Hannah WigintonRecently, I saw an article on Twitter recommended by Brendan Hufford, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professional.
The article was 45 SEO Experts Share Their Most Effective Content Optimization Strategy by Vincent D’Eletto of WordAgents.
D’Eletto reached out to each expert asking them for their most effective content strategy to boost rankings.
He asked advice from individuals who spend their days learning, creating, and implementing SEO strategies for their clients and themselves (including Brendan.)
As I read through the article, I found a treasure trove of actionable and practical advice to create better, in-depth content for businesses in order to drive sales. I decided I better take notes!
First, what is SEO?
According to Moz, SEO is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. (organic = not paid ads)
Why is this important?
With well-implemented SEO strategies, you can achieve organic success by writing helpful content. You’re guiding others to learn about your niche, topic, or your product where they then take action, such as purchasing your product or services.
Alright, let’s get to the good stuff.
The Strategies from the Experts
- Answer actual questions
- Use internal links throughout all your content
- Look at actual search results for what you want to rank
- Focus on true psychological intent behind the search. @brendan
- Remove thin or irrelevant content
- Use high-quality images with relevant alt keywords
- Review content regularly and perform content updates and upgrades
- Spend time and energy on the title. Research your keywords and make your article better than others.
- Have an end goal of creating true value with each piece of content. Ask yourself, How can this content drive actual conversions?
- Create user-focused content
- Add nicely-designed media – graphics, videos, statistics, quotes, etc.
- Make it scannable and easy to consume. Use headers, lists, and bullet points throughout.
- Test, test, test. If after 60 days, it’s not ranking where you want, rework it.
- Build topic clusters
- Find out what Google already likes for a query (top 10), then do better
- Use topics and phrases with little competition but ones that are still searched. Especially useful for niche sites and blogs.
- Review search queries on your current content in Google Search Console. Bridge the gap if any keywords you want to rank with don’t appear in the queries.
- Create Power Pages. These are pieces of content to rank for one grouping or topic of keywords. Meant to be the most informative piece of content on the subject matter.
- Map your user’s journey before starting to write. Match your content to their search needs.
- Address, in-depth, the primary and sub-topics you’re trying to own
- Add entities – people, places, things, events – that Google expects to see for a keyword
- Choose the right competitors. Find those that are ranking high with optimized content. Add common words and phrases.
- Lean on psychology and motivations instead of just keywords and volumes.
- When a reader is on your site, optimize to answer their next question. Guide them to their next best course of action.
- Write supporting content. Drill down into sub-topics and link to your main content.
- Match the type of content with the right format. Review the top URLs in the search. What type of content ranks?
- Analyze the top URLs and determine what they cover better than you and what are they missing. Then, improve.
- Repurpose your content. Update your content. Review pages that used to rank but aren’t as much anymore.
- Content depth. Cover all around a topic.
- More content doesn’t mean better. Prune the unnecessary then develop a content plan with a solid foundation.
- Search “What is + topic?” Reduces bounce rate because you know what the searcher is looking for.
- Give direct answers. Add supporting facts to your answers. Show related sub-questions.
Learn something new?! I hope so!
It’s a lot of information, I know! Save this and reference it often.
Want more tips to improve your writing? I’ll send you my favorites a couple of times a month.
Be sure to read the article, 45 SEO Experts Share Their Most Effective Content Optimization Strategy, to gather more insight and see the entire strategy for creating better content.
