When you’re writing webpages or blogs, one of the biggest factors is search engine optimization.  SEO, those magical keywords and little algorithm triggers are all the rage.  People fawn over them, build entire businesses around them, chase after them, and ultimately swear by SEO best practices that don’t actually work.

But there is a balance.  There is a way to write for our search engine overlords and yet still remain creative as you relay your innermost thoughts to random strangers on the internet.  As a ghostwriter who works on books, but also one that writes blogs and newsletters, I’ll fill you in on the best ways to get this done the right way.

Let the Words Flow, Baby

The first step to remaining creative and yet still keeping SEO in mind, is to completely forget about the SEO of your writing (for now) and just let the words flow.  Spill it out there, be fun, be weird, be scientific, be stuffy, just be you.

Write those things that are important for the reader to know (and some that entertains them, or inspires them, or otherwise keeps them intrigued).

Spill That Story Out

No, really.  Just spill that story out.  Engage your inner storyteller.  Dive deep.  Find those interesting synonyms that still fully match your story but make people thing, “Huh, that’s a wild way to put it!”

Fun note, I had someone ask to write a guest post for this blog (which I encourage, if you have something to share, hit me up).  My rules were simple: it has to be well written, it has to be on topic with what I usually post, and it can’t contain really spammy backlinks.  This person submitted one of the most poorly written articles I’ve ever seen.  Obviously written by AI, touched up by someone that doesn’t speak English as their first language, and just did not hit.

So, I encouraged them to try again.  The biggest pain point was the AI generated text; it really is that bad folks.  So they resubmitted.  It sucked again.  They submitted a THIRD time… and now it didn’t just suck, but it was an abomination.  They went through and made it pass AI filters because they just swapped synonyms that made no sense!

Seriously, they were talking about a social media feed, and instead of “your feed” they said, “your nourish.”  Technically, it’s a synonym, but it makes no sense.

Don’t be that person.  As the young people say these days, “Make it make sense!”

(I have no idea what young people say these days)

Panic Realizing You Haven’t Done Any SEO

Now you’re almost done and you realize it’s all creativity and you haven’t focused at ALL on SEO.  Maybe it hits, maybe it doesn’t.  What to do now?

First, your story probably changed as you went along.  When I started this blog, I had no idea I was going to tell the story of the atrocious guest post submission (I’ll probably weave more of that into future blogs, it was entertainingly bad).

So, that’s why you need the next point.

Fine Tune When It’s Finished

One of the best tools I use, is a keyword tool.  There’s a bunch of them out there, and you can drop the entire text into this analyzer and it will just look at common words used in your text.  I use the Keyword Density Analyzer by SEOBook – mostly because I’ve been using it for over a decade and back in the day it was one of the only ones around, but there are plenty of others out there.

Just drop in your text, see what words are hitting the hardest, and if nothing you want to rank for pops up, now it’s time to go back through and see how you can seamlessly weave keywords into your text without sounding stupid and spammy.

No random sentences about how to find the best website designer in Billings.

PS – I don’t build websites.

Blog Writing is Tough; Let Me Help

What I do, do (haha doodoo) is write words.

Whether your voice is weird like mine, or even weirder (yes, please let me be super weird with that creativity!) or if it’s professional and technical, I’ll learn it and mimic your style and your voice to create blogs that inspire, entertain, wow, or otherwise impress your audience.

All the while, you’re seen as an authority, an expert, and the go-to source for your industry.

Let’s talk about your goals and needs, book some time with me, and we’ll see if we’re a good fit.