Excelling at keyword research is central to developing an effective SEO strategy. It’s also one of the biggest obstacles. More than simply selecting words, keyword research requires extensive exploration in the search results to uncover insights that show you how best to create relevant and engaging content.

So here in this article, we’ll go over what aspects of the search results to focus on while you’re doing keyword research.

1. User Intent: The Reason Behind the Search

As you gather and refine your keywords, you need to know the intent behind them. This ensures the content you create fulfills a person’s needs as they search on Google.

There are typically four buckets of user intent behind keywords:

• Informational intent: Users are looking for answers or learning something new. For example, “What is keyword research?”
• Navigational intent: They’re trying to find a specific brand or resource. For instance, “Google Keyword Planner.”
• Commercial intent: These people are nearly ready to buy, but want to compare products, for example, “Google Keyword Planner vs. SEOToolSet.”
• Transactional Intent: They’re ready to act, like making a purchase. For instance, “subscribe to SEOToolSet.”

The important step here is to analyze the content that ranks for your target keyword to confirm its intent.

If the top-ranking results are product pages but you’re creating a blog post, you might need to adjust your approach.

You can also consider gathering metrics, such as the target word count for that keyword based on the top-ranking pages.

2. Assess the Competition: Who’s Already Winning?

Ranking for a desired keyword entails evaluating your competitors. You have to understand who’s already ranking and what they’re doing to stay ahead.

• Assess content quality: What makes their content valuable? Is it detailed, user-friendly or visually engaging? For more, see my guide on crafting high-quality SEO content.
• Evaluate the domain: Do competitors have strong backlinks and a high level of trust? Check out my article on the site authority metric before you do this.
• Spot gaps: Can you offer deeper insights than your competition, update outdated information or target a specific niche they’ve overlooked?

Use tools like SEOToolSet®, Ahrefs, SEMrush or Moz to uncover competitors’ backlinks and identify gaps in their keyword strategies. I discuss this more at length in How to Do Competitor Research for SEO.

3. Leverage SERP Features: Beyond the Blue Links

The search engine results pages (SERPs) are rich with information during your keyword research.

The SERPs can give you additional ideas for keywords to target and help you better understand how you will structure your content strategy for a keyword.

For keyword research, you can look at the SERPs in areas such as:

• Google’s autocomplete feature.
• People Also Ask feature.
• Related Searches feature.
• People Also Search For feature.
• Discussions and forums results.

Then, you can use the SERP to analyze the SERP features that show up for a target keyword. (For a quick beginner’s guide, see What Are SERP Features and Why Should I Care?)

For example, are videos predominant in the SERPs for an important keyword? Make sure you’re making videos to answer that query.

Every SERP feature will have a unique strategy. There’s everything from AI Overviews to the Local Pack, Knowledge Panels, Image Carousels and more.

So you’ll need a thoughtful approach to ranking in the whole SERP, and you can learn more about that in my article, What Is a Whole-SERP SEO Strategy?

Final Thoughts

For better keyword research, use the SERPs to uncover the insights you need for a solid SEO content strategy.

When you understand user intent, evaluate your competition and leverage the many SERP features available, you can craft relevant content that ranks and resonates.

Read How To Do Keyword Research for SEO for more keyword research insights.

Don’t have the time to do keyword research? Lacking resources to build a content strategy? Let our SEO experts do the work for you.

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FAQ: How can I effectively use keyword research to identify gaps and opportunities in my competitors’ strategies?

Effective keyword research gives businesses a competitive edge online. It reveals what terms are sending traffic to your competitors’ website, and it shows you the areas where their content may be lacking. This is helpful information you can capitalize on. This process involves analyzing search volume, competition level and keyword intent to ensure alignment with user needs and search behaviors.

Staying ahead requires a keen understanding of competitor strategies. Investigating the keywords they leverage provides insights into their market positioning and audience targeting. More importantly, it unveils keywords and topics they overlook.

Focusing on these gaps allows you to produce content that addresses unmet needs while offering unique value, drawing people in while strengthening SEO efforts as a thought leader and resource in your industry.

The challenge lies in the saturation of popular keywords, where competition is fierce and cutting through the noise is difficult. However, resolving this issue involves a strategic shift towards long-tail keywords or niche phrases that offer lower competition yet significant value.

These keywords often indicate specific user intents, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates when addressed effectively. By tailoring your content to meet these targeted needs, you can draw traffic away from competitors and establish a more prominent online presence.

Integrating emerging trends and technologies into your keyword strategy is also crucial. Utilizing AI-driven tools for keyword analysis can provide deeper insights into search patterns and competitor tactics.

These tools allow you to quickly identify shifts in consumer behavior, enabling you to modify your strategy proactively. Staying current with industry developments ensures your keywords stay relevant.

An experiential tip for optimizing your keyword research is to regularly conduct audits of your competitors’ performance. This involves tracking their keyword rankings, analyzing their content strategies, and monitoring their engagement levels.

By understanding what works for them and what doesn’t, you can refine your approach and implement advanced tactics that set your brand apart. Combining this with a robust SEO framework will solidify your strategy and drive sustained growth.

Achieving a nuanced understanding of keyword dynamics requires a multi-faceted approach. Engage in competitor analysis, utilize cutting-edge tools, and continuously refine your strategy based on performance data.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Establish Goals: Set clear objectives, whether it’s generating more traffic, earning higher search ranking or finding new markets.
2. Target Competitors: Focus your research efforts by making a list of competitors, both direct and indirect.
3. Keyword Research Tools: Use the right tools for keyword research, utilize advanced tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, SEOToolSet or PreWriter.ai.
4. Analyze Competitor Keywords: Note which keywords your competitors are ranking for, then look up their search volume, difficulty and click-through rates.
5. Find Content Gaps: Take note of topics or keywords unexplored by competitors that present opportunities for your content creation.
6. Assess Keyword Intent: Establish the intent behind each keyword.
7. Prioritize: Prioritize opportunities based on their impact, feasibility and how well they align with your business goals.
8. Content Strategy: Formulate a plan to produce content which addresses gaps while remaining search engine and user friendly.
9. Apply On-Page SEO Techniques: Take steps such as optimizing titles, meta descriptions and headers in order to enhance visibility for your content and make it more noticeable online.
10. Monitor Competitor Performance: Keep track of how competitors’ keyword rankings and content updates impact them so you can adjust your approach appropriately.
11. Focus on Long-Tail Keywords: Leverage long-tail keywords to take advantage of their lower competition and increased conversion potential, customizing content specifically to individual queries.
12. Acknowledging Emerging Trends: Remain aware of industry developments and integrate key words into your plan in order to remain competitive.
13. Conduct Audits Regularly: Assess your keyword strategy regularly to gauge its effectiveness. Tweak accordingly.
14. Engage With Your Audience: Engaging with your audience through social media will help you understanding what they’re interested in. You can build a list of targeted keywords With these insights.
15. Optimize for Voice Search: Use keywords that are conversational throughout your content. Staying current on voice search trends will help.
16. AI Tools: Use AI tools to analyze search patterns and anticipate future trends to strengthen your keyword strategies.
17. Refining Your Approach: Review performance data and market changes frequently to keep your keyword strategy effective and up-to-date, to make sure it remains effective and relevant.
18. Focus on User Experience: Make sure your content offers readers an enriching and enjoyable experience, which can boost search rankings and increase traffic.
19. Create an Effective Backlink Profile: Strategize ways of acquiring high-quality backlinks that will elevate both authority and search visibility.
20. Test and Iterate: Utilize data-driven experiments to test various strategies and approaches in keyword research and implementation processes, then utilize this feedback to further strengthen them over time.
21. Keep Up: To keep an edge in keyword research and maintain market leadership, keep abreast of emerging technologies and trends through keyword monitoring. Doing this will give your competitors less of a fighting chance while providing you with an advantage for keyword research.
22. Collaborate With Your Team: For optimal keyword strategies to meet business goals and initiatives, work closely with your marketing team in creating alignment between keyword strategies and other business initiatives.
23. Continued Education: Stay current with changes to SEO and keyword research. can ensure your knowledge and abilities stay at their most up-to-date state.
24. Utilize Analytics Tools: Leverage analytics tools to assess and adjust your keyword strategy.

The post What Should I Analyze in the Search Results When Conducting Keyword Research? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

How do you run a successful SEO content program?

A good SEO content program requires a well-structured approach that tackles everything from process to quality to tools.

Here, I’ll give strategies to help you navigate these aspects and enhance your SEO content program.

In this article:

• Creating content systems and resources
• A closer look at creating quality content
• Integrating AI into your SEO content: How to do it right
• FAQ: How do I maintain consistency and efficiency in an SEO content program?

Creating Content Systems and Resources

Creating a repeatable system for the content program keeps things efficient and organized. Here are some steps to managing the SEO content process:

1. Create Resources

Make sure everyone involved in the project has a good understanding of the company and its audience.

Some resources you might create:

• A summary of the business and its offerings.
• Persona profiles to help the team better understand the target audience.
• Information about the competitive landscape.

Let’s look at a few of these in more detail:

A. Summary of the Business and Its Offerings

A detailed description of a company’s products and services, including demos, can be helpful to content creators working on a brand’s content strategy.

Here’s why:

• Understanding the offering: It helps content creators understand the products and services offered by the company, enabling them to create relevant and accurate content.
• Content relevance: It ensures that the content created aligns with the brand’s offerings, making it more relevant and valuable to the target audience.
• Educational content: Detailed descriptions and demos can be used to create educational content that helps customers understand the benefits and features of the products/services.

B. Persona Profiles

A persona profile is a detailed description of a fictional person who represents a segment of a target audience. It helps organizations better understand their customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors.

Here are some elements in a persona profile that can help content creators:

• Name and basic demographics: Give the persona a name, age, gender, location, occupation, education level and other relevant demographic information.
• Background: Describe the persona’s background, including whatever information is relevant like family life, career and other relevant details that help paint a picture of who they are.
• Goals and objectives: Outline the persona’s primary goals, personal and/or professional and what they are trying to achieve.
• Challenges and pain points: Describe the persona’s challenges, frustrations and obstacles that prevent them from achieving their goals.
• Needs and preferences: Outline the persona’s needs, preferences and priorities, including what they value in products or services.
• Behaviors and habits: Describe the persona’s typical behaviors and habits, and how they interact with products or services similar to yours.
• Quotes and anecdotes: Include quotes or anecdotes that capture the persona’s attitudes, beliefs or feelings about relevant topics.

C. Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis allows content creators to understand the strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ content strategies.

This can help with:

• Identifying gaps in competitors’ content that the brand can capitalize on.
• Benchmarking the brand’s content against competitors ensures that the content stands out in the market.
• Creating content that differentiates the brand from competitors.
• Understanding the brand’s market positioning relative to competitors, informing content strategies that reinforce the brand’s unique position in the market.

2. Establish a Content Repository

Another effective way to support content creators is a content repository. A content repository is a centralized location or database where all marketing-related content is stored, managed and organized.

This content can include images, videos, blog posts, social media posts, emails and other types of content created for marketing campaigns.

A content repository serves several purposes in marketing projects:

• Centralized storage: It provides a single location for all marketing and SEO content, making it easy for team members to access and use the content they need.
• Organization and management: Content repositories often include features for organizing content, such as tagging and categorization, making it easy to search for and find specific pieces of content.
• Version control: Repositories help manage different versions of content, ensuring that team members are always working with the most up-to-date versions.
• Reuse and repurposing: By storing content in a repository, SEO teams can easily reuse and repurpose content for different campaigns or channels, saving time and resources.

Overall, a content repository plays a key role in managing marketing and SEO content effectively. You can use something as simple as Google Drive to get started.

3. Maintain the Brand Through a Style Guide

A good corporate style guide typically includes guidelines for writing, design and branding elements to ensure consistency and coherence across all communications and materials.

