How To Effectively Implement SEO Strategies At Every Stage Of Content Creation Process?
Content Marketing and SEO are like a train and its engine. Just like the train isn’t going anywhere without its engine, your content won’t help you achieve your goals without SEO. People need to find it first, which isn’t as easy as you think.
There is a plethora of content available online, and more keeps adding every day. Almost eighty thousand searches take place on Google every second. And the top five results on the SERPs receive more than 75% of total clicks. So how are you going to compete in this race of top search results? How will you ensure that your content reaches your audience?
This can only be done by considering SEO and implementing SEO strategies at every stage of the content creation process.
Keeping SEO In Mind During Content Creation Process
Building high-quality, informative, and engaging content is excellent. Still, to make that content truly valuable, you need to keep SEO in mind right when you start planning and creating the content. Content can only be valuable when people know that it exists.
So let’s dive into the details of how you can consider and implement SEO strategies during the content creation process.
- Brainstorming the content
Even before you decide the topic of the content, you should be considering SEO. This can be done in two ways – by determining the topics, you should cover based on what your audience is searching for currently and conducting research on potential publications that you wish to target.
You can get started with keyword research. There are plenty of tools available online that will help you gain insights on what your audience is currently searching for, how they are searching, and what content is ranking for those search terms. Also, you will be able to find out which keywords you are ranking for, your position in the SERPs for these keywords, and the amount of traffic these keywords attract.
During your research for topic ideas, start deciding your overall content theme. Like searching for keywords related to the searches, your audience is currently interested in. Once you know your content theme, you can find out what type of content your audience finds valuable. And then proceed with planning to make it engaging, informative, and high-quality.
Evaluate the publications you want to target on the basis of your subject matter expertise and niche. Start researching these publications one by one. It is vital to choose publications that are regarded as reputable authorities within your industry. Although DA is not a direct ranking factor, a site with higher DA is considered authoritative and, therefore, can attract more traffic to your content, hence increasing your ranking as a result of the engagement. Besides credibility, you can also find the type of links these sites are using as some links carry extra SEO points. Make sure the website uses contextual links. These contextual links in high-authority publications help Google in affirming the relevancy of your content. Furthermore, these links can help in boosting your CTR rates by offering additional information to the audience.
- Outlining
Next, you can proceed with the outlining phase. Determine a few primary keywords that you will be targeting in this content. Write down some related long-tail keywords and keyword variations you are thinking of including, so that you can keep them in mind while writing. Also, note down any related links that you are looking forward to adding within your content.
Start writing a summary of the topic. What will this blog cover? Or what value will it provide to the audience? Also, do not forget to include your target keywords in this summary.
Once the summary is ready, you can make an outline using bullets about the information you will include in the blog. Write the insights, takeaways you want your audience to get, and related examples.
- Use the audience-first approach
When writing content, make sure you write for your audience. Make sure the content is informative, helpful, and engaging. Use both short and long-tail keywords in the content naturally. Search engines now focus on searcher intent more, like one person understands the other. Therefore you need to include keywords in a way that matches what your audience is looking for through that search.
Searcher intent will also help in determining the length of your content. For example, when you write content that focuses on answering a simple question, you must keep it short and crisp.
Considering the fast-growing popularity of voice search, you need to consider it while writing your content. You must include keyword phrases in a way that the audience might say. This will help your content to rank better in the search results. For example in addition to the keyword ”write an excellent blog,” you can add something like,” how can I write an excellent blog.”
Furthermore, write your content in a digestible way. When writing long blogs, you can use subheadings and bullets to separate the content and provide a better reader experience.
- Editing the content
Once your draft is ready, it’s time to edit. It would be best if someone other than the writer edits the draft as it is more likely for a fresh eye to catch the errors quickly.
In the editing stage, make sure that the keywords fit naturally within the content. Keep an eye on any keyword stuffing or missed keyword opportunities. Also, make sure that the title of your content includes your primary keyword. This will help your audience to find your content easily in the search and understand what it covers.
Also, make sure that your content has enough subheadings, and those subheadings must include some relevant keywords too. This gives the reader a great experience and helps the search engines in ranking your site better.
- Ready to publish
By the time you reach here, you have successfully kept SEO in mind throughout the content creation process. However, the work is not just done yet.
In case you are using any visual elements, make sure you add alt texts for that. These alt texts make the content accessible for audiences with visual impairments and help the search engines to interpret those visual elements correctly.
Next, ensure that the SEO title of your content is 60 characters or less, and the meta description is 155 characters or less. This will help the audience to understand what your content is about and convince them to click it. This is why make sure they include keywords to improve your site’s ranking as well as engagement rates.
Once you are done with all this, go through your content one last time to make sure that the readability is fine so that readers can follow it easily. And well, you are all set to go now… ready, steady, publish!
So you are now loaded with the information on how to keep SEO in mind while writing high-quality, informative, valuable, and engaging content. We hope this information is helpful for you. Let us know how this strategy works out for you via the comments below.