How to rank SEO content ? It is very hard to rank SEO content, but not impossible. This article guide you to follow that path.
While content has been the king of the web for some time, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your content will drive qualified traffic. It doesn’t guarantee your content will appear in search results. According to 2020 data by Tim Soulo, Ahrefs, 90% of web content gets no traffic from Google.
Planning is key to creating content that is effective. While I am sure that there are some writers who simply write whatever comes to mind, those people are rare. We rely on thoughtful execution and planning. How do you create SEO content that ranks?
Aja Frost, the head of English SEO for HubSpot, spoke about this topic at SMX Create. Her top tips are listed here and were rated highly at the event.
How to find measurable metrics to help you achieve your content goals
Step 1. Your ultimate goal should not be traffic. It is likely to be leads, appointments, and purchases. These are the traffic goals that will get us to our end targets.
“This is why demand goals are first and then back them into traffic goals [by] dividing by your historical or anticipated conversion rates.”
Traffic goals = historical (expected) conversion rates / demand goals
Notice: This formula has been corrected to correct a typo in the slides.
You may think, “That’s great! But I don’t know what my conversion rates will be.” Frost explained that you can figure this out by taking your demand actuals over the past 12-24 months and comparing them with your traffic actuals for the same period. You can get your CVR by adding the demand metric you choose to your organic traffic. Your CVR is now complete.
You will need to find a comparable conversion rate if you don’t have the data. You can, for example, use CVRs that are comparable to other assets (e.g., blogs or online communities) if you’re creating new products or services. You can find out more.
Step 2. Next, calculate the demand that you want to drive over the next 12 months and divide them by your historical or anticipated CVR. This will give you traffic goals.
After you have set your goals, calculate where you would be if you did nothing. Frost advised that traffic will grow regardless of your content unless you have no content. Frost advised that by knowing where your traffic would be if you did nothing and how big the gap is between it and what you need, you can determine how much additional traffic you will need and how many conversions you should generate.
Step 3. Frost suggests creating CTR curve estimates by dividing SERP positions 1-3 through 4-6, 7-9, 7-9, and 10th on the first-page search results. Frost said, “You can multiply the weighted CVR with the traffic you need in order to find your MSV [monthly searches volume] estimates by positions.”
How to do keyword research based upon personas
First, you need to create or refine your personas. Frost said, “When I speak to advanced SEOs this is often a step that they skip.” Frost urges all SEOs to take this step. These personas will help you to identify your target keywords.
You need to find out about their industry, their size, and the tools they use to do their jobs. If you discover that your target persona works in the hospitality industry and has a team consisting of two people and a 24-person company and that they use tools for accounting and hotel reservations, then you will know that “hotel management” is a seed word.
You can then create a list of seed keywords, expand it to include related short-tail keywords, and finally to include long-tail keywords.
Frost recommends that you use other tools for keyword research than the ones mentioned above (Ahrefs Moz, Semrush), in addition to the more standard tools (Ahrefs Moz, Semrush). You’ll gain insights that may not be available to other SEOs in this field. Keyword Keg, Bing’s keyword research tool, and seed keyword are her top recommendations.
This allows you to ask your target audience what they would search for in a specific topic.
Then, you can clean up the list based on your knowledge about each persona. You can then determine which keywords are relevant to that persona. Frost recommended that you filter, categorize and group keywords together to create efficient content.
Once you have your list of seed words, upload them to the tool of choice and then download search suggestions.
Frost then categorizes queries based on intent. Frost advised that informational queries include modifiers such as “who, what? where, when and why”, while transactional queries ask about price, cost, and promotion.
Navigational queries are specific to the product or brand you’re researching.
Create an editorial (or content calendar).
Choose the editorial calendar tool that is most convenient for you, and one that you will actually use, whether it be Trello, Asana, or Google Sheets. Frost suggests adding the following items to your content-calendaring tool of choice:
- The basics: Headers, URL recommendations, target keywords, and headers are just a few of the many options.
- Opportunities for internal linking: Products, offers, and signup pages.
- Level of effort: The average keyword difficulty for target keywords multiplied with the quality score of competitor content.
- Expected traffic: Multiply the search volume by your CTR.
- Competitive advantage: A way to differentiate your content (original data or a strong point-of-view, etc. You can find out more.
You can also group keywords according to the theme (instead of persona) and add up the search volume for each theme. Based on these data points, you can then start writing your next-level content.
Find out more about SMX Create on Demand
This is only a small sample of the content available at the SMX Create event. You can see Aja Frost’s complete presentation as well as the rest of her journey in SEO content creation, including…
- Alli Berry, The Motley Fool: How to create compelling content for SEO
- AgentSync and Niki Mosier optimize your content to increase its visibility
- Maria Amelie White of Floristpro and John Shehata from Conde Nast discuss alternative content strategies for increasing organic traffic and tracking success in 2021.
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