Here are some key components often found in a style guide that can be helpful for content creators:

• Brand identity: Defines the company’s brand values, mission and vision, providing a foundation for all brand communications.
• Color palette: Provides the colors used in the brand, including primary, secondary and accent colors, along with their corresponding color codes. This can be useful when creating graphics for articles and webpages.
• Writing style: Outlines guidelines for writing, including tone of voice, grammar rules, preferred spellings and usage of specific terminology.
• Visual elements: Includes guidelines for imagery, graphics and other visual elements used in brand communications.
• Usage examples: Provide examples of correct and incorrect usage of brand elements to illustrate the guidelines.

By providing content creators with these resources and guidelines, you can help them produce high-quality content that aligns with the brand’s image and messaging.

A Closer Look at Creating Quality Content

Creating a high-quality webpage involves several key factors. Here are some to consider and I’ll go into more detail next:

1. Establish the foundations of what goes into quality content.
2. Understanding the process of creating SEO content.
3. Coming up with great ideas.

1. Establishing the Foundations of Quality Content

Here are some ways to build quality into the process from the ground up:

E-E-A-T

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust (E-E-A-T): These factors from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines help search engines evaluate the quality of your content for ranking.

E-E-A-T holds significant importance for the majority of websites, but for topics falling under “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL), it becomes paramount. The required level of experience and expertise varies for other subjects.

To sum up E-E-A-T:

• Trust lies at the core of E-E-A-T, demanding that a webpage be truthful, secure, reliable and accurate.
• Experience is the firsthand understanding of a subject, gained through direct engagement or participation.
• Expertise is the essential knowledge or proficiency required to discuss a subject.
• Authoritativeness pertains to being recognized as a leading source on a subject.

Learn more in my article: The Complete Guide to the Basics of E-E-A-T.

Journalistic Integrity

Just like journalists, content creators should prioritize accuracy and transparency. Fact-checking and citing reputable sources help establish trustworthiness and credibility.

Ensuring journalistic integrity can build credibility and trust with your audience. Here are some ways to uphold it:

• Accuracy: Verify the accuracy of your information through multiple reliable sources before publishing. Fact-checking is essential to avoid spreading misinformation.
• Accountability: Take responsibility for your reporting. Correct any errors promptly and transparently. Be open to feedback and criticism from your audience.
• Ethical standards: Familiarize yourself with and adhere to ethical standards, including not plagiarizing and following search engine guidelines.

Professional Writing Skills

Good old-fashioned professional writing skills need to come together to create cohesive articles. Professional writers and editors can keep in mind the following as they create content for SEO:

• Logical consistencies: Resolve any contradictions or conflicts in your content by thoroughly researching the topic, fact-checking claims and reviewing contradictory statements.
• Persuasive writing: Strengthen your arguments by ensuring they are well-supported, using solid research and relevant examples.
• Data accuracy: Carefully evaluate and verify the accuracy of data and statistics used in your content to avoid misinformation and flawed conclusions.
• Current information: Regularly review and update content to ensure it remains accurate, relevant and trustworthy.
• Mastering grammar: Correct grammatical errors to ensure clarity and precision in your writing, enhancing the credibility of your content. Grammarly can be a useful tool here.

• Formatting for readability: Use formatting for organized and easy-to-read content.

By addressing these aspects, you can enhance the credibility and integrity of your writing.

Helpful Content

Google wants to rank content that is helpful and adds something of value. Here is a summary of Google’s guidance on helpful content:

Self-assess your content: Evaluate your content against the questions Google provides which focus on originality, completeness, value and quality.

Focus on people-first content: Create content primarily for people, not just for search engine rankings. Ensure your content is useful, demonstrates expertise and provides a satisfying experience for readers.

Avoid search engine-first content: Avoid producing low-value, automated or shallow content solely for SEO purposes.

Ask “who, how, and why”: Consider the creator, creation process and purpose of your content. Ensure authorship is clear, disclose the use of automation or AI in content creation and create content primarily to help people, not just to manipulate search rankings.

Provide a great page experience: Focus on providing an overall great page experience across many aspects, as Google’s core ranking systems reward content that provides a good page experience.

By aligning your content creation efforts with these guidelines, you can improve your content’s performance in search results and create more valuable content for your audience.

2. The Process of Creating Quality SEO Content

It can be useful to think about the process of how you go from idea to final product. Here are some general steps for creating impactful SEO content:

1. Idea generation: Find ideas from various sources within your organization.
2. Keyword research: Create a seed list of keywords and refine them using keyword research tools.
3. Organization: Plan where the content will go on the website and how it fits into the site structure.
4. Competition analysis: Analyze top-ranked competitors for your target keywords to understand what search engines consider relevant and quality content.
5. Content creation: Write the content based on the targets identified in the previous steps and follow a defined process for creating quality content.
6. Expert review: Have the content reviewed by subject matter experts and editors to ensure accuracy and quality.
7. Optimization: Optimize the content for SEO, including on-page and technical optimization.
8. Repurposing: Repurpose the content into other forms, such as e-books, webinars or videos.

Following these steps creates a repeatable process in your SEO content creation efforts.

3. Coming Up with Great Content Ideas

Coming up with content ideas can sometimes feel like a daunting process. When you have a system in place, you quickly realize there are many places to get inspiration.

Here are some to consider:

• Keyword research: Conduct extensive keyword research to understand your target audience and the type of content they’re looking for. Use this research to guide your content creation process.
• Search results: Analyze the content ranking on the search results for your target keywords. Use this as inspiration to create original and engaging content that stands out. SEO tools like our own SEOToolSet® can help you monitor rankings through a ranking report, and can even monitor your competitors.

• Subject matter experts: Identify experts within your company or client’s company who can contribute valuable insights and expertise to your content. Engage them early on in the process. Build a list of SMEs and their areas of expertise. Use them for ideas, expert quotes and as a sounding board for your content.
• Team ideas: Create a system for SMEs to submit content ideas easily. For example, a simple survey via Google Forms can work.
• Sales, marketing and customer insights: Talk to the sales and marketing teams, as well as directly to customers to gather ideas for content that addresses their needs and pain points. AYTM can be a helpful tool.
• Competitors: Study your competitors’ content to get ideas and inspiration. Note the topics they’re covering and how they’re approaching them. See: How to Do Competitor Research for SEO.
• Existing content: Remember that content repository I talked about earlier? This can be a treasure trove for ideas. Repurpose existing content assets, such as training materials, podcasts, videos and customer service logs to create new webpages or guides.
• The website: Repurposing existing webpages into new ones can be a strategic way to create fresh content. By identifying URLs on similar topics, you can consolidate them into a comprehensive guide. This approach maximizes the value of existing content and can inspire new ideas for your website.

Integrating AI into Your SEO Content: How to Do It Right

AI tools are just that: Tools to help you gain efficiency. But use it with caution, especially when generating content for SEO. Remember — AI-generated content is a tool, not a solution.

As we have learned, Google is working on systems to weed out AI content that adds little value to its search results.

Here is a four-step process for integrating AI content into an SEO strategy the right way:

1. Keyword selection: Identify relevant keywords, synonyms, related keywords, long-tail keywords and FAQs to create a preliminary outline for the content.
2. The content-generation stage: Prompt the AI tool to generate some content based on the outline and specific parameters such as persona type, target audience, tone of voice, formatting and other quality criteria. This can be used as a more in-depth outline for what you will include.
3. Professional content writing and editing: Edit the AI-generated content using additional research and subject matter expertise to provide unique points of view, original information, external data sources and imagery. Proof for accuracy, tone, grammar, flow and adherence to brand guidelines. Consider multiple rounds of editing, especially for complex topics.
4. Content optimization: Further optimize the content by integrating the keywords throughout as needed.

We’re launching our own AI tool for SEO content that streamlines the content development process and makes the pre-work for writers more efficient. Learn more about PreWriter.ai and pre-register to get on the notification list when it launches.

AI Pitfalls to Avoid

AI-generated content presents challenges. Here are some pitfalls to avoid when using AI tools:

• Redundancy
• Poor grammar
• A lack of personal experience
• A generic approach

Differentiating between valuable content and long, ineffective articles can be difficult — especially for less-experienced content creators.

This is why AI content requires professional editing and should be treated as a rough draft. Combining AI tools with human review is the most effective approach.

Google’s March 2024 updates reduced unhelpful content in the search results by up to 40%. Many sites were negatively impacted, with some completely de-indexed.

Google’s focus is on AI-generated content and websites that produce content at scale to boost search rankings. Google’s goal is to combat content that lacks value for users, including content generated by AI tools that stitch together information from the search results.

Google emphasized the importance of creating content that adds something unique to the conversation, even when using AI tools.

SEOs should assess their methods and ensure they are producing quality, people-first content to remain visible and relevant in search results.

Regular SEO audits, adherence to best practices and tracking progress are crucial for maintaining high rankings and building a lasting online presence.

See my article on Google’s March 2024 updates for more insights on this.

Final Thoughts

In the fast-paced, ever-changing world of SEO, one thing has remained constant: quality content.

By implementing the tips and strategies outlined in this article, you can elevate your SEO content program, drive organic traffic and achieve lasting success in the search results.

Our SEO experts can help you build a quality SEO content program that improves your visibility and credibility.

Schedule a free consultation now

FAQ: How do I maintain consistency and efficiency in an SEO content program?

A successful SEO content program must be consistent and efficient to maintain high search engine rankings and visibility. These strategies will help you build an SEO content program that works.

Understanding SEO Content Basics
First, you need to understand the basics of SEO content. Familiarize yourself with how search engines index and rank pages. Search engines prioritize content that is well-researched, trusted, regularly updated and user focused. Understanding this will help inform your SEO content program. You’ll want to audit and refresh your content routinely to maintain quality and relevance.

Strategic Planning and Goal Setting
Define clear, measurable goals for what you hope to achieve with your content. Are you trying to generate leads? Increase brand awareness? Educate your customers? Identifying clear content goals helps you plan strategically as you develop your content. This direction helps in maintaining focus and assessing the effectiveness of your SEO strategies.

Content Calendar Development
A content calendar is a very helpful tool to maintain consistency and efficiency. It should outline what type of content you want to publish, when to publish it and where it will be published. A detailed calendar helps you figure out how to distribute resources effectively, ensuring a steady stream of content.

Quality Control Systems
Quality control measures are needed to keep your content performing at a high level. Review content regularly to determine what is underperforming and needs to be refreshed. These audits also keep your messaging and branding consistent.

SEO Tools and Analytics
SEO tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs or SEOToolSet® give you data and insights to help refine your content strategies. Use these tools to track your content performance and develop an understanding of audience behavior. The insights you get will inform the direction of your SEO content program.

Training and Team Development
It’s extremely important to train your team to be consistent in SEO. This means providing continuous education and SEO training to keep team members current with the latest SEO trends and best practices. A well-informed team is the key to building a successful SEO and content program.

Optimization Techniques
Successful content must be optimized for both users and search engines. This is done by incorporating your target keywords naturally throughout your content, improving site speed and building your site to be responsive across all mobile devices.

Feedback Integration
Gather feedback from your stakeholders — this includes readers, customers and your internal team — and implement it into your program. Feedback helps you make improvements and adjust your strategy accordingly to better meet the needs and expectations of your audience.

These strategies will help you build a consistent and efficient SEO content program that gets better results — more traffic, visibility and higher search engine ranking.

Step-by-step Procedure

1. Do a comprehensive audit of your existing content.
2. Determine what you hope to achieve with your content and set clear, measurable goals.
3. Create a detailed content calendar that outlines what, when and where your content will be published. Build your calendar so that it aligns with audience engagement patterns.
4. Implement quality control processes to maintain content quality and consistency.
5. Provide ongoing SEO training and education for your team.
6. Ensure all content is optimized for users and search engines.
7. Encourage your stakeholders to provide feedback and use it to refine your strategy.
8. Review and refresh content regularly to maintain quality, relevance and ranking.
9. Research your competitors and analyze their strategies to help inform your own strategy.
10. Align content topics with user interests and search trends.
11. Prioritize developing valuable and informative content that addresses user questions.
12. Track content performance by using SEO tools and adapt your strategy as necessary.
13. Consider adjusting the frequency of content publication based on analytical insights from SEO tools.
14. Expand your reach by collaborating with other content creators.
15. Frequently evaluate your SEO content strategy, identify what works and what needs improvement, then adjust as necessary to keep it current and effective.

