Content Design Chronicles: How to write good SEO content

The myth of SEO content 

Some content teams may choose to split their work into two buckets: Brand and SEO. Your brand content is led by company messaging, while your SEO content uses keywords as its north star. 

The problem with this? Well, there are a few.

• It creates silos among your writers, as they are singing from two different hymn sheets. And, as any marketer will tell you, silos are a big no-no. 
• Your tone of voice will differ wildly from piece to piece. Though some fluctuation is natural (it would be odd if a factsheet on security features had the same vibe as a Halloween “just for fun” post), your readers should be able to recognize your brand voice in every type of content you publish. 
• You might unwittingly feed into the notion that SEO strips your content of all imagination because you’re bound by the required keywords, and Brand is the only place you’re allowed to have creative freedom. 

On that last point, I’m guilty of once believing in it. I thought the SEO world was too full of rules — I wanted to be free to frolic in Brand, where the possibilities are endless! It’s like the “best of both worlds” concept never entered my head (more on that later). 

And, frankly, it’s redundant to class any content as SEO-focused now because the assumption is that all your online content should be SEO-focused. If you fail to recognize the value of SEO optimization for your written copy, you’ll be relegated to the dark ages, along with those restaurants that refuse to have a working website. (I just want to read the menu!)

It takes two

When you strip away those misconceptions, the reality is that SEO needs content, and content needs SEO. In the spirit of partnership (or “cross-functional collaboration,” as we say in the biz), it’s best to ditch the idea that it’s one team vs. the other. Your SEO team should work closely with your content team, both supporting each other toward one common goal. 

Good copy becomes great when there’s a strong partnership with give and take from both of those teams. Sometimes, SEO experts need to fight back on a flowery piece that will do nothing for your traffic or leads targets. Sometimes, content writers need to fight back on an unusable keyword, or the amount of times it should be used. (I once tried an SEO tool that said I would reach my optimum ranking if only I just used a specific keyword 28 more times. Twenty-eight!)

You could write beautiful prose but, unfortunately, you’re not Taylor Swift with an army of rabid fans hanging on your every word. When you work in content marketing, you need SEO experts in your corner. You might know how to write a snappy one-liner, but they know what will rank.

3 steps to optimize SEO content

OK, so enough of the “what not to do” list. Now, I want to share some tips I’ve learned over the years that might help you break down that mental barrier you have about writing content that actually delivers. (Bear in mind: I’ve done the exact opposite of this advice on multiple occasions. That’s how I know these tips actually work!)

Step 1: Start with a brief

A basic enough first step for a writer, no? Maybe, but I’ve been burned by this one before. I thought if I wrote a great article and then passed it over to SEO review for a light sprinkling of keywords, my work would be done. Until I realized that I had not created a good foundation that matched those keywords. Like, at all. 

Instead, I think it’s better to start with your keywords as the foundation and then build your content around it. SEO should not be an afterthought. You should ask your SEO team to provide a short content brief upfront so you know exactly what you’re aiming to rank for, rather than scrambling to shoehorn some keywords in at the final stages.

Step 2: Write bad, then good 

I stole this tip from the great John Swartzwelder of “The Simpsons” fame, who said: “I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue … Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done … All I have to do from that point on is fix it.” 

When you write your first draft of SEO-optimized content, including all the suggested keywords, it will not be good. And that’s OK. Go away for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes. You’ll spot new, less clunky ways to work those difficult keywords in, and possibly even opportunities to add them in less obvious places, like your meta text. Or you’ll discover that you simply must throw that unusable one in the trash.

Step 3: Speak from the heart

That’s a poetic way of saying, “Get real.” In an AI-wary world where authenticity is increasing in value, your readers can smell insincerity a mile off. And Google has already caught on to this fact, prioritizing content that follows its E-A-T guidelines. If you don’t have real-world experience on this topic, should you really be writing about it? 

As our CMO Christine Royston put it, “Marketers can see other marketers coming.” If your readers are willingly visiting a company’s blog page (hi!), then they’re likely already wise to your tricks. They don’t value vague statements clumsily attached to keywords, touting the virtues of a brand without explaining how that relates to the target audience. What they do want to see is personalized copy, clearly written by a human being who has lived a life. They want insider tips from actual experts and real-life examples of how your brand will actually help them in their own lives.

Anyway, before I go, I’d like to add a few words straight from the heart:

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Now, go forth and write something that delights your SEO team and doesn’t make your director of content want to cry.

Thanks for joining us for the first in our Content Design Chronicles series. Stay tuned for the next edition!