If you’re a novice in the world of marketing, you might have heard the phrase “SEO content” being thrown around during marketing conferences.
This guide for beginners is written to address three issues:
- What exactly is “SEO content”?
- What kinds of SEO-related content are available?
- Which is the best SEO strategy for content?
If you have questions about the best strategies for SEO creating content that you didn’t address here, leave them in the comments below and I’ll address questions here or in a blog post to come.
What is SEO Content?
To know what marketers are referring to when they refer to SEO Content, it’s useful to break the term into its components:
- “SEO” refers to search engine optimization or the method of optimizing a website to make it easier for users to access it through search engines such as Google.
- “Content” refers to “content,” we mean anything that’s available on the internet and is able to be accessed via the internet (more about the different types of information below).
Therefore, when you put the two ideas together, SEO content is anything that is created with the aim of attracting the attention of search engines.
I’m not going to give all you need to be aware of when optimizing your website content for search engines on this page and that’s another guide. However, here’s a quick overview of what you’ll need to accomplish to optimize your website content:
- Keyword research: If you’re looking to increase traffic via searches, it’s best to conduct keyword research prior to you begin writing. In this way, you’ll be able to concentrate on keywords for which some amount of traffic is already in place. In other words, write about specific topics (or discover niches for keywords!) that people have already been looking for information on.
- Keyword Optimization: Understand the best places to include the right keywords within your articles to ensure the best ability to be found. (Learn more about this in our comprehensive guide to SEO on-page).
- Organization of Content: Your information on your website must be organized and arranged in a sensible manner. This is not just good for SEO however it also assists users to find other relevant content quickly. (The longer they are on your site the more beneficial.)
- Promoting Content: Increase the exposure of the content you’ve created by sharing it with social media and creating hyperlinks to the content (both internal and external websites).
>> 9 Blog Post Templates for Free That are guaranteed to drive traffic
A quick word on intentions
It is important to be aware that if traffic from search engines is your sole goal the results you get will likely be slowed down. To please both indexing engines (who will give you a higher ranking in the future) as well as potential customers and returning visitors, you have provided value that goes over and above the search engine optimization. Also, don’t create “thin” content that ranks and receives clicks, yet does not provide value to the user of the search engine. Sites that offer “thin,” low-value content are at risk of getting penalized by Google and also are likely with high bounces as well as low conversion rates.
The types of content SEO can be classified into
SEO content could comprise one or more of these:
- Product Pages are the foundation of any e-commerce retailer. A well-designed product page is able to serve as SEO content or the Page for PPC.
- Blog Posts – Blogs are one of the most effective ways to produce a steady stream of relevant SEO content. Blog posts generally are more interesting and are more likely to get more links than product pages which is why they are the ideal way to create some credibility for your site. (Keep an eye on that they are versatile, and you can make use of them for hosting any of the kinds of content from this listing.)
- Articles – Think of a news article or interview piece. This is the primary type of content found on most newspaper or magazine-style websites.
- Lists are an article in themselves but using them in the form of an article (such as “10 Ways to Lower Your Energy Bill” or “101 Things I Hate About Google”) helps make them simpler to read. These kinds of titles are more likely to be clicked when they are found on search results or the feeds of social networks.
- Guides are an extended piece of content that explains in detail what to do. (Guides are usually broken down on multiple web pages but it’s the best method to allow users to browse through long pieces of content on an entire page should they’d like.) It is possible to publish a complete guide on your site, or provide a summary or an excerpt, and require users to sign up on a form to access the complete guide. This is a great method to attract leads but bears in mind that installing the registration page will decrease the number of visitors you can direct to your guide.
- Videos – Generally, there are fewer videos on the internet than text pages. this means that it’s easier to rank on the first page for a popular search term by using videos instead of an article. It all depends on the type of website or company you manage, video content can be a fantastic option to reach the right audience. Make video tutorials about how to utilize your products. Also, you could demonstrate a process closely related to your company – for instance, plumbers can make videos on how to clear the sink. (A note about SEO: You may want to take into consideration including a text transcript in your clip. Here are some more tips to optimize your videos.)
- Infographics are images in large format with a large amount of information (often as charts or graphs) for a specific topic, and can generate many page views and clicks. But, since a lot of the information is contained in the image, making it isn’t accessible as text to search engines, it is essential to optimize the rest part of your page. You can choose one of these five no-cost templates for infographics to get you started.
- Slideshows are an opportunity to show the related images of a set. Sometimes, pictures can be more significant than words – suppose you’re trying to display what the stars wear at the Oscars. This is why SEO of your captions, titles and file names for images, and so on, is crucial since there’s less information for the engine to “read.”