The post Crafting High-Quality SEO Content: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Google has been tight-lipped about its ranking factors since the beginning, but we can guess which factors make the top of the list. And, if I were to guess, content would be the No. 1 ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.

That is because search engine results wouldn’t exist without content to rank. Of course, Google provides all sorts of other indicators that content is of the utmost importance.

But not just any content — quality content. Google wants to ensure that its users get the best results.

Knowing that content is a major ranking factor, it’s important to periodically review your content and ensure that it’s as good as possible so that you can compete in the search results. In this article, I’ll share nine strategies on how to upgrade your content.

1. Do a Content Audit

If you already have a lot of content on your website, begin with a content audit. This will give you a starting point and clear direction on which webpages to upgrade.

First start with a trusted SEO tool to get a big-picture view of all your web pages (you can use our SEOToolSet to do this but there are others).

Once you have a master list of URLs, you’ll divide the webpages into three buckets:

1. The first bucket includes webpages that get the most rankings and traffic, such as those ranked up to position 10 in the search results.
2. The second bucket is webpages that have the potential to get better rankings and traffic, for example, those starting at position 11.
3. The third bucket is webpages that perform poorly and aren’t in either of those categories.

Then, focus on strengthening the content in the first two categories.

Read more:

• The 13-Step Web Content Audit to Boost Visibility in the Search Results

2. Perform Keyword Research

Once you understand the webpages that you are going to optimize, look at the desired keywords for each page.

Find out what keywords have been assigned and compare that to what search queries bring in traffic.

Again, you can use our SEOToolSet to find out what keywords are bringing in traffic. You can also tap into Google Search Console to find out which search queries are generating impressions and clicks to your website in Google’s search results.

Examine the keywords — do they still resonate with the content of the webpage and your audience intent? Does the page need to be optimized with different keywords now?

Read more:

• What Are Keywords?

3. Do Some Competitor Research

With a keyword list for the webpages and content you are updating, it’s time to dive into some competitive research.

Without understanding who your competition is in the search results for each keyword (aka those ranking on page one) you will not have a clear picture of how to optimize your content.

You can analyze your competition in a couple of different ways: 1) The manual “old fashioned” way, where you plug in a keyword into the search results and start digging or 2) The automated way using tools to discover which webpages rank for your keyword.

The tools will give you much more data quicker on the top-ranked pages and their websites. For example, if you used our SEOToolSet, you could find out things like:

• The on-page ranking factors
• The off-page ranking factors
• How often they use your targeted keyword and where
• Readability metrics of the webpages
• Recommendations on how to optimize your webpages based on the competition
• The health of your competitor’s website

Check out these free versions of tools in our SEOToolSet to get you started:

• Multi-Page Informational tool
• Check Server Page tool

Competitor research helps you be the least imperfect compared to your competition. And, once you understand how the competition is optimizing, you can do as good or better.

Read more:

• How to Do Competitor Research for SEO

4. Implement E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google invented this concept and it’s outlined in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

That document was first used internally to train search quality raters. These people evaluate the quality of the search results, so Google can use that data as a feedback loop for its algorithm.

Eventually, the internal document was leaked, and in 2015, Google made the full version available to the public. It has been revised several times since then, and anyone can view it.

The Search Quality Rater Guideline is a sort of manual for website publishers to understand how Google human quality raters view quality content. So it’s worth understanding it and how it can apply to your website.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it applies to the algorithm; it doesn’t. It can, however, be used as a loose guideline for building higher-quality webpages.

Building on the steps you’ve taken thus far, use the concepts in the Search Quality Rater Guidelines to examine your top webpages (and your website as a whole) to ensure they demonstrate E-E-A-T.

Read:

• Complete Guide to the Fundamentals of Google’s E-E-A-T
• E-E-A-T and SEO: You Can’t Have One Without the Other

5. Make Sure Your Content Is Evergreen

It’s not uncommon for old webpages to rank well and bring in a lot of traffic. But most webpages need updating over time. It does not create a good user experience when someone lands on an outdated webpage.

This is where “evergreening” comes in. Evergreening ensures that content stands the test of time.

Practically, that means reviewing and editing the content to ensure it contains the most up-to-date information. Maybe the advice is outdated, or the stats and research to support your points can be updated.

This is an important step in upgrading the webpages you are working on. And, in reality, it should be performed on a schedule throughout the year.

6. Do Some On-Page and Technical Optimization

In this step, you will take the intel you’ve gathered from your competitor research and start applying it to your webpages.

What on-page optimization factors are helping your competition? What technical factors are helping them?

Make sure you’re doing it, too. You can additionally one-up your competitors by using an SEO checklist to see what else might be missing when it comes to optimizing your content and web pages.

Read:

• The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist
• Technical vs. On-Page SEO: The Differences

7. Address Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can work against your SEO goals.

When you have two pages that are too similar, Google will choose the one it believes is relevant for a search and filter the other one out — and it may not be the page you want.

So, you want to make sure that the webpages you are upgrading are not duplicated on your website. “Duplication” could be as simple as having the same meta information.

But you might have duplicate content on your site for many other reasons. And here are some of the ways duplicate content is generated:

• Two site versions
• Separate mobile site
• Trailing slashes on URLs
• CMS problems
• Boilerplate content
• Parameterized pages
• Product descriptions
• Content syndication

It goes without saying to avoid other types of duplicate content, too — like the spammy kind. This is when the content on your webpage is too similar to the content on another person’s website.

Read:

• Is Duplicate Content Bad for Search Engine Rankings?
• Understanding Duplicate Content and How to Avoid It
• How to Get Rid of Duplicate Content in WordPress

8. Try SEO Siloing

Where your content is placed on your website can impact your webpage’s rankings. SEO siloing is an SEO technique that structures your website’s content by grouping related webpages together.

How you organize a webpage on your website (whether it’s how you link to it or what directory you put it in) can impact:

1. How search engines crawl and understand that webpage
2. The relevancy of that webpage for a search

You might still wonder how organizing a webpage can improve rankings. Here’s one explanation: One way that search engines determine the most relevant webpages for a search is by sifting through and analyzing the webpages in their index and finding the best fit.

Taking it a step further, search engines like Google may analyze the overall website structure of the web pages it is considering. This helps the search engine determine if a website has enough supporting content for the search term used.

Here, the search engine assesses whether the website is an authority on the topic and, therefore, the best fit for the query.

So, when you are upgrading your content, the big picture of how that content fits into an organized website cannot be overlooked.

Read:

• SEO Siloing: What, Why, How
• 5 Times When SEO Siloing Can Make or Break Your Search Engine Rankings

9. Look at a Whole-SERP SEO Strategy

And last but not least, another “big picture” strategy when upgrading your content is not so much about fixing old pages as it is about creating more targeted new content. This is the “whole-SERP” strategy.

A whole-SERP SEO strategy analyzes the features that appear most in your target keywords’ search results and then creates new content based on your findings. Features can be anything from videos to images to featured snippets and much, much more.

The goal is to create and optimize the content that Google believes is most relevant for a search. For some searches, that might be videos in addition to blue links.

So, in that example, you’d want to ensure you’re also creating videos for those searches. This gives you another opportunity to take advantage of all the search engines’ real estate.

Read:

• What Is a Whole-SERP SEO Strategy?
• Quick Reference Guide to Common Google SERP Features

Content is a major SEO ranking factor. It’s important to get it right. Follow the steps outlined in this article and your content will be optimized to compete better in the search results.

Our SEO experts can help you upgrade your content for better performance and results — higher search ranking, more online visibility and organic traffic, and increased revenue. Schedule a free SEO consultation with us today.

FAQ: How do I ensure my content demonstrates E-E-A-T for better SEO results?

Demonstrating Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is one of the best ways to improve your SEO results. Because Google prioritizes high-quality content that is helpful and valuable to users, it is important to understand how implementing E-E-A-T can affect your rankings.

Let’s look at each factor that make up E-E-A-T and how you can incorporate them into your content:

Experience: Experience builds trust with your audience because it demonstrates that your brand is well equipped to solve their needs. Include first-hand experiences, case studies and detailed reviews in your content to authenticate its depth. Use personal anecdotes and in-depth experiences into articles to make your content relatable and build trust with your readers.

Expertise: Expertise helps establish your brand as a trusted expert in your field and demonstrates to your audience that you possess the right knowledge to answer their questions. Establishing expertise involves producing well-researched content backed by credible sources, statistics, and in-depth analysis. Your content should be comprehensive, meticulously detailed, and vetted for accuracy. Establishing yourself as a subject matter expert means you can offer insights and solutions that users can’t find anywhere else. When possible, display credentials and link to other authoritative sources to further improve perceived expertise.

Authoritativeness: You can establish authoritativeness by consistently publishing high-quality content that is recognized — and cited — by others in your industry. To accomplish this, you’ll need to acquire backlinks from reputable sources, get featured in popular industry publications, and engage with thought leaders. You’ll have to stay current on the latest industry trends so that you can always provide valuable insights. Nurturing professional relationships also contributes to building authoritativeness.

Trustworthiness: If your audience doesn’t trust you, you can forget about successfully competing online. Build trust by maintaining transparency, always adhering to ethical standards, ensuring your site is secure, well-structured and easy to navigate, and maintain data privacy for users. Be sure to disclose any kind of affiliations and always present information transparently. Encouraging your users to provide user-generated content such as reviews or testimonials can also improve trust.

When developing your content, you must include keywords and their variants naturally throughout. This keeps your content relevant and is an important factor in boosting your search engine visibility. If you’re writing an article, naturally incorporate keywords into text while providing valuable information to improve your SEO results without compromising readability.

It’s a good idea to frequently audit your content to make sure it always demonstrates E-E-A-T. This helps to maintain and improve your search engine ranking. Identify content areas that need improvement and adjust your strategy as necessary.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Research and identify key topics that are relevant to your audience and that will demonstrate your expertise.
2. Compile authoritative sources like academic papers, industry reports and other credible sources/websites.
3. Create detailed content outlines that cover topics comprehensively.
4. Include personal experience, case studies and real-world examples into your content.
5. Write your content clearly and concisely, make it engaging and always address the needs of your audience.
6. Review your content to ensure it is completely accurate and backed by verifiable data.
7. Highlight any credentials, qualifications, or other relevant expertise to establish credibility.
8. Include high-quality internal and external links to reputable sources and related content.
9. Use headers, bullet points and conversational language to optimize your content for readability and SEO.
10. Regularly audit your content and refresh as needed to keep it accurate and relevant.
11. Engage with the community by responding to comments and participating in discussions.
12. Build authoritativeness by publishing your content on trusted platforms within your industry.
13. Promote your content on social media and other relevant networks.
14. Acquire backlinks from trusted websites and other authoritative sources.
15. Demonstrate qualifications and expertise by including author bios in your content.
16. Maintain a consistent publishing schedule to build audience loyalty and trust.
17. Optimize your website to be user-friendly and secure. Always follow best practices for data privacy.
18. Use structured data markup to help search engines better understand your content.
19. Frequently monitor content performance. Analyze data to understand user behavior and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
20. Experiment with various multimedia content like videos and podcasts to add even more value to your content.
21. Encourage users to generate content like reviews to further boost credibility.
22. Proofread and fact-check your content meticulously to maintain editorial standards.
23. Expand your reach by collaborating with other industry experts and influencers.

Demonstrating E-E-A-T in your content is more than an SEO technique; it’s an ongoing commitment to providing value, building trust, and positioning yourself as a credible authority. Follow these steps to upgrade your content that naturally attracts a wider audience and achieves better SEO results.

