What Is an SEO Article? Why Should You Write One? And How?

This post updated on February 18, 2025.

You’ve just written an article. And you think it’s pretty good. But is it fit to compete with the millions of other articles in Google’s index on the same topic?

In this post, I’ll explain how to boost your articles to be the most relevant for a person’s search on the topic.

Read to learn:

• What Is an SEO Article?
• Why Should You Write an SEO Article?
  1. Web Content Is Why Google Exists
  2. Google’s Algorithm Is Getting Smarter, but Still Needs Help
  3. Being Found for a Search Can Impact Your Revenue
  4. Establish Your Expertise and Authority on a Topic
  5. Delight Your Audience
  6. Beat Your Competition in the Search Results
• How Do You Write an SEO Article? 7 Key Steps
  • Step 1. Define the Document Specs
  • Step 2. Research Keywords (aka Search Queries)
  • Step 3. Identify and Analyze the Competition
  • Step 4. Create Expertly Written Content
  • Step 5. Optimize the Content in Your SEO Article
  • Step 6. Review the Content
  • Step 7. Track the Content’s Performance
• Compete Better in the Search Results with Optimized Articles
• FAQ: How can an SEO article improve my website’s visibility and help it drive more organic traffic?

What Is an SEO Article?

An SEO article is a piece of written content, like a blog post, featured on your website as a page with a unique URL.

An SEO article educates, informs, and entertains your target audience with expertise and quality.

An SEO article is also optimized for search engines to have a better chance of getting on Page 1 of the search results.

Why Should You Write an SEO Article?

Here are six reasons why you should write an SEO article.

1. Web Content Is Why Google Exists

Webpages, including articles, are what search engines like Google store in their index.

When someone performs a search, the engine analyzes their query and matches it to the most relevant indexed items.

Without these webpages, Google would have nothing to show users in its search results.

2. Google’s Algorithm Is Getting Smarter, but Still Needs Help

An SEO article is optimized for search so that it can help search engines better understand what the topic is about (see Google’s Search Essentials for more on this).

This increases the chance it will be considered relevant to a query and show up in the top results.

“SEO—short for search engine optimization—is about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and make a decision about whether they should visit your site through a search engine.”

-Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide

3. Being Found for a Search Can Impact Your Revenue

The organic search channel drives more than 50% of traffic to a website on average (and up to 64% for B2Bs). Organic search is also responsible for up to 59% of revenue over other channels.

4. Establish Your Expertise and Authority on a Topic

Google places more value on websites with high expertise and authority, and a well-written article is one of the key ways to demonstrate this.

“High quality MC [content] shows evidence of effort, originality, talent, or skill. For informational pages, High quality MC must be accurate and consistent with well-established expert consensus when such consensus exists.”

-Google, Search Quality Rater Guidelines

5. Delight Your Audience

SEO articles can result in things like return visits to your site, more time on your site viewing other content and conversions.

Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here.

Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums or other means. That can also translate to relevant links to your site, another SEO factor.

“Google’s automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results.”

-Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content

6. Beat Your Competition in the Search Results

A search-optimized article uses data to make it better. Find out what the top-ranked content is doing on the same topic. Then, you can meet or exceed it.

For more, see: SEO Should Beat the Competition, Not the Algorirhm.

How Do You Write an SEO Article? 7 Key Steps

To write an SEO article, follow these seven key steps:

Step 1. Define the Document Specs

At the top of your document, create a table with key details for new content. This table helps you organize all the details of a well-optimized article before you publish.

First, specify the basic article specs such as the topic, target keywords, meta title, meta description and URL.

You might add other things, too, like the date written, a place for notes about the content and anything else that is helpful to you and your teams.

You may not have all the information to fill in this table upfront, but it’s there to populate as you go along in the process.

Step 2. Research Keywords (aka Search Queries)

What is your audience typing into Google’s search bar when looking for the info you have on your website?

In its SEO Starter Guide, Google explains the very basics of keyword research:

“Think about the words that a user might search for to find a piece of your content. Users who know a lot about the topic might use different keywords in their search queries than someone who is new to the topic. For example, some users might search for “charcuterie”, while others might search for “cheese board”. Anticipating these differences in search behavior and writing with your readers in mind could produce positive effects on how your site performs in search results.”

