SEO blog writer questions answered

42group is one of the UK’s leading SEO blog writing agencies and we’re always generating new content that captures high ranking positions. Successful SEO blog writing involves crafting content that uses audience information (keywords, search intent, user experience insights, etc.) to create blogs, articles, news stories and long-form pieces (like whitepapers) that build human connections.

When we begin to sketch out a blog programme we think strategically. Every piece of SEO blog content must have a purpose, an audience and an outcome (inform, educate, inspire, etc.)

Clients and customers come to 42group as we’re experts SEO blog writers. We could keep all this information and expertise to ourselves, but that’s not what we’re like. Here are some of the key SEO blog writer questions we get asked (and their answers, obviously). This is a brilliant basic primer on the importance and impact of SEO blog content.

Whether you’re a potential client, content commissioner or SEO blog writer, there’s information here that will help you improve how you work.

What are SEO blogs?

SEO blogs are content that is created specifically to boost your search engine ranking. The content is optimised to fulfil all technical criteria (page title, meta tag, alt tags, clear H1s and H2s, logical structure) and so on. SEO copy and content is built around keywords and key search terms too, using these insights generated form research to match the content you’re creating to audience demands.

These are the basics. But the best SEO blog writers go further. They use audience information as inspiration, shaping new, original and authentic content that builds human connections.

What does this mean? The world doesn’t need more generic content. With millions of pages published every day (and most of those never been accessed or read), we need to get specific. That means finding the real content angles your audience is searching for.

SEO blog writing isn’t about keyword stuffing. It’s about building a picture of them – their wants, needs, drivers and desires – and creating the type of content they need. The ultimate purpose is about adding value – and the product of this is greater engagement, sharing and increased rankings.

What does an SEO blog writer do?

It can seem like SEO blog writing is transactional. You get sent a brief, you write the article, edit it and it’s published. Your SEO blog writer should be sending you content that’s well-written, spell checked, original (not created using generative AI, naturally), and optimised.

That’s what a basic SEO blog writer does, but trust us, it won’t help your business. This is what every organisation (and every cut-price content agency) is doing. It’s not going to take you to the next level.

The best SEO blog writers (like those at 42group) provide a complete strategic SEO writing service. We work with your organisation to create a strategic SEO plan – with blogs as the engine room, driving engagement and creating human connections.

How can SEO blogs boost rankings?

Let’s take you back to basics. Google uses a variety of factors to decide upon your search engine ranking position. The content on your website (all of it – including blogs) plays a huge part in where you rank.

You’ll want to ensure the content on your website homepage, service pages, case studies and so on is clear and logical, essentially telling Google what you do. (If you’re an SEO content agency, it’ll say this on the homepage, etc.).

Blogs are what we describe as the engine room of SEO. They’re where you can directly answer search questions (like this post does), offer information and advice, add value to your audience and dig deep into details.

Google will regularly crawl your site, identify new pages, rank them and index them. Your blogs will appear in search engine rankings. The internal links to other pages will increase the visibility of your site. Great quality content is shareable content, so you could see a boost in organic shares.

When it comes to blogs, there are three things to consider:

• Blog frequency
• Blog quality
• Blog length

We’ll explore each of these elements in more detail in the proceeding questions.

How often should I blog for SEO?

There’s no hard and fast rule on this, but you’ll want to ensure that you blog regularly. In a competitive niche area (like SEO copywriting, for example) you need to blog a couple of times a week, every week.

The scheduling of blogs (in agency terms, the cadence) is important. Regularly posting and publishing high quality content sends a clear signal to Google you’re investing in your site which, in our experience, can lead to new content ranking sooner.

Publishing a lot of content won’t do much to move the dial or boost your rankings it’s junk, however.

Aim to publish a post at least once a week. But quantity is arguably less important than quality. So, let’s look at that.

What is ‘SEO blog quality’ and how can I measure it?

Let’s face it, the internet is full of absolute junk content that nobody ever reads. You want to ensure that the content you create adds value to your audience. Google has its EEAT guidelines which are useful to look at.

If you’re using a writing assistant to create or edit SEO blogs, you’ll get what looks like a quality score. This is a crude metric that assesses your content against existing content that ranks highly for the same keywords. It also assesses (in an automated way) the number and placement of keywords.

This isn’t a quality score you can rely on – and it’s why we don’t use SEO writing assistants. (More on this later.)

Blog quality is something that you, as a reader, can assess. Think about it less in technical terms and more in how effectively it answers the question you need answered.

Take this blog. We could have created an SEO blog writing guide (but we’ve already done that, which you can review here). We know that writers, companies and even some agencies would value insights into SEO blog writing and will search for specific answers, and this structure is a logical and accessible way to provide them.