The post 9 Practical Steps To Upgrade Your Web Content appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Life has a lot of lessons to offer. And so does your content. If you want to improve your content and have a more productive SEO strategy, here are five rules to live by:

1. ABO: always be optimizing
2. Know what your readers want or be irrelevant
3. Know what your competitors are up to so you can maintain your edge
4. Always make each and every webpage quality
5. Aim for a good balance of quality and quantity 

FAQ: How can I create an effective SEO content strategy that improves search engine rankings and drives organic traffic?

1. ABO: Always Be Optimizing

Content without optimization is like peanut butter without jelly. Sure, you can eat a peanut butter sandwich without jelly, but why would you?

Just like jelly gives peanut butter that finishing touch, optimizing your webpages puts the final touches on your content.

You can have the most incredible content in the world, but if your page is too slow to load or you have duplicate meta data, your content performance can fall short.

To make sure the content will perform for you, there is a lot to consider outside the words you’ve written or the video you’ve created.

That’s why optimized content and webpages are a cornerstone of SEO.

Read:

• What is Content Optimization?
• The Always-Up-to-Date SEO Checklist

2. Know What Your Readers Want or Be Irrelevant

Many people have asked, “Who am I?” at some point in their lives. When it comes to SEO content, however, you want to ask: Who are they?

In other words, do you know who reads your content? Do you know the unique challenges they face, their deepest desires, and what matters most to them? If not, then your content may fail to strike a chord.

Make a better connection with your audience by defining who they are. This is where creating audience personas can be key. Then, map your content topics to each persona.

Keyword research can be a great complement to this exercise. It will show you the types of queries your target audience uses when they look for what you have to offer.

Take those keywords and marry them with your personas. You’ll then have the foundation for content that can reach them at the moment they need it with what they need.

Read:

• Web Personas: Creating Jane
• What Are Keywords? 
• 7 Keyword Suggestion and Research Tools

3. Know What Your Competitors Are Up to So You Can Maintain Your Edge

All those research studies that come out telling you that content performs better if it is X, Y and Z is much too generic to follow.

In SEO, beating your competition is the name of the game. And you can’t beat your competition without first studying them.

And that means knowing who shows up on Page 1 of the search results for your target keywords and analyzing their webpages.

How are they presenting the topic and how can you stand out? What is the average length of the articles for the top-ranked webpages? What about the sweet spot for the meta data?

If you rely on general benchmarks, you will never truly embrace the uniqueness of your own SEO content strategy.

Read:

• Competitor Research for SEO: What, Why, How
• How to Do Competitor Research for SEO
• Want Customized SEO Advice Per Keyword? There’s an App for That!

4. Always Make Each and Every Webpage Quality

Any job worth doing in life is worth doing well. And when it comes to your SEO content, don’t skimp.

Quality content contributes to so many key aspects of SEO. Remember that experience, expertise, authority and trust are all factors in how Google assesses content and website quality.

This is important because you want to be able to compete in the search results. And demonstrating E-E-A-T can make your webpages more relevant to Google for a given search.

And don’t forget: If you have quality content, people will want to read and share it, which can help you earn links correctly.

Read:

• What Makes a Webpage Quality?
• The Complete Guide to the Basics of Google’s E-E-A-T
• The New Link Building Manifesto: A Complete Guide to Earning Links That Count

5. Aim for a Good Balance of Quality and Quantity

Over the years, the SEO perspective on content has changed.

At one point, it was that cranking out as much content as possible was the thing. Then Google stepped in and put its foot down; there were just too many subpar webpages out there.

So quality became a primary focus of the search engine. SEOs took a step back, played it cautiously, and adopted a quality-over-quantity approach.

But just like you need balance in life, you need balance in your SEO content.

It is true that you always want each piece to be quality, but does that mean you only publish once every couple of weeks? It depends on how fast you want to see results.

The fact is, if you want to see your website and blog drive more traffic, publishing more frequently can do just that.

To give you a real world example, we increased blog publishing frequency on our own Bruce Clay Blog beginning in early June 2023. You’ll notice in the image below that direct traffic to our blog sharply increased during that time. Our frequency increased even more in mid-July, and so did our traffic.

The Journey Begins with One Step

Every SEO content strategy is unique, but we can all learn from the wisdom of years of content creation and good SEO performance. Follow these five rules on your content journey and find out for yourself how they can improve your SEO content.

Our SEO experts can help you improve your SEO content strategy. Schedule a free 1:1 consultation here.

FAQ: How can I create an effective SEO content strategy that improves search engine rankings and drives organic traffic?

To start, thoroughly research your target audience and their needs. Understanding their preferences and pain points enables you to create content that resonates deeply.

Begin by conducting thorough keyword research. Identify relevant keywords and phrases that align with your industry and audience. A mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords will provide a balanced approach. Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush and other tools can provide invaluable insight into search volume and competition.

Quality content is non-negotiable. Crafting informative, engaging and original content is essential for retaining visitors and attracting organic backlinks. Leverage your expertise to provide value and establish credibility within your niche. Regularly update your content to reflect industry trends and address emerging topics.

Strategic content organization plays a vital role. Structure your articles with clear headings, subheadings, and concise paragraphs. This not only enhances readability but also improves search engine crawlers’ understanding of your content’s hierarchy and relevance.

Harness the power of on-page SEO elements. Optimize meta titles, descriptions and headers with your target keywords. Ensure your website is responsive and loads quickly across devices. Mobile-friendliness is a key ranking factor that directly impacts user experience.

Promote your content across various channels. Utilize social media, email newsletters, and online communities to amplify your reach. Encourage social sharing and engagement to broaden your content’s visibility and foster a loyal readership.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Creating an Effective SEO Content Strategy

1. Research your target audience’s preferences, pain points and search behavior.
2. Identify a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush.
3. Create an editorial calendar outlining topics, keywords and publication dates.
4. Develop high-quality, original content that addresses your audience’s needs.
5. Incorporate target keywords naturally within your content while maintaining readability.
6. Organize your content with clear headings, subheadings and concise paragraphs.
7. Optimize meta titles, descriptions and headers with relevant keywords.
8. Ensure your website is mobile-responsive and optimized for fast loading speeds.
9. Implement a solid internal linking structure to guide users through related content.
10. Leverage high-quality images, infographics and videos to enhance user engagement.
11. Regularly update and refresh existing content to reflect current trends and information.
12. Promote your content across social media platforms and relevant online communities.
13. Encourage social sharing and engagement to expand your content’s reach.
14. Build relationships with influencers and collaborate for mutual content promotion.
15. Monitor your content’s performance using analytics tools to track traffic, engagement and conversions.
16. Continuously refine your content strategy based on data insights and user feedback.
17. Adapt to evolving SEO trends and algorithm changes to maintain your competitive edge.
18. Focus on providing value and relevance to your audience through every piece of content.
19. Stay patient and persistent; SEO results take time to manifest fully.
20. Review and adjust your strategy periodically to align with shifting market dynamics.

The post SEO Content Rules To Live By appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Keyword research is a big job, and you need the right tools to do it successfully. There are plenty of keyword suggestions and research tools on the market — here are seven of them (in alphabetical order) you should be using to better meet your audience’s needs and rank better in search.

1. Answer The Public
2. Bing Webmaster Tools Keyword Research
3. Google Ads Keyword Planner 
4. Google Trends
5. Keyword Generator (Ahrefs)
6. Keyword Suggestions (SEOToolSet)
7. QuestionDB

FAQ: How can I leverage keyword research tools to enhance my content strategy and SEO efforts?

1. Answer The Public

Answer The Public serves questions and phrases related to your keyword by using autocomplete data from search engines.

Add the data to your keyword research list, then write content to address each relevant question or phrase. You can write a separate webpage for each question or phrase, or include a bunch of them within one article (you might even rank for a featured snippet if you do it the right way).

You can do a couple of searches for free each day, or upgrade to a paid subscription.

2. Bing Webmaster Tools Keyword Research

If you’re trying to compete in Bing, then you’ll want to use its Webmaster Tools keyword research tool to discover the keywords and phrases people are using on the Bing search engine.

Take your seed list of keywords and input them into the tool. The keyword tool will suggest matching or relevant keywords related to them, including search volume and trends. Keywords suggestions fall into the following three categories: related, questions, or newly discovered.

Plus, the tool also provides the top-ranked URLs for the root keywords and can also give data on the keywords that are already driving traffic to your website. There are all sorts of filters you can apply to the data to refine it as well.

Bing Webmaster Tools keyword research feature is free for those who have an account.

3. Google Ads Keyword Planner

The Google Ads Keyword Planner is not just for advertisers; it’s also a handy SEO keyword research tool for websites competing in Google.

Input your seed list and the keyword suggest tool will help you find the most relevant keywords. Or, you can enter your website and Google will look for keywords related to the content.

The Keyword Planner gives data on search volume and will provide bid estimates for advertisers (which can also help gauge how competitive a keyword in organic search will be). You can narrow down your search by using various filters as well.

Keyword Planner is free for anyone who has a Google Ads account.

4. Google Trends

Google Trends offers — you guessed it — trends on search queries. You can enter a given keyword and get various data points on it, including:

• Interest over time
• Interest by region
• Related topics
• Related queries

You can also apply filters like what type of search — web search, image search, news search, etc.

You can also check out the Trending Now page to see what’s currently trending around the world. This can be useful for writing on timely topics.

Google Trends is a free keyword research tool.

5. Keyword Generator (Ahrefs)

Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator is a keyword suggestion tool that lets you enter up to 10 words or phrases and generates keywords for the search engine of your choice (there are nine of them), including Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon and more. Filter by country.

The data is offered up into six categories of keyword types, including: Phrase match, having the same terms as your seed list, keywords the top-competing pages also rank for, search suggestions via autocomplete, newly discovered keywords and question formats.

Get data like keyword difficulty scores and search volume for each keyword listed. You can use filters to find those keywords with good search volume and low competition (the sweet spot!).

Also, find out any SERP features associated with that keyword (a must when you are doing a whole-SERP SEO strategy). And, you can use this tool to find out SEO metrics on the top-ranked webpages for a term, too.

You can use the free version with limited functionality, or try a paid trial for a small fee. After that, if you upgrade to a subscription, the Lite version is $99 per month, and the Standard version is $199 per month at the time of writing.

6. Keyword Suggestions (SEOToolSet)

Of course, we have to mention our solution to keyword research, too, and that’s our Keyword Suggestions tool, which is part of our SEOToolSet®.

With the Keyword Suggestions tool, you can find terms that are semantically related to the keywords in your seed list. The tool can provide search activity for each keyword, three metrics to indicate competitiveness, categories, and a trending chart.

The SEOToolSet allows you to research keywords further by presenting more data, including keyword relative “activity” as a search query.

You can use the Keyword Suggestions tool for:

• SEO research
• Content planning
• Discovering word associations for video descriptions
• Finding keywords you might want to exclude from your PPC campaign, and more.

The SEOToolSet offers a free trial and then is $24.95 per month after that. The free version of the Keyword Suggestion tool will serve up five related words and phrases to your keyword (entered one at a time) pulled from search engine data.

7. QuestionDB

QuestionDB allows you to enter a broad keyword and find relevant questions related to it, pulled from its database of more than 32 million questions that “have been asked on various websites over time.”

The generated list will give you the relevant questions for keywords, plus volume and difficulty data from DataForSeo, an SEO data API provider. (“Keyword difficulty represents the median backlink profile strength of the top 10 webpages ranking for a specific keyword,” according to DataForSEO.) From here, you can view related topics and download the list of questions.

QuestionDB is free with limited functionality, offering 50 results per search. You can upgrade for deeper dives into the data and unlimited searches for $15 per month at the time of writing.

Keyword research is not a small feat, and the right tools can help you get the keywords most relevant to your audience and your business. For more on keyword research, check out:

• What Are Keywords?

Don’t have the time or resources to conduct thorough keyword research? Let our SEO experts do the work for you. Schedule a free 1:1 consultation to discuss how we can help.

FAQ: How can I leverage keyword research tools to enhance my content strategy and SEO efforts?

Navigating the complexities of content strategy and search engine optimization demands strategic precision. Keyword research tools are beacons of insight, guiding your content toward relevance and your SEO efforts toward success.

