How to Write SEO Articles in Four Easy Steps?

Last Updated on May 17, 2023 by Jordan Alexo

Are you struggling to get traffic to your website or blog? Are you tired of seeing your content buried deep in search engine results pages? If so, then this post is for you.

Nowadays, having a well-written and optimized article can make all the difference in when your content gets seen or not. For this reason, it’s important to know how to write SEO articles that rank high on Google and other search engines.

In this guide, you’ll discover four easy steps to help you write SEO content, from conducting keyword research to optimizing your content for search engines.

So let’s get started!

Key Takeaways

• SEO article writing is essential to boost organic traffic, help search engines understand your content, and make a website look more authoritative.
• Before writing SEO articles, it is important to understand keyword research, search intent, content optimization, and digital tools.
• A 4-step process can be followed to write SEO articles; this includes keyword research, creating an outline, writing the article with proper formatting, and optimizing for SEO with meta titles and descriptions and Internal/External links.

Why Is SEO Article Writing Important?

Before jumping anywhere, you might wonder, “Why is this skill important?” You have three main reasons:

1 – Boost Your Organic Traffic

If you want people to find your content online, you must make it findable. In other words, you need to optimize your articles to appear on the first page of search engine results (SERP).

The more web pages you rank well, the more likely you will get organic traffic to your website.

2 – Help Search Engines Understand Your Content

Without properly optimizing your articles, search engines may not fully understand what your content is about. This can lead to your content being buried deep in search results, where very few people will find it.

3 – You Make Yourself Look More Authoritative

Whenever you make a search query and you see the same site constantly appearing at the top results, what do you think? You are likely to think that the website is more authoritative and trustworthy.

The same happens if you consistently produce high-quality SEO articles that appear at the top of the search results. Other people will view you as an expert in your field. And this can help you drive more traffic to your website.

What Must You Know Before Starting To Write SEO Articles?

Anyway, to write effective SEO articles, you must understand the following:

• Keyword Research: Knowing what keywords your target audience uses to search for information.
• Search Intent: Understand why people search for those keywords and what type of content they want.
• Content Optimization: Optimize your content to include those target keywords and fulfill users’ search intent.
• Digital Tools: Utilizing SEO tools like WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO and RankMath.

Knowing this information is crucial to writing content that Google loves and will drive traffic to your website.

4 Steps To Help You Write SEO Articles

Now that you have some basic understanding of what it takes to write effective SEO articles, here are four steps that can help you get started:

Step 1 – Keyword Research

If you want your article to appear in the top search results, you need to start by researching keywords.

This means figuring out which keywords your target audience is searching for and incorporating them strategically throughout your article.

Also, keyword research helps you understand the mindset and intent of your target audience and what type of content they’re looking for. However, it’s essential to understand the difference between short-tail and long-tail keywords.

What Are Short-Tail Keywords?

These are broad search terms, usually consisting of one or two words. For example:

• Buy Shoes
• Healthy Eating
• Travel Tips

These keywords often have high search volume but are also highly competitive. Also, people searching for these keywords often have a more general intent, and it can be challenging to rank for them.

What Are Long-Tail Keywords?

These are specific search terms, usually consisting of three or more words. For example:

• Where to buy affordable running shoes
• Best AI-Writer Tools For Beginners
• Healthy meal planning for vegetarians on a budget

As you can see, these keywords are more targeted and specific. And more than 70% of online searches are for long-tail keywords.

So when you do keyword research, make sure to focus initially on long-tail keywords because they’re easier to rank and more likely to attract your targeted audience.

What’s The Best Keyword Research Strategy?

You have many different ways to find keywords for your articles. You may use Google’s keyword planner or other SEO tools.

Anyway, one of my favorite ways is to use Semrush. This powerful tool helps you find and analyze long-tail keywords relevant to your niche. So here’s how you can do this:

1 – Enter your seed keyword. For instance, “AI Tool.”

2 – Select “Keyword Magic Tool” from the menu on the left side of the page.

3 – Choose related keywords

4 – Apply the following filters, “KD Score Less Than 20,” and click on volume so you have may the ones with the highest volume on top.

Note: You can increase the KD score filter if your website has a high authority.

