Writing content from scratch is not for everyone. Many people may think that optimization should be done right from the get-go, which is not valid.
Some people are worried that if they are not optimizing their content too early on, Google will not rank their content at all. Again, no.
If you don’t have the time or if you suck at writing and grammar, don’t beat yourself up. For me, writing content is a form of art that requires creativity and analytical skills.
It may be difficult with a lot on one’s plate, but this does not mean something should not be done to improve the content for its accessibility to an audience or readership.
But first,
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. In other words, it is designed to get one’s website ranked higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, and other search engines on the web.
This means that a website with unique content will rank higher in searches, translating to higher and consistent organic traffic.
Why optimize your content for SEO?
The answer to this question lies in the fact that only a high-ranking web page will get a lot of search engine traffic, leading to better visibility for your site online. One of the main factors that can rank your content well on search engines is word selection and crafting. But bear in mind that you should not just stuff the keywords in your content for the sake of it.
In this regard, your content should speak for itself. Your audience and even you should have no difficulty understanding what the article is about. This means that you should avoid using long and complicated sentences.
In other words, your SEO content should be a synthesis of different short sentences. Your content should have a logical flow, and it should be easily understandable by the reader at first glance.
So with that sense,
Should you SEO-optimize your content?
I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to start off optimizing your content for the sake of ranking on search engines. It would be best to allow your content to develop naturally, and your audience learns about you through their experience with you and the content you produce.
Plus, did I mention that it can make this whole content writing process too daunting? There will be too many steps involved, which makes content creation more time-consuming. But there are those who have found it a good idea to test out the waters with SEO-optimized content. If you prefer to optimize it right after you finished writing, then you’re welcome to ignore my advice.
Besides, the vast majority of social media content and blogs do not have complex SEO in place because they were not written to beat the social media or any other site’s algorithms. There’s no reason to add yet another layer of complexity to what already are established processes.
Remember, you are writing your content for your audience (ahem, humans), NOT your search engines! So, focus on making your content human-friendly.
Hence, you will have to find a middle ground where you are comfortable and yet create valuable content that your audience can trust.
Conclusion
Long story short, if you don’t have much content in the beginning, it’s best to focus on creating as much content on your site as possible. Only then, once you decide to post your content less frequently on your site, can you edit and optimize your content for SEO.
So it’s up to you on how you intend to approach the SEO part of content creation. Whether you get to page 1 ranking on search engines or not, you’ll at least find that this strategy improves your ranking potential.
Good luck, and happy writing!