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In last week’s Score class I got a a question about adding content to keywords after you wrote a page. In essence, what is an SEO content strategy.  I answered the question no that I do not do that, but upon further reflection it got me thinking about the process I do use when I create a page and why I usually get it right, with very little tweaking needed. As I thought about it I realized that my process really was a great topic to the Internet Marketing Clinic. 

What I have noticed though the years is that business owners struggle with the concept of content. The constant pushback is I don’t know what to write about. And although I can say check your email and use that the reality is there is a way larger process involved. The problem is that if you’re interested in   having a ranking website, this has to be handled.

In this class we go though that process and thought process of having a successful SEO content strategy.

Know What Your Business Does

For starters, I challenge each of your to do an elevator speech. Many do it and people have no idea what they do. Practice that because at the end of the day the perfect elevator speech can give you great guidance on meeting your SEO goals. For SEO411 my elevator speech says we cover SEO (duh) Web Design and Web Hosting. Everything I do revolves around one of those three components. So I just know that is what I need to do with each and ever piece of content I create. Just the simple inclusion of this sentence gave me three top teir keywords that I was able to link to a relevant page. 

Know Who Your Target Audience Is

Once we know what we do…and you would be surprised how many people cannot articulate what they do, the next step is to identify who you are writing for. In other words, who is your clients. Are you reaching out to them properly. Do you understand who they are. The more in touch with your client you are, the more relevant your search placement will be. If done properly it does create a stream of leads for your business.  So make sure you know who your customer is and how to develop content for them. Don’t overshoot your target, but also don’t undersell your self either.

Know Who Your Competitors Are

Knowing who your competitors are is essential for success. What I often see small business owners not accurately identifying small business. Once I understand who my competitor is, I can utilize them to help me define the key terms I need to rank on. It’s a very cost effective way of getting some market research for free or relatively low cost. 

Identify Keywords that Embrace Services You Offer with Your SEO Content Strategy

Once you understand the keywords, its is imperative to understand how to formulate content that embraces those terms yet addresses what your client needs. So we used a few examples in this class. You have learn to put yourself on the other side of the screen and use the terms your clients will use. You also need to learn to understand the question your clients ask that may lead to a warm lead.  This is often very difficult for business owners to step outside of themselves and see how end users see the. Once you master this, it helps you build a long term sustainable sales funnel. Understand the problems you solve for your clients. Meet people where they are. 

Know the Keywords Your End Users Use

One major mistake small business owners often do is not knowing the right words the end user uses. Tools like Keyword Everywhere is a simple and inexpensive way to translate what you think versus the words the masses use. Doing a simple search on the services you offer, and then coupling it with the keyword research from your competition, you start to have the right perspective to create a piece of content that will check the boxes.

Then what? 

Once you have all this information and a path forward, you can start into writing you page. From PPP Loans to SEO Web Hosting  you can start to build a page of content that discusses your topic and interlaces the multiple long term search terms thought out. This is where technical SEO  starts to come into play. So as I write I add technical SEO elements into mix as I write as well. And as you can see I am working other keywords that will help us rank all throughout this page. 

I know my first paragraph has to be heavy in the keywords for what I’m looking to rank on. But if you look at the last paragraph you will see the keyword again that matches the title and the first paragraph as well as interlaced with the headers for each subsections. 

In the end your SEO content strategy needs to embrace these all these elements to be successful. You have to build it write and assemble each and every page correctly.  In doing this, you will start to drive traffic to the website, create leads and meet some of the expert criteria Google is now looking for. 

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In today’s Internet, Marketing Clinic decided it was a good time to go back to basics and talk about some basic tips that are often overlooked, forgotten, or just poorly executed especially when SEO is a goal for your website.

Last week I was talking a web design client who asked me to ‘do’ SEO to his website. And that is something I commonly hear. SEO is something we do. What I answered him back was that SEO was a lifestyle, not something you do once or twice stick. Sure there are some things that if you do them right fundamentally will allow you to float along, but in no way does it mean you are living the SEO lifestyle. What I answered him was if you eat Quinoa, it does not mean you’re are eating and living healthy. It just means you eat Quinoa.

So what is SEO anyway?

I tried to clarify what it actually that with my thoughts on how SEO is a holistic behavior that is ongoing and long term. Its how you live as a website owner and not just a one time only behavior.