Engaging in a comprehensive content strategy necessitates more than just high-quality writing; it involves strategic keyword integration. Keyword research tools serve as the compass in this journey. By delving into these tools, you uncover trending keywords and gain insights into what your target audience seeks. This valuable understanding empowers you to curate content that resonates deeply with your readers.

Seamless integration of meticulously researched keywords directly influences your search engine rankings. Search engines thrive on relevancy, and these tools offer you the means to align your content with user intent. As you strategically pepper your articles with these keywords, you provide search engines with clear signals, ultimately enhancing your chances of climbing the results ladder.

One key advantage of leveraging keyword research tools lies in uncovering untapped niches. These tools illuminate the uncharted terrain of long-tail keywords, where competition might be less fierce and relevance is more attainable. Incorporating these hidden gems into your content enriches your strategy and helps you reach a more targeted audience.

Beyond keyword discovery, these tools facilitate monitoring and adaptation. Continuously tracking keyword performance offers insights into user behavior shifts. As search trends evolve, these tools empower you to adjust your strategy in real time, ensuring your content remains aligned with your audience’s evolving needs.

Keyword research tools transcend mere words; they are the compass, guide and beacon illuminating your path to successful content strategy and SEO. By harnessing their power, you position your content to resonate with audiences and increase search engine ranks.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How To Leverage Keyword Research Tools for Enhanced Content Strategy and SEO

1. Understand the significance of keyword research in content strategy and SEO.
2. Familiarize yourself with different keyword research tools available in the market.
3. Research your target audience’s preferences, interests and pain points.
4. Explore trending keywords related to your niche using keyword research tools.
5. Identify long-tail keywords that align with your content’s focus.
6. Analyze the search volume and competition level of selected keywords.
7. Prioritize keywords with a balance of search volume and competition.
8. Incorporate relevant keywords organically into your content.
9. Ensure that keywords match user intent and enhance the overall reader experience.
10. Monitor the performance of integrated keywords using tracking tools.
11. Adapt your content strategy based on emerging keyword trends.
12. Utilize keyword research tools to identify content gaps and potential niches.
13. Create content that addresses specific long-tail keywords and user queries.
14. Incorporate keywords in key areas such as headings, subheadings and meta descriptions.
15. Regularly update your content to reflect evolving keyword trends.
16. Engage in competitor analysis to identify keywords driving their success.
17. Leverage keyword research tools to refine and optimize paid advertising campaigns.
18. Collaborate with your SEO team to align keyword research with technical optimization.
19. Continuously educate yourself on emerging SEO and content trends.
20. Keep a pulse on your audience’s preferences to consistently refine your keyword strategy.

The post 7 Keyword Suggestion and Research Tools to Figure Out the Right Keywords for Your SEO Strategy appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

We hear it all the time, but content truly is king — and essential to your position in the search results.

There are a variety of ways to create quality content that not only resonates with your audience, but also demonstrates to search engines that you are a trusted authority. And while there are many options, some content types are more effective than others, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

In this article, I’ll outline content types and the business goals they drive, plus look at which content types are most common with digital marketers. Then, you can use the right-fit guidelines to decide which format is best for you.

• What content B2Bs and B2Cs create most often 
• Common content types, defined
• Overall content goals for B2Bs and B2Cs
• FAQ: What are the different content types and goals for marketing, and how can they be aligned with an SEO strategy?

What Content B2Bs and B2Cs Create Most Often

Content Marketing Institute’s 2022 research reports for B2B and B2C show that both types of organizations use a variety of content types to reach their audience.

The top five content types for B2Bs include:

1. Articles
2. Video
3. Virtual events/webinars/online courses
4. Case studies
5. Infographics

The top five content types for B2Cs include:

1. Articles
2. Videos
3. Infographics
4. Virtual events/webinars/online courses
5. Long articles (> 3,000 words)

As you can see, not much variation exists between these two organizational types.

Common Content Types, Defined

Blog Posts

A blog is a regularly updated publication on your website. Blogging is a great way to build the authority and expertise of your website and your brand. Blog posts (aka articles) can cover things like thought leadership articles, company news, reports and trends, products and services, events and conferences, or any other useful resources your audience might like.

The goal: A blog provides a great opportunity to support SEO goals as the frequent publication schedule provides the business with fresh, rankable content for search engines. As such, traffic generation, page views, and low bounce rates are major KPIs. Other goals include community building and associated social proof, sharing your voice in your industry, establishing authority, and demonstrating expertise.

The right fit: A blog is a hub for a business’s online communications. In short, the blog is the right fit for everything. If it’s worth spending the time to do something in your day-to-day business, use the blog to tell people about it. It should be used as a means of announcing everything, including the publication of other content types. For instance, if you’ve created a how-to video for using a new product, point people to the video through the blog. If an executive wants to voice an opinion, if you need to explain how a new law will affect your business offering, or if you started carrying a new product in the store, the blog is the right fit.

Case Studies

A case study is a summary of the results that your organization has produced. It usually follows a problem/solution/results format, which builds a story of the situation and the outcome. Case studies are usually brief — one to two pages is normal — so that readers can get a quick snapshot of what to expect from your organization.

The goal: Case studies are used in the sales funnel to help prospects convert. Case studies can be an excellent way to show people what to expect from your business, both online and via your sales team. Case studies should be displayed prominently on your website and forwarded directly by them when possible to prospective clients. If on your website, you can require a form fill to capture a lead, and then have the marketing or sales team engage those people further.

The right fit: If you are in an industry where proof points are important to closing a sale, then case studies are right for you.

Email

Email marketing is an effective way of reaching a targeted audience via email. People sign up for your email marketing list through various means – typically the website – permitting you to send emails directly. Emails are usually short messages to let your target audience know about products, services, educational materials and resources you created, events, and more.

The goal: The goal of email marketing is to build a list of potential leads, increase brand awareness and loyalty, engage your target audience, and drive conversions. There are all sorts of email platform-specific KPIs you can track like subscribers, open rates, clicks, conversions, and more.

The right fit: Email marketing can help keep in touch with your audience regularly (without overwhelming them with emails), nurture leads and drive sales or conversions effectively – and boost conversion rates too!

Infographics

Infographics are data presented in a visual graphic. Data can often tell an interesting story, especially for the appropriate audience, and infographics illustrate what might otherwise be difficult-to-digest numbers and facts.

The goal: As you masterfully weave data into easy-to-understand infographics, you entertainingly educate your customers. This can improve brand sentiment and awareness. You can also drive traffic to your website by creating content people want to share on social media or their websites.

The right fit: Are there a lot of statistics related to something in your industry or what you have to offer? Do you have survey results to share? Data can provide the basis of a compelling narrative or express an opinion on an important topic. As with writing articles, infographics require equal care in creating high-quality designs.

Videos

A video is a recording of visual media. For businesses, some of the most common video genres include tutorials and how-tos, product features, humor, and education.

The goal: Video is a highly engaging content type. It stimulates sight and sound and, when done right, is exceptionally shareable. Video content stands out on a search engine results page and is a favored content type of Google for specific query types (how-to, for example). The objectives of video are often search engine visibility, increased traffic, and customer brand awareness. Share of voice and search engine visibility is also video KPIs.

The right fit: A video is a right fit for you if you want to compete in the search engine results for target keywords that often produce videos in the results. If you have a potential audience on YouTube, videos are essential. Videos are also great engagement objects on your website when you want to explain concepts in an accessible way (some people like to watch versus read). And, if a story or idea hangs on the human element, it may lend itself naturally to video.

Virtual Events

A virtual event can be anything from a company-led webinar, to an educational event with many participants across companies, to an online independently-paced course.

The goal: Virtual events are an opportunity to educate an audience on a topic. But they are also a great way to drive leads and sales. People sign up and give you their information, some show up, some don’t — but then you let the marketing or sales team work their magic to drive them closer to a conversion. Or perhaps you’ve created an online course that you are selling for a fee.

The right fit: COVID-19 forced the business world into a new paradigm and in-person events were no more. Organizations had to adapt and virtual events grew exponentially. Today, businesses are more comfortable with hosting online events and do so mainly to educate their audience on a topic. Any aspect of your industry, business, or what you have to offer that deserves a deep dive can be turned into a virtual event. For a webinar, you present the information and allow room for questions at the end. If you created an online course, on the other hand, that is a product you can sell.

Website Copy

A business website is (mostly) a static representation of your business online. (A blog is, of course, a part of the site, but its goals and format are different enough — more on that later.)

For this section in the article, I’m talking about the static pages of your website, like those that make up the primary navigation of your website in your silo. These pages are usually crafted to explain products or services, build value around what you have to offer, or are educational — addressing any basic questions someone might have about a business and what it does.

The goal: Authority and expertise come together in your site copy to drive visitors to your website (by creating relevant pages that rank in the search results, and then further drive visitors towards conversions. The copy, or text content, of the site, should speak to the audience in an appropriate tone and reading level depending on the purpose of the page. Website copy should always be optimized with SEO in mind.

The right fit: Website copy is not only a right fit for every business, but it’s a must. If you want to drive organic traffic, engage your audience, and get conversions, you need website content. Plain and simple.

White Papers and E-books

A white paper is a technical report on a topic that requires an in-depth explanation. It usually follows a problem/solution format where the solution ends up being what you have to offer (and you can spend time discussing your particular product or service, too). It does include images but is typically text-heavy. An e-book, on the other hand, is typically a lighter read. It usually aims to educate an audience on a topic and provide helpful takeaways.  E-books are usually a good mix of text, images, and whitespace. Whether it’s an e-book or a white paper, they both help introduce readers to unfamiliar subjects.

The goal: White papers and e-books educate readers on a topic so they understand the scope of a problem or issue. It’s a good way to showcase a product, service, or brand. When either is introduced into the marketing mix, it can help drive the audience closer to a conversion. Because driving leads and sales is a major goal of white papers and e-books, a business often requires the completion of a lead capture form before the user can download it.

The right fit: If your industry is highly technical or the service/product provided solves technical problems, a white paper is a solid fit. If your potential customers often need an explanation of an issue that comes up again and again, an e-book may be in order. Bottom line: If you want to educate and drive leads at the same time, either one could be a good fit.

A Note About AI-Generated Content

With the increased usage of AI and chat programs, I wanted to briefly touch on what it means for your content goals.

AI is a great tool, but it’s not a solution. The problem with AI is that it quickly and easily churns out content but at a surface level without a deeper, quality understanding of the subject matter.

As a business owner, you want to create content that passes E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Content that doesn’t pass this check is typically flagged as spam. Too much spun content and you’ll be looking at a disastrous search ranking that can be hard to recover from even with time.

So when can you use AI? In its current iteration, it is best used as a tool. Need to research keywords, come up with new ways to start a sentence, formulate a new outline for a long-form blog post? Using AI to help you kick off your content plan is a wonderful way to incorporate the convenience of AI without undermining your content strategy dedicated to authentic expert human-written content.

Overall Content Goals for B2Bs and B2Cs

While each content type will have its own goal, B2Bs, and B2Cs look for certain metrics to measure their content success. And here are the top five for each:

B2B Content Goals and Metrics

1. Website engagement
2. Conversions
3. Website traffic
4. Email engagement
5. Social media analytics

B2C Content Goals and Metrics

1. Website engagement
2. Conversions
3. Email engagement
4. Website traffic
5. Social media analytics

While every content type should have a specific purpose and use case, many of the most common types are all essential parts of an SEO strategy.

Interested in aligning your content goals with a solid SEO strategy to drive revenue? Talk to us. 

FAQ: What are the different content types and goals for marketing, and how can they be aligned with an SEO strategy?

Content plays an integral role in a brand’s marketing because it drives the relationship between the brand and the consumer. To successfully drive a campaign with content marketing, it is necessary to understand all types of content as well as their goals. Aligning it with SEO will expand its reach and impact.

Here are the different types of content and marketing goals and how they can align with an SEO strategy.

