Content Writing Mastery: How to Write SEO Optimized Content That’s Actually Worth Reading

Content Writing Mastery: How to Write SEO Optimized Content That's Actually Worth Reading

Welcome to this free course on how to write SEO content that brings in loads of free traffic!

I've grown countless websites from 0 to multiple-millions of visitors a month with this formula.

And when you have the formula, repeating this type of success is as simple as rinse & repeat...

Kind of like showering ‍️

What we cover

How to write SEO content that doesn't suck.

Stop stuffing keywords into your content & start stuffing traffic into your site (and ultimately money into your pockets).

But seriously, don't keep your money in your pockets that's just looney.

Course Curriculum

• Introduction
• Blogging 101: Core Concepts: 
• Why Blog?
• Website Content Types 
• Blog Content Types
• Intent: Commercial vs. Informational
• How Websites Make Money (Traffic + Monetization)
• Search Volume 101
• Keyword Difficulty 101
• Intent: Search vs. SERP
• SEO Keyword Research Explained
• SERP Features 
• Topical Clustering 
• Writing Fundamentals: Readability: 
• Skimmability' (Short Paragraphs & Sentences) 
• Tone 
• Writing Engaging Content 
• Diversify Your Vocabulary 
• Technical Jargon 
• Proof+Edit (Spelling & Grammar) 
• Filler Content 
• Writing Fundamentals: Formatting & Media: 
• List Items (ul, li, ol) 
• Screenshots 
• Images 
• GIFs 
• Videos 
• Infographics 
• Emphasize CTAs 
• Table of Contents 
• Writing Fundamentals: SEO:
• Keywords
• URL
• Page Titles
• Headings (h1, h2, h3, etc.)
• Interlinking
• Word Count
• Wrap Up!
• Blog Writing System/Process:
• Introduction
• Content Plan / Calendar
• Populating the Content Calendar, Part 1 (SEO Analyst)
• Populating the Content Calendar, Part 2 (SEO Analyst or Writer)
• Writer Guidelines
• Article Outline
• Writing the Article 
• Bonus: Article Reviews & Feedback: 
• Article Outline (Live): "Lead Generation" 
• Article Review - "Social Media Marketing for Lawyers" 
• Article Review - "LinkedIn Automation Tools"
• Article Review - "Alabama Gun Permit"

hey there! 

My name's Devin Schumacher.

Im widely recognized as the World's Best SEO & grumpy cat impersonator.

I like making stuff easier, so I make these SOPs.

And I figured, why not share them with all you funky folks?!

Also, I get an affiliate commission from Process Street if you find them valuable enough that you want to save them into your own account - which i hope you do!

I've been using this tool for 5+ years now... Pretty sure I was like their first customer ever.

It's not perfect, but it's helped me build & scale a multi-million dollar SEO agency that runs itself now.

And I have 1000s of SOPs I've built in here that I'm happy to share with you if you'd like, so...

Hope you enjoy!

  Click here to sign up for Process.St

First to Know?

Want to get updates when as I release more free SOPs, checklists, workflows & productivity hacks?

 Click here to stay in the loop via email

Community

YouTube: 

• @devinschumacher
• SERP AI // for artificial intelligence lovers
• Daft FM // for music lovers

Reddit Groups:

• SERP AI // for artificial intelligence lovers
• Daft FM // for music lovers
• SERP University // for entrepreneurs

Facebook Groups:

• SERP University // for entrepreneurs

Say hey on social!

Instagram: @dvnschmchr
Twitter: @dvnschmchr
Facebook: @dvnschmchr
Linkedin: @devinschumacher
Tiktok: @dvnschmchr
Website: devinschumacher.com

Feeling Generous?

SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL + GET AWESOME STUFF

Amazon™ pays commissions if I refer people to them, and that person buys something (anything) over the next 24 hours...

So if you click on one of the affiliate links below buy some crap you need/want - I'll get a commission from Amazon™ - you'll get a great excuse to buy that 'thing' you've been wanting!

You don't even need to buy the actual items linked here to support this channel...

You can just buy yourself something you've been wanting, or do your weekly shopping!

https://devin.to/amazon

(i know you've been trying to squeeze that last little bit of toothpaste from the tube for like 3 months now... it's time for a new one)

And that's what I call a win-win!

hi-five amigo!

Legal Disclaimer

Amazon Associates™ affiliate disclaimer: As an Amazon™ Associate, devinschumacher.com and/or its related web properties, earn from qualifying purchases. Read more here.

When you complete the course, you will receive a Certification Badge that you can display on your website, share on social properties and add to your resumé/LinkedIn profile.

