How to make SEO-friendly content (with top SEO content examples)

The reason SEO writing exists is simple: People need information. They head to Google, and they conduct queries. The information shows up in a multitude of solutions: articles, guides, ebooks videos… In short: content.

This desire to learn, understand, and know is what gives SEO writing meaning.

And copywriting (SEO or otherwise) offers you an immense opportunity to satisfy the needs of your potential clients.

Whenever they need information, your content is there. Whenever they need a solution to their problems, your product or service is there. For instance, this is how it works for us at Dear Content:

• Are our users looking to learn something specific, like how to create a content marketing benchmark? We’re here for them.
• Do they want to hire the services of a content marketing agency? We tell them everything they need to know about us before taking the next step. 

In this article, we’ll be cutting right to the chase. Because you already know what SEO writing is and its importance, we won’t be explaining those to you. Instead, we’re going to show you brilliant SEO content examples and using these examples, show you how to optimise your content for SEO.

And since SEO content includes numerous factors (word count, keywords, content type, title, URL, topic angle, etc.), we’ll also be taking these apart so you can understand the weight they have on SEO content. 

SEO content example #1: Hotjar

Traffic and ranking data

• Monthly organic traffic: 18,000 visits
• Number of keywords they rank for: 5,000+
• Main keywords: survey questions, good survey questions, survey questions to ask, survey question examples, types of survey questions.

SEO writing data

• Títle: Survey Questions: 70 Good Survey Question Examples & Types
• H1: Survey questions 101: over 70 survey question examples + types of surveys and FAQs. Note how the H1 is nearly identical to the title. They’ve simply added a few more words to make the title more visible or the H1 more attractive to users.
• URL: /blog/survey-questions/
• Content type: Long-form blog content with examples and FAQs
• Word count: 6,125
• Does it have a table of contents or navigation menu? Yes, a table of contents
• Number of sections or H2s that incorporate its main keywords: Eight

What makes this a good SEO content example?

Hotjar has hit the nail on the head with this article. Thanks to it, they are at the top of the rankings for keywords with high organic potential and competition, such as good survey questions.

Clearly, they’ve done many things right. But if we had to choose just one, it would be this: the perfect alignment of the search intent with the chosen angle. 

Internet users searching for words like good survey questions, survey questions to ask, or survey examples are looking for content that helps them, in the simplest possible way, to ask good survey questions. 

They don’t want to learn about the process of crafting questions, building questionnaires, or conducting interviews; they want examples, inspiration, and shortcuts. That’s exactly why Hotjar prioritised practicality when creating this piece of content.

You only have to look at the title to see this. They’ve included not one, not two, but three main keywords to attack the search intent. As an added plus, they’ve even incorporated them naturally. 

Survey questions 101: over 70 survey question examples + types of surveys and FAQs

If the prospect of the title wasn’t already juicy enough to draw users in (over 70 examples and survey types and FAQs), their promise delivered in the introduction makes it even more attractive and specific.

But before jumping straight into the list of examples and types of survey questions, Hotjar begins by dialling it down to the basics with definitions, their importance, and so on. This is common practice in SEO writing for two main reasons:

1. It provides context, which helps inexperienced users better understand the content.
2. It’s a great opportunity to cover other related keywords for SEO purposes. In their case, their introduction has allowed them to boost SEO by including powerful H2s such as: What is a good survey question? Why is it important to ask good survey questions? 

Though these are compelling reasons to include such elementary pieces of SEO content, Hotjar is well aware that most of its audience is not looking for this type of content. 

And for this segment of readers, these basic, less practical, and less specific sections can be annoying and may even hinder their experience. In fact, this is a critical point in SEO writing. 

With this in mind, Hotjar caveats its readers. They give them a heads up that they’ll be starting with these sections and include a link so readers can skip directly to the content that the title promises: the list of 70+ examples. 

Summary: What can we learn from this SEO content?

• It is an article clearly focused on generating organic traffic. It never loses sight of the fundamental aim of helping users solve their problems in the most practical way possible. 
• It aids the reading experience as much as possible by including an incredible amount of images, highlighted texts, lists, resources to expand the information, FAQs, etc.

SEO content example #2: Piktochart

Traffic and ranking data

• Monthly organic traffic: 19,200 visits
• Number of keywords they rank for: 2,500+
• Main keywords: pitch deck examples, pitch decks, best pitch decks, startup pitch deck, investor pitch deck, investor deck

SEO writing data

• Title: 30 Legendary Startup Pitch Decks And What You Can Learn From Them
• H1: Same as title
• URL: /blog/startup-pitch-decks-what-you-can-learn/
• Content type: Blog article with a list of examples and templates
• Word count: 2,640
• Does it have a table of contents or navigation menu? No, but there’s a list of examples with direct links to the examples.
• Number of sections or H2s that incorporate its main keywords: Only two. However, each H2 is followed by numerous H3s. The first H2 has 30 H3s within it (one per example) and the second has nine (one per template). This shows that it’s an extremely comprehensive article that responds to the user’s search intent. 

What makes this a good SEO content example?

If you’re searching for pitch deck examples, what you’re really looking for are presentations. 

And not just any presentation, but presentations that have helped some of the world’s most promising startups rise to where they are today.

That’s why the angle chosen by Piktochart, 30 Legendary Startup Pitch Decks And What You Can Learn From Them, is a great one. It also allows them to embed, within the article, the Slideshare presentations.

As we’ve seen with Hotjar, this SEO content example also shows us how listicle-type SEO content can be of extraordinary value to the top of the funnel (ToF). 

