When you first set out to create your own business website, you may be under the impression that a couple of keywords will be just enough. However, one thing that many people forget is that there are 1.88 billion websites out there today. If you want your website to succeed, then it needs to be something very special.
With that in mind, how do you give your website that extra “oomph”? How do you make it stand out from the other nearly 2 billion websites? This article can help you with all the steps necessary to create quality content. With a good strategy and a fair amount of patience, your website should be able to rank highest for your service.
What Is SEO Content?
SEO content is a type of content that was specifically made to rank on search engines such as Google. Very often, it is focused on a certain keyword and its purpose is to attract organic searches to your blog or website. This makes content a very important part of every business strategy.
High-quality SEO content is very important, as it can set your website aside from the lower-class range. This can help improve the ranking of your website, making you show up higher on search engines and keeping people for longer on your web page.
Good-quality SEO content will also follow three different elements. The first one is keyword research. This is essential because every person landing on your website will start with a Google search. After that, you need to consider the site structure and copywriting. After all, your visitors are looking to have their questions answered in an environment that is friendly for them.
To create SEO content that ranks, you have to check all of those three categories. Each category also has its own elements to consider, allowing you to customize your goals as needed.
The Importance of Setting Up Goals
One of the most important things to do when you are writing SEO content is to set up goals – and not just any kinds of goals, but SMART goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. These objectives are essential because not only will they keep you on the right track, but they will also allow you to measure your success.
Each SEO content strategy may have different purposes. However, here is what you may need to check with each piece of content:
Specific
When a goal is specific, it states exactly what you want to achieve, without any wiggle room. This way, the risk of you getting sidetracked will be lower, as you know exactly where you want to get with your content. This will pave the way towards consistency, which is something that search engines generally like.
Measurable
When you are writing SEO content, you must ensure that your goals are also measurable. As a businessperson, you need to calculate how close you are to your objective. If you are not very close, you should know where you are standing. You can make your goal measurable by using a position-tracking tool, which will tell you precisely where you are.
Achievable
When you’re setting up a plan or strategy, you have to determine how achievable your goal is. In this case, you should look at your current rank and think about the strategies that you are trying to implement. What are their success rates, and have they worked for you so far? If the answer is not positive, you may want to look for other goals.
Relevant
The goals that you set for your SEO content strategy need to be relevant to the overall objectives of your website. For instance, one of your purposes may be to increase the traffic to your blogs using SEO content. This can benefit your overall business because it increases conversion on your website.
Time-Bound
Last, you need to determine how time-bound your progress is. For instance, you can set a specific date on which you wish to measure progress. Your goals should also have a deadline for when you expect to reach completion. If you don’t see any realistic progress by the end of your deadline, then you may want to set up different objectives.
Factors to Consider When Writing SEO Content
There are three major things that you need to focus on when writing SEO content: how your website is structured, how well you choose the content, and how well you write and structure your copy.
1. Website Structure
You must make sure that your website is easy to navigate through. You don’t want a site where it takes ages for people to find the information they need. Not only do they want those pages to be fast, but they also want the locations to be intuitive. It takes about 3 seconds for them to realize if they dislike a page or not, so you don’t want to make things difficult for them at this stage.
Ideally, you should have a home page that connects directly to other pages such as contacts, about, or blog posts. If you are selling anything, ensure you make your commercial pages clear. Ideally, you should set everything into categories so that users know exactly where to go. A good tip would be to create some best-selling product pages, as they are more likely to pull readers your way.
A well-thought-of web page is also essential for contextual link building. A good hierarchy will not only make internal link-building easier for you but may also reduce the chances of orphan links. The latter is much more challenging to rank, as Google is often a fan of structure.
When you’re setting up your website structure for SEO, here are some steps that you should go through:
Identify the Website Pages
The first thing that you need to do when creating an SEO-friendly website structure is to identify all of your pages. This includes your contact page, your About page, and any other pages that you may have. Create a sitemap of all of your pages using the tools provided by Google. Considering that about 84.69% of the population uses Google, it’s best to employ their system if you want to rank.
Look for Orphan Pages
Now that you’ve identified every page on your site, you need to find out whether you have any orphan pages or not. These pages aren’t linked to any other page on your website, which means you may only find the page through a direct URL. Orphan links can be created when you forget to link them from any page on your website, but also when you delete a page. For instance, if you delete a page but forget to update the link, you may find yourself with an orphan page.
Update Your Navigation Menu
You’ve identified the orphan pages, so now it is time to update the navigation menu on your home page. Remove the old page links that you no longer have and add the new ones. Make sure to also update the links to the pages whose URLs you changed.
Update Your Sitemap
With your navigation menu now in order, it is time to update the site map. Sitemaps are lists of pages, sort of like a table of contents, or a roadmap, if you will. Search engine crawlers will use that sitemap to index your website, bringing the content to whomever is looking for it. Most website software builders will automatically build this sitemap for you, but certain domains may require you to make those updates yourself.
