SEO for Creators!

“The best time to start was yesterday. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

I used to think blogging SEO was a game for full-time bloggers.

People with editorial calendars. People who had the time to write 3,000-word skyscraper articles.

I wasn’t that person. I was juggling a leadership role in corporate, managing teams, and building my affiliate marketing business in the wee hours of the morning. When I finally started my podcast, I thought, “SEO doesn’t matter for me. I’m not a blogger.”

That mindset cost me time and growth.

Because here’s the thing.

If you’re creating content, whether it’s blog posts, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, or even social media threads, SEO for creators is already part of your game. You’re just either playing it blind or playing it smart.

And in 2025, the creators who achieve traffic growth won’t be the ones who publish the most.

They’ll be the ones who optimize what they already have.

Let me break it down for you.

What I Got Completely Wrong About Blogging SEO

I assumed blogging SEO was only about keyword stuffing and backlinks.

In the early days, I was chasing keywords like a hamster on a wheel. I’d stuff them into every paragraph. I’d write for Google instead of humans. I’d target terms I had zero interest in because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do.

It wasn’t working. I was tired. My posts weren’t ranking. Traffic was flat.

But here’s the thing I missed.

SEO is less about tricks and more about thinking. It’s about how you structure your content, support it with the right signals, and make it easy for both readers and search engines to understand what your content is actually about.

When I shifted my mindset from “rank for keywords” to “solve problems better than anyone else,” that’s when the growth started.

And yes, it works even if you only publish once a week.

Why SEO for Creators Needs a Different Mindset

You’re not trying to be the next Neil Patel. You don’t need to rank for “best CRM tools for 2025” to achieve content visibility.

As a creator, your SEO strategy should do two things: build content visibility so new people can discover you, and support your ecosystem – podcast, email list, products, affiliate links.

Think of SEO as a magnet. It quietly pulls people in while you focus on creating.

That’s the difference.

Bloggers play for volume. You play for value and alignment.

Now, you’re not running a content farm. Full-time bloggers can publish daily, target hundreds of keywords, and obsess over tiny ranking fluctuations. That’s their job. But you’re wearing multiple hats. You’re building, shipping, teaching, and creating. SEO can’t consume all your time.

So here’s the mindset shift: think 80/20.

Focus on the 20% of SEO tips that drive 80% of the results. You don’t need a perfect SEO strategy. You need a good-enough strategy that actually gets done.

Three Fast SEO Tips That Actually Work for Traffic Growth

There are a hundred SEO tweaks you could make. But if you’re short on time, here are three simple SEO tips you can apply to every piece of content, whether it’s old or new.

Fix Your Headlines

Your headline is your first hook – for Google and humans.

A great headline does two things: it includes your target keyword, and it makes people curious enough to click. Make sure it clearly explains what the post is about, who it’s for, and what outcome it delivers.

Don’t overthink it. Ask yourself: “Would I click this?”

Here are some patterns that work: “How to [achieve outcome] without [common obstacle],” or “[Number] [topic] tips for [audience],” or “Why [common belief] is wrong (and what to do instead).”

A boring title is like a locked door. No one’s walking through it.

Add Internal Links

This one’s underrated, but it’s gold.

Link your blog posts to each other. Link podcast episode show notes to relevant blog posts. Link YouTube descriptions to lead magnets.

Internal links do three things: they help readers stay on your site, help Google understand topic clusters, and increase time on page (which Google loves).

Every time you publish something new, link back to two or three relevant older posts. And when you publish new content, go back and add links from older posts to the new one. This takes five minutes and the impact compounds over time.

Make it natural, like how you’d guide someone through your content if they were sitting beside you.

Revisit Keywords with Intent

Don’t chase keywords. Understand why someone searches them.

“Best microphones” is a buyer keyword. “Why my podcast sounds bad” is a pain-point keyword. Which one matches your audience?

Use your primary keyword in the headline, intro, and one or two subheadings. Sprinkle in secondary keywords where they make sense. But here’s the real secret: write like a human. If forcing a keyword makes your sentence awkward, skip it. Google is smart enough to understand context now.

