Do You Have an SEO Content Strategy in Place?

Do you publish strong content on your website and do you use that website as a hub for newsletters, social posts, paid campaigns, etc.? Great. This means you're investing not only in valuable content but also in a comprehensive marketing mix to efficiently convey your messages to your target audiences. But do you also claim your rightful share of the relevant online traffic?

Google processes 99,000 searches per second. All these people are looking for information and products or services based on a specific need. They are also looking for what you have to offer. During their search, do they land on your website? Or do they easily land on your competitors' websites (perhaps abroad) and go along with them? Organic traffic, traffic that comes to a website via search engines, is the primary source of visitors for many companies on their websites. Want to know how to improve your visibility? Read on quickly.

SEO Content Strategy: Your Piece of the Online Traffic

One of the most effective ways to be found is through a well-thought-out SEO content strategy. This strategy integrates SEO principles into your content planning and creation, allowing you to produce valuable content and also score as high as possible on search engines. In this post, I will delve deeper into what an SEO content strategy exactly is and how you can get started with it.

What Is a Content Strategy?

A content strategy is how you utilize content marketing and corporate communication to achieve your business goals. In a nutshell, it has everything to do with:

• Understanding your target audiences and their needs perfectly,

• Determining the right topics,

• Creating very strong content in the right formats,

• Knowing the content strategy your competitors employ,

• Using the right channels in the mix,

• Constantly optimizing your content plan based on available data.

What Is an SEO Content Strategy?

An SEO content strategy is a crucial part of a content strategy. It is aimed at diverting as much of the online search traffic that is relevant to your business to your website. If done correctly, you pick people already interested in the products and services you offer from the search traffic and bring them to your website. An SEO content strategy ensures, on the one hand, that your website has live the type of content and topics that your potential customers are organically searching for. Additionally, an SEO content strategy ensures that the content on your website is structured to meet the SEO criteria. It's not just about creating engaging and valuable content, but also about using the right keywords, optimizing metadata, link building, and the structure of texts and videos to increase visibility in search engines.

"It's not just about creating engaging and valuable content. It is also about using the right keywords, optimizing metadata, link building,... to increase visibility in search engines."

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How Can You Build an SEO Content Strategy?

These are the main building blocks of an SEO content strategy:

1. Keyword and Competitor Research

• It all starts with thorough keyword research. Identify relevant keywords that your target audience uses when searching for information. Investigate the questions your potential customers have and the keywords they use to search. You will notice that the topics they search for often are not the words you use in your content, making it difficult for you to find each other via search engines. For example, if you, as a call center manager, have a vacancy for a "rare bird who likes to make calls," and everyone interested in such a job is searching for "call center agent," that rare bird will indeed remain elusive due to being unfindable. Or you may notice that your customer groups are asking important questions to which you have not yet provided answers on your website.

• Use reliable tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Semrush, etc., for keyword analysis to map and analyze search volumes for relevant search terms.

• Don't forget to analyze the competition. Who are your online competitors? Which of them ranks at the top of Google rankings for the topics that are important to you as well? And what did they do to get there? How does their content look? Such research provides a wealth of information and guides you in the right direction to create your content plan.

"Competitor research provides a wealth of information and guides you in the right direction to create your content plan."

2. Content Plan

After doing your homework and understanding clearly where the focal points and challenges lie, you can translate those insights into a content plan.

• Check which topics you've already published and identify the opportunities.

• Determine topic clusters.

• Create highly engaging and valuable new content that integrates the identified keywords naturally.

An SEO content strategy is much more than just putting keywords in your content. Ensure that your content meets all SEO criteria (URL choice, meta title, metadata, structure, sitemap, link building, content clusters, authority, enhanced pages, etc.). Many people still believe that SEO is about pleasing Google, and if you just put enough keywords in your text, everything will be fine. That's not true at all. The Google Helpful Content update is an update of the Google algorithm where content created solely to rank high in the rankings is targeted. So, primarily focus on creating very strong and valuable content and providing a pleasant user experience.

3. On-Page SEO Optimization

Most content marketers mainly focus on creating new content, while optimizing existing content is equally important for results. Therefore, optimize your existing content for search engines according to the same criteria you now apply to your content creation.

Do not overdo it. Stay clear from the SEO NO GO-zones: keyword stuffing, link spamming and backlink bagging.

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4. Technical SEO

You may have less impact here. But indicating to your developers what is important to smoothly execute your content strategy can't hurt. Discuss important technical aspects such as website loading speed, mobile-friendliness, and a good site architecture with your IT colleagues. A fast, easily accessible website contributes to a positive user experience and higher search results.

5. Analysis

Always keep your finger on the pulse of your content's performance using analyses. Check how your website as a whole and your pages, in particular, are performing with Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Be patient. SEO optimizations are a long-term endeavor. Analyze the path users take on your site. Compare that path to the path you believe they should take and adjust your strategy. Conduct A/B tests to determine which approach works best for your target audience.

Be Visible!

A well-planned and executed SEO content strategy ensures that you become visible. Whereas in the past, you needed to be visible in the physical world by investing in light advertisements and a storefront, today it's crucial to invest in your online visibility with an SEO content strategy. By starting with thorough keyword research, followed by strategic content planning and consistent optimization, you can significantly increase your online visibility.

Feeling motivated to get started? Great. Just claim your piece of that online traffic and bring it to your website. Good luck! Need some assistance? Feel free to reach out.

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