5 – Go through the list and choose the long-tail keywords that look good.

You should consider making a list of your chosen long-tail keywords. That way, you have nice options to use for your future articles.

Step 2 – Creating an Outline

I always start my articles with a good outline. This gives me a clear structure and direction for my writing. In a way, it helps me more quickly and efficiently get my ideas onto the page.

How Can You Create An Outline?

First, research your main keyword on Google and find the top-ranking articles relevant to your topic. You want to open these articles and note the main points being covered.

These main points serve as a guide to crafting your own outline. You may pass all these points to your WordPress editor or Google documents. Afterward, make these points H1, H2, or H3 depending on their importance and relevance to your topic.

You want to make your article easily skimmable for your readers. For this reason, using headings and subheadings is crucial.

It should look something like this:

You may also include any important ideas or information you want to cover. The goal is to have a solid framework for your article that covers the topics more in detail; or has a different perspective or approach from the top-ranking articles you researched.

Step 3 – Writing the Article

Now that you have a solid outline, it’s time to start writing your article. You want to fill in each section with relevant and valuable content to help your readers.

1 – Introduction

Begin with a hook sentence that grabs your reader’s attention and makes them want to read more. Here are a few examples of great hook intros:

• Data-Driven Intro: Start with a stat or fact that related to your topic
• Personal Story: Share a personal story that is related to your topic.
• Pain-Driven: Highlight a pain point your readers may be experiencing and show them how your article will provide solutions.

2 – Body

The body of your article should be organized according to the outline you created in Step 2. Also, use clear and concise language, and provide examples or evidence where necessary.

I also enjoy using bullet points whenever possible. This helps to break up the content and make it more easily digestible for your readers.

3 – Conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize the main points of your article and provide a call to action for your readers. The CTA doesn’t necessarily need to be a sale pitch. But instead, for someone to read another article, subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on social media.

Also, some readers don’t read your full post. Often they jump to the conclusion to get an idea of what the article is about. For this reason, providing a summary is essential.

Step 4: Optimizing for SEO

The last step in writing SEO articles is optimizing your content for both search engines and human readers. Your article should include relevant keywords that your readers are searching for without overstuffing them.

Furthermore, your article may include descriptive images, graphics, and call-to-action buttons to make it more interesting.

All this helps increase your site’s retention time and improves your search engine rankings.

Note: Your content should solve your audience’s problems and provide them with valuable information. It shouldn’t be solely focused on pleasing search engines.

Anyway, let’s go more in-depth about SEO optimization:

1 – Utilizing Meta Titles and Descriptions

One crucial aspect of this is utilizing meta titles and descriptions. If you don’t know what those are, they’re the titles and descriptions that appear in search engine results pages (SERPs).

It’s important to include your main keyword in the title. The description should also be compelling, but Google no longer uses it for ranking purposes.

Here are a few examples:

• 11 Simple Tips To Maximize Your Productivity
• How To Bake A Delicious Apple Pie In 15 Minutes
• 15 Best Restaurants in Paris

I enjoy using numbers in my titles as they generate more clicks and interest from readers. Also, include your exact match keyword in the title tag, but make sure it sounds natural.

If you are using WordPress, you should consider installing an SEO plugin like Yoast or Rankmath. These plugins let you easily optimize your meta title and descriptions.

2 – Relevant Keywords on H1, H2 Etc.

Another critical step is to include your main and secondary keywords in the heading tags (H1, H2, etc.). This helps search engines understand the theme of your article better. And improves the chances of your article ranking higher on the search results page.

Your most important keyword should be included in the H1 tag, while your secondary keyword can be used in the H2 or other headings tags.

Also, to keep things simple, you should use the same title for your H1 tag as your meta title. This way, people who click on your article will see the same title and won’t get confused.

3 – URL Extension

Another way to optimize your article for search engines is by using a URL extension that contains your exact main keyword. For example:

A blog post about “AI Writer Tools” should have the URL extension: “yourblogname.com/ai-writer-tools.”

This helps Google more easily understand the context of your article and makes it more likely to rank higher on the search results page.

4 – Including Internal and External Links

Once your post is written, you want to include internal links to other relevant posts on your website. For instance, if you’re writing an article about “10 ways to improve your SEO,” you can include internal links to other articles on your website related to SEO.

