Content Strategy For SEO

What Makes An SEO Content Strategy Effective?

If you want to get your business noticed in the digital world, you’re going to need the power of SEO aka Search Engine Optimisation.

SEO is the practice of optimising content, including websites, advertising, and written information, in order to rank higher on search engines such as Google, Bing, and many other variations (Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.).

Of course, Google is the head honcho of the search engine world, so they have a major influence overall, with many strategies geared towards the standards that Google has set.

Some of the other engines vary in what they want to see in SEO practices and have their own preferences.

Which is why expertise that can use the right content strategy is so important.

Why is SEO Important?

if the website is SEO optimised, meaning the content and information on your business’ website is relevant, up to date, and clear – you’ll rank higher when people search for services that you offer.

And you need to align that content to appease both the intent of search engines and the people who use them.

There are a lot of aspects to SEO. It can be creative but also highly technical, involving analytics and the researching of relevant topics.

SEO goes hand in hand with content, so let’s talk through content strategy for SEO…

What Is SEO Content Strategy?

SEO content strategy is all about creating and distributing content to attract and/or retain existing customers.

The first stage of devising a content strategy for a service is to assess the specific situation, identify problems and find solutions.

This could involve identifying pain points for both the business and customers. And means asking questions such as:

• “What can I do to improve my business/service/website?”
• “What are people looking for, what do they need?”
• “What EXACTLY are they searching for when they need a service/product that my business can provide?”

Good SEO strategy considers all of these questions and works with content in order to provide the best and most relevant information.

Like many other aspects of digital marketing, SEO considers the customer journey from start to finish and helps make that purchase journey easier.

Good content can:

• Raise Awareness of your brand, website visibility and increase organic traffic
• Inform and Educate about your services and products
• Influence users to engage with your brand
• And finally, lead to a purchase

For many customers, it’s common to research and compare products/services/businesses before they part with their hard-earned cash. They’ll watch videos, read reviews from users and professional critics.

So, you need to make sure you have all the information about whatever it is your selling listed clearly.

Just one single high-quality blog can make all the difference - if a search engine determines that the blog in question has the best written information on a particular subject, such as SEO - or whatever your business is selling.

But standing out in the vast universe of the internet is hard. It’s going to be difficult to compete with the giants at the top. That’s why an SEO strategy that prioritises quality, structure, and relevance (aka audience, intent, location, etc.) is so integral to digital marketing success.

The SEO Content Strategy Journey

SEO Content strategy is separated into several parts – its creation, and then the distribution and promotion of it.

It can be loosely compared to how a film or other creative product goes through several stages…

1. The first stage of a film is pitching and getting the greenlight to go into pre-production - in SEO terms, this would be starting work with a client and entering the research and auditing stage.
2. Films then go into production and post-production, the parts where they are actually filmed and then edited - this is like SEO content being created, implemented, written, filmed, edited, etc.
3. Finally, the finished result of a film is distributed and promoted, with marketing that includes trailers, posters, actor/director/writer interviews, etc. This can resemble SEO being finalised and published on websites, social media, emails, PPC adverts and more.

The SEO content will then be monitored to see how it’s performing. This could vaguely be compared to audience and critic reactions, but perhaps a better comparison would be test screenings earlier on in the film’s production cycle.

An even more accurate comparison would be something akin to software updates for products, like phones or video games, that aim to further improve user experience.

Like software, SEO can be constantly updated, which is also part of the content strategy (more on that later)…

Types of Content

• Blog posts
• Product pages (for ecommerce sites)
• Landing pages (to promote and target specific products)
• How-to-guides and tutorials (any educational content that can answer consumer questions)
• Videos and infographics (tags, descriptions and transcripts also help here)

Stages of a Content Strategy

An SEO content strategy consists of several stages, first up there’s the all-important researching and choice of keywords…

 

Research and Keywords Explained

Like many ventures and strategies, the first step to getting SEO content right is by doing research.

