Contented Manager

28 services

SEO Content Writing

Be findable by people who are ready to spend.

Illustrated character Big Ollie“Show me where it's broken.”

What is SEO content?

SEO content is writing built to be the answer to a specific thing a buyer types into a search box, so that the page is found by someone who is already looking for what you sell. The search engine is only the messenger. The real audience is one person with a question and a budget, and the page has to satisfy that person first or the visit is worthless.

In practice the work answers four questions in writing. What do your buyers type, in their words, just before they spend? Which of those searches can you honestly win, and which are owned by someone with more pages than you? What must each page contain to be the complete answer, rather than one of ten near-identical results? And which pages you already have are quietly decaying, or competing with each other, and need fixing before anything new is written?

The output for you is a short list of searches worth winning, a page written for each one, and the on-page work that lets a machine read what a person already understands. It is measured by inquiries that mention the website, not by visits.

Sounds familiar?

  • “Traffic is up and inquiries are flat.”
  • “We rank for things nobody buys.”
  • “An agency sold us fifty blog posts and nothing happened.”

What I do in SEO content

Nothing here starts with writing. It starts with what people type, because a page built for a search nobody makes is a page nobody reads.

Research

Keyword and topic research lists what your buyers actually type, sorted by how close each search sits to a purchase, so you write for "emergency plumber Kelowna" before "history of plumbing". Search intent research says whether each search wants an answer, a comparison or a supplier. Search gap research lists the searches your competitors answer and you do not. Competitor SEO analysis shows which of their pages earn the visits and what those pages contain that yours lack. The SEO content strategy turns all of it into a plan: which pages to build, in which order, aimed at which searches.

Pages and articles

SEO website copy is your ordinary site pages, written so a person recognises their own question in the first paragraph. SEO landing pages are built for one commercial search each. A pillar page is the definitive page on a subject you intend to own, and topic clusters are the narrower pages around it, linked so each supports the others. Supporting articles are those narrow pages: one question, answered completely, which is the kind of page that gets quoted. Category and collection copy gives shop pages some real text instead of a grid of thumbnails.

Local search

A search with a place name in it is a buyer close to spending. Local SEO pages are written to win those searches for one location. Service-area pages cover each town you travel to, written properly rather than stamped out with the name swapped. Google Business Profile copy is the description, services and posts on the listing most people see before your website. Local FAQs answer what locals ask: parking, hours, catchment, callout fees. Review response templates give you a calm public reply to a bad review.

On-page work

Title tags and meta descriptions are the advert for your page in the results list. Heading structure makes headings describe the content, so a reader scanning them gets the argument. Image alt text is required for accessibility, useful for search, and almost never written. Internal linking points your own pages at the pages that earn money. Snippet optimisation shapes an answer so it is the one lifted into the results page.

Maintenance

Pages age. Content refreshes update a page that used to earn visits, which is cheaper than writing a new one. Pruning and de-indexing removes or hides weak pages so the strong ones stop competing with them for the same search. An SEO content audit scores every page on whether it earns, decays or drags, and says which treatment each needs.

AI search and answer engines

When a search ends in an assistant's written summary rather than a list of links, a page has to be quotable to be part of it. Question-and-answer content is a narrow page that answers one question fully in its first two sentences. Answer restructuring rebuilds an existing page so the answer sits at the top instead of after four paragraphs of introduction. A factual clarity review adds the sources, figures and dates that let anyone check what the page claims. Entity and topic clarity makes it unambiguous, on every page and in your listings, what your business is, where it is and what it does.

How it is delivered

Fixed price, agreed in writing before anything starts. Research and strategy is a project of two to five weeks; a set of pages is four to eight; maintenance is a project or a monthly retainer, and the pricing page shows the published bands. You keep the keyword list, the plan and every page as an editable document. The pillar that most often follows is website content, because the research usually finds that the pages people land on first are the ones that need rewriting.

What I do not sell here

Link buying, link exchanges, guest posts written to plant a link, and any "backlink package". Technical work on the server: page speed, hosting, redirects at scale, structured data beyond what matches the visible page. I also do not sell keyword-density targets, FAQ blocks written for machines rather than readers, llms.txt files, or "recovery" from a named ranking update. If a page needs those to succeed, the page is the problem.

Everything under SEO Content

28 services in 6 groups. Most people need three or four of them, not all 28 — part of the job is working out which.

