Simple SEO for Content Creators: Guide to creating a content marketing process that search engines love

The web has created a liberating, self-publishing, and distribution ecosystem for writers, photographers, and videographers--in other words, content creators. Unfortunately, too many creative folks remain undiscovered for a simple reason: they’re unaware of the most basic mechanics of search engine optimization (SEO).

This book is not about complex technical and link-building SEO campaigns. In fact, done poorly, these more complex tactics can harm your content and ultimately your business objectives. No, in this book, I’m going to focus on equipping you with the simplest of on-page and off-page SEO techniques that will help search engines (i.e., Google) better discover, index, and rank your great content—attracting the audience you crave.

Consistent with Occam’s Razor—often, in the absence of certainty, the simplest approach is the best solution. Which is highly appropriate given that search engine placements and the mind of Google is anything but certain.

I’ve heard many a creative argue passionately for the merit of their art while never considering, sometimes outright rejecting, any concern for SEO. This is a little silly—no, downright foolish. Even the greatest of art can only be appreciated once discovered.

I’m going to help make that discovery process as easy as possible for you, without making it your full-time job.

Just to assure you that you’re in the right place, I’m writing this book for anyone that makes a living creating and publishing content on the Web. This could be a freelance writer, agency copywriter, a small business owner, a solopreneur generating passive income, or even a photographer or videographer.

Content creators create in all forms of media and for a broad range of objectives and they all need to apply some basic SEO best practices.

If you’re publishing content (i.e., essays, articles, blog posts, photographs, art, graphic design, video, etc.) on the web, I’m going to assume that you want it discovered and appreciated.

This guide should help all of you equally because, at the end of the day, we all need web traffic to gain readers, viewers, and ultimately customers. And Google is the largest gateway to those people.

But, here’s a little secret: Google is a simpleton. Literally, relatively ‘dumb’ software bots that harvest content all day long facilitate Google searches. And let me assure you they are certainly not the best judges of art.

However, it does control the flow of web traffic (web visitors’ eyeballs), so you must learn to gain its favor.

The good news is that because it’s dumb software, it relies on a few simple clues associated with your content to determine its context and quality. That’s why it’s worth the littlest bit of time to learn how to optimize these simple, technical, queues that Google uses to organize its search results.

Otherwise, you might as well eliminate the middleman and stick that article, photo, or video in your desk drawer—it’ll get just as many views there.

Let me assure you, nothing here is rocket science or totally unavailable elsewhere. After all, reinventing the wheel is rarely the best approach. My goal has been to package some SEO essentials in a way that makes it easier to learn, process, and implement into your content marketing projects.

If I do my part well, you’ll only need to tweak your content creation process the slightest bit and your content will become significantly more visible in search engines.

Over the years, I’ve taught these SEO basics to freelancers, employees, and clients. The results are always impressive and the content producers always appreciative. But despite its near-universal utility, SEO is still a topic and tactic shrouded in a kind of mystery; it isn’t widely understood and it is often poorly executed, generally neglected, or outright avoided--all while it chews away at productivity.

As such, I’m putting it to paper for everybody’s benefit.