Congratulations!

You've come a long way and put in some great work!

Now it's time to flex a bit & show off your new skills! 

To display your Certificate of Completion on your website & social media simply copy the "HTML code" below and paste it into any "HTML" or "Embed" block (on your website, linkedin, etc.):

<a href="https://devinschumacher.com/course/content-writing-mastery/" title="Content Marketing Mastery Certification" target="_blank"><img src="https://devinschumacher.com/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/lnCkkCGRx34u0qGwzZrUBQ/e4f27e8a-1b24-4c05-7b4a-1f09168b0600/w=500px" alt="Partner Certification" width="100%" style="max-width: 150px;"></a>

Note: You only need to go through this lesson if you are working on affiliate websites. If you are working on local business websites, you can skip this module.

Websites make money many different ways, however there is always one common underlying equation: Traffic + Monetization.

Traffic

Traffic means people coming to your site.

But we don't want just any traffic – we want targeted, aka relevant traffic – the people who are visiting your website need to actually be interested in the topics, products & services on the website.

For your website to get traffic, people must find it someway – this is typically referred to as a marketing channel, or distribution channel.

Here are some of the ways websites get traffic (aka marketing channels):

• Google Search Engine. this is the main channel we focus on when writing blog articles
• Social Media
• TV Commercials
• Word of mouth referrals
• Advertisements
• etc.

Just think of all the ways YOU have heard about a brand, product or website and where you heard about it – that's a marketing channel, and you were the "traffic".

When we write blog articles, we are primarily trying to get traffic from Google's Search Engine.

We do this by creating our articles in such a way that they are optimized for "appeasing" Google's Search Engine algorithm - this is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Monetization

Where there is traffic, there is money to be made. This is a fundamental rule of business, and certainly of marketing.

For example:

• Facebook.com made more than 70.7 Billion dollars in 2019, and they don't charge you to use their website.
• Google makes more than 160.74 billion dollars a year, and their search engine is free to use.

Why? Because they know that where there is traffic, there will be companies who want to advertise – and advertisers pay alot of money for that privilege.

Here are some of the ways that websites make money:

• Selling physical products (example: Quest Bars)
• Selling information products (example: Udemy)
• Selling advertising space, like an ad banner on the top or side of a website (example: New York Times)
• Selling professional services - like lawyers, dentists, doctors, business coaches, etc.

You do not need to create, or own, your own products either – you can simply send away your traffic to other brands and make a commission every-time someone you refer buys.

This is called affiliate marketing, and now also "influencer marketing".

Companies know that getting targeted traffic is expensive and requires teams of experts to do properly, so they incentivize other publishers (people with blogs, people with popular social media profiles, etc.) to send them their traffic in exchange for a commission on all the buyers they refer.

The most common way to do this is to review a product, and then provide a link for a consumer to click to buy it from a retailer.

The Tone of your articles refers to how you want to be perceived by, and how you speak to, your reader.

Tone is generally conveyed through word choice and personality.

The tone you use should coincide with the brand that you are writing for:

• Are you writing for a Funeral Home Planning? Then you should probably write in a respectful tone.
• Are you writing for a Children's toy brand? Then you should probably write using a little light personality, smaller words, and excitement!
• etc.

Use a tool like Hemmingway to understand the reading level and tone you are using – but also use your brain & best judgement.

Diversify Your Vocabulary

When writing blog articles, or anything really, it's important to have a diverse vocabulary.

If you are repeating words you just pretty much start sounding stupid.

Here's an example:

"Whether you are taking photographs for ecommerce products, or you are just taking interesting photographs for personal creativity it's important to make sure you take photographs that are engaging and interesting".

versus

"Whether you are taking photographs for ecommerce products, or simply shooting for personal creativity it's important to make sure the shots you take are engaging & interesting."

This isn't the world's best example – but you can see here that by not repeating words the sentence becomes more engaging, interesting & trustworthy.

Pro Tip: Use a thesaurus.

Technical Jargon

Technical Jargon is usually not what we want when we're blogging, unless required by the specific project/brand writer's guidelines (very uncommon).

Remember: Readability & skimmability.

Don’t use overly technical jargon. It’s hard to read, and will confuse/overwhelm people. 

On the same token, you DO need to use some jargon to sound informed, educated & demonstrate expertise.

Remember: Demonstrate expertise, but write at a sub ~6th grade reading level.

• Incorrect Example: “The concept of the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is in line with this new definition because it is a multidimensional construct representing subjective assessments of how much oral conditions affect a person’s daily life”
• Correct Example: “Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is a fundamental component of health. It is influenced a person’s changing experiences, perceptions, expectations, and ability to adapt to circumstances”

Proofread & Edit

Speling & Grammar be important.

cuz if you makes stupid errurs peopel think your incompitent and wont trust your stuffs.

