Writing Articles for SEO | Wiley (2024)

FAQs

Writing Articles for SEO | Wiley? ›

If you're new to SEO, it'll take you longer. If you're more of a visual person and less of a words person, it'll take you longer. On average, I can write and format a blog post for publication in less than 3 hours (notice I'm not including research. I spent 90% of my time on research in some shape or form).

If you're new to SEO, it'll take you longer. If you're more of a visual person and less of a words person, it'll take you longer. On average, I can write and format a blog post for publication in less than 3 hours (notice I'm not including research. I spent 90% of my time on research in some shape or form).

Delight your intended audience.

SEO articles can result in things like return visits to your site, more time on your site viewing other content and conversions. Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here.

Hubspot reported: “For SEO, the ideal blog post length should be 2,100-2,400 words, according to HubSpot data.” Backlinko found that 1,000 – 2,000 words was the optimal word count for attracting social shares, while articles 3,000 words or longer won the most backlinks.

Writing SEO content can be challenging, especially when you have to deal with complex topics, tight deadlines, or demanding clients.

According to Stream SEO, writing a 1000 word article could take on average 1-2 hours. For a beginner, it could take 3-4 hours. This is what happened for me during my writing process. When I first landed those writing jobs for blog writing, it would take me 5 or 6 hours to write 1300 words.

We usually recommend you start out with two to four posts per month if you're just beginning to invest in your blog. This way, you can begin to build an SEO foundation while getting to know what your customers want to read from you.

In summary, there is no law that says your content must be a certain length to rank well. However, it's generally agreed that the best content length for SEO is between 2,000 and 3,000 words. Many content marketers spend plenty of time creating content, and that's good!

How much do SEO writers make? ›

The estimated total pay for a SEO Content Writer is $72,837 per year in the United States area, with an average salary of $62,576 per year. These numbers represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users.

An SEO copywriter is someone who can look at a set of keywords, figure out what someone searching for those phrases wants to know, and write it clearly and succinctly. A good SEO writer also must be able to use keywords effectively to help the reader find their content in search engines.

Use keyword-rich phrases

Use relevant, keyword rich phrases in your headlines as well as throughout your content to let both your readers and the search engines know what your post is about. But beware, too many keywords will not only turn off your readers but can result in search engine penalties for keyword stuffing.

There is no overarching best word count for SEO. However, we recommend aiming for at least 1,000 words for standard blog posts, 2,000 for long-form content, and 300-500 for news posts or product pages.

Here's what we recommend: pick just one primary keyword and enough secondary keywords to cover a given topic in full. In the rest of the article, I'll explain why and how.

Depending on the year and the source, you might hear the ideal word count for SEO is anywhere from 250 to more than 2,000 words per piece. Proponents of lower word counts will argue it's not the number of words but the quality of the information and the number of backlinks that matter most.

SEO takes between three and six months to start showing results. In some cases, it can take up to a year to see consistent improvement from SEO. SEO is not an immediate fix — it requires time and effort to see improvements in rankings and traffic.

If you're an absolute beginner at this, a 1000 word article should take you about 3 to 4 hours. A 2000 word article should take you about 6 to 8 hours. The reason it takes so long is because you're not experienced with writing consistently. Also, you have to add in images, links, structure the URL, etc.

With all that in mind, it can take as little as two hours for a single blog post to rank; two weeks for a competitive landing page to rank; six months for a series of pages to rank, or over a year for a brand new site to see SEO traction. The generic '4-6 months' answer is exactly that, generic.

By investing the recommended 4-15 hours of work per week into SEO, on average, results should start showing up in months 6-12. As Lee Grant, CEO of Wrangu, puts it: “Six to twelve months should be enough time for SEO to start showing results. It's a long-term investment that demands regular upkeep and attention.”