You want to have at least one primary search term you optimize your article with and up to two secondary keyword phrases.

Does that mean you have to use more than one? No. But it can be an advanced strategy for some.

For more, check out:

• Our free keyword suggestion tool to get started.
• Our article on how to do keyword research for SEO.

Step 3. Identify and Analyze the Competition

Did you know your online competition is the top-ranked pages for your keywords? These are the webpages in which you are vying for attention in the search results.

Once you have your keywords, you can begin a competitive analysis. Using the right SEO tools — like our AI-powered content development suite at PreWriter.ai or the SEOToolSet® — you can find out which pages are ranking in the top spots on Google for your search query.

With PreWriter, you can research and structure your SEO article before writing by analyzing top-ranking pages. It gives you:

• A full-page analysis of the top search results for your keyword.
• Outlines based on content published by competitors to show you how to make it better.
• Keyword recommendations based on real search intent.
• Meta descriptions and related questions for more relevance.

And with the SEOToolSet, you can:

• Track keyword rankings over time.
• Look at top-ranking competitors to see how they optimize their content.
• Evaluate title tags, meta descriptions and keyword usage in competing pages.
• Assess readability and content length to match or improve content that performs best.

Remember that all of this is in real-time before or during the writing process, not after.

Step 4. Create Expertly Written Content

Google wants the top search results to have an element of expertise. That’s because Google wants its users to be satisfied with its results. Quality content keeps your audience happy, too.

That said, before you write an article, make sure you have at least one of the following:

• Subject matter expertise or a subject matter expert you can interview.
• Writing ability or a professional writer or editor.
• Tools to help with efficiency and optimization.

From Google’s helpful content documentation, Google recommends the following ways you can create quality content:

• Self-assess your content using their list of questions on quality and expertise.
• Provide a great page experience.
• Focus on people-first content.
• Avoid creating search engine-first content.
• Get to know E-E-A-T and the Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
• Ask “who, how and why” about your content.

Keeping Google’s guidelines in mind for writing quality, helpful content, you will now create the content.

How you create the content is up to you, but keep in mind it must pass the quality test no matter how it’s made.

Generative AI is helping many businesses create content. (You can check out our AI tool, PreWriter.ai.)

For those businesses that already have skilled writing pros, AI tools are helping them automate certain parts of the content creation process.

For other businesses that lack the in-house expertise of a writer, they are also relying on AI to draft content. But, you must be careful when going this route.

AI cannot replace human creativity, insight and experience — and Google knows this. In March 2024, Google unleashed new spam policies on AI-created content and many sites were penalized.

The bottom line is this: Just because we have AI as a tool, we should not view it as a replacement for talent.

We must keep our brand image and audience in mind, and make sure the content we create is still innovative.

So where does that leave businesses? No matter how you are using AI, there needs to be a system in place to preserve quality.

• Some businesses may prefer to have writers create the content but use AI to automate parts of the process, like outlines, research and editing.
• Other businesses might like to have Gen AI deliver first drafts, and then have subject matter experts edit the content for accuracy and impact.

I’ve written about this topic at length, and you can explore more here:

• Stress-Free Writing: How To Streamline Your Content Creation Process
• Crafting High-Quality SEO Content: A Comprehensive Guide
• The AI Content Quality Discussion: 7 Steps To Improve AI Content
• 3 ways to add a human touch to AI-generated content (Search Engine Land)
• How to survive the search results when you’re using AI tools for content (Search Engine Land)
• AI content creation: A beginner’s guide (Search Engine Land)

Step 5. Optimize the Content in Your SEO Article

At this point, you should have both the well-written article and your keywords. Now is the time to optimize.

It’s worth noting that an article will be naturally optimized when you write it. That’s because if you write enough (quality) words on a subject, the words you use will describe the content well.

So why optimize? To help your great content better compete in the search results.

Using specific keyword queries in your content tells Google that this piece of content is a better match to the query of the searcher than other content out there.

First, figure out how you can switch up a few words or phrases with your key terms.