• Blog posts: Blogging is a popular content type that allows businesses to provide informative and engaging articles to their target audience. By incorporating relevant keywords and optimizing meta tags, blog posts can attract organic traffic from search engines, thereby aligning with your SEO strategy.
• Infographics: Visual content such as infographics enables businesses to present complex information in a visually appealing manner. Optimizing the alt text and providing keyword-rich captions can help search engines understand the content, leading to improved visibility.
• Videos: Video content has gained tremendous popularity, offering a dynamic way to convey messages. By optimizing video titles, descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords, you can enhance their discoverability in search engine results.
• Social media posts: Social media platforms present an excellent opportunity to reach your target audience. By optimizing your social media content with relevant keywords, you can increase its search engine visibility – aligning it more closely with your SEO strategy.
• Website Copy: Developing website copy gives search engines the ability to understand the point behind your website and will therefore improve its rankings. Website users are also able to learn more about your brand and interact with your product or service by reading through the site. This establishes credibility with both website visitors and search engines.
• White papers and e-books: This type of content provides in-depth information to users. These resources are about engaging with visitors by providing true value. These content pieces can be used as a lead magnet as well and capture potential customer information through savvy email marketing campaigns.
• Emails: This content works best as a marketing tool because you can create personalized emails that directly share links with your customers. Emails are an excellent way to nurture customer relationships, encourage repeat website visits and generate user interaction and interest.
• Case Studies: Use case studies to demonstrate how your product or service truly serves customers. Real-world examples can be the difference between a client coming on board or a client looking elsewhere.

Aligning your content goals with an SEO strategy involves several key considerations:

Identify your target keywords: Conduct keyword research to identify phrases and keywords most relevant to your company with high search volumes, and optimize content in accordance with these phrases in order to make them more visible in search engine results.

Optimize the on-page components: Make sure that you include your target keywords into key elements on-page, such as headings and titles, meta-descriptions, and alt tags for images. This will increase the relevance of your content and its visibility in search engines.

Develop a content calendar: Plan and organize your content creation efforts by developing a content calendar. This calendar should align with your marketing goals and SEO strategy, ensuring a consistent flow of optimized content.

Incorporate internal linking: Integrate internal links within your content to establish a logical structure and guide users to relevant pages on your website. This practice improves user experience and helps search engines understand the context and relevance of your content.

Optimize for mobile: With more people accessing content through their phones and other portable devices, it is becoming more and more essential that websites and content be mobile-friendly and easily readable on smaller screens. Ensure your website meets these requirements by optimizing for mobile.

Use user-generated content: Encourage your audience to generate user-generated content related to your brand through reviews, testimonials, or social media posts. User-generated content provides unique perspectives that can support SEO efforts and could even contribute to positive SEO rankings.

Monitor and analyze performance: Regularly track the performance of your content using analytics tools. This data will help you identify areas of improvement, understand user behavior and refine your content strategy for better SEO alignment.

Utilize structured data: Implement structured data markup on your website to provide additional information to search engines. This markup helps search engines understand your content better and may result in enhanced visibility through rich snippets.

Monitor and respond to feedback: Keep an eye out for user comments, reviews, and feedback related to your content. Engaging with your audience demonstrates responsiveness and can lead to positive reviews and increased visibility.

Test and optimize: Continuously test different content types, formats, and approaches to identify what resonates best with your target audience. Use data-driven insights to optimize your content strategy for maximum SEO impact.

Adapt and iterate: As you gather more data and insights from your content performance, adapt your strategy and iterate on your content creation process. This ongoing refinement will ensure your content remains aligned with your marketing goals and SEO strategy.

Understanding the different types of content, setting goals, and aligning your SEO best practice strategy are all keys to putting together an engaging marketing campaign that connects with its target audience.

The post Content Types and Goals: Find the Right Fit for Your Marketing appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Google says:

“When it comes to automatically generated content, our guidance has been consistent for years. Using automation—including AI—to generate content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is a violation of our spam policies” (per Google’s guidance about AI-generated content.).

Having many pages generated by AI instead of expertly created E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness) content is a clear spam signal, and failing AI detection tests is a clear signal that no effort went into their production. Collectively, that is the kiss of death for a website.

Google also says that it focuses on the quality of content rather than how it is produced. So if the quality and usefulness are sufficiently high, that would overtake the AI issues. But the key is E-E-A-T. So consider new content with these questions in mind:

• Have you contributed any time, resources or knowledge to making these pages expert?
• Has there been any personal investment of editing love in their generation?
• Has the information been checked for accuracy, recency and completeness?
• Do these pages reflect your brand’s voice, personality and experience?
• Or are these pages simply the results of pushing buttons?

The definition of quality is not simply that content exists, but that it is worthy of existing, has merit and contributes value to the visitor. Are you proud to have your name on it?

So, there it is — generate worthy E-E-A-T content OR your pages are spam. With human editing, AI-generated pages could be worthy, but the majority of pages never will be.

Here’s a typical example. Go to ChatGPT and log in. After logging in, at the bottom of the screen you will get a prompt where you enter your query. Start the stopwatch on your phone and enter (paste) this query: “write an article that has this title and discusses “how to repair a broken light switch”, list several types of light switches, add some statistics about the usefulness of multi-way and dimmer light switches, add a 1 question FAQ section.”

As you can see, an article is produced in about 30 seconds. Seriously, you think that you can earn a top-10 ranking out of a million results with 30 seconds of work? I think not. For sites that employ this method, ranking problems will only compound over time. The more low-quality content someone adds to a site, the harder it becomes for any of their pages to rank. Too much leads to a near-death experience.

I want to emphasize that we are unable to say when and if Google will consider your pages spam. But if they were generated easily, if they are based upon a consensus of content derived from many already published sources (hence are nothing new, especially if you did not seriously edit them), and if they fail tests of AI versus human, then they do not demonstrate E-E-A-T qualities. I think it is a serious risk to the health of the entire website.

The trends reported by many SEOs about other sites using AI pages is that traffic grows for about six weeks, then it crashes and the site cannot easily recover. Yes, you may luck out, but it is a risk to your entire business.

I am not here to tell you not to take the business risk. However, I certainly would not take it.

I just felt it necessary to warn you that this is nuclear fire. Be careful.

In my view, AI-generated content is a tool, not a solution.

I hope that this helps.

The post AI-Generated Content Is a Tool, Not a Solution. appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

1. Keyword research
2. Personas 
3. Old content
4. Company initiatives
5. Industry news and updates
6. Repurposed content
7. Subject matter experts
8. FAQ: Why is repurposing content a powerful approach in optimizing a website’s search visibility?

1. Keyword Research

One of the most obvious places to start is your keyword research. Your keyword research should drive endless new webpages on your website.

Keyword research helps you identify the things that your target audience is looking for. It helps you understand your customer journey, so you can create content to support them at every step.

As you research keywords, you get a sense of the type of content that is ranking for those keywords. That tells you what search engines like Google believe is quality and what other websites say about the topic.

To learn more, read: What Are Keywords?

2. Personas / Audience

Persona research and development can help you create content specific to the challenges your various audience members face. Brainstorm a list of topics that each persona would be interested in, then optimize that content with any of your target keywords.

To learn more, read: 3 Steps to Define Your Target Audience for Your SEO Program

3. Old Content

At one point or another, you’ve probably heard someone say you need evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that can stand the test of time. For many topics, it is hard to trust several years old content, but that might be the content that is ranking for your site.

This is true for any content but especially important for what Google calls “your money or your life” topics. These are topics that can impact a person’s health, financial stability, or some other important aspect of their life.

I’ve written in the past about how to do a content review, and that advice still stands:

1. Start by reviewing the top-ranked pages. These are pages that rank in the very top results on Page 1 and drive the most traffic.
2. Next, identify the rest of the pages ranking on the first page in Google’s search results, and driving good traffic.
3. Identify the pages that are ranking on Page 2 and beyond that have the potential to rank better.
4. Finally, find those pages that are not ranking well nor driving traffic, and are irrelevant or low quality.

For each of these categories, you’ll want to consider:

• How to handle the content: Will it be a rewrite? How will you handle duplicate content? Will you combine like-topics into one in-depth article? Will you get rid of some content altogether?
• How to optimize the content: For the pages that you want to give a boost, make sure they are optimized with the basics.

To learn more, read:

• What Are “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) Webpages?
• Complete Guide to the Fundamentals of Google’s E-E-A-T

4. Company Initiatives

There will always be company news, a product or service announcement, or a new section of content that needs to be added to the site based on an initiative. Save space on your SEO editorial calendar for these types of announcements and webpages.

Target an 80/20 mix here, where 20% of the content you create is company-focused and 80% is educational or useful in some other way. This helps ensure you are not inundating people with sales pitches.

5. Industry News and Updates

Your industry will likely have news, trends, reports, or something else interesting to report on from time to time. Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in your sector, and plan to write about attention-grabbing headlines.

6. Repurposed Content

There’s so much potential in a single piece of content. So make sure you look at the entire library of resources your company is creating, and think about how to repurpose that for your SEO program. Videos, webinars, training materials, ebooks, and much more can be repurposed into web content.

To learn how read: What’s the Best Way to Revive Dead Content and Get New ROI?

7. Subject Matter Experts

There are a lot of people in your company who know a lot about what they do. Take the time to get to know the subject matter experts and what topics they might be able to come up with.
In particular, we always suggest talking with your customer support staff or reviewing support tickets to get ideas for content that will answer real questions. As a bonus, you can talk about common pain points and issues in your customers’ own words.

Among your in-house experts, some people like to be guest contributors on the company blog, while others can just give you really great ideas to write about.

More Tips

As you are creating content for your SEO program, here are some tips:

• Always strive for quality. Google and your website visitors are scrutinizing the quality of your content. Make sure that every webpage is something to be proud of. Read: What Makes a Webpage Quality?
• Always have a tech or editorial review. To further enhance a webpage’s quality, ensure you have a dedicated editor. In some cases (like technical topics or YMYL webpages), you’ll also need a technical/expert review.
• Always optimize your content. Having great content is the first step, and optimizing it comes next. Read: The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist
• Use tools to track your SEO calendar. A simple shared spreadsheet works great to track the topics you want to write about, what’s in the queue, what’s published, and more.

With a little creativity in how you go about it, it’s easy to find inspiration for content. Use the seven steps outlined in this article to get your SEO content plan going.

We develop content for many of our SEO clients. For information on our content services or help with your SEO projects, contact us today for a free quote.

FAQ: Why is repurposing content a powerful approach in optimizing a website’s search visibility?

Optimizing a website’s search visibility is a cornerstone of a successful online presence. One highly effective yet often underestimated strategy in this pursuit is content repurposing. By repurposing content, you harness the power of creativity and resourcefulness to maximize the reach and impact of your digital assets.

The Versatility of Repurposing

Repurposing content involves taking existing pieces of content and adapting them into different formats or for various platforms. This approach leverages your existing knowledge base, allowing you to present your expertise in fresh, engaging ways. The possibilities are vast, from transforming a blog post into a visually compelling infographic to converting a webinar into a series of informative articles.

Search Engine Visibility and Repurposed Content

Repurposing content can significantly boost your website’s search visibility. When repurposing content, you create multiple entry points for search engines to discover and index your material. As each repurposed piece gains traction and attracts links, your website’s authority and relevance grow, further elevating its search engine ranking.

Captivating a Wider Audience

A key advantage of content repurposing lies in engaging different audience segments. Not everyone consumes information similarly—some prefer videos, while others lean toward podcasts or written articles. By repackaging your content to cater to varied preferences, you expand your reach and captivate a broader audience, driving more organic traffic to your site.

Evergreen Value and Time Efficiency

Repurposing content breathes new life into evergreen topics. Even though the core message remains unchanged, the new format provides a fresh perspective that resonates with both new and returning visitors. Moreover, repurposing allows you to optimize your content creation efforts. Instead of starting from scratch each time, repurposing enables you to create valuable content while efficiently ensuring consistency across all platforms.

