9 SEO Tips for content writing that is Search Engine Friendly

As an SEO freelancer in Hyderabad, one question I get asked a lot by clients is – “How can we create content that will rank well in search engines?”

Optimizing your content for search is crucial. The better your content ranks, the more organic traffic your website will get. In this blog, I’ll share 9 essential SEO tips to make your content highly search engine friendly.

1. Do Thorough Keyword Research

The foundation of great SEO content is identifying keywords that have good search volume and low competition. This takes some manual research and analysis.

Here is my process for keyword research:

• Make a list of relevant topics related to your business to target. For a restaurant, this could be menus, special events, signature dishes etc.
• Use Google’s autocomplete and related searches to find additional keywords.
• Plug your keywords into tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner to analyze search volume and difficulty.
• Filter for keywords that get traffic but have low competition. These will be easier to rank for.
• Organize selected keywords into primary and secondary targets.

Spending time upfront finding the right keywords will pay off when you see your content attracting organic traffic later.

2. Optimize Titles for Keyword Intent

Your title is the first thing search engines analyze to understand what your content is about. It must include your target keywords while matching searcher intent.

If your keyword is “best coffee shops in Hyderabad”, a descriptive title like “Top 10 Best Coffee Shops in Hyderabad” makes intent clear. Avoid vague titles like “Hyderabad’s Best”.

Keep titles below 60 characters. Include the primary keyword toward the beginning. This immediately tells search engines the topic of your content.

3. Structure Content with Headings

Headings organize your content into logical sections and highlight important points. Search engines pay a lot of attention to headings for both indexing and ranking purposes.

Use headings matching your keywords. For a post on “social media marketing”, H2 tags like ## What is Social Media Marketing? ## tell search engines you are defining the term upfront.

Have 2-3 H2s and 3-5 H3s to break up text and make it easy to digest. Don’t keyword stuff – focus on crafting descriptive headings.

4. Feature Keywords Prominently in the Body

Having keywords in the title and headings sets the topic, but you still need to feature them prominently within the content itself. This reinforces relevance to search engines.

Use keywords naturally where relevant, but don’t force it as that hurts readability. For a beauty salon review article, the business name and treatment keywords should come up multiple times in the actual review portion.

Highlight keywords using bold and italics formatting. Breaking up text with bullet points and lists also makes keywords stand out more.

5. Optimize URLs & Anchor Text

When linking internally or externally from your content, the URLs and anchor text used also matter for SEO.

For internal links, use keywords as the clickable anchor text. For example:

Here is a guide to the [best dog parks in Hyderabad] (/hyderabad-dog-parks)

For external links, use keywords in the URLs themselves. For example:

Top food bloggers in India – https://www.domain.com/popular-indian-food-bloggers

This provides additional signals about the topic of the linked page.

6. Create Useful, Engaging Content

While SEO is crucial, your content also needs to be genuinely interesting and valuable for readers. Boring “keyword stuffed” posts will only cause users to bounce.

Focus on creating content that answers questions, educates, entertains or helps people in some way. Use storytelling, humor, images, videos, infographics and other creative elements.

If people love reading your content, they will naturally link to it, share it, and come back for more. That ultimately gives a bigger SEO boost. Prioritize the human appeal over pure optimization.

7. Localize Content for Geographic Keywords

If you are targeting local searches, make sure to prominently feature relevant city names, landmarks and local nuances that search engines can pick up signals from.

For a “dentists in Hyderabad” article, mentioning areas, neighborhoods, popular venues helps reinforce that geo intent. Talk about aspects unique to the city – “Hyderabad is famous for its delicious biryani that often leads to tooth discoloration.”

Have a clear call-to-action for users to find your business locations near them. This helps convert local traffic.

8. Follow On-Page Best Practices

Proper on-page SEO structure and formatting is still crucial. Here are key elements to optimize:

• Use meta descriptions that contain keywords and compel click-throughs in search.
• Include alt text for images with keyword-rich descriptions.
• Optimize page speed by minimizing HTTP requests, enabling compression, using a caching plugin etc. Faster pages rank better.
• Make XML sitemaps and submit them to Search Console for better indexing.
• Minimize ads above the fold that push down main content and links.

Get these basic technical SEO elements right so search engines can easily digest your content.

9. Promote New Content

Just publishing new posts isn’t enough – you need to actively promote them to build links and social shares which will multiply their ranking potential.

• Share all new content on social media. Running Facebook and LinkedIn ads also helps.
• Pitch guest posting opportunities to relevant sites. Securing backlinks to new content gives it a boost.
• Add new content to your email newsletter and notify subscribers.
• Promote through PR sites like HelpAPress release that journalists monitor for stories.

Leverage promotion channels to kickstart discovery and engagement when you publish something new.

By following these tips, you can create content that search engines will love. Optimize without over-optimizing at the expense of readability. Creating something of genuine value first and foremost will earn links and social engagement. This human stamp of approval signals to Google that your content deserves to rank well.

If you need any help with your SEO content strategy, feel free to get in touch with me! I would be happy to provide a free audit and recommendations.