SEO Blog Post Workflow

Creating a full, SEO-optimized blog post can be a time-consuming exercise.

Research, creating your structure, optimizing your content for SEO, adding images, backlinks, internal links; there are so many pieces of the puzzle that can make the creation of an article post a painstakingly slow process.

A less experienced person can easily spend 5-6 hours on a 1,000-word blog post.

This is why we wanted to create a workflow that helps create an SEO-optimized blog article, built with your keywords, attention grabbing headline, and structure in mind.
In this article, we’ll explain how to use our SEO Blog Post workflow to create a blog post ready to climb the SERP (search engine results page) in minutes.

Step 1: Select the SEO Blog Post workflow

From the menu on the left hand side of the dashboard, click on the Workflows section, and select SEO Blog Post. It should look something like this:

Step 2: Enter your primary keyword

This is the part where our keyword research pays off.

By selecting the keyword we are going to target at the start of the process, we are giving our content that we create the best possible chance of being found (and loved) by our target audience.

We have two options on how to do this:

Start from a saved keyword. If you have performed keyword research with Mark's keyword lookup tool already, your topic clusters and saved keywords will be located here. Just select the keyword from the dropdown menu.

This looks something like this:



For more on how to perform keyword research, check out our guide.

Search for a keyword. Alternatively, you can perform keyword research directly in the workflow. Simply type your keyword into the search bar, select the country you are wanting to rank in, and hit search.

With this we'll be able to see the search volume, competition, trend, and most importantly the difficulty of the word you want to rank on. You'll also see similar keywords that might be slightly less competitive, or fabled long-tail keywords - every SEO Content Creators dream.

This is how that looks:



From here we have options to narrow our focus even further by targeting a specific area - perfect for those performing local SEO.

For our full guide on keyword research, check out the link just back there.

Step 3: Complete your content brief

The tone here is going to set the overall tone of the article, including the outline, talking points, and paragraphs. You can of course change the tone per paragraph if you wish, once we get to the Full Text Editor, which you are taken to automatically once this workflow has been completed.

And finally, the instructions. This is the part of the brief where you guide the AI on the kind of article you would like to create. Writing effective text inputs for AI is a skill in itself, but to help out we wrote this guide on how to talk to robots.

In general:

Add more instructions if you can
Add your opinion
Regenerate content if needed
Write like you would write a friend, not a search box.

This is how my brief looked:



Click next, and you'll Mark kick into action.

Step 4: Perfect your outline

Based on your keyword research, targeting, and instructions; Mark will start analyzing SERP results (your top competitors), and generate an outline for you based on this.
In this step you'll see:

SEO recommendations: Based on the competitor analysis, Mark will make suggestions around the number of words, H2 tags, and H3 tags. (Note: in the full text editor there are more variables to monitor)
H1 Title (Blog Post title)
H2 Headings (subheading titles)
H3 Headings (sub-subheading titles)



Semantically related keywords. Including semantically related keywords gives your content more relevance and depth. It helps Google to understand your content better and recognize it as quality material, giving it a better chance of appearing higher in SERPs.

With this workflow you have the option to adjust your related keywords to refine the content generated further - ensuring your content stays on-brand, and on point.



SERP analysis. This is the part where you can check what the competition is doing to rank on the keyword you are looking to rank on - an important part of competitor analysis.



That's it!

Hit continue to be taken to the final step.

Step 5: Perfect your content.

This is where you will be take to the full text editor to edit, rewrite, or modify your SEO optimised article - ready for the internet to get their hungry little mitts on.



For more information on the anatomy of an SEO Blog post, and content creation strategies, check out our guides in the links just back there.

Happy writing! 🤖

Updated on: 24/05/2023