Search engine optimization is the art of improving your website’s ranking in search results. It is a proven method for driving massive traffic from organic search queries and generating more leads.
This can be done using various tactics. One of these tactics is creating SEO-optimized content. Find a topic that is in high demand and develop content that readers and search engines alike will love. It will help you attract more page visits and boost conversions.
Today, we will discuss the importance of search engine optimization and how to create SEO-friendly content to increase visibility.
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What is Semrush?
Semrush is an all-in-one platform for SEO, competitor analysis, content marketing, and social media sharing. It is an essential tool for website owners to find new possibilities and increase traffic.
They have the world’s largest database of 27.9 billion keywords, 43 trillion backlinks, and 808 billion domain profiles, all updated daily to deliver the most accurate information to more than 10 million customers worldwide.
Find topics that can bring more traffic to your pages, optimize content for search engines, and promote them on social networks at a pre-defined schedule. Track your search rankings and spy on competitors to uncover their growth secrets. You can do all these things with an active Semrush account.
Semrush can audit your websites and backlinks frequently to detect complex SEO issues and bad backlinks on your site. It will also guide you on how to fix things to regain lost rankings and boost your income.
How to write an SEO-Optimized Blog Post and Rank on Top 10 Search Results?
Follow these steps to create an SEO-friendly article and rank it higher in SERPs.
1. Keyword research
Keyword research is a crucial step in the SEO process, but it doesn’t have to be extremely time-consuming. In fact, if you already have a blog post idea, you can usually get a good idea of what keywords you should be using from your brainstorming session.
If you’re not sure where to start or you want a little more direction, there are a number of free and paid tools you can use to find the keywords your audience is already searching for.
Semrush is my favorite tool for finding less-competitive, more profitable keywords. They have the world’s largest keyword database, with 27.9B keywords and 20M ideas for each keyword, sourced from 142 geographic locations. Thus, it serves maximum content opportunities for your business or blog.
Apply filters to uncover traffic-generation keywords and make more revenue from ad clicks. Prepare a list of related keyword phrases and questions to include in the content and maximize ranking potential.
Semrush is a great choice for detecting trending keywords in your niche with ranking difficulty and competition levels. It will also list the top 100 pages ranking for the keyword in Google SERPs. Open the top 10 pages in a new tab to collect important points and create evergreen content on your blog.
Monitor their individual metrics to spy on all ranking keywords and authoritative backlinks. Customize your SEO strategies to outrank competitors and obtain their traffic accordingly.
2. Keyword research vs topic research
First, let us define these two terms. Keyword research is finding the right keyword(s) for your content to make it rank higher in search engines. Topic research is finding the right topic to write your content around, making it more readable and useful.
When you engage in keyword research, you are looking for the right keyword(s) to get your content ranked higher in the search engines. By using specific keywords, you hope to attract more traffic.
Topic research, on the other hand, is about choosing the right topic to write your content around. With this, you hope your content will be helpful to your target audience.
Open your Content Marketing Toolkit on Semrush and search for a topic. For instance, search for ‘Search engine optimization’ to collect ideas.
Semrush will connect to search engines to retrieve data. It will display top-performing articles across categories in card format. Filter results by search volume, topic efficiency, and difficulty level.
Expand a card to view all suggestions in the category.
It will show the subtopic search volume, difficulty rate, and topic efficiency at the top. Tap the ‘+’ icon that appears next to each title to add it to your favorites. Semrush will create a new card using them. When finished selecting topics, shift to the Favorite Ideas tab.
From there, you can create an SEO Content Template for the topic or schedule the task for a future date. If there are multiple authors, click the last icon to create a Trello card and assign an author to ensure the content is prepared on time.
3. Create an SEO Content Template
Select the first option to create an SEO Content Template around the topic. It will redirect you to another screen.
Add more related keywords and change the target audience if needed. Click the ‘Create SEO Template’ button again.
Semrush will analyze the top 10 ranking pages for the keyword and suggest keywords to include in your content. It will also suggest the best backlink sources and text length to rank higher in SERPs.