- Glossaries are a must. I’m pretty sure that more people make use of Google to find terms than they do the dictionary. (Do you have a clue about the location of your dictionary?) If you’re in a specific industry A well-constructed glossary could be an effective method to attract some traffic. Think of cooking words, medical terminology architectural terms, fashion terms, architectural …
- Directories – A directory is an excellent taxonomy of hyperlinks to websites or other resources related to specific topics. For instance, the perfume blog could make a directory of the best places to purchase perfume from big department stores to independent stores across the nation.
These are only some of the most basic kinds of SEO-related content, but you shouldn’t allow this checklist to restrict your possibilities – they are almost limitless.
How to Create an SEO Content Strategy
If you’ve been putting out content on the fly with the hope that some of it get ranked, it’s time to put in the effort and implement a more systematic SEO method of creating content for the internet.
Here are the four steps to clarifying and improving your SEO strategy for content:
Determine your objectives
The first step is to determine what your goals are for your business or website. Are you trying to boost sales on your site? Do you want to make money from your site by advertising and desire to increase your traffic and increase visitors? Your objectives will determine the kind of content you need to concentrate on.
An excellent example of a minimalist but elegant and sleek product page
If your primary goal is to boost sales of your product Your primary goal should be on attractive pages that are informative and optimized for both the search engine and conversions. The second area of focus is useful blog posts that explain the best ways to utilize your products, as well as links to the relevant pages (it’s ideal if your blog content isn’t entirely self-promotional).
If your website operates using an advertising model, and your goal is to draw in new users via search, you’ll need to concentrate on content that is rich (such as articles that are long-form or videos that are educational, entertaining, or both) that have “stickiness” (“sticky” content retains visitors on your website longer, or encourages them to return).
Consider your audience
Be aware of your target audience. Surveys as well as your analytics software could assist you in gaining a clearer image of your typical customer or customer. Develop marketing personas or people who are your ideal visitors to your site and clients. Think about the types of content these personas might be seeking out.
For instance, if you have a B2B site that targets executives at the C-level, you may want to develop white papers with high-level content that is downloadable and then saved for later use.
If your business is targeted toward teens and teens it might be beneficial to concentrate on regular updates, with less text and more pictures and videos. It is also important to make certain your site is optimized for mobile users.
Design an editorial calendar
Once you’ve got a clear understanding of the audience you’re looking for and the reason, you can begin to plan your editorial calendar. A calendar for editorial purposes is basically a calendar that determines the time you’ll release new content and the kind of content you will publish. This will allow you to stick to a consistent schedule (it’s particularly important to produce regular content on a regular basis when you own blogs) Also, it will stop you from having to think of an idea for new content at the last second.
Some tips for developing and adhering to the editorial calendar
- Make use of Outlook (or Google Calendar) and share your editorial calendar with all of your marketing team. Create notifications for authors to receive notifications whenever a deadline is due.
- You might want to think about creating a regular feature – For instance, a food-related blog could offer a meatless recipe each Monday. A lot of blogs host link roundups on a weekly basis (including the one below). Create an individual category page for each regular feature so that your people can easily find the entirety of their Meatless Monday recipes or link roundups on one page.
- You should allow plenty of time before creating more complex types of content such as infographics and videos. They often require multiple rounds of editing to get them perfect and may be more challenging to make search-friendly.
- Do not plan too far in advance. Calendars frequently become sloppy after a few months due to changes to budgets, goals for marketing, or staff. So don’t make an outline of your schedule for the upcoming year without wasting much energy and time.
Assess and revise
Keep track of your website’s analytics. Always analyze your SEO content with both content audits as well as SEO audits (or even a full website audit) to determine the things that are working and what are not. There are a variety of tools and websites graders to assist you with this. The best indicators of engagement and success comprise page views, link clicks as well as feedback (on blog posts and other kinds of content) and social shares (Facebook tweets, likes, etc. ), and conversion rates. The analysis you conduct should have two main goals:
- Review your success so that you can duplicate the strategies you have learned. Look for patterns. Does your audience love videos? Make more videos! Make adjustments to your editorial calendar going forward to allow you to focus more of your time and energy on kinds of content that resonate with viewers.
- Make time for updating and improving content from older SEO sites If you’ve attempted to optimize your content for a specific keyword, but it’s attracting more traffic from another variation of the keyword, then return to the site and optimize it to match the new keywords. You may be able to boost traffic substantially by using the word in your title for example.
- Maintain your website in good order Make sure you periodically check your website’s performance in general and on individual pages to ensure your site is designed for Google and other search engines. To begin, try our website grader free of charge for immediate SEO and an online presence assessment.
Here’s the lesson SEO Content 101. As I mentioned earlier Please let me know via comments if you have any other concerns about optimizing and creating content to be SEO-friendly.
great.