...See my point?

Error Free Work!

So, we have to make sure that all of our content goes live with ZERO errors.

There are a couple options for this and all are fine, they just depend on you – and your workflow preferences.

Use a tool like Quillbot to check your plagiarism, grammar, and spelling. 

Use a tool like Hemingway App to check your "reading level".

Normally you want to keep it below a 6th grade reading level (unless you are writing for a client who specifically wants higher level articles - like medical research papers, etc.

Always consult your project's writers guidelines.

Filler Content

Every word, sentence, paragraph should add value to the article.

Avoid repeating yourself, unless you are really trying to drive home a point. 

Ensure each sentences enhances the topic at hand, amplifies the paragraph, and adds value to the article.

Avoid stating the obvious: 

• Example: “If your baby is crying, you might need to help him” (…duh).

Avoid pointless redundancy:

• Example: “This company teaches your kids to be polite and respectful. They also help them with their manners, and remembering to say please and thank you.” ... This says the same thing twice, just using more words. More unnecessary words. More words that didn't need to be said. More words that repeat the same thing .... See how annoying that is? .

Avoid stating the obvious, redundancy and repetition - unless you are intentionally using it for a specific impact.

Get it? Got it? Good.

^ Like that. It adds personality and breaks up the flow, giving the readers mind a break for a moment.

Filler Content

Writing like this is called "filler content". 

Writers typically do this for a couple main reasons:

1. They aren't very good writers, or are being lazy.
2. They are trying to hit a certain word count.
3. They are trying to get paid more for the article (because more writers are paid per word).

Filler content should be removed during editing.

We do not pay for fillings. Unless they are of the donut variety.

If a writer submits a 1,500 word article, and the editor chops it down to 1,200 by removing 300 words of "filler" the writer will not be paid on 1,500 words.

List Items (<li>)

Break up text with "list items", aka "bullet points". 

Lists make reading/skimming articles much easier for humans, and search engines like them as well. 

Use them!

Ordered Lists (<ol>)

List items can be ordered

1. Like
2. These
3. Kinds

"Ordered lists" have numbers (or the equivalent, like roman numerals).

Unordered Lists (<ul>)

And they can also be unordered

• Like
• These
• Kinds

"Unordered lists" don't have numbers. Colloquially, many people refer to these as "bullet points".

Screenshots are awesome content because they are:

1. Unique
2. Free use
3. Very good for providing visual examples

Pro Tip: Annotate your screenshots with Skitch

Images are considered "rich media" and add an extra element of content to an article that makes it more enjoyable to read for consumers, and search engines like them too.

The images that you use should be "free use" images, but to be frank this is the internet and most people don't care, or notice, if you use their images. (Disclaimer: this is not legal advice)

GIFs are another form of rich media.

They are not required, and some clients may not even want them – but some do.

GIFs are a great way to display emotion, personality & humor.

They help keep articles relatable and entertaining!

Make sure your GIFs are project appropriate!

If you want to use GIFs in your writing, please make sure it is appropriate for the project. 

For example, a client with a more serious "voice/tonality" in their writing (like a divorce attorney) may not want to use them.

Then again, maybe they do. Always consult the writer's guidelines.

Downloading GIFs

Pro Tip: Download GIFs

If you do plan to use GIFs, you can find them at GIPHY. 

The best way to use GIFs is to download them first, and then add them to your article. Why?

Because if you simply link to them using the GIPHY embed, you will be giving GIPHY a backlink & branding/advertising on every GIF you use.

Also you're hotlinking and who knows.. they could just break everywhere. Kind of like what happened to my site.

Plus theres Giphy pop up annoyance all over.

Videos are an excellent form of Rich Media.

Readers love them and so do search engines (especially when you find the videos on YouTube and embed them into your articles).

You DO love videos... right?

If you said no, then I challenge you to watch this video and dislike it:

Remember!

If you want to use a video make sure you are not using a video of a competitor – that would only help promote them and not the client/project you are working on.

 Infographics:
A visual representation of information / data

They help people to visualize and understand data in a much more engaging way than looking at charts, graphs and spreadsheets.

Use them whenever possible.

• Good option: Use other people's infographics (if it's in line with the project's writers guidelines)
• Better option: You can create your own infographics

Calls-to-Actions (CTAs) are what blogging is all about. 

We want readers to take some action on our website. 

This action could be many things, but it always has a clear exchange of value, and objective for the website.

