How To Blog For The Search Engines With Little Or No SEO Knowledge

Generally if you write about your topic from the heart and with a good understanding of your niche you will do this automatically. You will end up with unique relevant content naturally.

However sometimes a little boost from the search engines to create that organic traffic is more than welcome. You may think that writing good copy that the search engines love is too technical or the knowledge to achieve it is one step too far.

So how can we begin to get a bit more targeted to squeeze a bit more from Google?

I have a great way of creating a content plan which will help you have numerous blog posts in draft ready to go whenever your creative juices dry that are keyword rich and highly targeted but still natural. This will help your optimisation

Go to the Google Adwords Tool (the external one is fine) and drop in your URL, Google will return with a big list of keywords short and long tail that it thinks your website is about. You will see a list of keywords, grouped by major subject, that Google thinks represents the content on your website. Some of it will be right on the money. But some will be rubbish or a little off the mark shall we say.

A keyword report for my site Steve Watson Online for example returns these subjects with a list of keywords for each one:

social media marketing (23), social media (14), internet marketing (15), online marketing (11), a blog (10), web design (10), website design (10), blogging (11) marketing (34) advertising (5)

You get the picture

So I will get rid of online marketing, a blog, web design & advertising because they are duplicates more or less and maybe not relevant. Combine the rest to come up with general content topics for my blog:

• Social media

• Blogging

• Web design

• Internet marketing

Now, make a list of the major groups which accurately represent the content on your website or the products or services you sell. Go through the keywords Google suggested under those topics and pick out 5-10 keywords or keyword phrases from each grouping. Put those keywords in a spreadsheet or list under the appropriate heading.  Print that out and keep it handy when you’re writing. Refer to this keyword list to remind yourself of the keywords that you need to incorporate into your content.

Obviously that’s a pretty simple and straightforward approach to SEO copywriting. But it’s a good start for someone who does not know much about SEO.

I would go one step further here and create a content creation schedule based on your spreadsheet of keywords. That way you systematically work through your list and keep yourself organized. Let’s you think ahead a bit too so that your blogs are well thought out and not too obviously been SEO’d!