The Top 8 SEO Content Writing Mistakes

SEO content writing helps websites rank higher on Google and attract more organic traffic. It’s an amazing strategy for entrepreneurs, but sometimes mistakes impact your search rankings.

Luckily, they’re pretty easy to fix. Learn how these blog writing mistakes impact your SEO and how to fix them!

Key Takeaways:

• Common SEO content writing mistakes I see.
• How to prioritize making blog updates.
• Answering your biggest questions about SEO content writing.

1. Writing for Google, Not Humans

We’re starting off hot! Even though you should consider both while writing blogs, humans are the ones you will eventually interact with and work with, not search engines. 

Focus on connecting with potential clients with your SEO content writing. Add some personality to your blog posts and do what you can to give them a positive experience on your website.

Although SEO should be considered, don’t make that your sole focus.

2. Copy and Pasting From AI

AI should NEVER write blog posts for you. Not only is it terrible from a user experience perspective, but search engines don’t want to show those pages in search results. 

Google sees AI-written content as low-quality and not valuable, two variables it uses to determine search rankings. 

You have a very low chance of ranking or earning traffic from a primarily AI-written blog. Google will just show an AI Overview answer instead of your blog. 

You might as well take the time to write a high-quality, unique, and valuable blog, even if that means you don’t post as many.

That being said, you definitely can use AI to support your blog workflow. I think it’s fine to use it to develop an outline to work from, brainstorm some FAQs to add or research the topic. 

3. Ignoring Search Intent

Think about what someone is trying to find after entering a query into Google. What is the INTENT behind their search?

If someone searches for ‘cookies,’ are they trying to find a chocolate chip cookie recipe, change website cookie settings, or find a bakery near them? We have no idea.

SEO content writing with search intent in mind helps you target more qualified users. You’re making it easy for search engines to show your content to the right people! 

Read this post about the four types of search intent and how to create content that matches each.

4. Not Breaking Up Text with Heading Tags

No one wants to read a huge block of text.

Heck, people don’t even want to read a whole paragraph. And that’s only a few sentences!

(Sidebar: Break up text even more than you think is necessary to improve readability!)

Heading tags organize your content into sections, making it easy for readers and search engines to scan it and get an overview of the topic.

From a reader’s perspective, headings have a different style than the rest of the content. They might be bigger or have a different color or font. It’s super easy to spot them.

For search engines, you have to tag text in the backend of your website to indicate that it’s a heading.

And don’t worry – you don’t need any coding knowledge to do this! Follow this guide to add heading tags to your blogs in Showit and WordPress.

5. Overlooking Internal Links

This super simple step is often overlooked, but it can make a big difference in your SEO content writing and search rankings.

Add links to other blogs or resources on your website in your content! 

See how I’ve done that in this post? I’m giving you other relevant blogs I have on certain topics so you can learn more about them.

User experience A+ 👏

Internal links also help search engines understand how your website is laid out and discover new pages. 

Let’s say an old blog post hasn’t been indexed. Google doesn’t know it exists. However, you add a link to it in a new blog, manually request indexing, and it gets approved. Google has now discovered that old blog post via the new one with the link. 

Google is starting to understand your website structure and discover new pages.

6. Not Adding SEO Metadata

A unique SEO title and meta description are required for every blog you publish. This is the title and a few sentences that appear in search results. 

It needs to be enticing and descriptive to encourage clicks from searchers. What would make them want to visit your website over the hundreds of other options in search results?

If you’ve never written your own metadata before, it doesn’t mean you don’t have any. Google will just use the H1 tag on the page as the SEO title and the first few sentences as the meta description. However, you should always write your own SEO metadata to maintain control over what’s shown in search results.

Add this step to your SEO content writing workflow!

7. Skipping Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you learn what your audience is searching for and the phrases they use to find what they need. 

I might say, “How to build strong client relationships,” but my audience might say, “How to foster loyalty with my clients.”

It means the exact same thing, but I would rather use my audience’s phrasing in my blog than my own. It’s a quick and easy chance that keyword research helped me make.

There are two reasons why this is important. 

1. If I use the exact phrasing they use, my blog post on that topic has a better chance of appearing in their search results. 
2. I instantly connect with them by speaking the same way they do.

Use keyword research tools like Ubersuggest to find the best blog keywords.

Want to see how my brain works while I’m researching keywords?

8. Forgetting to Optimize Images

Images tend to be massive files that can take a long time to load on web pages. As we all know, a slow-loading website can lead to a higher bounce rate and impact your search rankings.

Before you upload images to your blog posts, run them through Tinify or Compress JPEG. These tools reduce the file size without sacrificing quality. 

Also, don’t forget to add alt text! Image alt text helps users who rely on screen readers or other assistive technologies understand the content on the page.

Write a short description of the image in the alt text box on the backend of your website. 

(P.S. AI can help you write alt text!)

These quick changes will improve the user experience on your website!

Need to Make Some Updates?

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, “Uhhh, I’ve definitely made some of these SEO content writing mistakes before…” 

And that’s okay! Because now you know how they’re impacting your search rankings and how to fix them 😉

Use the two lists below to decide whether to focus on the most impactful blog updates first or the ones that will take the least amount of time.

The Most Impactful Updates

These updates might take more time, but they will have a bigger impact on your organic traffic and search rankings.

• Add personality to your blog posts.
• Write unique SEO metadata.
• Dig into search intent and make sure your keywords and content align.
• Download images, run them through a tool to reduce the file size, rename them, and reupload them to your blogs.

The Quickest Updates

Just have a few minutes to make some blog updates? Start with these!

• Break up large chunks of content and add headers.
• Add new internal links to your blogs.
• Write alt text for your images.
• Research keywords for your upcoming blog posts.
• Manually request indexing for pages that aren’t indexed by Google yet.
• Remove outdated information.
• Fix or remove broken links.
• Refresh CTAs.

Are You Making These SEO Content Writing Mistakes?

Mistakes happen, and it’s okay. Don’t get discouraged, and don’t give up. Go back and fix some of these SEO content writing mistakes you’ve made and learn going forward. That’s the only way to grow!

If this is just too much work for you, check out my blog optimization package! You pick eight blogs for me to update and optimize (I can also give recommendations if you want!). Then, I follow these steps to find any mistakes or opportunities to better optimize your blog posts for search engines.

Let’s get your blogs up-to-date and ready for brand new clients to find! Schedule a discovery call here!

FAQs About SEO Content Writing

How many SEO keywords should I use?

Choose only one to target in your blog post. You will rank for other keywords you naturally use in your SEO content writing, but only one should be your main focus. It will be in your blog title, SEO title, headings, and URL.

What’s the ideal blog post length for SEO?

Focus on thoroughly explaining the topic, no matter how many words it takes. Sometimes, it might be 500 words if it’s a super niche topic, or it could be 3,000 if it’s more broad. My blogs typically end up in the 1,000-1,200 word range.

Do I need to update old content for SEO?

Yes! If you’ve made any of these mistakes in your old blogs, go back and fix them. Google loves it when you update blogs because it shows you’re committed to providing the most valuable and up-to-date information.

How long does it take to see SEO results?

Blogs are a long-term strategy, so you probably won’t see results until the six-month mark. However, your efforts and growth compound over time, making them a worthwhile marketing strategy.