As a result, Google spiders will have an easier time crawling your website and understanding the structure of your content. Also, it gives your readers extra value by directing them to other articles they may find interesting or helpful.

External links (backlinks) are also essential to improve your article’s SEO. You don’t always need to add them, but for more competitive search terms, having quality external links can make a significant difference in ranking higher on search engine results pages.

To get these external links, you have many strategies. For instance, when you write a guest post for another site. You may include a link on that content back to your site. These external links will help your site rank higher on Google.

5 – Enhancing Readability with Proper Formatting

I already mentioned using headings and subheadings to separate your content. But another part is to keep:

• Paragraphs are short and easy to read. It should have two to three sentences at most.
• Using bullet and number lists to break up large chunks of text and make important points stand out.
• Your font should be an appropriate size, and it should be easy to read. I like keeping it at least 16 pixels to avoid eye strain or difficulty reading from mobile devices.
• Adding images and videos to your post can greatly improve the readability and engagement of your article.
• Lastly, use Grammarly or another writing tool to check for spelling and grammar errors.
• Your page length should

Using these formatting techniques, you can make your article more visually appealing and easier to read for your audience. All these encourage your readers to stay on your website longer.

Bonus Step – How To Use Scalenut To Quickly Produce A Blog Post

Now that you have an idea of some essential SEO writing, you might wonder how to speed up the process. Well, one tool that can help you is Scalenut.

This SEO tool combines on-page optimization with AI writer assistance. In other words, you can use Scalenut’s AI to generate and optimize content for SEO.

 So, here’s how it works:

Step 1 – Login To Your Scalenut Dashboard

Once you have an account with Scalenut, log in to your dashboard and select “Article Writer.”

Step 2 – Enter Your Seed Keyword Or Topic

In the “Article Writer” section of your Scalenut dashboard, enter a seed keyword or topic related to the article you want to write.

The keyword I’m going to use for this example is “how to make my website more visible on Google.”

Now Scalenut will determine the most important topics and subtopics related to your main keyword to help you create a well-structured outline for your article.

Step 3 – Choose “Cruise Mode”

You want to select this option, so you may let Scalenuts’ artificial intelligence generate your outline and the rest of your article. Anyway, you must first describe your article.

So the AI can better understand what you’re trying to accomplish. In my case:

Step 4 – Title

You have a selection of AI-generated titles you can use for your article. Use the one that sounds the best and reflects what your article is about.

I chose the “top-ranked” title because it sounds more catchy and informative.

Step 5 – Step Outline

Now Scalenut’s AI-generated an outline based on your seed keyword and the description you provided. You may rewrite several of the outline points or add your own. But this provides a helpful starting point for organizing your article.

Step 6 – Generate Writing Points

Artificial intelligence creates writing points for each section of your outline. These points are suggestions for what you can include in your article based on the topic and subtopics selected by Scalenut.

Step 7 – Generate AI Content

Once you have your writing points, you can automatically use Scalenut’s AI Content generation tool to create the written content for each section.

After editing my content, I “export to editor,” where I can optimize my content further.

Step 8 – Use Scalenut’s SEO Mode

Your SEO score increases as your article becomes more optimized for search engines. You can see on the side suggested search terms that you might want to add throughout your post to improve your SEO rankings.

So, do your best to optimize your content and make it more reader-friendly. And there you go! You will have a well-structured and optimized article in no time with the help of Scalenut’s AI writer assistance.

Last Thoughts

Now you understand the four steps to write an SEO-friendly article. But let’s quickly recap:

You should first choose a focus keyword for your article. For this, you can use Semrush, Ahrefs, or Google Keyword Planner to do keyword research. However, I prefer to use Semrush and my secret sauce strategy to find low-tail keywords with decent search volume.

Once you have a couple of keywords, you want to research your competition and write an outline. The idea is to write an article that is even better than what your competitors produced.

Then, it’s time to write your article with a focus on creating quality content for the reader while optimizing for search engines.

And if you want to take it one step further, you can use AI writing tools like Scalenut to help you generate high-quality content quickly.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Jordan Alexo will reply shortly.