This research involves exploring keywords and finding a mixture of different kinds of these keywords to use within content. There are various tools for keyword research, such as Semrush, HREFs, Google Keyword Planner Tool, and many more.

Keywords are to search engines what hashtags are to certain social media sites. And just like hashtags, the more relevant words you use the better.

Keywords however, are a little more complex. There are various different types, such as:

High Search Volume Keywords

Some of the most important types of keywords to look out for are the ones that attract a high search volume. These are the words and phrases that people are most likely to type in when looking for a specific need, product, or service that your business offers.

Long-Tail Keywords

Speaking of phrases, keywords aren’t just limited to one particular word. Long-tail keywords are also used, and these are phrases of around three to five words. These allow SEO and keywords to be more specific and relevant to a certain situation – for example, the longtail keyphrase “digital marketing agency in Essex” will be used by agencies like us (good old Revive!) to attract local clients.

Keywords with Transactional Intent

It’s not just about using keywords that help your business get found, there are also transactional keywords. These are keywords that searchers will use when they want to take an action such as making a purchase.

Low Hanging Fruit Keywords

These are keywords that are already ranking with high search volume, but are on the second to third pages of Google. Optimising pages using these keywords also helps to improve the page traffic and will attract related keyword terms. This could be a mix of commercial keywords (more on those just below) or long-tail keywords.

"We start off by doing keyword research - getting keywords that are a mix of high search volume, long tail keywords, and keywords that have transactional intent.” – Lee, SEO Lead

The above keywords can also be broken down into the following categories:

Informational: Keywords for when searchers want to find out more information or research a topic or product before purchasing. Basically asking a question that your website, product or service might be able to answer. Think people that are searching “How…”, “What…”, or “Why…” types of phrases.

Navigational: For when searchers want to find a specific site (Like Revive.Digital) or page information. Examples include, “Revive blog” or “revive digital address”

Commercial: Commercial keywords are for people searching for specific brands, products and services, as well as reviews, comparisons and discounts.

Local SEO

Amongst these strategies is the use of local SEO – essential if you’re a local business but also used by bigger chains so that people can find their nearest branch.

As mentioned before, an example of a local keyphrase used will be a long-tail phrase like “seo agency in Southend”.

With a local business using local SEO, it’s especially important to get specific information accurate and listed, such as contact details, phone number, address, etc.

Local SEO will have a lower search volume because it’s more specific, but it also has more transactional intent, meaning a customer is more likely to find what they’re looking for and purchase it from you.

Think of local SEO as a piece of a big pizza pie that’s more likely to get eaten.

Broad VS Specific – A Case Study

Search engines (especially the big ones) tend to favour the top brands that are already popular.

So just like with local SEO, content strategies have to get clever so that we can achieve the best result possible in this David Vs Goliath situation.

Of course, it’s not likely that your business will take the top spot over a company that basically rules the world…

…However, with the use of a particular strategy and constant promotion, we actually HAVE managed to rank a client’s business over a certain very well-known retailer. Not to brag or anything…

We did this by focusing on our client’s specialism and targeted the right audience. It took consistent work but doing so gave our specialist client the upper hand over a general retailer that sells a bit of everything.

By playing to the strengths of our client and their specific offerings, we researched and used an SEO content strategy that was more likely to offer users exactly what they’re looking for.

The SEO Audit

After keyword research is performed and the best ones are found, it’s time to determine where they need to go.

Our SEO experts will conduct an audit, determining which pages either lack content or need improvement using the keywords.

Things that will be added or improved include:

• Titles for blogs and web pages
• Headings/headers
• Meta titles (the title of a page that shows up in search engines)
• Meta descriptions (the snippet from a page that shows up in search engines)
• Image alt tags (copy that helps visually impaired readers and search engines to understand an image)
• Internal links (links you from one page on a website to another on the same website)

"We perform an SEO audit determining which pages lack content or need improvements using the keywords we researched. Improving titles, headings, meta descriptions, meta titles, image alt tags, and internal links.” 