Is this a good quality article? Only you can decide that. If you’re reading it, then it must have ranked and attracted you, so it’s doing its job.

When reading blogs, don’t use assistants or assume your agency is doing the right things. Trust your instincts and expertise and judge quality yourself. The aim is to regularly publish content which is original, with authority and that offers your audience value. Do all these things and you’ll rank higher.

Learn more buy reading our guide on how to write SEO content.

How long should SEO blogs be?

There is no hard and fast rule here, but in our experience, the longer content pieces rank higher.

A 500-word blog post won’t help you much – unless you’re dealing with a really niche search term.

If you’re investing in a blog programme that’s explicitly about boosting SEO (there are other reasons why you might want to invest in blogging beyond SEO), then aim to regularly publish 1500–2000-word posts at a minimum.

When creating content in highly competitive niches (like SEO copywriting!), you’ll need to do more. 5000 words? Sometimes.

What you want to ensure is that you’re not padding or producing content for the sake of it. That’s the importance of finding the right balance between content quality and length.

Should I use AI to write SEO blogs?

No.

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OK, we’ll answer this question. Generative AI writing tools are seductive for those working with SEO. They can churn out 2000 words in seconds that’s optimised, original and authentic. Right? Wrong.

AI assistants use existing content to create what purports to be new. But it isn’t. The content is dull, derivative, inauthentic and lacks authority.

If SEO was your aim and it worked, then this would be fine. But it doesn’t.

Google can spot SEO content a mile away. While it doesn’t explicitly say it penalises AI content, it’s not going to rank a machine generated piece that takes all the best parts of millions of articles and makes them worse against a piece of content carefully created by an expert, that’s packed full of insights and is written with authority.

What’s more, your audience can spot AI content, too, and they’ll not want to read it, share it or link to it.

In the future, generative AI might transform everything. Until then, it’s a fascinating experiment.

Can it help SEO content writers? Absolutely. Some of the prompts can help you with things like:

• Creating blog outlines
• Identify keywords
• Highlight the best blogs in class
• Check and edit references

Should I use an SEO writing assistant?

There’s a difference between AI writing tools (like ChatGPT) and writing assistants, like SEMrush. Writing assistants can be used to help you:

• identify keywords
• create blog titles
• provide SEO blog structures
• help you with keywords placement (in titles, in intros and outros)
• avoid keyword stuffing

With all these benefits, why wouldn’t you use one?

The problem is that other agencies, organisations and individuals can use SEO writing assistants. The risk is that you end up creating yet more derivative content (we call ‘me too’ content) not genuinely original and engaging content that adds value to your audience.

AI writing assistants also assume that the existing content that ranks highly will do so again in the future. That doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny. We recommend our clients focus on creating new, original and authentic content.

If you’re starting out as an SEO blog writer, assistants can be useful. But use them for advice. Over reliance on writing assistants can lead you to become a poor writer. You’re better than a writing assistant!

How many SEO blogs should I publish?

Short answer: One to two posts a week as a minimum.

Can anyone write SEO blogs?

Yes. The question is: will they work? And the answer to that is no.

Let’s go back to the basics. SEO blogs should be original, optimised for SEO, and add value. Writing (especially for SEO) is a skill that takes time to develop. You can’t start writing and generate a 2000-word blog that will rank in a few hours (unless you’re a genius).

However, you can develop and improve your skills. This guide is a good place to start. Check out our SEO writing guide (and those available online). Buy books and read them. Analyse what content ranks and explore why. Write, then write some more, then write some more.

Should I use Fiverr for SEO blog writing?

No. You get what you pay for, and Fiverr is a platform that’s designed to cut costs. The outputs you get will likely be generated by AI or written by an inexperienced writer.

If they’re generating 100% original and perfectly written prose for $5, they’re being exploited and you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?

Should I use a freelance writer to create SEO blogs?

Obviously, you should use 42group for all SEO blog writing. But if you don’t want to work with us then a freelance writer can add scale, create great SEO content and help you smash you SEO targets.

Where we see freelance SEO writers add the most value is in niche areas. You can find freelance writers that are experts in pretty much everything, from model trains to molecular biology. Their expertise can take you a long way to creating content with the authority we’re talking about.

Why should I work with an SEO blog writing agency?

SEO blog writing agencies like 42gropu work as outsourced members of your team. We can use our expertise – gained from years of successful SEO writing projects with massive clients like Google, Lenovo, Halfords and more – to create content that ranks. Scale is a real benefit, enabling us to get started straight away and accelerate production from a single piece to 50 (yes, we’ve done this for clients before).

Alongside scale and expertise, agencies will have established processes and ways of working that can simplify the briefing, content creation, editing and publishing processes.

Agencies are faster, slicker and better at delivering at-scale SEO content creation.

On that last point, it’s time for the CTA.