But this piece, as ToF as it is, comes with an extra ingredient for an exquisite final touch: product content, with a section of pitch deck templates ready to be edited in —where else?— Piktochart.  

What they achieve with this is a combination of the best ToF and middle/bottom-of-the-funnel (MoF or BoF) content in a way that is not pushy and completely natural. 

Aside from reaching new audiences and solving their problems, they’re also educating them about their solutions and guiding them towards purchasing their product.

Summary: What can we learn from this SEO content?

• It is a mega-complete and very useful resource for potential Piktochart customers: startup founders looking for inspiration for their pitch deck. 
• It demonstrates the possibility to introduce product-related content within an article that’s mainly informational while targeting an audience that is probably not yet familiar with the brand and its solutions.

SEO content example #3: Salesforce

Traffic and ranking data

• Monthly organic traffic: 119,800 visits
• Number of keywords they rank for: 5,000+
• Main keywords:  crm, crm meaning, what is (a) crm, customer relationship management, crm platform, crm definition, what is customer relationship management, crm system, etc.

SEO writing data

• Title: What is CRM?
• H1: CRM 101: What is CRM?
• URL: /crm/what-is-crm/
• Content type: a support article (/crm/what-is-crm/) within a larger pillar page (/crm/) that introduces CRM systems. Other supporting articles within the same pillar would be /crm/examples/ or /crm/benefits-of-crm.
• Word count: 1,904
• Does it have a table of contents or navigation menu? Not within the article itself. But there is a navigation menu on the right that links to other supporting articles in the same pillar.
• Number of sections or H2s that incorporate its main keywords: 14

What makes this a good SEO content example?

This is one of the great classics of SEO evergreen content. And honestly, we’d all be hard-pressed to find a content writer who’s never had to produce what is articles.

This type of query corresponds to the first stage of the buyer’s journey, i.e. your potential customers don’t know you exist, but they have heard about a possible solution to their problems.

Enter: the what is search.

By their very nature, definition articles tend to have very high search volumes. That’s why they are immensely popular with marketers. 

And though they may appear simple at first glance, looking at them from an SEO content writing point of view, they are actually pretty complex pieces. 

It’s not easy to maintain a basic what is approach in a comprehensive article that addresses all the user’s questions at that stage of the journey without being tempted to beat around the bush too much. 

But look at the Salesforce content team’s skill, in particular the H1 (What is CRM?) and the first H2 (This is a simple definition of CRM).

A more common SEO writing practice would be to title it “Definition of CRM” to start it off with the keyword. 

But this is a brilliant example of SEO copywriting, not least because it manages to integrate all the relevant keywords in a straightforward and natural way. 

In this case, all they have done is add an impersonal keyword, Definition of CRM, in a more personal and narrative format, as if it were just another sentence: This is a simple definition of CRM. 

Simple, but ingenious. 

After covering the basics of what a CRM is and its definition, they move on to answer all the questions that a potential customer might have in the discovery phase: who a CRM is for, why it is important to have a CRM, what a CRM system does, etc. 

And there are two things about this winning SEO content example in particular that really caught our attention.

#1: The SEO writing aligns seamlessly with the sales funnel

Let’s scroll down to the more conversion-oriented sections of the content: at the end where the advantages of a CRM are explained.

In point number two of this section, the article presents clear, visual data on how using the Salesforce CRM helps to improve conversion rates and sales. 

These visuals alone enhance the reading experience, guide readers’ attention, and facilitate information retention. 

But here’s the best part: Each of the little squares links to a specific landing page. For example, clicking on +15% in deal size brings us to a landing page specifically designed for sales teams.

And if we click on +31% in qualified leads, we’re brought to a marketing-focused page that talks about how their product helps marketers do their job better.

This is SEO writing at its best—designed to appeal to an audience that is still very early in the buying cycle. 

But even so, Salesforce jumps on the opportunity to explain how its product can help to reinforce an enviable brand image. 

#2: It includes other content that supports the user’s search intent and keywords

One key indicator Google looks at to determine whether a piece of content is relevant to search intent is users’ behaviour.

What do they do when they arrive at the page? How long do they interact with the content for? How many more pages of the same website do they visit afterwards? 

One way to keep users engaged with the content is to offer them other attractive content that’s related to their initial search intent. 

And that’s where the famous banners and CTAs to download ebooks or other downloadables or trigger a conversion (free trial, sale, etc.) come into play.

Salesforce’s content is full of these complementary content. For example, they’ve placed visual banners on the right to invite readers to take their experience one step further. 

This is a pretty common practice. But here, the complementary content provides phenomenal support to the main search intent, both from an SEO and conversion perspective.

These are the two banners:

• • Free trial: What is Salesforce CRM? → Note how it reinforces the main keyword.
  • Guide: Your guide to getting started to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) → The perfect next step for anyone interested in learning more about a CRM.

Summary: What can we learn from this SEO content?

• The content fully, yet subtly and naturally, incorporates the main keywords. That’s what we call perfect SEO writing. 
• As with the Hotjar example, the message of the content is further reinforced by incorporating all kinds of visual elements to enhance the reading experience. 
• The article is perfectly in tune with other complementary SEO content to attack the different stages of the conversion funnel.

Want to learn more?

• How to create an editorial calendar that rocks
• How to do keyword research for SEO with SEMrush [Guide]

Lin

Lin’s an ex-journalist who’s found her new love in content marketing. In her spare time, she’s on a secret conquest to find a solution to never having to cut her nails again.