- Writing content doesn't guarantee traffic,
but watching this video will help you avoid that trap.
Hey everyone, I'm Neil Patel,
and today I'm going to break down
the content marketing trap.
Why writing content can drive zero traffic.
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Just writing content isn't enough.
You need to focus on keywords that are popular
and go super indepth.
And more importantly,
you need to focus on content clusters or topic clusters
and not just keywords.
So for example,
if you want it to rank for SEO, like I do,
I don't just write on SEO and have one article around it.
I write an SEO, page speed,
I would talk about link building on page SEO,
Google search console.
Even as some of those keywords
that don't get as much traffic,
you need to cover that whole topic and be super thorough.
Nowadays to Google,
short content and under valve shallow content
isn't that great,
and you'll find that those pieces of content
don't rank well.
Hence, high quality long form content wins
over thin content hands out.
Now, this doesn't mean that you need
to write 3,000 word articles at minimum or 5,000.
That someone's looking at a topic like,
how to tie a tie,
do you really think they want to read 3,000 words?
No, they just want some animated Jefferson video
that shows how to tie a tie and that's it.
But, you could have videos and animated GIFs,
and even some small amounts of texts
on how to tie a tie,
how to tie a Windsor knot,
how to tie a double Windsor knot,
I don't even know if that exists but you get the point.
You would want to break down every way to tie a tie,
to even breaking down how to tie a skinny tie,
how to tie a thick tie,
because by being super thorough in covering
every version of that topic,
you're more likely to rank better.
So, how do you find these clusters and keywords
that you can use?
Well, what I want you to do is first,
go to Uber Suggest and type in your competitor's URL.
In the left-hand navigation,
you'll see an option that's called top pages.
This will show you the top pages for your competitors,
and that'll give you some ideas of topics
that they're ranking for.
On that page, Uber Says will break down the keywords
that drive all those visitors.
So, now you've got your topic and the keywords
that drive those visitors,
and you'll also see the backlinks
and the people linking to that page.
That'll give you a start.
Now, if that page on your competitor site is really popular,
but the intent of those keywords in the content
doesn't match with a product or service that you're selling,
don't copy it.
Don't try to one up them and create a better version of it.
Make sure you focus.
The next strategy is to use a keyword ideas report
within Uber Suggest.
So, you're already on Uber Says.
Type in a keyword related to your industry.
So, for me, I'm maybe digital marketing.
And then on the left-hand navigation,
I'll click on Keyword Ideas.
And when I'm on this page,
I will look and click for keywords I can rank for.
It's a button.
If you don't see it, you need to login.
What Uber Says will do is break down all the likely list
of keywords that you could potentially rank for,
based on your site and how Google views your site.
So, that way you're not wasting your time trying to rank
for all these keywords that you have a slim chance for.
Now in the long run,
as you build up your authority and you get more popular,
you'll see that this report will change,
and you'll see more and more keywords.
But first, start off with the keywords within that report
that are potentially good fit for your business,
in which the intent matches up with the approximate service
you're selling for,
but you can also end up ranking for.
In essence, they need to be really relevant
for your business and I can't emphasize that enough,
because while a lot of people make the mistake for,
it's just going after keywords that can drive
a lot of traffic versus driving relevant traffic.
Just because you get a hundred thousand visitors
from a keyword but zero sells,
did you do a good job? Not really.
You need to focus on conversions
and I recommend that you setup goal tracking
and conversion tracking within Google analytics,
so then that way you'll know what keywords and topics
are doing the best for you,
so you can create more content around those topics,
so then you're not wasting your efforts
and money on keywords that are irrelevant for your business.
No matter what you do with your content,
if you end up creating amazing content
and no one reads it or sees it, it doesn't matter.
Even if you using all the right strategies.
So, what I want you to do in Uber Says
is look at the backlinks opportunity report.
So, if I create an article on SEO and I Google that term,
I know on page where the search engine landed Moz
and a few other sites.
I would put in those URLs
into the backlinks opportunity report.
And then I'll put it in my article URL
into the backlinks opportunity report.
And you want to use the exact URL filter
in the backlinks opportunity report
because when you do this,
it'll show you who's linking to your competitors,
page that's very similar to ours, but not yours.
Because if someone links to 2, 3, 4 of your competitors
and they don't link to you,
chances are they're willing to link to you as well.
But on the flip side, links as you know,
is a big factor goes album.
If you start reaching out to people who don't link
to any of your competitors,
and you ask them to link to you because you want more links,
you're probably not going to get those links,
and you're going to have to send out tons of emails
and try to convince a lot of people,
and very few people are going to link back out to you.
The other thing that you need to do is make sure
that your site is buttoned up.
No matter how good your content is and if you build links,
but your site isn't buttoned up
in which there's a lot of errors,
and Google can't crawl your site,
or there's issues with your site,
not going to rank well.
So, on the left side of Uber Says,
there's a site audit report.
It breaks on all the SEO errors that your site may have.
What I want you to do is go into the errors
and look at them.
All the critical ones or the suggested ones.
And look at them from top to bottom.
The ones at the top typically will have the biggest impact
on your rankings and traffic,
and those are the ones you should do first
and work your way until you finish the last one on the list.
And then as you fix them,
make sure you click the recall button within Uber Suggest
on that site audit report,
and it'll double check to make sure you fixed it right
so then that way, you know everything's buttoned up.
Now, if you need help with your SEO,
check out my ad agency, NP Digital.
If you have any questions,
leave a comment below,
I'm here to help.
If you enjoy this video,
like it, share it, tell the people about it.
Thank you for watching.