This is a sponsored post written by AtomicReach. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.
Harnessing the power of SEO can feel like an overwhelming task.
Whether you are a marketing professional, entrepreneur, or someone that just fell into the role of dealing with this, managing SEO can feel confusing.
In its purest form, SEO is about page rankings, with the rules for ranking associated with search engine requirements.
However, while it may seem too technical, SEO is a crucial component of a successful content marketing strategy.
Creating content for the purposes of SEO can help you reach your target audience, and push them toward a conversion point.
The goal is to drive your audience to your web properties through search engine rankings. The higher the rank, the higher the chances of customers finding your website.
There are many ways to cause your site to rank, but in this article, we will focus primarily on content.
SEO-related content is material you produce for the sole purpose of helping your website rank higher on search engines.
This process typically depends on the keywords you choose to focus on, and the frequency at which you add new content.
6 Steps to Create Content for SEO
Again, SEO can get technical. However, at the heart of this process is the creation of solid content that provides value to your audience.
Here are the steps you should take to ensure you are creating content that will rank.
1. Decide on the Type of Content You Want to Create
It never hurts to have a variety of content available for your target audience.
The diversity of content allows you to appeal to various segments of your audience. Here are some of the types of SEO content you could utilize on your website:
- Articles: Newsworthy pieces of writings that would likely be in a newspaper or magazine.
- Blog posts: Typically articles between 1,000 and 1,500 words rank higher than others as they keep readers on pages for more extended periods. Using headings and creating prose that provides clear answers to questions also can help rankings.
- Guides and Pillar Pages: These are likely going to be much longer than a blog post, and will seek to answer a more involved question. This content can be in one blog post or separated into multiple pages.
- Infographics: This piece of content is great for capturing audiences that are more driven by visual material. The text in any infographic is not “crawlable” – because it is an image – so be sure to use Alt Text and pair it with a companion blog post or guide to maximize the SEO value of this content.
- Listicles: Listicles are excellent for naturally including a variety of keywords and also for being easy to navigate.
- Videos: Similar to infographics, videos cannot be “crawled,” but you can pair videos with an informative blog post or an SEO-friendly headline.
This list is not exhaustive, as there are numerous other types of content. You can also combine many of the content mediums above.
2. Audit Your Content & Determine Your Audience
Knowing who your audience is can help you select the best content type and use the most relevant keywords to organize your content for a better ranking.
One of the best ways to do this is to audit your content and identify what resonates with your audience.
Then, you can create personas that address demographic, location, and online behavior information.
You can then determine the type of questions these individuals would search, and select keywords and phrases to use in your content that would rank for these questions.
3. Establish Goals
What are you looking to gain?
- Do you want to increase conversions?
- Do you seek to establish a brand voice, or generally raise awareness of your company?
Your content creation and SEO efforts should help you reach these milestones. Take the time to develop actionable goals and create a strategy for how your content can help you reach them.
For example, if you want to push your webinars to become the main attraction point for your audience, you should optimize the verbiage and headline associated with it to attract and retain customers.
You can then track how successful your content efforts are using site analytics that is related to your webinar.
4. Develop an Editorial Calendar & Determine Content Creation Timelines
Creating content for SEO can be labor intensive.
Therefore, it is essential to have a strategy for when and how you will create the content. An editorial calendar enables you to develop a timeline for content creation and have a location to store and organize content.
You can plan out content ahead of time and even do preliminary research as far as relevant keywords and phrases to include in your writing. Here are a few tips to get started:
- Instead of creating an editorial calendar from scratch, look into using a template and customizing it to suit your needs. Many will include an actual calendar and spreadsheets to store content ideas and relevant links.
- Always give yourself enough time to create content and conduct appropriate research.
- Categorize your content by topic or type, this will make it easy to search for what you need.
- Include a category for potential keywords and tags. This will make research easier, as you have already determined the terms and phrases you want to use.
5. Create Your Content
Once you have determined the type of content you want to create and developed a schedule for posting, it is time to build your content.
The process will include a bit of a more in-depth plan for keyword research, content length, and strategic keywords and phrasing placement.
Again, your goal is to combine the practice of developing engaging content with the technical aspect of keyword optimization.
Leveraging content intelligence is essential in this step. Digging into the metrics that are actually driving your conversions is the easiest way to ensure your content will be effective, without having to guess.
6. Evaluate Progress
Your website’s analytics will tell the story of your content’s performance. Page visits, bounce rates, and attribution will all convey the potential success of your content.
You can also look deeper by asking questions like:
- Are people commenting?
- Are individuals being directed to a conversion?
This information will not only help you know the outcome of your content, but it will also allow you to see where to improve and to understand if you need to update or replace other material.
Final Thoughts
SEO doesn’t have to be a complicated process.
Once you understand its importance and how it relates to your content, you can then begin to create material that helps your website rank.
Figure out a formula that works for you, and begin to implement it for all of your content.
The hardest part is getting started.
Again, start with assessing your audience, and then research topics that best relate to them and your industry as a whole.
From there, you can begin to make decisions about the keywords and phrases that will match to their potential searches and cause your content to rank.
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by AtomicReach. Used with permission.
In-Post Photos: Image by AtomicReach. Used with permission.