On this page

  1. What it is
  2. What I do
  3. Research (5)
  4. Pages and articles (6)
  5. Local search (5)
  6. On-page work (5)
  7. Maintenance (3)
  8. AI search and answer engines (4)
  9. Vocabulary (26)
  10. Word game

Ask about SEO content

Research

5 services

Pages and articles

6 services

On-page work

5 services

Maintenance

3 services

AI search and answer engines

4 services

SEO Content vocabulary

The 26 terms you will meet in a proposal, a report or a meeting about SEO content, each in one or two plain sentences. Link to any of them.

Keyword also: search query
The words a person types into a search box. Usually a phrase of three to six words, not one word, and the raw material every page in this field is built from.
Search intent
What the person typing a search actually wants: a quick answer, a comparison of options, or a supplier to call. A page must match the intent or it loses.
Long-tail keyword
A longer, more specific search such as "fix leaking hot water tank Vernon". Fewer people type it, but the ones who do are closer to spending.
SERP also: results page
Search engine results page. The page of results a person sees after a search, including any summary, map, product panel or lifted answer that appears above the plain links.
Snippet also: featured snippet
A short answer lifted from one page and shown directly on the results page. The page earns it by stating the answer plainly near the top.
Title tag
The page title stored in the code, shown as the clickable headline in a results list and on the browser tab. Sixty characters or fewer, unique on every page.
Meta description
The two-line summary under a result in the list. It does not change where a page appears, but it decides whether a person chooses it over the result beside it.
Pillar page
One long, definitive page on a subject a business intends to own, linked to and from the narrower pages that cover each part of that subject.
Topic cluster
A pillar page plus the narrow pages around it, all linked to each other, so that a site covers one subject thoroughly instead of scattering it across unrelated posts.
Supporting article
A narrow page that answers one specific question completely and links back to the pillar it belongs under. The kind of page an assistant quotes.
Anchor text also: link text
The visible, clickable words of a link. Good anchor text describes the destination; "click here" and a bare web address describe nothing.
Alt text
The written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers and read by search machines that cannot see pictures. It should carry the information the image carries.
Canonical URL
The one address you declare as the original when the same page can be reached at several addresses, so the copies do not compete with it.
Indexing
A search engine recording a page in its catalogue so it can appear in results. A page that is not indexed cannot be found, however good it is.
Crawl
The automated visit in which a search engine reads a page and follows its links. Pages with no links pointing at them may never be crawled at all.
Content decay
The slow loss of visits an older page suffers as its facts go stale and newer pages elsewhere answer the same question better. Fixed by a refresh, not a rewrite.
De-indexing also: noindex
Deliberately telling search engines not to list a page, using a noindex instruction, without deleting it. Used for thin, duplicate or private pages.
Cannibalisation also: keyword cannibalisation
Two or more of your own pages built for the same search, so they compete with each other and neither does as well as one page would.
Local pack also: map pack
The map with a short list of nearby businesses that appears for searches with a place name or a "near me". Fed by the business listing, not by the website alone.
Business Profile also: Google Business Profile
The free listing a business claims with a search engine, carrying its name, address, hours, services, photos and reviews. Often the first thing a local searcher sees.
Service area page
A page for one town or district a business travels to, written with details specific to that place rather than a template with the town name swapped.
NAP
Name, address, phone number. The three details that must be spelled identically on the website, the business listing and every directory, or machines treat them as different businesses.
Answer engine
A search tool that replies with a written answer assembled from several pages instead of a list of links. It quotes pages whose answers sit at the top and can be checked.
Entity
A specific, unambiguous thing a machine can recognise: a named business, a place, a product, a person. Pages that make their entities clear are easier to match to a search.
Citation
A mention of your business, with or without a link, on another site or inside an assistant's answer. Consistent details and checkable facts earn more of them.

Test yourself on SEO content

Four short games built from the vocabulary above. Nothing is recorded, nobody is watching, and the glossary is right there if you get stuck.

The word games need JavaScript. The glossary above has every term they use.

How it actually runs

The same four steps whatever the work is.

  1. A conversation

    Half an hour. What you sell, who buys it, and what is not working. No charge and no deck.

  2. A fixed number

    Scope and price in writing before anything starts. It does not change without you agreeing first.

  3. The work

    I do it, or I coach your person through it, or I bring in and manage the specialist it needs.

  4. Something you keep

    Every engagement ends with a document, a system or a trained person — not a dependency on me.

What usually comes with this

Three things that sit next to SEO content often enough to be worth a look.

Talk about SEO content See what it costs