SEO writing: the method from A to Z

What is SEO writing?

SEO writing is writing web content designed for two readers. The user is looking for an answer; the search engine has to understand the page to rank it. The text targets a query and the intent behind it, not a list of words to fit in. Choosing topics and formats comes earlier, as part of the SEO content strategy; this page deals with the writing itself.

Google puts it bluntly. Its page on helpful, reliable content (updated on December 10, 2025) asks for content created for people first. It even rules out the idea of a word count that “Google prefers”: there is none.

Two levels need to be kept apart. What Google documents: helpful content, descriptive tags, no spam. And what belongs to agency method: keyword density, title length, optimisation scores. The latter are useful benchmarks, never official rules.

How do you prepare content before writing?

Half the work is done before the first sentence. A writer who writes without a brief redoes the analysis in their own way, and the result becomes impossible to check.

1. Qualify the query: volume, competition and secondary keywords from a dated keyword research.
2. Read the SERP: types of pages in the top 10, questions asked, presence of an AI Overview. The SERP reveals the real search intent.
3. Measure the length of the top 10: minimum, median, maximum. The target range follows from that.
4. Find the angle: what your page will say that the others do not (a piece of data, a test, a method).
5. Write the brief: title, meta, heading outline, related vocabulary, internal links, sources to cite.

Which tags need care: title, meta and headings?

Tags are the most visible part of the work, and the one where the most outdated rules circulate. Here are the benchmarks used in September 2026.

Element	Benchmark	Status
Title	50 to 60 characters, 65 maximum, keyword first	Market convention (Zyppy study)
Meta description	140 to 160 characters, accurate summary of the page	No official length
H1	Only one, 5 to 7 words, with the query or a variant	Good practice
H2 / H3	One H2 per secondary intent, H3 for variants	No strict Google rule
URL	Short, no accents, reflects the topic	Good practice

For the title, Zyppy’s study of 81,000 tags was updated on July 1, 2026. Beyond 70 characters, Google rewrites the title almost every time. The detailed rules are in our guide to the title tag.

For the meta description, the “Control your snippets” documentation (April 20, 2026) is clear: Google creates its snippets mainly from the page content. The meta description therefore serves the click-through rate, with no guarantee it will be shown. For headings, the heading structure must reflect the outline, not the formatting.

How do you write the body text?

The intro and the first 100 words

The intro answers the main question in the first two sentences. It contains the query and a secondary phrase. Many readers will read only the intro and the subheadings.

Paragraphs, sentences and keyword

• One paragraph = one idea, ideally 1 to 2 lines, 4 to 5 at most.
• Active voice, short sentences, no sentence that says nothing.
• Main query in the H1, the first 100 words, one or two H2s and the conclusion.
• Density around 1% as an agency benchmark; above 2.5%, rephrase with synonyms.

Related vocabulary, entities and sources

A well-ranked text covers the topic, not just the word. List the entities (tools, organisations, concepts), the synonyms and the terms that all the top 10 pages use. Do not invent any brand, standard or statistic. Every figure carries its source and its date, with a link to the exact page.

Finish with internal links: three to ten links to related pages, with anchors that describe the destination. The detailed method is in our guide to internal linking.

How do you write to be cited by AI search engines?

AI Overviews, AI Mode or ChatGPT most often reuse passages, not whole pages. Citable content breaks down into blocks that make sense out of context.

• A direct answer of 40 to 60 words at the top of the page.
• Self-contained sections: each H2 can be understood without reading the rest.
• Subheadings phrased as questions when it is natural.
• Figures with their scope, their source and their date.
• An identified author and a visible update date.

These principles match those of classic SEO. To go further on citability, see our guide to optimizing for AI.

How do you use AI in SEO writing?

It has its place, with safeguards. Google’s position on AI-generated content (December 10, 2025) recognises its value for research and structuring. Its spam policies (updated on August 28, 2026), on the other hand, target “scaled content abuse”. This means generating many pages to manipulate rankings, with no value for the user.

The Search Quality Rater Guidelines (version of September 11, 2025) point the same way. They call for the lowest rating for main content that is copied, paraphrased or AI-generated with little effort and added value. The criterion is value, not the tool.

Delegate to AI	Keep for a human
First draft of an outline, comparing outlines	Choosing the angle and approving the outline
Rephrasing, transitions	Tone and brand voice
Spotting passages to illustrate	Checking every source and every figure
Variations of an approved text	Lived experience, cases, reasoned opinion

The author’s experience and trustworthiness carry more and more weight. The signals to work on are detailed in our article on E-E-A-T.

The pre-publication review checklist

• The content answers the intent observed in the SERP.
• Title recounted (65 characters maximum), meta recounted, only one H1.
• Query present in the H1, the first 100 words and the conclusion, without stuffing.
• Every figure has a dated primary source, linked to the exact page.
• Internal links in place, descriptive anchors, no repeated link.
• No ranking promise, uncertainties flagged.
• Spelling checked, text produced with AI reviewed line by line.

To place writing within organic search as a whole, start with our SEO guide. Of all the levers, SEO writing is the one you fully control.