What Is SEO Content Writing?
- Michaela Smith
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
If you've been told you need "SEO content writing" and you're not entirely sure what that means, you're not alone. The term gets used a lot, usually alongside phrases like "optimised copy" and "content marketing", in a way that assumes you already know what any of it involves.
So let me explain it properly.
What is SEO content writing?
Most businesses write from their own perspective. They write about what they sell, what they believe in, the way they want to come across. It makes sense, this is your business and you know it better than anyone. But it's not how your customers think when they're looking for you.
Your customer goes to Google with a problem they want to solve. It might be something specific and immediate, like finding a haircut in a new city, or something they've been putting off, like getting their accounts in order. They type that problem in, often in their own words rather than the language you'd use to describe your service, and they click whatever looks like it has the answer.
That gap between how you write about your business and what your customer actually types into Google is where most websites fall down. And it's the starting point for thinking about SEO content writing properly.
Take a luxury knitwear brand selling limited-run pieces online and through a handful of concessions worldwide. They might write about their craft, their heritage, their commitment to exceptional materials. All true, all worth saying somewhere. But their customer isn't typing "commitment to exceptional materials" into Google. They're typing "where can I buy a long-staple cashmere cardigan" or "is YOUR knitwear brand worth the price" or "where to buy 4-ply cashmere knitwear online." The business is talking about itself. The customer is trying to solve a problem: finding something genuinely worth spending money on.
Companies that have worked this out sometimes overcorrect. Instead of writing for the reader, they start
writing for the algorithm, repeating keywords, padding out pages, cramming in phrases until the copy reads like a robot wrote it for another robot. (HINT: it probably did!) That doesn't work either. Google has spent years getting better at recognising when content genuinely helps a person versus when it's just trying to game the system.
SEO content writing is the middle ground: it uses the words and phrases your customers are actually searching for, and it genuinely answers the question behind those searches. Both things at once.
What SEO content writing isn't
It isn't writing that sounds generic and repetitive ... "Our professional web design services provide best-in-class web design solutions for all your web design needs."
That's keyword stuffing. It's been ineffective for over a decade and it makes people leave your site immediately.
It also isn't publishing content with no clear purpose, adding a keyword to a page and hoping it ranks, or writing long articles because you've heard that length helps. None of those things work on their own. What matters is whether your content actually answers the question someone typed into Google.
The two jobs it has to do...
Good SEO content writing has to do two things at the same time.
The first is getting people to your page. That means understanding what your customers are actually
searching for, the real words they type and the real questions they're asking, and writing content that matches those searches. If someone types "good accountant for a small business near me" and you're an accountant who works with small businesses, you want a page that answers that question directly.
The second is keeping them there. Once someone clicks, your content needs to be genuinely useful: clear, readable, and relevant to what they were looking for. If they land on your page, they will decide within a few seconds if it's helpful them, and leave immediately. As we covered in the last post, Google notices that. It affects how you rank.
Getting found and being worth finding - this is the key to writing good content that Google AND your customers will love.
What it looks like in practice
On a product or service page, it means writing about what your customer is looking for, not just what you make or do. For that knitwear brand, instead of "we produce limited-run luxury pieces using the finest natural fibres", it means explaining what makes those pieces worth the price, why the customer can trust the quality, and what they'll actually feel wearing something from this collection.
On a blog post, it means choosing a topic because people are genuinely searching for it, then writing something that answers the question properly. Not a vague overview, not a puff piece - a clear, honest answer that leaves the reader knowing something they didn't before. A post on "how to care for cashmere at home" or "what to look for when buying a luxury jumper" does far more for search visibility than one about a new season launch that nobody's searching for.
Across a whole website, it means every page does a specific job, and that job is tied to what your customer is trying to figure out at that point in their journey with you.
Can you do it yourself?
Yes!! Understanding what your customers are searching for doesn't require expensive tools. Google Autocomplete, the "People also ask" section in search results, and a bit of time looking at what comes up for your key phrases will tell you a lot.
What takes more time is doing it well across a whole site. The writing itself, the structure, the judgement calls about which questions to answer and in what order - it adds up.
Additionally, it's an on-going task - staying on top of your ranking. Most small business owners find they can manage some of it, but there's a steep learning curve that requires dedication, on top of running your business!
If you'd rather have someone do it properly from the start, that's what I do at Diopatra.
Before you can write content that works, you need to know who you're writing for. That's not as obvious as it sounds - many small businesses think they know their audience and are surprised by what they find when they actually look.