggest SEO tools in the industry.
SEMrush offers a blog and webinars full of information to help you grow your SEO knowledge and your business.
BULLSEYE
That’s right; we’re going to plug our own blog in a list of top SEO sites to watch, because we have no shame, and we think you’d really enjoy it.
Our blog has a lot of helpful SEO and content marketing posts for professionals in marketing at all levels. We also do our best to make sure our content is easy to understand for business owners who don’t have a huge marketing team at their disposal and need to do it themselves.
We also send a newsletter once a month so that you won’t be bombarded with emails. All you’ll get is a friendly email from an SEO site written by your friendly neighborhood digital marketing agency. It makes it easy to keep up with the digital marketing trends and tips we’re writing about each week.
SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL
Search Engine Journal is a helpful website full of marketing news and information. Even though it discusses a lot more than just SEO on Search Engine Journal, it’s known for its astute insights and helpful strategies.
Whether you want to know about industry news or the newest SEO trends for the next year, SEJ is the place to be.
YOAST
We’ve written before about how the Yoast plugin is basically spellcheck for your SEO. It’s a helpful tool for those just starting out writing SEO content and for those of us who need a second set of eyes just in case.
Yoast also offers SEO basics and training on its website so you can grow your knowledge. It’s a good place to start if you have questions that need answers, such as “which pages should I noindex or nofollow?” and “why doesn’t Google index my content properly?”
NEIL PATEL
Like Backlinko and Brian Dean, Neil Patel has built a name for himself as a knowledgeable SEO expert. He posts huge guides on SEO and content marketing that are some of the best resources around.
If you’re just starting out, his blog is full of 101 guides that are comprehensive and easy to understand.
Conclusion
SEO content writing is one of the fastest growing trends for advertising on the Internet. Seo content sites work on the principle that each page has keywords designed to attract search engine traffic. The better your SEO content writing, the more traffic you will get on your site. But it’s not just about getting new visitors. This type of advertising is about turning those visitors into customers and keeping them coming back for more time after time.