If you want to increase visits to your website or blog, one of the best SEO strategies for this is content marketing or content marketing. But what is content marketing? It basically consists of creating valuable content for your potential audience, in order to attract them to your website and then convert them into customers.
For example, in this blog there are contents that help people to create web pages, and also to position them with the latest SEO techniques. There will be people who follow these guides and do it on their own, and there will be others who do not have time or cannot do it and then hire the service of the professional. It would be a good example of a content strategy.
If we want to be successful, it is not enough to have a few SEO plugins installed, have a good template for your blog or get a few links to our website. The ideal is to focus our SEO strategy of content marketing or content marketing, in offering the consumer what they are looking for and what satisfies their needs and desires. So,
Content marketing will mark search engine positioning
The marketing and search engine positioning strategies will go through the creation of all kinds of content, designed for different types of platforms and devices: such as texts, images, games, Apps, microsites, landing pages, social networks and blogs, among others.
This is because Google has focused on the user experience and the way in which companies relate to users through its different platforms, such as the web, whether they are e – commerce or a corporate blog.
Many companies realized years ago that content helps in positioning, but these creations can be of very low or no quality. For this reason, Google has put to work on a new algorithm, which it will launch shortly, capable of identifying bad content from good.
The world search engine will begin to take into account the value that each site brings to Internet users. This will affect potential clients, users seeking to answer questions, or those seeking information on a specific topic. If brands want to appear in the first places of searches, they must work on this path and carry out a good content marketing strategy.
Write for people and not for search engines
After all the above about the humanization of searches, you must be clear since the writing of your content must be directed to people and not to a machine. So you will get 2 benefits:
- Interest of the public. The understandable language is much more engaging than the elaborate. For example, sometimes I find articles on SEO that become so “twisted” when it comes to explaining concepts and technicalities that I quickly abandon reading. On the other hand, I have found technical articles on SEO very well explained, even and without using technicalities. Let’s put aside pedantry and seek to communicate in a simple way, in the style of a journalistic writing.
- Interest of search algorithms. Google will seek during 2017 to be as human as possible. We no longer have to imagine it as a system of infinite equations of symbols and numbers. Algorithms want to understand users’ needs and offer them the right choice in the first search position. If your content marketing has a good SEO strategy behind it, and you get them to receive many visits, the better position you will still have.
8 steps to build good content (with SEO in mind)
Define your target keyword
We all want to rank as a source for a short-tail keyword. Or for a short phrase. It is the ideal and the dream of any marketer. But we know that today the competition is high and it is surely very complicated.
In addition, we will not write our keyword 30 times throughout an article, because otherwise the text would not make any sense.
So, it is best to be clear about the base short keyword and then select related or synonymous keywords, for which users can also search / find us and Long Tail Keywords.
Search Long Tail Keywords
There are several techniques to carry out this search, but I am going to give you an example of the tools and the method that work well for me at work.
First, keeping the basic keyword in mind, I go to Ubersuggest and write my keyword there. We will use “content marketing” as an example.
You write the word in the search space and select the option “Web” and the language. In our case I will put “Spanish / Spain”.
When the search is finished, you will see many Long Tail Keyword suggestions based on your initial keyword.
We copy all with the option “View as text” and export them to Google Planner, also called Keyword Planner.
In Google Planner I advise using the tab “Get data and search volume trends.” We paste all the long-tail keywords that we have there and thus we obtain the data of each one of them.
We sort first by “Average searches “. The first ones that appear will be the ones that will interest you the most, although you can always try to position yourself by keywords without searches, but you know they will have them in the future. As very new concepts that will soon be quite well known. Think that in this case, if you are the first you will start with an advantage.
Another parameter to take into account is competition. Ideally, it should be low, because it will be easier to position yourself in search engines.
The bids can help you orient yourself in the interest that the keywords arouse in other companies in your same sector. If they are bidding for them in Google Ad words, it will be something.
Do not underestimate keywords with low searches, such as 10 a month, because they can be very valuable. Maybe few people introduce them, but they will be people who are highly interested in the subject. Those are usually part of your potential customers and cannon fodder for your content marketing.