Some website CTA objectives:

• Make money (Sell a product, send traffic through an affiliate link)
• Lead generation (Fill out a contact form, book a call, download a resource)
• Email list growth (Sign up for newsletter, etc.)

CTAs are arguably the most important reason for writing blog posts in the first place.

Websites need to monetize somehow, and they do so by selling products, services, advertising space, etc.

Make sure the article CTA(s) is/are clear, concise, and stand-out somehow.

Ways to make CTAs stand out

Use a relevant emoji to indicate an action.

 Click here to check out this product on Amazon

Use styled elements like call out boxes, quote areas, etc.

 This is a quote area that stands out.

Table of Contents

help users navigate, and they are good for search engines as well, as they provide jump-links (aka 'anchor links') that you can use for all sorts of SEO trickery.

But ill save that for another course.

When you are done writing your articles, put a table of contents widget at the top.

If you don't know how to do this, don't worry.

One of the main reasons we create blog posts is so that we can attract people to our website who are looking for answers: information, products, services, etc.

Keywords are the words, and phrases, that people type into search engines when looking for these answers.

We can use tools that tell us how often a certain Keyword is searched, and use that information to decide what we want to write about – because if we know that there are 1,000 people every month searching for "raincoats for dogs" and we sell those, then it would be awesome if our website would show up on Google when someone searched it!

Keywords have 3 main properties you should know about:

1. Search Intent: What is the person searching really wanting? Do they want to buy something, like a search for "best acer monitors to buy under $200", or are they simply looking for more information, like "how to make pancakes". The first example is considered a 'commercial keyword', because it has purchase intent, and the second example is considered an 'informational keyword', because there is no purchase intent.
2. Search volume (SV): The amount of times that exact word, or phrase, gets searched each month on average
3. Keyword Difficulty (KD): An estimate of how hard it will be for a website to show up on page 1 for that term. KD is on a scale from 1-100, with 100 being essentially impossible.

Our content strategists will put together lists of keywords for you to write about that are the best mix of all 3 of these things.

 I made an entire module on keywords if you want to learn more!

https://devinschumacher.com/keywords/

• seo keywords
• seed keywords
• long tail keywords
• LSI Keywords
• meta keywords
• Keyword Difficulty
• keyword research

The URL of a post is the part shows up in your web browser's search bar.

In this example, the "URL" is: andreasguitaruniverse.com/best-reverb-pedals/

Note: Having the main Keyword in the URL is a very strong way to get credit for the keyword, and help your post rank for it.

The Page Title is what you see on your web browsers tab:

The Page Title is normally whatever you name your Blog Post, plus the name of the website (sometimes).

The Page Title is a great place to put the main Keyword, but also some variations of the keyword that also gets Search Volume

Interlinking is the process of linking a word, or phrase, in one article on your website, to another article on your website. You see them all the time.

Interlinking helps SEO, and should be used whenever relevant.

Ideally you want to use interlinking when you are discussing a topic that may need further explanation for a reader, but you don't want to go into the topic in depth in the current article. 

For example: If you are talking about Page Titles you would link to the page title article.

Word Count is exactly what it sounds like – the number of words of your article.

The best thing you can do is write a good article - an article that thoroughly, and completely covers the topic you are writing about.

However, search engines like longer form content, and one easy-to-follow SEO best practice is to make sure that the article you are writing has more words than the other articles you are trying to rank above (aka all the articles on Page 1 when you search the keyword).

Word count is also an important concept to understand because most companies pay per word.

If you are a hired to write blog content, word count will usually be provided for you – but if you are ever unsure about what the word count of your article should be you can always just look at the word count of the top ranking articles and get an average.

Then, just make your article somewhere slightly above that average!

In this video we take a look at a live example of populating the the first part of content calendar. 

This part of the strategy should be done by the SEO team.

In this video we take a look at a live example of populating the the first part of content calendar. 

This part of the strategy should be done by the SEO team.

In this video we take a look at a live example of populating the the second part of content calendar. 

This part of the strategy can be done by the SEO team or the writer. 

I prefer that it is done by the writer, because it is pretty much the process they will need to do anyways to write the article.

But it's not required that they do it.

Keyword Variations

We fill out the "keyword variations" cell with other ways that people type in the primary keyword. 

We find keyword variations using ahrefs

Supporting Keywords

We fill out the "supporting keywords" cell with related topics that should be covered within the article to make it comprehensive, and a good resource for the reader.

We find supporting keywords using:

1. Ahrefs > Look at what keywords the top ranking pages are showing up for
2. Look at the top ranking pages - what headings & sub-headings are they using?