Integrating Repurposing into Your Strategy

Incorporating content repurposing into your SEO program requires a thoughtful approach. Begin by identifying high-performing content that can be repurposed for different channels. Tailor the content to suit each platform’s requirements while maintaining its essence. Ensure seamless integration across your digital ecosystem to maximize its impact and benefits.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Enhancing Search Visibility Through Content Repurposing

1. Identify Existing Content: Review your website’s archives to pinpoint high-performing and evergreen content that can be repurposed.
2. Choose Repurposing Formats: Determine the various formats (e.g., infographics, videos, podcasts) suitable for repurposing each piece of content.
3. Tailor for Different Platforms: Modify the content to align with the characteristics and preferences of each platform or medium.
4. Optimize for SEO: Incorporate relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and alt tags to ensure the repurposed content is search engine-friendly.
5. Maintain Consistency: Ensure consistency in messaging, branding, and tone across all repurposed materials to maintain a cohesive online presence.
6. Create Engaging Titles: Craft compelling titles that resonate with the target audience and encourage click-throughs.
7. Leverage Visual Elements: Use visuals such as images, graphics, and videos to enhance engagement and convey information effectively.
8. Distribute Strategically: Share repurposed content across appropriate platforms, including your website, social media channels, and relevant industry forums.
9. Monitor Performance: Track the performance of repurposed content, analyzing metrics such as traffic, engagement, and conversion rates.
10. Adjust and Refine: Based on performance insights, make necessary adjustments to optimize the impact of repurposed content.
11. Encourage Social Sharing: Encourage users to share repurposed content, expanding its reach through organic sharing.
12. Engage with Your Audience: Respond to comments and engage in discussions to foster a sense of community around repurposed content.
13. Collaborate with Influencers: Partner with industry influencers to amplify the reach of repurposed content.
14. Repurpose Regularly: Continuously identify opportunities for repurposing as new content is created.
15. Update and Revise: Periodically revisit repurposed content to update statistics, refresh visuals, and ensure relevance.
16. Analyze Link-Building Opportunities: Seek link-building opportunities by contacting other websites that may find value in your repurposed content.
17. Measure ROI: Evaluate the return on investment of repurposing efforts by assessing factors such as increased traffic, higher rankings, and lead generation.
18. Optimize Over Time: Fine-tune your repurposing strategy based on insights gained to improve results continually.
19. Educate Your Team: Train your team on the benefits and best practices of content repurposing to ensure consistent implementation.
20. Stay Current: Keep up with industry trends and content consumption changes to effectively evolve your repurposing strategy.

By following this comprehensive procedure, you can harness the power of content repurposing to optimize your website’s search visibility, engage a wider audience, and establish your brand as a trusted authority in your field.

The post 7 Proven Ways to Come Up with Content Ideas for Your SEO Program appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

A lot has changed since the days SEOs used press releases for stuffing keyword-rich links to their websites. Today, issuing a press release takes a lot of care. You have to keep in mind both SEO and media best practices if you want it to be effective. I’ll explain how in the following sections:

• Brief history of press releases and SEO
• Why press releases still matter
• Press releases: SEO best practices
• How to write a press release that entices media
• FAQ: How can I optimize press releases for search engines and media exposure to enhance brand visibility and authority?

Brief History of Press Releases and SEO

For a while, press releases stuffed with keyword-rich links were the norm. Writing a press release was one way to try to boost SEO value of the URLs on your own website. But, of course, those links were self-serving and not natural.

Google spoke about this tactic on several occasions. Back in 2011, former Google representative Matt Cutts said that “the links in the press releases themselves don’t count for PageRank value, but if a journalist reads the release and then writes about the site, any links in that news article will then count.”

Cutts reinforced this in a 2012 Google Webmaster Help Forum when he wrote: “I wouldn’t expect links from press release websites to benefit your rankings.”

Then, in a Google Webmaster Help video from 2012, Cutts went into detail about the difference in value between a press release (at the low end) and an article in the New York Times (at the high end) of the “continuum of content and the quality of that content and what defines the value add for a user.”

However, some evidence suggests that a link from a press release could pass some value as a ranking factor. So SEOs pressed on.

For example, SEOPressor conducted an experiment where they issued a press release. In it, nonsensical anchor text — “leasreepressmm” — linked to Matt Cutts’ blog, and the Matt Cutts blog ranked No. 4 for “leasreepressmm.”

This suggested that the links in a press release had some noticeable affect, especially for noncompetitive and infrequently used search terms.

Google realized keyword-stuffed links in press releases were a problem. So in 2013, Google devalued links coming from press releases. In a Google Webmaster Central Hangout, Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz asked Googler John Mueller for more details about the update of the Webmaster Guidelines to include link schemes related to press releases.

“This (update is) just following up with other changes that we’ve made in the past,” Mueller said. “These are links that were essentially placed by the webmasters themselves; that’s something that we would consider … unnatural. A lot of these (press releases) cases kind of fall into that, where essentially … the webmaster is generally creating a bunch of links.”

Links in a press release aren’t “something that an external person is … recommending,” Mueller continued. “It’s more something that webmasters are creating themselves to promote their websites.”

Mueller concluded that “generally speaking, promoting your website is perfectly fine and a reasonable thing to do, but (press release links aren’t considered) natural.”

Today, this policy holds. Certain links in press releases are considered spam. According to Google, these are the links that violate their guidelines:

Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.

For example:
There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a wedding, you will have to pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.

Why Press Releases Still Matter

Press releases have been around forever, and they are still good for what they were originally created for: increasing your visibility. If you have something newsworthy to announce, writing a press release still makes sense.

In terms of results, press releases can lead to increased traffic and branding.

Press releases have strong branding value, especially if a journalist turns your press release into an article that will reach the masses and live online.

Plus, press releases can contribute to your business’s and website’s perceived expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) — which are quality metrics from Google.

If a business is getting a lot of mentions, especially in the press, it can help with the authority factor. I wrote about this more in my guide on the basics of E-E-A-T.

Press Releases: SEO Best Practices

In the grand scheme of press releases, links do come into play since companies naturally point back to themselves. For example, “For more information, visit www.Macys.com.”

Here, it’s important to distinguish between navigational and transactional links. (Skip this part if you’re well-versed in SEO jargon already.)

• Navigational links use a domain name, a company name, or “click here” as the anchor text. They point to an entity and usually take a person to the homepage of a website.
• Transactional links use keywords in the anchor text. This passes some additional information in the link about why a person would click it, such as “best ski blog” or “buy snowboards here.”

As an SEO best practice, having one navigational link in a press release pointing to your website is OK. But steer clear of transactional links, or at least ensure their link tag includes a specific attribute such as rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored.” This makes it clear to search engines that the link is not trying to pass PageRank value for SEO ranking purposes.

I’ll note that some press release distribution services still tout the “link-building benefits” of press releases. Some even encourage the use of “keyword-rich anchor text” in those links. But don’t be fooled.

If you have previously used press releases as a link-building tactic to try to influence rankings (with followed links), then you might want to start the process of disavowing potentially harmful links. Google requires that paid links include the proper attribution; see Qualify your outbound links to Google for more details.

Tips for Press Release SEO

Here are some SEO best practices to follow when it comes to press releases:

• Research keywords: Perform keyword research on the topic you are writing about. Include those keywords in your press release, making sure they show up in the headline and first 250 words.
• Make it unique: Focus on creating unique content. Press releases are no exception to this general rule. If you create a compelling press release, then it is more likely to get picked up for an article, and that article may earn you quality links.
• Limit links: As I stated above, use only navigational links in your press releases. In most cases, there will be only one link. There are some exceptions, such as if a press release is announcing a merger, for example, then it would make sense to link to both companies’ websites. Be sure to use the company name or domain as the anchor text.
• Nofollow links: Make sure your press release distribution service uses “nofollow” or an equivalent attribute on your links. If they don’t, then it’s time to get a new press release distribution service.
• Distribute it, then post and share: Use a reputable press release distribution service to send out your article, and they should provide statistics on media outlets that picked it up. Once it’s out in the world, you can share it in your social media channels and also post it (or a summary, if you choose) on your own website with a link to the main PR post. For an example, check out our press page.

Now that you know some SEO dos and don’ts, let’s talk about how to write a really effective PR.

How to Write a Press Release That Entices Media

When a press release gets picked up, it’s not by chance. Press releases that get turned into stories are often written with the publication’s editor and the journalist in mind. They’re relevant, concise, engaging, and error-free.

If you want your own press release to stand out, make sure that you:

• Create original, engaging content
• Issue newsworthy press releases
• Follow formatting best practices
• Make it engaging

Let’s look at each of these in more detail …

Create Original, Engaging Content

Press release distribution sites send out thousands of press releases per day. So you can imagine that journalists experience some sort of press release fatigue. Translation: You need to stand out.

Step 1 is writing original content about something people would want to read. Don’t think of it as just an ad for your company or product.

Issue Newsworthy Press Releases

Press releases often serve a dual purpose: inform your own audience and get media exposure. You want to issue news about your company and have it on your website to keep your target audience and visitors up to speed on your business. Beyond that, though, you would love to spread the word to new audiences through media coverage.

Not every press release topic is going to fulfill both goals. So you might surrender to the fact that a press release about an award might be good for your website’s newsroom, but it might not be the stuff of media headlines.

That said if you are trying to entice the media to pick up your story, make sure it’s newsworthy. Keep in mind that a company that continuously issues press releases that aren’t newsworthy may be more quickly dismissed by journalists when the company puts real news out.

So what are some newsworthy topics?

• Proprietary research findings
• Crises and how you manage them
• A new product or service
• A grand opening or company event worth highlighting
• A donation or volunteer effort
• A merger or acquisition
• VIP hires or departures
• A partnership announcement

As you are writing the press release, think about the angle too. In its guide to writing a great press release, Cision says it should be written like a news article with “a clear news angle.”

An angle is the story’s main theme or perspective. This can make the press release more appealing and more of a story. For example, the angle could be meant to invoke emotion, address a conflict, or highlight progress somehow.

Follow Formatting Best Practices

Journalists answer the who, what, where, when, why, and sometimes, how as quickly as possible in their news stories — usually within the first paragraph. So you should too.

Make it very clear what the story is right away in your press release. Check out the inverted pyramid style of writing for more tips on how to do this.

You’ll want to consider length too. Conventional wisdom says to keep press releases between 300 and 500 words (or roughly one page).

Another thing you want to be diligent about is spelling and grammar. If you want to lose credibility fast, then having a press release with spelling and grammatical errors is one way to do it.

Furthermore, make sure the press release has the proper press release structure, including writing it in Associated Press (AP) style.

In its guide to writing a great press release (linked to earlier), Cision offers the following tips and more:

• Keep headlines and subheadlines brief and shareable — and include your company name.
• Start with a dateline.
• Make your call to action obvious (the sooner, the better!) if you have one for this story.
• Use headers and lists to segment your release, especially if it’s long.
• Limit paragraphs to four or fewer sentences, and vary sentence length and structure.
• End with contact information.

Make It Engaging

As mentioned earlier, you want to write a press release as if it were a news story. So think about what sort of engaging information you can include to grab the reader’s (aka the journalist’s) interest.

This includes things like:

• Statistics
• Quotes from key stakeholders
• Image(s)

All of these things can be reused by the journalist when they pick up the story, and it makes their life easier to have these included.

Final Thoughts

I’ll come back to the question I opened with: Can press releases help with SEO? The answer is yes, but indirectly.

There’s a lot that goes into writing a press release. You need to make it stand out in hopes of getting media coverage, and you also need to follow SEO best practices. Done right, a press release can turn into a valuable asset for your brand, raising awareness, driving traffic and contributing to your brand’s authority.

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FAQ: How can I optimize press releases for search engines and media exposure to enhance brand visibility and authority?

Brand recognition and authority are pivotal. Optimizing press releases for search engines and media exposure has become crucial. By meticulously aligning your press release strategy with SEO best practices and media preferences, you can effectively boost your brand’s visibility and enhance its authority in the industry.