Their basic recommendations cover the following points,
- Page title
- Target keywords
- H₁
- Meta description
- Average readability score
Next, you have two options. Either order content writing from expert authors on Semrush Marketplace or open the SEO Writing Assistant to create SEO-optimized content easily.
Semrush content writing services start at $40 per article. They will also handle email newsletter copies, infographics, stock-free images, videos, and much more. The content will be optimized for relevant keywords to drive maximum traffic from organic search queries.
If you are going to create content yourself, just go to the next step.
4. Use SEO Writing Assistant
SEO Writing Assistant helps you create SEO-friendly articles through real-time content checks and instant SEO recommendations. It reads texts as you type to ensure the content is original and properly optimized for target keywords. Follow on-screen suggestions to improve your readability score and attract visitors from all possible sources.
There are three ways to enable real-time SEO checks on your content,
- Semrush dashboard
- WordPress plugin
- Google Docs add-on
Open the SEO Writing Assistant from the left pane of the Content Marketing Dashboard and locate your SEO Content Template from the list. Tap the ‘Open in Semrush’ button to begin.
Enter your post title and content. Semrush analyzes them based on the given target keywords. It runs several SEO tests to ensure that the post is easy to read and keyword-rich.
Consider the following points to craft SEO-optimized content and boost search rankings,
- Write short sentences and paragraphs
- Add relevant images to attract visitors
- Optimize images for target keywords
- Point to external sources with do-follow link attributes
- Add internal links to send traffic between pages
- Fix grammatical mistakes with an online tool like Grammarly
- Check for plagiarism
SEO Writing Assistant has a built-in plagiarism checker to ensure the originality of your content. When finished, tap the Check button (Under Originality) to check for plagiarism. It will dig into the internet database and display results in a few moments.
If you are using WordPress, install Semrush SEO Writing Assistant to enable SEO checks on your post editor. It also works with Google Docs to provide instant recommendations and create SEO-friendly articles in just a few steps. Finally, publish the content as usual.
5. Track keywords
Semrush lets you track keywords across multiple channels with daily ranking updates. They are,
- Organic Research
- Position Tracking
Organic Research is an incredible tool for tracking organic keywords on any website. Sign in to Semrush and visit the SEO dashboard. Enter your website URL to view ranking keywords.
Locate the ‘Top Organic Keywords’ section and click on View all.
Now you will see all ranking keywords, including daily position changes, search volume, traffic percentage, and CPC.
Open Advanced filters and search for specific keywords to watch them closely.
Position Tracking is another tool for monitoring your website keywords, with weekly email notifications.
If your keyword rankings have been declining or not improving for a few days, you need to do some extra work to improve visibility. It includes,
- Update the content with more information. Read the top 10 ranking pages to get content update ideas.
- Create new high-authority backlinks. Write guest posts and use social bookmarking communities like Quora to market your content effectively and rank higher in SERPs.
Conclusion
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO tool for identifying high-demand keywords and developing a compelling article around the topic. Their SEO Content Template analyzes top-ranking pages and provides valuable content suggestions, such as related keywords, the best backlink sources, and recommended text length, to help you get more love from search engines.
Even though it may be difficult for most of us to create an SEO-optimized article without using an on-page SEO checker like SEO Writing Assistant. It is easy to use and supports popular platforms such as WordPress and Google Docs.
It reads your text in real-time and guides you on how to create an SEO-friendly blog post that can bring massive traffic from search engines. Follow recommendations to write high-quality content around your selected topic and rank in the top 10 search results.
Click here to sign up for a Semrush free trial and use all their premium tools for free (Semrush SEO Content Template + SEO Writing Assistant + Keyword Magic + Position Tracking & many others included)
Semrush
Semrush is an indispensable SEO platform for finding traffic-generating, money-making keywords in your niche. Collect variations of your target keywords and related questions to bring traffic from all matching queries. With SEO content templates, you can create high-quality content to increase your traffic and boost sales revenue.
From tapping hidden keywords to link building and competitor analysis to social media management, Semrush is a valuable asset for growing your business and blog. They have the world’s largest database of keywords, backlinks, and traffic data, updated daily. Therefore, you won’t regret buying a Semrush subscription plan.
