21 Jan
Without SEO your content may be lost somewhere on page 50 of the search results; and we all know traffic on those pages is less than satisfactory.
Creating content not only helps your leads get to know your business, but it also helps your business improve your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. Moreover, It requires time and dedication to drive valuable results for your business. If you’re busy focusing on running your company, you may not have the time or resources to dedicate to a content marketing plan.
If you need help creating an impactful SEO content strategy, this article will help you.
What is SEO content?
SEO content is any content created to attract people through search engines. You optimize your content to perform well on these search engines, which boosts traffic on your website. Let’s break it down further:
SEO: SEO is the process of boosting your website’s rankings in search results through optimizations. The goal is to get your website to the top of the search results to attract people to visit your site.
Content: Content creation is the process of compiling knowledge and sharing it with your audience, typically in a written or visual format. This material allows you to present yourself as an authority in your field, which ultimately leads to people trusting your business and choosing you.
As you can see, SEO content is the process of boosting your website’s ranking in the search results by creating authoritative and informative content for your audience.
What types of content are there?
Content takes on many forms. These are some of the major content types you can improve with SEO.
- Blogs/Articles: These can take many forms, from content clusters and pillar pieces to short breaking news pieces, listicles, and how-to guides spanning 3,000 words or more.
- Page Level: The main service/product pages on your website. Typically, this is where people find the information needed to become a client or customer.
- Case Studies: Content that displays successes with your or someone else’s business.
- White Papers: Super granular pieces that provide solutions with data on how to solve a very specific problem – say how to use Semrush to create content strategies.
- Infographics: Graphics that appeal to the eye and explain the value of something in a visual way. Remember that these are not crawlable, so always use the optimal Alt Text when uploading them. Infographics are best paired with a fully optimized written piece of content, such as a blog or case study.
- Videos: Who doesn’t like video? Like infographics, videos also can’t be crawled. Videos must be optimized for each channel through proper tagging and headlines, and also can complement an optimized article, blog, page, or another type of written content.
SEO writing tips to make your content go further
1. Write for your audience first
This SEO writing tip is number one for a reason. It seems easy enough, yet so many companies make content for all the wrong reasons. Write content that appeals to the interests of your target market or answers their questions. Not all posts need to be about your product or service, but they all should be industry related. Assert yourself and your company as an expert in your industry by writing SEO-friendly content that is interesting and informative, and do it better than your competition.
2. Keep it all under the same roof
Get the credit and traffic your website deserves by keeping your original content under your own domain name. That means if you have a blog, opt out of hosting with WordPress or Blogger and host the blog in a subfolder on your own domain (ie: www.example.com/blog ). Any time you have an opportunity to showcase other forms of original content like videos, infographics or whitepapers, make sure to also embed them onto your website as well and share from there.
3. Make headlines that pack a punch
You have a very short amount of text to make a very big impression. So don’t underestimate the power of an effective headline on SEO! Write headlines that are clear, interesting and make use of rich keywords. In addition to a great headline, also make sure your meta descriptions are interesting and further elaborate on the topic of your article. Keep in mind that your title and meta description are what show up in the search results, so make them count!
4. Use keyword-rich phrases
Use relevant, keyword rich phrases in your headlines as well as throughout your content to let both your readers and the search engines know what your post is about. But beware, too many keywords will not only turn off your readers but can result in search engine penalties for keyword stuffing. Use keywords thoughtfully and sparingly, sticking to a more natural feel. In addition to using keywords throughout the body of your post, take advantage of blog tags by tagging a few relevant keywords for each post; most general blogs have tagging capabilities already built in.
5. Structure your posts
The contents of your post may be great but can be easily lost in an unorganized, inefficient format. Breaking your content up into smaller paragraphs with headlines makes for an easy read that will keep your readers engaged. For the search engines, back-end organization is key too. Using proper tag hierarchy when tagging headlines (H1 for titles, H2 for subtitles) is important to maintain a well-structured article.
6. Incorporate imagery
Make your posts pop with images! People are visual. Adding an image along with your blog post can make a big impression. Have a Pinterest account? In addition to promoting your blogs across your other social media channels, posts with images can also be pinned, adding another avenue for traffic to your website.
7. Propel content with social media
Social media is a powerful tool that can help increase the reach of your content and promote sharing. Post each new article on social media sites and in forums, using engaging descriptions and a call-to-action. Since the power of social media lies in sharing, it’s also important to have share buttons on each of your blog posts. If you want more control of how your links appear when they’re shared, implementing Twitter Cards for Twitter or Open Graph for Facebook (technical) can give your shared links a boost, and may help your click-through rates.
