SEO and content marketing go together like
cheese and wine, it's hard to have one without the other.
After all, what's the point of creating stellar,
groundbreaking content if no ones even there to see it?
Whether you've been around the marketing
block before or not, you've probably already heard about
SEO content and how valuable it is as part of your content marketing strategy.
So today we're going to deep dive into why you need an SEO content strategy in your
life and how you can get the ball rolling today.
Hey guys, it's Liv here
from Neighbourhood, where we help brands find, sell and keep their people.
So let's start basic.
What is SEO content?
Well, SEO stands for search engine optimisation.
And as far as non-traditional advertising
goes, SEO is one of the most prominent and studied areas of digital marketing.
But what is it?
It's essentially a tactic for making your website visible in search engines so
that you can encourage more traffic and awareness to your brand.
On the other side, content is, in short,
anything that you create and publish online for an audience.
And if you mesh them together like cheese
you've held in a glass of wine for too long, we get SEO content.
SEO content is anything that you create to increase searches to your website.
The goal of effective SEO content is
typically to increase the amount of traffic you gain from search engines.
Typically, you'll see blog posts referred to as SEO content.
But videos, podcasts,
infographics and even white papers can be content for SEO if the goal is to attract
more visitors through organic search traffic.
So now let's quickly go over some of the most common types of content
for SEO and why they should be used as part of your content marketing efforts.
Firstly, product pages. Widely used by e-commerce
businesses to make their products easier to find in search engine rankings.
These can be both SEO content and landing pages.
Next blog posts.
Blogs are widely loved because they offer
a steady stream of content and can easily build authority and organic traffic.
Also guides, are awesome evergreen content
that are similar to blog posts they're just extra long. Designed to cover a ton
of different keywords and search intentions and cement major authority. As well,
videos are one of the most engaging types
of SEO content, and it's often easier to rank with a video than text alone.
Consider transcribing YouTube videos to boost to SEO campaign's effectiveness.
Last up, infographics contain a ton
of information that's easy to scan and digest, difficult to optimise on its own,
but brilliant as part of a guide or a blog post.
They're also a great way to start building back links.
Of course, there are plenty of different content formats that can work for SEO.
These are just the most common.
So before you get too excited about
building the blog of your dreams, you need to consider the key aspects
of SEO content creation. Here are the bottom line bits to remember.
First up, keyword research.
Creating quality content with relevant
keywords really is the bread and butter of SEO content.
Key words make up every single search
that goes through your search engine of choice.
So it's vital that you know what your audience is searching for.
You also need to know the difference between short and long tail keywords
and what these mean in combination with user intent.
Each keyword will have metrics associated with it, such as search volume,
competition and how difficult it is to rank for that keyword.
Don't be put off by heavy hitting keywords, though.
It's balancing them with the underdogs that counts. Keyword optimisation.
It's not enough to know what keywords to use.
It's about where you use them in your content.
And before you get any ideas in your head about keyword stuffing, then don't worry.
Google's long moved past the need
to mention your keywords every three seconds.
Use a keyword research tool to identify the right keyword opportunities for your
content and say hello to stellar content marketing.
Next, content promotion.
I know the overall marketing goal is to get your content ranking on search
engines, but that doesn't mean you should ignore other promotion avenues too.
You still need to post links to your
content on social media to update your audience, as well as put plenty of links
across the rest of your website. Content organisation.
A solid website structure is key to ranking well in search engines as it
helps both your users and search engine callers find your content. So users will
stay longer on your website, which search engines only see as a good sign.
User intent.
User intent is, in my experience and opinion,
one of the most underrated elements of SEO content. Too many marketers get wrapped up
in what search engines want from that content.
And what they don't think about is why users even search for those keywords
in the first place. To attract new customers and keep them coming back,
understanding what the user is looking for from your
content is vital.
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So now that we've got the basics out of the way, here's what you really came
here for, how to build a content strategy with some best practises.
So step one, define your goals.
As with any marketing campaign or anything you do in business, for that matter,
you need to know what your goals are before you get going.
Is it so that you can increase sales?
