One of the greatest difficulties content marketers experience is creating unique SEO content. To build a blog audience, you need a smarter approach to content writing. You should focus on link building and high-quality content, which are signals used by search engines to rank your site.
Without SEO, it’s difficult for your content to appear on the first search results page. SEO content gives search engines enough information to index your web pages and improve your rankings. As a result, improved rankings can drive more visitors to your site and boost your online presence.
Investing in SEO content will add great value to your digital marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll take you through what is SEO content and steps for creating optimized content:
What Is SEO Content? Why Is SEO Content Important?
Through SEO, you can optimize your site to improve its visibility in search engines. SEO involves on-page and off-page SEO, which play different roles. On-page SEO lets you optimize parts of a website under your control, while off-page SEO optimizes ranking factors outside a website.
As part of an on-page SEO strategy, SEO content is usually created to help a site rank highly in search results. Investing in this type of content will drive useful traffic to your website.
Base your SEO content on keyword research and content writing, among other strategies. The content should reflect a particular search query and help your site rank for that keyword.
Types of SEO Content
SEO content for websites takes the form of infographics, audio, videos, text, images, or a mixture of these. Its common types include blog posts, landing pages, static pages, and product pages.
Most websites feature SEO content in the form of regular content posts. The blogs may offer general information on a particular topic and how-to guides. They may also include press releases, lists, and news articles.
Static pages like an about-us page are web pages with fixed content. On the other hand, product pages promote specific services or products. You can optimize the content on these pages for SEO to rank well on search engines.
If people come across links to your site through an ad or email, they’ll be directed to a landing page once they click on the link. Landing pages encourage visitors to take an action like buying your offerings or joining your subscriber list. Optimizing them for SEO can help you attract people interested in your offerings or topic.
A Guide to Creating SEO Content
Optimized content may be the one thing that your business needs to reach its target audience. Creating SEO content is much more cost-effective than running paid ads. Regardless of the chosen content format, stick to this guide to creating SEO content:
Choose a Proven Topic
When choosing a topic for your SEO content, identify your target customers and their needs. The topic needs to speak to their most common search queries. For instance, if you are selling building materials, cover topics on choosing the right building material or a contractor.
Find relevant topics on Google Search, Google Trends, or YouTube Search. Your competitor’s websites can also give you suggestions on what to write about.
Set a goal for the type of content you want to create to find a suitable topic. You should also think about the different stages in the buying cycle of products/services you sell. Think about the content format and how it will address your audience’s needs.
Conduct Keyword Research
Your keyword research strategy should help you identify the keywords users type in search engines. With the right keywords, it’s possible to create content that makes your audience happy. You’ll also learn about improving SEO rankings with optimized content and gain organic traffic.
Choose the main keyword to offer a sense of direction to your content. You should also find long-tail keywords related to the main keyword. The main keyword should feature in the page title, H1 heading, and URL while the long-tail keywords in the subheadings.
Count on keyword research tools like the Google Keyword Planner to find keywords relevant to your business. Simply plug a seed keyword in the tool, and it will give you a list of keyword ideas.
Keep an Eye on Your Competitors
When researching your competitors, keep an eye on the top-ranking pages that feature your main keywords. Click on the top 3-5 search engine results pages to determine the type of SEO content included on that page. Find the content covered on each site and emulate it on your site.
Learn about your competitors’ backlinks, domain data, and on-page SEO strategies. You should also look at their website speeds to determine whether their optimized content makes pages load faster.
Write Exceptional SEO Content
Copywriting is a crucial aspect of a successful SEO content strategy. Focus on creating appealing content that will make the visitors stay on your site longer. The content should also be appealing to search engines to improve your site rankings.
Come up with an original idea that people would want to consume when writing SEO content. You can give a fresh perspective on an existing topic to make the content original. Offering professional advice on a particular issue may also work.
Figure out the main message and purpose of the content. You should also think about what your audience should do after consuming the post.
Readability is vital for your article to rank on search engines and appeal to your audience. The article should feature well-written and structured text for readers to understand the message. You should thus include clear paragraphs, a precise sentence length, and a consistent text structure in the article.
Enrich the Content With Internal and External Links
Add internal links that point to other pages on your site for visitors to find more information on a certain topic. The internal links also allow search engines to crawl through your pages and rank them. It’s easier for search engines to understand the content better with these links.
Your internal links should feature meaningful anchor texts for credibility. Search crawlers can get a picture of the linked page when an anchor text is included.
You should also link to other third-party high-quality websites in your content. The external links will help your visitors learn more about a topic. Only choose a website you trust for the external link. Use three to five outbound and inbound links for every 1,000 words.
Add Text on Your Non-Text Content
Add text in the place of images on your site to be displayed when the pictures do not load. The text helps search engines understand the image and rank your site. It’ll also be easier for screen-reading tools to describe the photos to visually-impaired readers.
For instance, if you included an infographic on a particular topic in the form of an image, add alt text to it. The alternative text will explain what your infographic covers. Stick to this concept when adding audio, videos, and pictures to your site.
The alt text can help you improve your site’s user experience and accessibility. Your visitors will still get access to your site’s content even when their loading speeds are low.
Provide Users With an Exit Point or CTA
Your SEO content should always have a purpose to translate to results. It should feature an exit point or call-to-action (CTA) to compel visitors to take action once they view your content.
You may include a CTA in the content to grow your email list. In this case, accompany the call-to-action with a sign-up box. Your CTA may also feature a link to your product page if you want people to buy your offerings.
Mention the reason behind the call-to-action when writing the CTA to make it inviting. You should also include persuasive language and create a sense of urgency for appeal. The CTA can be a line of text or image talking about an irresistible offer.
Make Good Use of Structured Data
Also known as schema markup, structured data uses a unique semantic vocabulary that search engines understand. It’s a code that gives search engines valuable information about your site. You can have schemas on reviews, products, podcasts, videos, or articles.
Google’s Structured data markup helper can give you the SEO basics of using schema markup. With this tool, you can choose the right type of data, the URL you intend to markup, and create an HTML code for the markup.
Structured data markup can give your site rich snippets whenever it’s featured in search engines. Your site will look more presentable when it has a well-written schema markup.
Now You Know Why SEO Content Is Important
Content SEO gives search engines enough information to crawl through your site and help it rank. It improves your brand’s visibility on search results and generates traffic to your site. Use this guide to offer you a sense of direction when creating optimized content.
Now that you know what is SEO content, enlist KirkLoyd’s SEO help when looking for an SEO boutique agency in Australia. We help amplify SEO strategies for businesses to earn top search result positions. Get in touch if interested in any of our services.