8. Implement Google Authorship
Google Authorship is a quick and easy way to tie content to a certain author, all you need is a Google+ account. As a result, your articles come up as rich snippets in the search results featuring the author’s photo along with the article title. Google Authorship is great for personal promotion, but can also increase the click through rate to your articles. If you’re an author, learn how to set up Authorship for your website.
9. Promote natural link building
Link building has come a long way since the days of link buying and link farms, but links are still an important ranking factor for SEO. Linking to your own articles or website in your post ensures a link back to your website if your article is picked up by another site. If you get creative with other types of content like infographics and videos, adding an embed code on your site helps to promote content sharing and also adds a link back to the original source. Creating great content helps increase the shareability and the likelihood that other websites will link to it, so aim for quality!
10. Monitor your activity
Stay on top of your SEO friendly content by monitoring your efforts. Google Analytics is an easy and free way to track your page views and the average time spent on a page. Check things like your bounce rate and time on site to get an idea of how users interact with your website after landing on your content. If you see a high drop off in addition to a low average time spent on the page, that’s an indication that your content wasn’t relevant to what they were looking for, or worse, wasn’t interesting. Also, take a look at the number of social interactions (shares, likes, etc ) to get an idea of the virality of your post. Just looking at these simple metrics can give you a good idea of which content pieces are well-received and liked so that you can replicate that type of content down the road.
Understand how to perform keyword research
There are dozens of opinions and different points of view on how to best perform keyword research. If you’re just getting started, this keyword research guide for beginners can help. Once you have the basics down, use these next tips to level up your keyword research game.
1. Create a buyer persona & target keywords towards that persona
If you understand your audience, this is simple and can even be a bit of fun. Forget about SEO for a bit, and think like a fiction writer. Create a single fictional character and profile him or her.
Now take that list and run it through your favorite keyword tool. If you know your audience, the tools will naturally show your list or better variations that people are actually searching for.
2. Focus on 80% evergreen keywords; 20% trending keywords
Focus 80% of your strategy on the evergreen keywords that you know will be reliable for the long term, and the other 20% on trending keywords. Then create your content around that 80/20 split.
Pirsig will always search for motorcycle camping tips and how-to articles to make his travels better. But he will also be searching for the latest touring motorcycle to take him on that adventure or the newest waterproof gear, which offers easy targets for trending keywords.
This is why keyword research should be performed consistently over the course of an ongoing content campaign, especially for the trending keywords. Don’t forget to use Google Trends to discover additional keywords.
3. Don’t go crazy over volume
Unless you’re the top player in your industry with zillions of pages and links, don’t chase high-volume keywords that are impossible to rank for. Head for the low-to-mid-tier keywords based on the prices of your services or products.
If one lead is worth a $5,000 consulting service, there’s nothing wrong with chasing keywords with a volume of 20 or even lower.
But if you’re selling a $5 product, of course, you’d want much higher volume – unless that $5 product propelled clients into a sales funnel, educated them, and led them to purchase your $5,000 consulting services.
Every concept is different, but having a strong understanding of your products/services and audience makes this much easier.
4. Always use “Related Keywords”
Most keyword research tools have a “related keywords” section. Use these throughout your content, regardless of whether you’re creating a blog, video description, or some other type of content.
Related keywords help demonstrate the content’s relevance to the topic as a whole.
Also, for even deeper content built around a “Topic Cluster” strategy discussed below, search those related keywords on Google and you’ll discover more of what people are asking and searching for, as well as which topics your competitors are creating content around.
5. Monitor keyword performance weekly
You should always know where your keywords are ranking. Tools like Semrush make it easy to create reports about the keywords you’re tracking.
I typically aim for weekly tracking due to fluctuation, especially with newer websites. I do track the highest ROI keywords daily, as a drastic drop can have a more serious impact.
If you lose or gain positions, take a deeper look. Did you gain positions? Find out which piece of content is succeeding so you can drive more external links towards it and amplify it on social media.
Lost positions? Check if you lost any links, or what competitor is outranking you for that specific keyword. Find that piece of content and see how you can tweak it to perform better.
Are competitors offering more valuable content? Are they using better header tags? How about related keywords, images, and alt text?
Analyze and make your piece better, then continue to track to see your results. Try to do only one change at a time so you can see what worked. SEO is a long-term play where you want to find out what is working and keep that system going.
