You are stuck in a maze and you’ve tried every possible turn but there is no way out.
This is what our brains feel like sometimes and if you haven’t tried banging your head against the keyboard out of frustration with your content strategy, you have no business reading this.
Yes, even I have those days when getting the mix of SEO and the client’s technical writing desires in your content strategy seems like an unsolvable puzzle.
So here are 5 things to keep close when planning your content strategy so you don’t ever have to damage your keyboard again. You will rank and you will also provide the best possible content to your client and your readers – win, win and win.
The Importance of a Strong SEO Content Strategy
Before anything else, it’s important to acknowledge that quality content is one of the defining components of an SEO strategy. Great content paired with SEO efforts has always been the backbone of any successful campaign. Regardless of other standard SEO practices- if your content isn’t good enough for Google, then your website isn’t good enough to rank.
Ways of Setting Up An Effective SEO Content Strategy
Do Keyword Research Above All Else
Keyword research is like the egg to your omelet- all your ingredients won’t come together without it. Never start building your SEO content strategy without gathering your keywords first. Your keywords will be the foundation of any type of content that you’ll be publishing to your web pages. It’s important to keep in mind these guidelines when doing your keyword research:
- Use keywords that acknowledge your target audience
- Ensure keyword relevancy to your website
- Understand the search intent of each keyword in the list
- Only consider keywords that have good monthly search volume
Learn more about the latest keyword research practices!
Identify Website SEO Content Opportunities
It’s a fairly general SEO practice to commit all your content publications as blogs for your website. While this particular SEO content strategy proves to still be very effective in attracting website traffic- wouldn’t it be ideal if you could attract THAT traffic straight to pages that have higher possibilities to convert?
Imagine an e-commerce site with a web page that purely displays product listings as its content.
By including a frequently asked questions (FAQ) type of information, we allow that page to target SEO-friendly keywords increasing the chances for it to have a strong online presence.
This is an example of an “SEO content opportunity” on your website. Instead of simply publishing blog articles, you can direct your writing efforts to pages where there’s an opportunity to target a keyword.
You can mainly identify these SEO content opportunities by analyzing search results and identifying what type of pages are ranking. For example- when searching for the term electric scooter, the search result returns product listings. Therefore, there’s a higher chance of ranking a page that mainly displays products. Which makes it a good target for additional content.
Keep Your Content Human
Build your content for users.
The rising popularity of AI-written content allowed web pages to rank high within search results. This led to unnaturally written articles being presented to users. As a result, Google continues to release algorithm updates that punish these pages’ rankings.
It is very important to note in your SEO content strategy how the articles should be written. Always bear in mind to present information in a way that’s digestible and easily understood by readers. Not only will this help keep Google’s eyes away from you, but it will also increase user retention.
Acknowledge Your Competitor’s Content Strategy
In any card game, there’s a benefit to knowing what hand are your opponents playing. The same concept applies when building your SEO Content Strategy. Your competitors have done the work, so why not learn from them?
Noting your competition’s implementation of content in web pages, topics they publish in their blogs, and how they’re structuring their content can give you an idea of how can you improve your own content strategy.
The tool that I mainly use to gauge my competition is SE Ranking’s competitive research tool.
This allows me to see what organic keywords are they using on their website, in addition to manually browsing through their content.
Optimize As Much As Needed
Let’s assume that you’ve already started publishing your content- the only way to maintain and improve its quality is to perform regular on-page SEO optimizations. Not only can it serve as the solution to ranking changes, but it also allows you to be flexible in the content you have on your website.
Here are some of the things that you should consider when performing on-page SEO optimizations:
- Maintain the quality of the SEO factors being implemented in your pages by ensuring proper keyword usage in SEO factors such as title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and the like.
- Look for opportunities to improve/update existing content- such as enhancing keyword usage and content comprehension.
- Point out and correct any existing UI/UX issues to improve the visitor experience
- Ensure proper indexing practices such as appropriate robots and sitemap implementations that guarantee website visibility.
Key Takeaway
There are honestly a lot of ways that you can approach your website’s content. But instead of overloading yourself with information, learning these 5 ways of building a solid SEO content strategy can allow you to focus on the basics. Only then can you start applying other SEO practices that can help you formulate a successful SEO campaign.
If you want to learn more about content marketing, check out our guide on how to write your content!