Use tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs to get keyword suggestions. But don’t let tools become a crutch. Let your audience guide your decisions.

Tools That Make Blogging SEO Easier

You don’t need a huge budget to implement these SEO tips. Here are the tools I actually use.

Ahrefs is the gold standard for keyword research and competitor analysis. It’s pricey, but if you’re serious about growing traffic, it’s worth it. You can see what’s working for others in your niche and find content gaps to fill.

Ubersuggest is a solid budget-friendly alternative. It gives you keyword ideas, search volume, and basic competitor insights without the premium price tag. Great for creators just getting started.

RankMath is a WordPress plugin that makes on-page SEO effortless. Install it on your WordPress site and it’ll help optimize your posts in real time without overwhelming you. It guides you through everything from meta descriptions to internal links.

You don’t need all of these. Pick one keyword tool and one optimization tool. That’s enough.

The SEO Flywheel: Build Once, Drive Traffic Growth Forever

Here’s a lesson I learned late.

A podcast episode disappears in 48 hours. An Instagram post fades in 24. But an optimized blog post? That thing can keep driving traffic growth for years.

One blog post I optimized in 2021 still brings me 800+ visits a month. And I haven’t touched it since.

That’s the flywheel.

You create once, optimize intentionally, and it keeps working even when you’re not.

Think of your content like a well-lit shop on a busy street. If you don’t hang a sign outside (your headline), connect the aisles (internal links), and tell people what you sell (keywords), you’ll stay invisible — no matter how amazing your products are.

A Book That Changed My Approach to SEO for Creators

If you’re a creator who wants to protect your time and earn through content, you need to read Content Fortress by Martin Huntbach and Lyndsay Cambridge.

It’s not a “tactics” book, it’s a mindset shift. It teaches you how to use content to build trust and filter out time-wasters, so your audience becomes a lead-generating engine.

This book helped me stop treating content as a to-do list and start treating it as a business asset.

My Final Word on SEO for Creators

You don’t need to be an SEO expert. But you do need to be intentional about content visibility.

Blogging SEO isn’t a hack. It’s a habit. You won’t rank number one overnight. You won’t see explosive traffic growth in a week. But if you consistently apply these SEO tips to every post you publish, you’ll see steady growth. Six months from now, a year from now, your past content will still be bringing in readers.

That’s the picture.

So start where you are. Update your headlines. Link your content together. Understand what your audience is searching for.

Over time, it compounds.

This Week’s Creator Homework

Pick one blog post or content piece and do these three things.

Improve the headline for clarity and benefit. Add two to three internal links to related content. Revisit the keywords and make sure they’re aligned with what your audience actually searches for.

Start small. You’ll build momentum faster than you think.

Over to you now.

Book Recommendations for Creators Diving into SEO

• Content Fortress by Martin Huntbach & Lyndsay Cambridge — For mindset and positioning
• They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan — For content-driven SEO
• Show Your Work by Austin Kleon — For building visibility, the creator way

Recommended Newsletters

Here are few newsletters that I would recommend that you sign up to if you are interested in learning the art of running a side-hustle:

• Write, Build, Scale
• Why we buy
• The Book Bub
• The Stacked Marketer
• The Growth Bulletin
• Unconventional Productivity for Online Business Owners
• Side Hustle Weekly
• The Affiliate Guy
• How Brands win
• For the Interested
• Send and Grow

Sign up to these and follow them. You will get a lot of information and content for your blog posts, podcasts and even social media posts.

I will share more such ideas in my future newsletters.

I put in about 18 hours every month to create this newsletter, starting from researching to writing and editing it.

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What am I reading?

I absolutely love books and I read a lot.

In fact, I don’t just read a lot, but I also take notes on every book that I read.

I have pages and pages of information in my Notion Second Brain, so that I can find them and use them when ever I need.

I have added some of the newest books that I have been reading, to the Amazon store, so you might want to check it out.

Want to know more about the books I read. You can check it out here!

That’s it for this week!

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