Why do people search for things on Google or other search engines? Not “what are they searching for?” but why. The fundamental reason is that they’re looking for answers to questions they have. Those questions might be explicit (e.g. “how much lower is rent in the Midwest compared to Boston?”).
But often, they’re implicit. For instance, when a user searches for “Italian restaurants near me,” they’re actually asking themselves a ton of questions:
- Which place is good for today’s budget? (Whether they’re out on a date or jusr looking to pick up a pizza)
- What do other people think about this place?
- What am I going to buy from here?
- What’s the crowd like?
Spiders are never far away. These indelicate insects, who are way too fond of the contents of your trash can, have one mission: to find out everything there is to know about a site. Undiscovered pages on a site? No way!
Every year, thousands of brands compete for top search engine results and what better way to get there than with high quality content? But how do you create quality content that will compete in a search engine? We’re here to help. With this piece, we’ll walk you through exactly that!
They’re not using a search engine, but they’re nonetheless searching for answers. Behind every keyword search is someone looking for good content – and it needs to be there when users arrive at a website.
The better you understand individual users, the more precisely you can respond to their expectations. This makes SEO especially important for gaining visibility: you need to know what your target group responds well to in order to create the necessary relevant content.
It’s all about getting up close and personal with your customers so that you can tailor your messages accordingly.
They’re not necessarily typing those questions into a search bar, but you can be sure that, behind any keyword search, is a hunt for answers. And answers mean solid content.
A great content strategy is the backbone of any successful attempt at SEO: you need to have the answers users are looking for when they type in the right keywords. But how do you boost your SEO results through content? We’ll walk you through that in this piece!
1. Focus on specific topics and use cases, not broad explainers
If you search for a broad topic like “best cars 2021,” you’ll notice something: in almost every case, a high domain rank website (or many of them) will have a listicle or high-level explainer. Unless you’re the content manager for a DR80 publication, chances are that your piece is not going to compete if you focus on high-level themes.
This is where it becomes important to drill down and differentiate. Take a look at your topic from a high-level standpoint, then break it down, in terms of audience level, specific use cases, and sub-themes that can be spun off on their own.
We’ll get to the next thing you’ll want to do in point #2.
2. Leverage keyword search tools
Use tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush to identify your keyword opportunities. If you plug “best cars 2021” into a keyword tool, you will likely see that it’s a topic with high search volume, but also extremely high competition.
That doesn’t tell you much that you didn’t already know. What does make a difference is taking a peek at related keywords. Ahrefs, for instance, will suggest dozens of related keywords and search phrases related to your initial search.
You want to filter these out by competition level and search volume. If competition is too high, (50+ on Ahrefs) it’s really not worth writing for that keyword, even if search volume’s good – you’re just not going to get those hits.
Likewise, if search volume is below 20, there’s no point even if there’s low competition because not that many people are going to reach your content. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, though, as we’ll see in point #3.
3. Dominate low-competition keywords with high traffic potential
Sometimes, you’re the first one at the party. When it comes to SEO and content, that is a fantastic opportunity for you to leverage. When you’re focusing on topics at the bleeding edge of your industry, you’ll find that there are times when promising keywords have low search volume and competition, simply because no one’s written about it yet.
For instance, there’s no doubt that brands and corporations across the world are going big on NFTs, and that they’d need significant support for reaching audiences. However, the term “NFT marketing agency” still has relatively low competition and low search volume.
Pull up Ahrefs, though, and you’ll see that traffic potential – the amount of potential monthly hits in the near future – is very high. That’s because NFT marketing is a topic that people want to talk about – they just aren’t yet.
When you stumble on these high-opportunity keywords, churn out quality content so you can dominate search results when traffic goes up.
4. Be problem-oriented with your content
A big challenge that many content readers (not writers) face is finding content online that addresses the questions they have. When you’re writing high level content, the trouble is that you’re not really answering questions, whether those are explicit or implicit, and you’re not likely touching on the aspects that matter to your reader.
The best thing to do is to walk a mile in your reader’s shoes, so to speak. Understand what their problems are, and then target your content towards addressing those exact problems. That way, when readers engage with your content, they’re getting exactly what they’re searching for.
5. Quality control is a must
When you’re planning out a content-oriented SEO strategy, you’re likely going to ramp up the volume of pieces you deliver, either for your own brand or for your client. When scaling up, it is critical that you avoid running into QC issues, such as poor grammar or spelling.
Articles that haven’t been spellchecked or have wrong grammar constructions adversely impact SEO, even if the material in there makes sense to readers. Remember to main basic quality standards and to implement these religiously, regardless of how much content you’re handling.
You don’t always have to spell things correctly to make an impact. That is the key message I am trying to convey here today with this presentation on scaling your content in terms of awareness.
After all, sometimes what really matters is how you say something, not how you write it down. Writing everything just right has positive implications for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but don’t let that be the sole thing that drives you in your content creation endeavors.
What should drive you are the irrefutable aspects of writing content: the ideas and information inside those articles we produce.
Rest assured though, if people don’t understand what it is that we’re trying to teach them no matter how perfect everything else might seem, then we may still lose out on a lot of leads which can ultimately affect our ROI as a business!
6. Focus on personal or brand experiences
Learning by doing is one of the most effective ways to have a question answered. This means that readers are often most interested in content that clearly demonstrates how an answer works by showing how a brand made things work within their context.
When you’re working on SEO content, channeling your personal and brand experiences can be an incredibly powerful way to draw readers, by highlighting authenticity and demonstrating with clear results and numbers, exactly how your approach led to success.
Learning by doing is one of the most effective down to earth ways to solve a problem. This means that readers are more interested in content that shows how a brand solves the problem by giving examples how they made it happen in their context.
When you’re with getting your content ready for search engines, ask yourself if you’re showing real world results of your site and if you can use words from everyday life to show your readers exactly what’s happening to make it easy for them to relate to people who have the same problems or goals.
It may sound unusual, but learning by doing actually helps a lot when it comes down to figuring out how to answer a question.
It means that readers are more interested in content that demonstrates how an answer works by clearly showing how your brand showed us, within your context of course, how you made things work and how you led your company to success.
Channeling our personal experiences is one of the most powerful marketing tools when coming up with SEO content because it allows us to draw in people through the power of authenticity.
Conclusion
There’s no easy way out: a great SEO plan needs great content to succeed. In this piece, we’ve touched on six different ways that you can turbocharge your content to do more for readers and, ultimately, help your team meet even more ambitious SEO and lead generation goals.
You don’t know what you don’t know and asking questions is the best way to learn. Usually, most people are interested in content that shows how something works by showing how a company or brand achieved success with their way of doing things.
So when you need to write SEO content, be sure to turn your customer service and marketing efforts into great material for getting leads in the door!
Guest blogger
Robb Fahrion is a Co-Founder and Partner of Flying V Group. He is passionate about helping businesses grow using the power of the internet. Robb graduated from Chapman University in Orange, CA and currently resides in Costa Mesa, CA. Robb enjoys writing about digital marketing, helping his clients turn their dreams into reality, and he is a HUGE Mike Trout fan.