Look for Broken Links
Now that you’ve updated the sitemap, it is time to check for potential broken links. Broken links are links to pages that don’t exist anymore. For instance, you may have had contextual links SEO throughout your content, but had some pages deleted. In the meantime, the pages are still there but lead to nowhere. Crawlers can pick this up and prevent you from ranking, despite the otherwise good content.
Aside from looking for broken links on your website, you can also check the other websites leading back to you. For instance, if you have multiple websites or posted guest blog content, you may want to fix as many of these as possible. A good idea would be to employ the help of a monthly contextual backlinks service, as it can keep track of any broken links on your website.
2. Keyword Research
With keyword research, you are looking for all the right keywords to target your web pages. You must make sure that all the keywords you choose are relevant to your goals and target audience. There are plenty of tools that you can use in this regard, the most common one being the Google Search Console. This way, you will know which keywords on your website are already getting clicks.
When you are going through keywords, you must understand their search intent. You need to put yourself in the visitors’ shoes: what exactly are they looking for when they are typing down that keyword? Do they want to know more about a specific topic? Or is their intent to buy a product or service?
Based on the answers to these questions, you should be able to produce relevant content. The more you can meet their needs, the likelier you will be to rank high on Google searches. That being said, you also need to make sure that your content is readable. Not only is keyword stuffing penalized by Google, but it can also potentially make it difficult for your readers to go through the texts.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands of keywords that your business could use, so you need to choose them smartly. Here are the stages to follow:
Research
The first step to finding the perfect keywords is to brainstorm a series of them that may work for your business. There are plenty of keyword research tools that can offer you a list of relevant keywords, through which you can browse.
Pay attention to keyword difficulty, search volume, and how they rank for competing websites. Difficult keywords are generally higher to rank because most Google searches are simple. Keywords with a higher search volume can bring more traffic, as people are more likely to undergo those searches.
Search Intent Analysis
You’ve found the relevant keywords, but now it is time to go through the search intent. You may have found a relevant keyword, but unless the visitors act on it, it may be of no good to you. You need to determine exactly what people are looking for when they are searching for a specific keyword.
There are plenty of tools that can help you in this regard as well. Once you have the keyword list in front of you, narrow it down to the keywords that you believe your audience will react to. If you are trying to sell a product, you should focus on the keywords that suggest this.
Shortlisting the Keywords
You now have a list of keywords that meets the user intent. The next step would be to narrow things down even more. Determine what keywords you could rank for realistically, based on the product or service that you are trying to provide. You could browse for them manually, but you can also use a keyword tool for this.
Keyword Prioritization
Now you have a short list of keywords that could work very well with your content. The next step would be to determine which keywords are to be prioritized. From your list of keywords, determine which ones you want to target first. Focus on the ones that are more important for your business. For instance, if you provide a contextual link building service, the relevant keyword has to appear at least once or twice in the article.
Several factors could help you make your choice here. Consider the search volume, the business relevance, and the competition. You should also take a look at your current website and see if it already ranks with the user intent. Otherwise, you’ll have to build the list from scratch. As a rule of thumb, the keywords that line up with your content are generally the ones that you must prioritize.
The age of your website may also determine which keyword should be targeted. If your website is new, then you should focus on brand keywords and long-tail ones with lower competition. That being said, if your website has been running for a while, then you may prioritize the words that have a higher difficulty level.
3. Copywriting
With the website well-structured and the keywords efficiently chosen, you have one more thing to put together: the actual content. This involves writing the copy that your readers are looking for. When you’re writing any piece of content, make sure that it is well-written, informative, and easy to read. Good grammar and readability can help you rank, but here are some other factors that you may want to add through the text:
Page Type
When you’re creating any kind of copy, make sure that you write with the page type in mind. For instance, if the intent is commercial, then you may need to write a service or product page. On the other hand, if the targeted keyword is more informational, then a general blog post may be more suitable. Consider your target keyword and see which type of results it ranks for when you look for it.
Content Length
Next, for your SEO content to rank, you need to consider the content length as well. Usually, the longer the content, the higher your ranking chances will be. Google usually sees long content as being more trustworthy, as it is more comprehensive. While 500-word pieces are good, you should try shooting past 1000.
Videos and Images
Visual content makes your articles look more visually appealing. It breaks down the text and makes it less intimidating for your readers to go through – improving your retention. Google also uses these visual aids to understand your content, which increases your chances of ranking higher.
Headings and Subheadings
Google likes headings and subheadings because they break down the text into easier-to-read chunks. The search engine also crawls through your content to structure it. This is why you should make sure to use headings and subheadings at least every 200-300 words.
Outbound and Internal Links
You should also make sure you have outbound and internal links in your content. Outbound links are great because they prove to Google that you are an authority source. When linking to other websites, make sure they are qualitative and trustworthy. Internal or contextual dofollow backlinks are also great for generating traffic to your website while proving to Google that you are organized and trustworthy.
The Bottom Line
When writing SEO content that ranks, there are three things that you need to keep in mind: keywords, website structure, and content. By writing accurate posts with the appropriate target words and contextual link building, you should be able to bring more visitors your way.