Forget About SEO When Writing Content

Content writing is a natural process. The experience, professional knowledge, and passion make content better, user-friendly, and able to rank.

However, when creating blog posts – we often focus on factors shown by automated Tools, such as SEO plugins. While doing on-page SEO is good, following automated suggestions stops us from thinking, behaving, and writing naturally for humans.

Let’s describe SEO writing and how to write for humans instead of search engines.

Definition: SEO Writing

The process of creating high-quality content, keeping in mind the rules, measures, and ranking algorithms of search engines, such as Google Ranking Factors.

In this case, WordPress plugins can help users see if the content is optimized for search rankings by analyzing the content’s on-page SEO factors in an automated manner.

Let’s describe why we should focus more on human-friendly content than writing for search algorithms.

How to write Content?

Blogging and creating content around search intent is the only way possible.

How?

First, you need to understand your niche well. In this case, the first thing you should have done is niche selection. Let’s address what you should consider when starting a new blog project.

• Choose a niche you’re passionate about.
• It would be good to have past, real-world experience in a specific niche compared to one with no prior case studies.
• Have you achieved something unique in a particular niche?

Once you are passionate about what you’re writing, doing keyword research will again – “limit your creativity.

Instead, think and develop trending topics, problems, and interests your readers may find attractive. The real-world experience and the niche you’re passionate about – help you create reader-friendly, problem-solving, and converting content around search intent instead of following automated suggestions by SEO tools, such as WordPress plugins.

Forget about SEO when writing Content

Writing is a natural process

No doubt, the process of writing is a natural process. The way you think and form human-understandable concepts into meaningful sentences refers to a natural process.

In the whole process, instead of focusing on turning green, bullets override human natural thinking and the way sentences are created. This often affects your write-up’s quality, conceptual flow, and natural concept.

Search Engines prefer Helpful Content

According to Google Helpful Content updates and guidelines, the content That helps readers experience better “experiences”, fixes users’ problems, and is according to searchers’ intent will rank on search pages, as compared to low quality content with lots of backlinks pointing to the page.

Let’s describe the matter with an example.

Take two pieces of content – one is written naturally, considering the reader’s pain points. The other is written with green lights, automated outlines, and suggestions by SEO plugins in WordPress:

• The first provides a problem-solving approach and helps readers obtain what they have come for.
• The latter overrides the human natural ability to find, read, and obtain information to fix specific problems – although Tools will show “the piece of content is 100% optimized for search rankings”.

Guess what? The content written without SEO optimization has more chances of ranking on search pages. This is why Google has been stressing enough about creating helpful content rather than search-optimized write-ups.

Dummy vs. Niche-Based content

Search engines like Google can find if authoritative authors write a piece of content.

In this case, Google’s NLP algorithms can find if a piece of content is created by humans, not to manipulate search rankings. NLP stands for Natural Language Processing.

In this case, the NLP is the rules, models, and algorithms used by search engines, enabling search engines to understand humanly written sentences and how humans speak and write in real life. So, the whole NLP infrastructure helps search engines spot AI-generated content compared to content by real authors.

In such scenarios, forgetting about SEO when writing content is the only way helpful. If you follow green suggestions, overriding the human flow of content creation will flag content, put you on the radar of Google NLP, and flag for de-ranking.

Search Engines rank content based on Search Intent and Relevancy, not SEO-optimized

Compared to SEO-optimized content, search intent-optimized write-ups weigh more in search rankings.

Here, there is a difference between SEO-optimized content and content that satisfies searchers’ intent.

The first type, although with green lights shown in WordPress plugins, would only rank if it was optimized for search intent. The latter helps users find solutions to problems and will find a place on search rankings, as the particular piece of content correctly addresses, explains, and solves users’ problems.

So, this forms a baseline for content creators – “you should forget about SEO signals when writing content That satisfies users’ intent, solves users’ problems, and finds a way to rank on search pages.

SEO-optimized short content vs Long-Form Resources

A piece of SEO/Short-Form content doesn’t rank for related keywords. On the other hand, if you don’t care about on-page SEO factors and write detailed, quality content based on users’ intent – it will be ranked for hundreds of related keywords.

In this case, even if no SEO is done for the content, the rankings for related keywords drive more traffic than a piece of SEO content not written to help readers find solutions to problems.

Topics vs Keywords

Look, you need to understand the following concept, especially if you’re the one writing content.

When calculating a site’s topical authority, Google sees if a site or blog features basic information in a specific niche.

There are two cases here:

1. A blog’s specially published content around researched content is low competitive and has more chances of ranking on search pages.
2. The second blog doesn’t care about ranking possibilities and creates content that explicitly solves users’ problems.

Think. Which one seems more natural?

This is what Google has been telling content creators – “Just create quality content That helps users solve problems”.

In the above example, the first type of content leads to shady SEO tactics, such as keyword stuffing, targeting low, competitive keywords in bulk, and manipulating search rankings without providing quality. On the other hand, the second blog focuses on addressing real-world problems in the niche, helps users find solutions to trending issues, and stays aware of search intent changes on search pages.

Write content only you can Write

Refrain from faking your creativity, expertise, and topical authority with low-quality content. How can you create problem-solving content for readers if you need to learn a niche well?

This is why niche selection requires more attention when starting a new blog project.

Write about your personal experiences when writing content, how you solved a specific problem, and how you came up with a solution. Such content helps readers find real-world scenarios and allows bloggers to build loyal, quality, and attracting audiences – no matter what Google thinks about your content reputation or ranks lower on search pages – the point is “you win loyal readers, so you build a business of loyal customers”.

Readability

Optimizing content for SEO can damage readability. Instead of writing in a natural tone, the SEO tools suggest you rewrite a specific sentence and stuff relevant keywords – no way.

Readability comes only when you’re writing naturally. There should be no obstacles, rules to follow while writing, and boundaries. The obstacles limit your creativity, thinking psychology, and conceptual flow while you’re taking readers into new worlds where they can understand and fix their problems.

So, readability, conceptual flow, and users’ intent are the factors you should consider when writing content, compared to focusing only on creating SEO-optimized, suggested plugins and automated content for readers.

Professional Tips (What to consider when writing Content)

• Focus on something other than finding keywords. Instead, think about readers’ problems and describe real-world scenarios, experiences, and problem-solving approaches you’ve experienced.
• When writing content, don’t follow on-page SEO suggestions by automated tools, such as the Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress. This limits your creativity in thinking, creating, and compiling content that hits readers hard.
• Forget about ranking competition on Google. Instead, write quality content in the most natural way possible. The more you focus on humans, the more you can build an audience, convert readers into paying subscribers, and build a loyal audience base.
• Niche selection is mandatory. If you need to familiarize yourself with the topics, problems, and content you create, how can you solve users’ problems? This is why niche selection is crucial.
• Using automated tools that help you optimize content for related keywords is a myth. SEO experts think creating content with on-page SEO signals is a good idea; however, thinking about users’ experience, the natural flow of how you help readers fix a problem, and human psychology pays off more than creating content with automated tools’ suggestions.

Over to You

Be natural, stay natural, and document your experience when writing content. Trapping yourself in an automated routine will limit your creativity.

In this regard, Google has repeatedly stressed the importance of creating helpful content. This implies that no matter how much you ignore on-page suggestions by SEO tools, your content will rank if it helps readers correctly. This is why forgetting SEO shady tactics is crucial when writing content for humans.

For more in-depth resources on search intent, visit our directory. You can also consult our team for effective content strategy.