Do you want to generate more revenue?
Do you want to work with other brands
that have traffic requirements before they consider collaboration's?
Whatever your goal may be, you need to get it squared away before you even start
thinking about what content you want to put out.
And that, my friends, is where smart goals come in.
You need to remember to make your goals
specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound
when you're planning. Step 2 build buyer
personas. With your goals in mind, you need to understand who you're
targeting and what problems they have that you can address.
Our friends over at HubSpot have
an awesome buyer persona builder that you can use entirely for free
and this will walk you through the steps
of figuring out who your target audience are and what they want. When you know
who you want to sell to, then you can start planning your content
and the topics that will help your audience.
If you're struggling with the answers,
then a great place to look is where these people usually hang out.
Places like LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups and sub-reddits are
awesome forums that more often than not will help you find the questions that are
most frequently asked within a certain community.
Plus, there's also no harm in asking your ideal audience what they want to see.
Running surveys on your social media
platforms is a great way to learn more about your audience,
while also giving them the ability to have some input into your business. From here,
you need to create a list of topics
that you want to cover and what angle you're going to take with this content.
Building topic clusters and pillar pages is
a key ranking factor for SEO content marketing.
Step three determine content formats.
Now you've got a better idea of your readers,
this puts you on the right track
to determine what content formats you want to use.
As we touched on earlier, different formats have different SEO benefits.
For instance, blog posts and articles may be able to improve rankings for more
keywords, but a video might rank easier on higher competition keywords because
it's a more engaging format that many businesses actually neglect.
But you also need to bear in mind what
kind of content your target audience wants to consume.
After all, it's all well and good to get your content to rank on Google.
But if your audience isn't engaging
with it, then it's a big waste of your time and money.
A good way to determine what type
of content your audience wants is to look at what they already enjoy.
Again, things like subreddits and social
media groups will be a great place to start with your research here.
Step four create an editorial calendar.
So you know who audience is,
what problems they're facing and the types of content they love to consume.
One of the most important parts of content
marketing strategies is consistency and SEO strategy is no different.
Whether you publish fresh content once a week, once a fortnight or even once
a month, the audience needs to know when they can expect new content.
So get to grips with a content calendar.
Not only will this lead to more people
searching for your content to see if there's something new,
but it'll also be a big driver on traffic on the days that you publish.
Plus, the more you publish,
the better chance you have of some content ranking on the first page of Google.
Step five, create, publish and distribute.
Yeah, it's time for the fun part, making your content for search.
Whether you make your own content or you outsource it
we recommend that you have a couple
of months worth of content before you publish something for the first time.
Yes, that does mean you have to invest
some money before you start seeing results, but it's worth it just in case
you can't produce something because of a business emergency or something happens.
That means that you have to kill a certain topic. Once you've hit publish,
don't forget to distribute content.
Sure, you want people to find it through search engines.
That's the end goal.
But you also want your audience to know
it's there. Social media newsletters or even word of mouth,
are great ways to do this.
Step six, analyse and readjust.
It's important to remember that it's going to take at least three months to see any
meaningful results from your strategy and at least six months to gather
enough metric data to analyse the outcome of your content campaign.
So if you don't see any major changes in your traffic or towards your goals
in that time frame, don't panic or throw in the towel and call it a day.
You've just got to keep going.
Regardless of if the data you get shows, the strategy seemingly isn't working.
It's easier said than done
I know, particularly when you're new
to the process, but you've just got to keep the faith and readjust.
Do you need help with your SEO content strategy?
If you are not sure where to start,
Neighbourhood is here to help. Our SEO gurus and content marketers help you with any
part of your strategy, whether that's understanding buyer personas
or knowing where to go when your metrics don't stack up the way you wanted them to.
So let us know.
But aside from that, that's it for this video for this week.
If you find this video helpful, feel free to share it with someone
that you know that needs a hand with their SEO content.
You can also subscribe to our blog, where
you'll find a bunch more tools, tips and templates to Help you Find Sell &
Keep your people, just like Neighbourhood does.
But for now, that's it for me. Happy marketing.