Regular Content Updates

The world is always changing and so should your SEO…

Regularly checking and updating old content can boost the relevance of the content and the visibility of the page.

Doing this brings out the true value of content. A blog doesn’t necessarily have to be a one and done thing. You can give it more life, get more use out of it, and that could pay off nicely if that blog (or any other type of content) suddenly becomes relevant again, gets boosted in search rankings and attracts an audience.

A similar type of phenomena can be seen in resurrected videos, adverts, memes, nostalgia, you name it.

A relevant news event might happen, possibly in the world of advertising, or there may be a shift in what social media platforms are the most popular. Updating content to reflect this is well worth considering.

"We regularly update old content so that we boost relevance and visibility of the page and the content.”

Keyword Usage

As part of the keyword strategy, we use keywords in our link building efforts and blogs. The keywords will be hyperlinked on external sites.

These external sites are quality sites that publish the content we create, which generates links from those sites, leading readers to a relevant page on our client’s website.

Digital PR

Our example of keyword usage above is sometimes referred to as digital PR, and can involve collaborating with various outlets in media, creating press releases for these outlets, events, it could also include sponsorships, publicity stunts, working with influencers, YouTubers, podcasters, bloggers, news outlets, and more.

Digital PR can get people talking about your service or product, and will build reputable links to your website. Which then means traffic, conversions, sales and success.

We currently work with influencers who create content using our clients’ products and are always growing these opportunities.

Stay tuned for more on digital PR in a future blog, but for now… back to SEO!

Data Analysis

Once the above steps in the content strategy are taken, our SEO team will track and analyse the data from the SEO implementation to see if it’s working as expected.

But don’t worry, if things aren’t working as well as intended and pages are underperforming, the team finds out why and will make tweaks and adjustments.

Just as we regularly update older content to boost relevance and visibility, we will continually refine things, such as updating keywords, in order to improve SEO outcomes.

Even the small tweaks can go a long way, as long as the research and analysing are done right.

"We track and analyse the data, and based on the findings, we adjust or tweak the underperforming pages. Refining them continually to improve SEO outcomes.”

Technical SEO

Since we’ve started getting technical and mentioning things like data and analysing, let’s briefly mention more of the technical side of things since it’s also an integral part of the SEO content strategy.

The technical side of things is considered from the start, in the audit of your website, where our experts assess how everything functions on a technical level. This includes how user friendly it is, as this is one of the key elements of technical SEO.

Web design is assessed, and updates may be needed to improve content and SEO ranking.

• Our experts will look at things like:
• File sizes (content, photos, videos) – and optimising this for all devices, especially mobile
• Site speed – directly affected by the above
• The design/architecture of the site – how easy it is for users to navigate and find what they’re looking for (aka user friendliness and working buttons/menus)
• URL sizes (ideally short and contains a keyword)

Now here’s something that you may or may not have known… every search engine uses what’s known as a crawler. Sometimes referred to as a robot or a spider, these crawlers are programs that automatically scan through websites.

These scans will be quick and are performed in order to index and list your website on their search engine. These scans are performed intermittently, which is why updating content is so useful, as well as making sure meta titles and meta descriptions are up to scratch.

Think of these crawlers as a surveyor that goes around a property identifying the good and the bad. Or one of those things from The Matrix…

If a crawler likes your website and can easily navigate it, so can a human, and therefore it will be deemed worthy of a decent ranking by the search engine gods…

…And this is why SEO and digital marketing experts are needed to fully optimise your website and get your ranking as close as possible to that precious top spot on search engine results.

To get an even more detailed explanation, take a deep dive into Technical SEO here.

Revive Your SEO

As you probably gathered from above, there’s a lot involved, but get everything right in your SEO content strategy and it will pay off massively.

For an expert strategy from our resident SEO wizards, don’t hesitate to contact us today.