Being Relevant

We talked about how you are relevant to your users and why if you are relevant to your users you are also often relevant to Google.

Quality Content

This is the one that most people have issues with yet is the fundamental building block for your digital marketing campaign success. It’s not just writing a page, but how do I take that page and make it relevant and useful. Does it represent us well. In even this post your reading now. This post is being written around the class. Learning how to hit all the high points with one effort is effective, time conserving, and allows multiple ways for the user to consume your content.  The most important still remains that the better the quality, the more likely a favorable SEO result.

User Experience Consideration

After all, each page we build is for the end-user. How can we make sure we are building an effective page that also ranks. Or how can we build a page that ranks well but is also easy to use for the customer? I know it should like those are the same things but they are actually not. Your site always needs to look like a million bucks, but you also must take Google factors into account and lay your pages out in a way that appeals to both.

Responsive Web Design

Although I cannot say this enough, I still find sites that are not mobile-friendly or use huge images with no consideration for how good or bad a page ranks.

Building Internal Linking

So I think this is the most underutilized ranking variable out there. The better your internal linking structure is in execution, the higher your site will rank. Its really simple but so often overlooked. I see the error constantly being made. Its is a great way to help offset the lack of external links. And you can overcome some of those hurdles by simply setting up a strong internal linking structure.

Authority

How are we building authority to our brand and to our website? This is an important situation and needs to be addressed by every website owner. I touch on this point, but it is a class all on to itself.

Title Tags and Descriptions.

Oh so overlooked and one of the leading reasons a page ranks or doesn’t Poor keyword placement in the title tags, Lack of a quality description. This all needs to be done and one right and often the title is left to only mimic the page title someone puts in word press…you know home, about these highly descriptive terms that everyone uses…note the sarcasm. Ignore quality title tags and descriptions at your own risk.

Schema

So let’s just say this, schema is a must.  There are plugins to help but its an absolute must to compete in today’s Search Wars.

Properly Tagged Images

So for the most part images should have tags. Am I guilty of ignoring this one, yes I am? When I am already number one on something, I don’t want to be stuffing more keywords into a page.  I have seen cases wherein removing the title tags, the page has drifted downward. In fact, I have a website right now that is down by 30% after a new marketing manager arrived and ran and put alt image text because she had read that you needed to do that on some blog. Yes, you need to do it but if you are number one, maybe don’t.

Domain name and File Structure.

This one too could be is own blog topic and class topic. But lets just say a few high points.

Keyword rich domains can be good if you understand how to do that well. Don’t make a pile of websites though.

Understand that www.domain.com  domain.com and http and https are 4 totally different places and that needs to be buttoned up properly. If you don’t know what your doing you should probably ask for help or you can destroy the entire link profile of a site or possibly bifurcate it.

And lastly understand the way directory structure works and then how that is still a thing even though the internet is run off database and parsed permalinks and not directories on files now .

Headlines

These are extremely important for engagement as well as rankings. Be smart, be funny, be pithy. 

Comments Comments Comments

I would appreciate comments on this blog post. But don’t turn off comments. They are needed now to prove your worth. So leave ‘em on .

Google My Business and Local SEO

Local SEO is an imperative. We teach this as a stand-alone subject  so I don’t want to cover so much here. I do explain some of it from a high level but every small business own needs to participate in the Google My Business Program.

Social Media

This means many things to many people, but you have to have a sustainable plan to post on social media is important. We have some plugins here that we talk about to help that process and then talk about how to execute that as well.

What not to do’s

They include Keyword stuffing. I know we all like stuffing especially being thanksgiving is coming, but really what we are talking about, I cramming keywords into or onto a page to make google rank. Usually the opposite will happen so simply just don’t to it.

Don’t buy links, or make annoying ads, Google hates them too

Don’t make duplicate content, and don’t copy someone elses work and claim it for yourself. I know it sounds stupid that I have to say this in 2020, but yeah I just had client score a 30% on a plagiarism check after swearing to me up and down the content was original. Yup he was right it was original, because he wrote it and posted it else were. So no duplicate content.

And then for the last silly thing, no hidden, you know the old white text on a white background trick. Can you just believe this still happens?

Any questions or comments please leave them below.