A Complete Guide: How To Create A Winning SEO Content Strategy
A Complete Guide: How To Create A Winning SEO Content Strategy
Are you a marketer interested in creating a successful SEO content strategy? If so, then listen up! We’re about to give you all the tips and tricks for just how you go about doing this.
There are 6 steps we recommend you follow in order to create an SEO content strategy that will win – time and time again.
Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience
This is an important first step to creating a winning SEO content strategy. You want to create a positive user experience and deliver the most relevant information you can. You must first know who your audience is in order to create content that will resonate with them.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to get to the bottom of identifying your target audience:
- Who is your target market?
- What are their behaviors and interests?
- Where do they live?
- What’s their income and what industry do they work in?
- What are their purchasing behaviors?
- How do they prefer to communicate?
- What challenges do they typically face?
- Can your product or service help them overcome these challenges?
Step 2: Define Your Core Topics
Now that you’ve figured out who your target audience is, what topics will you be focusing on to reach those people? Is there a certain area of expertise you want to focus on when writing your content? The topics you choose should remain relevant to the products and/or services you are providing.
However, they should also be topics your audience wants to read – topics that they are likely to search for. For example, if you sell air conditioners, what are topics within that realm of expertise that your readers may want to know more about? Some examples of topics are below:
- Why is my AC not cooling?
- How long will my AC last?
- Should I turn my AC off when I leave for vacation?
- What brands of AC are most energy-efficient?
Step 3: Pinpoint Keywords That Work
Ah, the keywords! Contrary to the name, keywords isn’t always just one word. Sometimes, your keyword can be a few, relevant words that make sense. Sometimes, they can even be an entire sentence – and entire question. First, you should begin with a broad search term. For example “air conditioning” is a broad term. From there, you can narrow the scope to include specific brands, specific locations, questions people may ask about their AC unit, or certain product features that your readers find interesting. After you’ve identified the keywords that will increase your SEO presence, you can piece it all together. Some examples may include:
- Lennox air conditioning units
- What is the best air conditioning brand?
- My AC isn’t cooling
The best way to know for sure what keywords to use, is by using keyword research tools. These tools will tell you how many people are searching for such topics, and what keywords will give you the best results for your SEO performance. Some keywords research tools include Google Search Console, Moz Keyword Explorer, SEMRush, and Soovle.
Step 4: Optimize Wherever You Can – When You Can
Optimize where you can, but don’t over-optimize. For example, keyword stuffing can actually hurt your SEO rankings. Find a good balance here. However, you want to take advantage SEO opportunities as much as you can. Search engines are looking for certain things to improve your rankings, and those things include:
- Relevancy
- Quality of Content
- Best User Experience
- Website Speed
- Cross-Device Compatibility
- Internal (and external) Linking
- Authority Website Trusted By Users
- Meta Descriptions, H1 and H2 Headings, Permalinks and Title Tags
- Schema Markup
- Properly Tagged Images (Alt Text)
- Using Sub-Directory Root Domains
Step 5: Keep Information Relevant and Current
Optimization doesn’t end once the content has been published. As the times change, so should your articles. Keeping your website, blogs, and any other piece of content you have as relevant and as up-to-date as possible will help your SEO two-fold. For example, if your website is from the 90’s, chances are it doesn’t have the ability to create a positive user experience. This is because it’s likely not mobile-friendly and in today’s world, you should have a website that has cross-device compatibility. Some ways to keep your website more present include:
- Unique and attractive web design
- Compatible across all devices
- Ability to share with others
- Updated and relevant content
Trends are changing all the time. As a marketer, you want to get in front of that and make sure you’re providing nothing but the most relevant and current information you can.
Step 6: Track Your Success
Last but certainly not least, you want to track your SEO success. If you don’t track your success, then you’re not sure what you’re doing well – and what you need to improve on. Developing a successful content strategy takes time and effort. You deserve to know if what you’re doing is working and providing positive results – or if you need to go back to the drawing board once more. In order to know if your SEO content strategy is successful, you should closely monitor the following:
- Organic Traffic: Who is coming to your site on their own? In other words, these are your unpaid search results.
- Indexed Pages: These are the pages that tell you if your content is considered valuable and relevant on search engines.
- Conversions: Are you receiving conversions? Are your viewers converting into customers? After all, that is the end goal.
- SERPS: SERP stands for “search engine results page.” In other words, it’s Google’s response to a user’s search query.”