Create better content with Pen-to-Paper SEO Tips.

So where to begin? This is a question I get asked often. When working with small business owners who want to start writing quality content I find that many are so overwhelmed by the sheer number of factors at play, they miss the very fundamentals of what a top-ranked piece of content needs to get into that A+ range. Google’s algorithm for page ranking starts by checking if your content or post meets certain requirements that it has come to recognize as being “best practise” for sharing quality, engaging and useful content on the internet. Before uploading the content, configuring with meta descriptions & keywords, sharing and promoting your content, few check if what they have just spent weeks creating meets those basic, foundational needs. So what does a fresh piece of content need in order to satisfy these very early checks that Google will use to determine it’s value? This is what I call “Pen-To-Paper SEO” and it is that first piece of your SEO strategy before your content has even been completed. We are talking here about things such as your word count, how many times you repeat your keywords and how organically they are used within your wider content. In other words, all the things you need to keep in mind before & during the creative process of writing the content. Ensuring these rules are accounted for in your content can be done as you go, or you can choose to spend extra time revising your content once it is complete, which can be an extremely frustrating process as your well-crafted paragraphs begin to fall apart. As a visual learner, I prominently displayed a checklist of some of these basic rules when I first began writing content for my own blog. I’ve found that over time I think automatically about these rules as a conscious part of the content creation process, and that might be down to giving the grouping of considerations it’s own name to remember.

I’ve created this Pen-To-Paper SEO infographic for every small business owner who wants to start writing engaging content that will also begin to create the basic habits for solid SEO foundations. It is free to download for personal use and keep handy on your desktop, or perhaps print and pin to that bulletin board in your office. Enjoy and good luck starting your SEO journey!