This is why it’s so vital to track progress and continually revamp older content throughout the year. Remember, keyword research should not be a one-and-done thing.
SEO pros understand that keywords change over time due to trending or out-of-date topics and product/service changes. Constantly monitor and remember to update your existing content with fresh keywords often.
Understand topic clusters strategy
The Topic Cluster strategy for creating content basically means you create “pillar” pieces of content that serve as your core pieces around a topic, then support those main pieces with various pieces focused on more granular information.
This helps you naturally create content for those with deeper knowledge about the main pillar piece and gives you valuable content for those in a stronger position to buy.
For example, if you are marketing blogging services, you could begin with a pillar piece about the major benefits of blogging and ROI. From there, you could create “cluster” pieces of content in a hierarchical manner from those with more popularity (and consequently more search volume) down to more specific topics with less search volume that serve a specific need.
Your cluster topics could include content on creating a sustainable blog strategy, how-to articles on keyword research, and advice on creating meta descriptions for blogs, for example.
This strategy works best when you’re able to internally link to the pillar piece with various anchor text, which is something we discuss below.
Understand title tags and meta descriptions
Two of the greatest signals to both search engines and the users are your title tags and meta descriptions. These are the first elements a searcher sees whenever they’re searching for something.
Don’t just slop these together after spending valuable time creating the actual piece of content. Make sure your title tag garners immediate attention. Create curiosity, or be direct like “How-to” whatever.
Most SEO pros target between 50-60 characters (not words) when creating title tags. But a popular piece on Search Engine Journal reported that Google says there’s no limit on title tag length.
Remember to always use the target keyword in the title tag, and also employ modifiers such as “guide,” “checklist,” “review,” “how to,” etc. It’s also a wise practice to use the same target keyword within the meta description.
Although Google confirms this is not a direct ranking signal, it is one of the most valuable indirect ranking signals. And that target keyword will be bold within the meta description, drawing further attention to it within search results.
Make sure your meta description quickly engages the reader and inspires them to click through to the piece of content. Create curiosity and entertain, and always place a CTA in there.
Remember, you only have around 150 characters to work with. Grab the reader’s attention as soon as possible, which is something your title tag should do also. Make sure you aren’t so focused on ranking that your grammar suffers. Meta descriptions should be written for readers first.
Understand how to optimize on-page SEO elements and content layout/design for UX
SEO professionals know content flow and layout are needed for strong UX and to tell search engines quickly what’s important on each page.
This is where understanding on-page SEO can help keep your content ahead of the competition. Part of this includes wisely using the following elements:
1. Shorter paragraphs
Don’t use “walls” of text. Rather, keep paragraphs short like you would see in those archaic pages of a newspaper.
2. Use of header tags
Most professionals only use H2 and H3 tags. This keeps the content organized and also sends signals to search engines about what’s more important. Always try to use your target keyword in these, along with “related keywords” that support your target keyword.
3. Internal and external links
Don’t overstuff with links, and think logically about where to use them – where you can add more value to the reader. There’s no magic number of links, though it’s wise to get at least one for every 100 words if warranted. This can be a combination of internal and external links.
When linking internally, never use the exact anchor text for the same internal page. Always cut the domain name out (searchenginejournal.com) and start at the slash (/) to cut down the work for code readers. Again, think about the user and where you can add the most valuable information from another interior page.
If you are posting new content, always go back to a high authority page, and link to the new page from there. It’ll help show search engines what you think is valuable and enable users to find your most helpful, valuable content.
4. Optimize images
Keep them at a smaller size for quicker loading. Some religiously use 1920 x 1080, others 880 x 550. Find what’s best for you. Always use a file name that reflects the title (content-creation-guide-for-seo-pros-1), write descriptive alt text with related keywords, and use a caption when possible.
5. URL
Make sure it’s short and features your target keyword. Most content management systems like WordPress or Shopify auto-create these and they’re fine, but sometimes it’s wise to make them shorter. Just make sure they always feature your target keyword.
Conclusion
The most crucial part of the content creation process is promoting that content and having it found by your target audience. Even if you have the most compelling design, an interactive experience and great story, they’re all for naught if your audience isn’t able to find and consume your content.
That is why SEO shouldn’t just have a place at the content creation table; it should be embedded into the entire process. Regardless of what type of content you’re trying to create, you must always think like an SEO pro so you can get that hard-earned piece of content ranking well. And the higher the rankings, the higher the ROI.
Consistent, SEO-friendly content is part of a solid longer-term plan in the world of digital marketing, unlike paid advertising channels that disappear once the budget runs out.