Content is king. It has been for years and always will be. However, just writing something or anything isn’t enough. There’s a guideline for writing for online marketing, and when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), articles and blogs have to follow a guideline to efficiently drive traffic to a website.

Also, posting fresh contents regularly is one of the easiest ways to introduce potential clients or customers to your brand. So how do professional SEO article writers do it? Well, different folks, different strokes, and there are really no hard and fast rules in writing style. But as said earlier, there are guidelines for articles to work. Three of the initial and probably most important guidelines lie on the keyword. Here are 3 secrets every SEO article writer would tell you.

Get An On Point Keyword Research

If you’re going to write for your website anyway, might as well tell Google about it. Know the keywords and keyword phrases people are searching about in your niche, and narrow down your choices where you can be most competitive in. Make a spreadsheet of keywords and keep track of how many times you use the keywords on your content.

There are tons of keyword tools you can use for precise and efficient keyword research, such as Google Keyword Planner, KWFinder, Moz’s Keyword Explorer, Keyword Tool, and SEMrush.

Use Your Keywords Right

A few years ago, SEO content writing is simply about writing and dumping keywords to the article or the blog post. The game however, is so different now. No matter how well you have done on your keyword research, they’re only as effective as how you use them. So while it’s a good idea to include highly targeted keywords all over your article, dumping and peppering your post with forced keywords won’t do much. Many times, it will even hurt the content. Thus, when using keywords, you have to be tactical and do it right the first time.

A good way to do this is to include your keyword in your title. Then in the first paragraph or first 300 words of your content. And if possible, include it in your first header (H1) or second heading (H2). Note that it’s not necessary to hit both. After which, you can now explore for variations of the keyword.

Also, when using keywords, it should come naturally to the copy. It must not be a struggle to fit your keywords to your content. If you feel like it’s sounding gibberish, then you’re doing it wrong.

Write About Something People Will Care and Read

Many times people think of SEO content writing as writing for Google algorithm (Yahoo! or Bing), and tend to forget they’re also writing for real, actual, human readers. So before you actually start writing, think of your readers, and even ask yourself, “Who would care to read this?”

Nobody knows your business like you do. So take advantage of your knowledge, skills, and experience. You can even interview some experts, or even quote them on your posts to support your statements.  Strive to be a voice of authority in your market and in your niche. Share valuable information, helpful tips, and answer people’s questions on your entries. Be of service to others with your articles and blog posts. Make it something worth reading. This way, you can leverage your SEO contents and even increase your readership as people will start to trust you.