Rule No. 1: Always make sure it reads well. Slapping your keywords in any old place without regard to grammar can make your article look spammy to Google and annoy readers.

In general, you want your keywords to be evenly distributed throughout the content from top to bottom.

For more on this, see:

• How to use keywords in content.
• Our always-up-to-date SEO checklist for more optimization ideas.
• Our article on optimizing page content.

Step 6. Review the Content

Next up — your SEO article needs to be reviewed and edited to make sure it’s written well, free of errors and follows Google’s guidelines before you publish. How this process looks will depend the size of your company and/or circumstances.

An important thing to keep in mind: if you decide to publish guest posts on your site, hold the content to the same standards you would as if you made it in-house. Substandard content can hurt your site quality.

For example, guest posts done wrong can cause a site to get hit with a manual penalty by Google.

Step 7. Track the Content’s Performance

Writing an SEO article is not a set-it-and-forget-it approach. You will want to track the performance of that article and learn from the data.

You can see how an SEO article is performing in search by using Google Analytics. You’ll want to look at things like:

• The number of page views.
• Average time on page.
• What queries are bringing search traffic to that SEO article.

With this data, you can:

• Learn what’s working and not working in comparison with your other SEO articles.
• Update the content with new, more relevant keywords.

Compete Better in the Search Results with Optimized Articles

An SEO article is a quality, search-optimized article written for readers and search engines. Optimized articles have a better chance of ranking higher and bringing in more qualified web traffic.

Follow the steps we’ve discussed, and you’ll win over your readers and search engines in no time.

Our SEO experts can help you create high-quality, optimized content that outperforms your competitors.

FAQ: How can an SEO article improve my website’s visibility and help it drive more organic traffic?

SEO articles have a ton of benefits. They give value to your audience with helpful information, establish you as an expert in your niche, and when done right, they bring in more leads, customers, sales and revenue. Include SEO articles in your marketing strategy if you want more online visibility and traffic.

Start by doing keyword research to learn what your audience is searching for. Add those words throughout your content. Engaging articles keep people coming back for more and tell search engines you have quality material to offer.

Next, focus on on-page SEO. Optimize meta titles, descriptions and header tags to structure your content effectively. Consider including images, videos and infographics to increase engagement with readers.

Link building is key to increasing any website’s credibility and user experience — be sure to add new articles with timely information regularly to keep repeat visitors.

A mobile-friendly website makes users and search engines happy. Focus on making your website fast, and use secure connections for a better user experience.

SEO articles are an effective way to increase website visibility and drive organic traffic. Optimize them using the tips above to attract visitors who are likely to convert into long-term customers.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Determine who it is you wish to reach with your article.
2. Use tools like PreWriter.ai, SEOToolSet, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or Semrush to do keyword research.
3. Understand what it is your audience is searching for. Are they looking for information, comparisons, products, or services?
4. Look at the content your competitors are producing, specifically top-ranking articles.
5. Structure your content logically with clear sections.
6. Write a catchy title that uses keywords to draw readers in.
7. Draw in readers with an introduction that highlights their issues and gives them viable solutions.
8. Use keywords naturally throughout your content. Avoid keyword stuffing.
9. Your content should be written in short paragraphs. Include bullet points and bolded text to make important points stand out.
10. Internal links to relevant content on your site improves navigation and builds SEO value.
11. External links to authoritative sources gives your points more credibility.
12. Tell readers what to do next. Do they sign up? Buy something?
13. Write concise meta tags which contain keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions that include pertinent terms.
14. Use the correct heading tags (h1, h2, etc) to organize and structure your content.
15. Add alt text to your images.
16. Incorporate engaging elements like images, videos, infographics, etc.
17. Share your great content with your audience on social media.
18. Connect with industry influencers and bloggers to build authority through quality backlinks.
19. Refresh outdated content regularly.
20. Create a responsive design to optimize content for mobile users.
21. Reduce image file sizes and use caching techniques to make pages load faster.
22. Secure your site with SSL encryption to build trust.
23. Track rankings, traffic, engagement, and other performance metrics using Google Analytics and Search Console.
24. Frequently refine your content based on performance data and user feedback.