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The performance of your website depends on how well you meet the needs of potential clients. Increase the number of leads your site generates by producing content that satisfies search intent.
Keyword research will indicate the most relevant phrases and terms to include in your content to enhance optimization for searches with buyer intent. Developing your keyword strategy will outline the direction your content takes and provide the insight required to rank competitively for terms that fuel the growth of your business.
Set your sights on a specific goal
Create a goal for your campaign. It’s impossible to create effective content if there is no concrete objective to strive for. Setting a goal will identify the best methods for achieving the objectives necessary to connect with your client.
For example, if your goal is to sell more of a specific product you would need to find out what the first page results look like for related searches. If a shopping carousel is the first thing that pops up in a search result, the goal will be to optimize to have your product appear in the carousel. If a featured snippet is the first thing on the result page, the content needs to be optimized for position zero.
There are different ways the first page is being displayed and it’s common to see video carousels (as seen in the image above), featured snippets, local listings and advertisements before the first organic listing is shown. By identifying the goal of your campaign it becomes necessary to scout the options available on a first-page result page for specific search terms.
Group your top keywords and phrases
Describe what your company offers in different keyword variations. Each variation of a keyword or phrase represents a separate amount of traffic that is available to drive to your site. For each phrase assign a monthly volume of traffic, keyword difficulty, cost per click and then determine the number of clicks that are made to the organic search results. There are dozens of keyword tools available that will help you accomplish this task. Ubersuggest is free software that generates the values needed to make accurate comparisons.
To choose the best keywords for your business find a balance between those with the highest commercial value, search volume, percentage of clicks to the organic results but with the lowest level of competition. Choose the top phrases that demonstrate the best values as the basis for creating seed keywords for your content.
Analyze top performing pages
Analyze the pages that perform in searches for your keywords. Type in your top keyphrase and see how the number one, two and three websites are satisfying the search query. The objective is to create a page that outperforms the sites at the top of the search results. Identify any similarities the top ranking pages have in order to include the same on your site.
In order to build a page that ranks higher, you will need to match and exceed the quality and depth of content with more detail and unique coverage.
Outperform your competition
Generate effective content ideas through first-hand problems people are voicing in forums, focused niche sites, and keyword related social media groups. Look for questions being asked about problems related to your keyphrase and include the answers to those questions in your article. When you discover a problem someone faces it gives you insight into the motivations behind search demand. By offering them a solution you connect with visitors as an authority and expert who gains their trust and confidence.
Create content that covers more problematic issues and provides more solutions than any other page in the top ten results to outperform those pages from every aspect.
Maximize search visibility
Keyword repetition is no longer required for a website to be optimized. The rank and search algorithm has evolved to the point where search engines are able to assess whether a website will accurately answer a query based on the content provided.
This doesn’t mean that keywords are dead-it’s quite the opposite. Group your keywords by search intent and use each group for separate articles. Optimize for voice search by using common questions and answers about your keyword as titles in your blog posts. The H1 tag should be either a question or worded to answer a question directly. Use H2 and H3 tags and subheadings throughout your article in order to increase the likelihood of your blog post being selected for a featured snippet. List formats are also effective ways to be featured for an answer.
Creating long-tail keyphrases as titles will reduce the level of competition and improve your traffic by increasing your ability to provide content that matches search intent.
Tactics to rank websites are changing all the time but the fundamentals of what makes a successful website have remained constant. At the core of every successful website lies the ability to accurately satisfy search intent through the content the site provides. Connect with clients through content that provides solutions to commonly faced problems.