To embark on this journey of press release optimization, start by conducting thorough keyword research. Identify relevant keywords that resonate with your brand and industry. Seamlessly integrate these keywords into your press release’s headline and the opening paragraph. A well-crafted headline captures readers’ attention and is a vital SEO element that search engines consider.

Crafting an engaging press release is an art that balances newsworthiness and brand messaging. News angles that invoke emotion, address conflicts, or highlight progress are more likely to resonate with both media outlets and their audiences. By focusing on originality and engaging content, you enhance the likelihood of your press release being picked up by journalists and shared widely across platforms.

The role of links within press releases cannot be underestimated. Utilize navigational links that direct readers to your website’s relevant pages. Avoid transactional links laden with keyword-rich anchor text, as they can be manipulative to search engines. Remember, the goal is to create a seamless experience for both readers and search engine crawlers, ultimately contributing to your brand’s online authority.

A critical factor in the success of your press release lies in its distribution strategy. Partner with reputable press release distribution services that understand the nuances of SEO. Ensure that any links embedded within your press release are tagged appropriately, using “nofollow” or “sponsored” attributes when necessary. This adheres to search engine guidelines and safeguards your brand’s online reputation.

Optimizing press releases requires a strategic blend of SEO tactics and media appeal. By crafting original, engaging, and informative content while following best practices for links and distribution, you can elevate your brand’s visibility and establish authority within your industry.

Step-by-Step Procedure:

1. Conduct thorough keyword research to identify relevant keywords.
2. Seamlessly integrate selected keywords into the press release headline and opening paragraph.
3. Craft an engaging press release with a compelling news angle.
4. Focus on originality and create content that resonates with both media outlets and their audiences.
5. Utilize navigational links within the press release to guide readers to relevant pages on your website.
6. Avoid transactional links with keyword-rich anchor text that may seem manipulative to search engines.
7. Partner with reputable press release distribution services that understand SEO nuances.
8. Ensure any embedded links in the press release are tagged appropriately with “nofollow” or “sponsored” attributes.
9. Balance newsworthiness and brand messaging to create a captivating press release.
10. Opt for news angles that invoke emotion, address conflicts, or highlight progress to resonate with readers and media outlets.
11. Craft a well-crafted headline that captures attention and aligns with SEO practices.
12. Focus on delivering informative and engaging content that offers value to readers.
13. Follow best practices for link usage, adhering to guidelines set by search engines.
14. Maintain a seamless experience for both readers and search engine crawlers.
15. Choose navigational links to enhance user experience and brand credibility.
16. Embrace reputable distribution services to share your press release effectively.
17. Ensure all links are tagged appropriately to uphold your brand’s online reputation.
18. Consistently monitor and adapt your press release strategy to evolving SEO trends.
19. Evaluate your press releases’ effectiveness in visibility and authority enhancement.
20. Continuously refine your approach based on insights and feedback for optimal results.

The post Why Press Releases Still Matter to SEO and How to Write a Press Release That Entices Media appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

But what actually determines webpage quality? I’ll outline the various aspects that impact the perceived quality of a webpage, by both search engines and users, in the following sections:

• Experience, Expertise, authority, and trust
• Journalistic integrity in your content
• Content optimization
• Technical SEO
• Tips for consistently improving webpage quality
• FAQ: How can I ensure my webpages maintain high-quality standards for better search engine performance?

Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust

Google is notoriously protective of its search ranking algorithm. As a result, much of what we accept as best practice in SEO is based on educated guesses, experience, and simply seeing what works.

When it comes to on-page SEO and what Google is looking for in a quality webpage, though, they’ve been surprisingly transparent. In its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG), the search giant shares what its search quality raters should consider as indicative of page quality.

The SQEG explains the following are the most important factors for quality raters to consider in determining a page’s quality rating:

• The purpose of the page
• Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
• Main content quality and amount
• Website information or information about who is responsible for the main content
• Website reputation or reputation of the person responsible for the main content

That second one — expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, also known as E-E-A-T — is so important that it appears a whopping 130 times in the SQEG.

While not a ranking factor, E-E-A-T is a great framework by which to gauge the quality of your content. Specifically, Google advises that its raters consider the E-E-A-T of the people who create the content, the content itself, and the website as a whole.

Here’s what the SQEG says to consider:

• The expertise of the creator of the main content
• The authoritativeness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself, and the website
• The trustworthiness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself, and the website

Again, this isn’t a part of the core algorithm. Rather, parts of the core algorithm look for E-E-A-T signals; for example, I believe that the Panda update was about expertise, Penguin was about authority, and Medic was about trust.

How can you make sure your webpages are trustworthy and authoritative, showcasing your expertise? For this next tip, I take a page from the most experienced content creators out there.

Journalistic Integrity in Your Content

Even if you’re fairly confident that the information you’re sharing is accurate, it’s important that you make it easy for Google (and your readers) to verify it. Journalists have “Cite your sources!” drilled into their heads from the earliest days of training.

Fact-checking should be an integral part of your publishing process. In fact, Google cares about this to the extent it provides a fact-checking tool that enables searchers to input a claim and see what’s been verified about it online.

Always consider the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the sources you’re citing on your webpage, too. Restating something as fact is your personal endorsement of that information.

Another important tool for improving the quality of your content is to choose a style guide to go by. Adhering to one style guide gives your content clarity and consistency. For example, the Associated Press Stylebook is the style that journalists use when they write content.

Sticking with one style tells all of your writers, editors, marketers, and others who publish content on-site how to handle links and citations, capitalization in titles and subheadings, punctuation, presentation of statistics, and more.

Essentially, you want readers and visitors focused on your quality content, not trying to overlook omissions or inconsistencies in how the information is presented.

Which style guide you choose is up to you, and in fact, many organizations create their own style guide to maintain consistency. That’s great, too. What matters most is that you choose one and apply it to all of your web content.

Content Optimization

Once you’re satisfied with the quality and accuracy of the content on your webpage, it’s important that you optimize it. How else will Google understand that your webpage is the best answer for relevant queries?

I won’t go into great detail here, as we have an excellent, always up-to-date SEO checklist here. Work through it as you optimize new content, and soon, it’ll become second nature.

Technical SEO

We’ve focused heavily on content and other on-page SEO factors to this point. But even the best content will underperform without the solid underpinning of a technically sound website.

Technical SEO is the practice of optimizing your website so Google and other search engines can easily crawl and index your webpages. It also applies to user experience in that visitors expect webpages to load quickly and smoothly.

Google aims to give each searcher the best answer for their need, and these technical SEO considerations are part of that experience:

Site Speed

How fast your webpage loads has a massive impact on your visitor’s experience — and the actions they will take as a result.

Google’s research shows that “…faster mobile site speed makes people view more pages on the site, convert more, and buy more on most brand sites.”

Page speed has long been a ranking factor, but speed and other core metrics have grown in importance with Google’s 2021 page experience update.

Learn more about how to make your site faster: How Fast Should My Webpage Be and Why Should I Care?

Mobile-Friendliness

Is your site responsive to the device on which the visitor is viewing it?

Does your page load quickly on mobile, and is content formatted for easy reading on different screen sizes?

These are major considerations for Google and in fact, mobile-friendliness is a ranking signal within the page experience update. This impactful update also includes:

• Core Web Vitals, a set of three metrics that help Google understand the experience visitors have on any given webpage: Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and First Input Delay
• HTTPS compliance for secure browsing status
• Intrusive interstitials — specifically, ensuring that you don’t have any

There are many technical factors that can impact your site’s mobile-friendliness — responsive design, properly configured text and buttons, and page loading speed, among them. See Page Experience Matters: The Mobile-Friendly Site to learn more.

A whole host of issues may impact Google’s ability to find, crawl, and index your webpage. Cloaking, redirects, 404 errors, robots.txt status and more are among the more common technical SEO issues that could impact your website quality.

Check out these Technical SEO Tips to learn more about optimizing the back end of your site.

Tips for Consistently Improving Webpage Quality

As you apply best practices and begin looking at all pages through a quality lens, the process will become faster and easier. Run through this list of tips with one of your existing pages and see where you can improve:

1. Focus on demonstrating E-E-A-T in all of your content — written copy, photos, videos, and other elements, too.
2. Remember that the reputation of the content creator and website as a whole matters. Include the author’s name, a short bio (either on-page or linked), and links to social profiles.
3. Fact-check all information and statistics, citing your sources in accordance with the style guide of your choice.
4. Ensure that the page’s content delivers on the expectation a reader will have upon navigating to that page from the SERP.
5. Proofread carefully! Don’t let simple typos or small errors take away from your page’s perceived quality.
6. Create a sufficient amount of content and include enough information to satisfy the need that brought the searcher to your page. (Our WordPress SEO plugin can help you know how much to write in order to compete.)
7. Optimize content to help Google understand how and why that webpage meets the needs of searchers using relevant queries.
8. Make sure preventable technical SEO issues aren’t standing in the way of your page’s accessibility and rankings.

Making a quality website is impossible without SEO-friendly, high-quality content. At Bruce Clay Inc., we have a team of experienced writers who can help meet your needs. Interested in learning more about our content development services? Contact us for a free consultation today.

FAQ: How can I ensure my webpages maintain high-quality standards for better search engine performance?

Maintaining a high level of quality for your webpages is pivotal for driving better search engine performance. In an era where user experience is paramount, search engines like Google are placing increased emphasis on ranking pages that offer genuine value. To ensure your webpages meet these high-quality standards and deliver exceptional results, consider the following strategies:

Prioritize Content Relevance

Craft content that aligns precisely with your audience’s needs. In-depth research into your target audience’s preferences and pain points will help you create content that resonates and provides genuine value.

Incorporate E-E-A-T Principles

Experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) are foundational for high-quality webpages. Showcase your expertise by offering well-researched insights, share your personal experiences and opinions with the subject matter, back your claims with authoritative sources, and foster trust by maintaining transparent and reliable content.

Implement On-Page Optimization

Optimize your content for both users and search engines. Pay attention to title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and keyword placement. Balancing keyword usage with natural readability is key to maintaining high quality.

Streamline User Experience

User experience directly influences search engine performance. Ensure fast page loading times, responsive design for various devices, and easy navigation. Users should be able to find what they need without any friction.

Focus on Technical SEO

Technical SEO forms the backbone of webpage quality. Prioritize tasks like improving site speed, optimizing images, and ensuring mobile-friendliness. These factors enhance both user experience and search engine rankings.

Transitioning seamlessly between these strategies is essential for maintaining a cohesive approach to webpage quality. By prioritizing content relevance, incorporating E-E-A-T principles, optimizing on-page elements, streamlining the user experience, and emphasizing technical SEO, you can effectively elevate your webpage quality and secure better search engine performance.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Strategies to Enhance Webpage Quality for Improved Search Engine Performance

1. Conduct thorough audience research to understand their preferences and pain points.
2. Align content topics with audience needs to ensure relevance.
3. Utilize authoritative sources to back up claims and enhance expertise.
4. Provide clear author credentials to establish authority and trustworthiness.
5. Craft compelling title tags and meta descriptions that accurately represent content.
6. Use header tags to structure content for easy readability and navigation.
7. Integrate relevant keywords naturally into the content.
8. Optimize images for fast loading times and improved user experience.
9. Ensure responsive design to guarantee usability across various devices.
10. Implement a content delivery network (CDN) to enhance page loading speed.
11. Conduct regular site audits to identify and resolve technical SEO issues.
12. Create XML sitemaps to aid search engine crawling and indexing.
13. Improve site speed by compressing images and minimizing server response time.
14. Eliminate duplicate content issues to enhance content uniqueness.
15. Implement schema markup to enhance search engine understanding of content.
16. Monitor user behavior and make adjustments based on analytics data.
17. Regularly update content to ensure accuracy and relevance.
18. Engage in reputable link-building practices to enhance authority.
19. Collaborate with industry influencers to gain credibility and exposure.
20. Continuously monitor search engine algorithm updates and adapt strategies accordingly.

This article was updated on December 19, 2023.  

The post What Makes a Webpage Quality? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..