Related or synonymous keywords
Here we can use another of my favorite tools: Serums.
If you are a professional, create a payment account, you will appreciate it. Anyway, if you are starting you can try it for free although you will see limited searches, queries or reports that you can perform per day.
When you are on the tool’s intranet, go to the menu on the right and click on “Keyword analytics” and in the drop-down menu select the option “Related keywords.”
Now, in the search space above we enter the keyword we want again. I’ll put “content marketing” again.
Serums gives you information about the keyword you have entered, but below it suggests several synonymous keywords that users use when searching for “content marketing”.
The report generated by the tool has a thematic focus similar to that of the query keyword. This will be very useful to marketers who are developing content marketing campaigns.
Spy on the competition
Your content marketing SEO strategy has to take into account your rivals. Keep in mind that there will be times when we could have created the best content in the world and optimized it for Google 100% but it still does not rank in the first results. Why? After all our effort, sweat and tears.
Maybe it’s because your competition has done better.
A little trick that I use, before creating the content structure, is to spy on the competition.
I go to Google and put the keyword that interests me, in this case I will continue using the same one that we have used so far: “content marketing”.
Skip the ads and go straight for organic search. There you will find the articles that “Google liked the most” in relation to that keyword.
It is true that nobody knows the equations that make up the algorithms of the most important search engine in the world, but we can know which pages they have fallen in love with for each possible search.
Review the first three suggested sites, which are the ones that contribute the most visits to any website and see:
- How they have structured the information: H1, H2, H3
- The long-tail and related keywords they have used, their density (total number) and how they are distributed throughout the text.
- Look at the total length of the content: how many words.
- The visual, audiovisual or textual resources they use.
- The outgoing links or that direct to the web itself.
- And other parameters.
This will give you clues on how you can structure your content and improve what the competition has done to make Google and users fall in love.
Informative structure of your content
With all the information you already have at your disposal, you can dedicate yourself to creating the structure of the informative content.
- Take into account the URL to optimize, as it matters a lot.
- The title must be catchy and between 50 and 70 characters.
- It should contain the keyword as early as possible.
- The description must hook the future reader, also contain the main keyword and be no longer than approximately 156 characters.
- A coherent structure of H1, H2, H3, H4…
- The keyword density. Based on my current experience, the ideal is 1% based on throughout the text. For example, if you have created a 2000 word article, the main keyword can appear up to 20 times.
- The ideal extension today is between 1200 to 1500 words to start ranking well. The length of the content matters for search engine optimization, but we should not force articles to always have this length.
Images and videos in your content marketing SEO content strategy
Articles with images and videos are shared more. Not just me, but a study that BuzzSumo published a while ago.
Content without anything visual is shared on average 28 times, while those that do have are shared on average 64.9 times. Almost 3 times more.
CTA
Your article must have some purpose. You should not write it only for web positioning, attract visitors, and have them read to you and goodbye.
Define very well the objective of your content:
- Do you want content to be downloaded, such as an eBook or a report, to obtain the data of your visits?
- Do you want to increase your database, inviting them to sign up for your newsletter?
- Do you want them to ask you for information?
- Do you want them to sign up for a course?
- Do you want them to sign up for a webinar?
Data analysis and conclusions to improve your content marketing strategy
Use the metrics that you’re CRM or Google Analytics can offer you. Without them you would be lost. Marketers, in the information age on the internet, we must have scientific minds at all times. And even more so in a content marketing SEO content strategy where we must analyze which ones are working best for us.
Make hypotheses, put them into practice, collect data and draw conclusions. If the hypothesis is successful, we will have found a successful way to position our content well and we can keep repeating it. Other times we will make mistakes and we will have learned what not to do.
Of course, let us never stop applying new strategies, because algorithms are constantly changing, and what positions well today, may not do so tomorrow.
But we must not only use web analytics to analyze the results of our SEO content marketing strategy, but we must also use it to check if our efforts are in other ways of attracting traffic, such as email marketing or advertising in Ad Words and social networks, are bringing the visitors we expected.
I hope this complete guide has helped you learn what content marketing is and how to apply it to your website to make a good SEO content strategy and thus increase your visits.