SEO Content Template

Before getting started writing your content, you may want to engage in a few of the following steps. Particularly if you are new to writing SEO friendly content or copy for your webpages. Depending on which website host or provider you use, the terminology and the way that you deliver the content may differ on this slightly.

Target Keywords

Decide what keywords you want your business to rank highly for. For example, if you own an IT business and you want to rank highly for website design, then the keywords would be ‘website design’ and semantically related descriptions, such as ‘website copy’, ‘build a website’, ‘best website builder’. This really is the foundation to build not only the copy that you have came here to write, but also your overall SEO presence. You also need to ensure that your keywords have a respectable search volume so you are appearing in frequently asked questions, as well as understand the search intent behind what your visitors are looking for. See our guide to the 4 types of search intent.

Analyse your competitors

Now that you’ve decided what your keywords are, it’s time to see what the competition is up to. You can do this either in a ‘competitor overview, analysis, review’ depending on how your SEO software labels this.

 Your software should be able to extract the keywords that your competitors focus on and see how many times that they refer to this in one blog post, website page, article etc. You may also find this helpful in looking at HOW they write their SEO content. A very small number of SEO software providers will research this for you automatically, usually under ‘SEO Content Template’. If however, you are just starting out and looking for a more affordable option, you can sign up to a free trial, or most SEO sites will allow you to research keywords for free. You will need to specify which country you would like this data for. In the example below, we have selected the UK but are given global data based on our software. 

This can be very helpful if you are trying to concentrate on a particular audience. If you do not have this option, you can simply Google, or search for your keywords, then have a look at the top results. If you read through their text, take note of how many times they reference your keywords, and that is just in the ways that are immediately obvious. Your competitors, if they feature number one, are likely using their keywords in slugs, anchor points, (which is a way of condensing what your content is about for Google’s or for the other search engines’ benefit). 

We will include an example of how to do this via wordpress below, H1 and other H sized headings, just to name a few. So, how can we write content that is authentic to ourselves, and can take on the competition?

Page titles and H Headings

Quite an easy start. If you are familiar with blogging or website copy, read on. If not, creating a H heading is as simple as creating a block on a new post, then choosing your H title. Ideally, this H heading should contain at least one of your target keywords at the beginning. An optimal length for headings is approximately 55 characters. Don’t worry about not being able to include it all within your page title, you can break this down into subsections with H1 or other H titles that contain your keywords. Try and create a H title for each keyword you wish to use. There is the argument amongst SEO providers whether to use ‘Long tail Keyword Headings’ which essentially involves writing a longer title, if however you are good at crafting copy as you will be by the time you’ve finished this article, you’ll have no need for it. 

Meta description

Here you are giving a short snippet of what your post or content is about, and it makes sense to try and contain keywords you are trying to rank highly for. This will be broken down to a meta title, description and slug (URL). If you do not use software to determine your meta title and description, Google and the other search engines will usually take the title of your page or blog, then the first line of text.

The Text

This is your chance to grasp your readers attention, to engage, cultivate interest in whatever profession, business, idea or passion project you are presenting. Here are some thoughts to consider when creating your text:

The subject audience: Think about your target audience, are you appealing to a novice who has no knowledge of the subject, someone with some understanding, or a highly intellectually based knowledge of the subject matter?

Keywords: Mention your target keywords as frequently as you can, without making it seem as if you are trying to do so. If you would like some inspiration, re-read this article and look for how many times ‘SEO’ and ‘Keywords’ have been mentioned so far. We’re sorry, not sorry. 

Backlinks: Many people who are new to SEO have not heard of the ‘back to front approach’. Traditionally, a backlink is any link you have created within your text that contains a link to another website or company. If you’re familiar with YouTube, you can use this to create essentially a ‘sub for sub’. Backlinks by novices tend to be displayed at the bottom of an article or post. The back to front approach recommends placing this at the top of an article. Ascendant Content (there are two more keywords) recommends neither. Backlink as much as you can throughout your text, titles, images (you can right click on an image then ctrl + k, cmd + k on mac’s). This ensures that you have as many different opportunities for your visitors to visit the links as possible, and if you have ad revenue or traffic marketing installed, this can be a massive financial gamechanger for your website, business, idea or passion project. 

Integration: In the same vein as backlinking, link to other areas of your site! Include calls to actions, i.e ‘you can purchase this here’, ‘subscribe to our newsletter to learn more’, if there is a subject they may be new to such as ‘What social media should I use?’ then include it. This is a great way of regenerating content that you have created and re-publishing it. 

Have fun: Ultimately, have fun! Writing is fun, and what could be more so than writing content that is going to ultimately engage people with your ideas, products and services? 

If you’re still stuck, or you would prefer for Ascendant Content to create some truly inspiring, SEO friendly content for you, you can contact us below.