What kind of content strategy do you need for a successful SEO performance? 46% of companies only aim to boost their investment in content generation this year. Online lead generation is more competitive than ever, with so many businesses placing a high priority on content marketing.
An SEO-driven content strategy is the most reliable technique to distinguish your brand from the competition in a crowded market and attract clients’ interest and business. We’ll walk you through how we go about coming up with a successful content strategy for SEO. Continue reading to find out how to produce content that has the most influence on your business and the best return on your investment.
How are audience-focused content strategies different from keyword-focused content strategies?
The target audience is the starting point of a content marketing plan, which then delves deeper to grasp your brand’s expertise and distinctive value offer. While keyword research is excellent at revealing how people discuss subjects important to your business, it is constrained in terms of knowing your audience.
Consider one of your potential customers’ conversion processes. Is search their only method of information gathering? Not if you are gathering lead data or delivering remarketing advertising.
Choosing a unique content approach
The secret to engaging your audience is to create a distinctive content angle that identifies connections between the areas of expertise of your brand and the problems that your target market faces. Because it requires taking a more general topic and “tilting” it in your direction, the Content Marketing Institute alludes to this as a “content tilt.” It may be more difficult than it first appears to define your brand’s expertise. Brands frequently claim that their product is what keeps them going, but if another company sells a similar product, they are not unique.
How to build your content strategy for SEO?
The importance of good content for SEO can’t be overstated. While some companies are still trying to figure out how to get their content strategy right, others have already mastered it. If you want to build a robust content marketing strategy that will help you improve your SEO, then you need to understand what makes great content and why it works so well. Here are some tips on how to build your strategic plan:
1. Choosing a unique content approach
The secret to engaging your audience is to create a distinctive content angle that identifies connections between the areas of expertise of your brand and the problems that your target market faces. Because it requires taking a more general topic and “tilting” it in your direction, the Content Marketing Institute alludes to this as a “content tilt.”
It may be more difficult than it first appears to define your brand’s expertise. Brands frequently claim that their product is what keeps them going, but if another company sells a similar product, they are not unique.
2. Determine your main audience’s problems
Finding the audience for your material is the next step. Many people are available to assist you with this step of the process. Think about speaking with these groups within your company:
- Consumer Assistance
- Sales
- Technical Assistance
- Product Administration
- Product Promotion
- Use of social media
These are frequently the individuals who engage with clients the most. Find out what issues your audience is facing and what content could be developed to address those issues. Through the use of social media and forums, you can also conduct some of this research independently.
3. Identify the unique skill of your brand
Investigate more to discover what makes your brand truly distinctive. Most likely, it’s not the item itself. Consider your organization’s subject matter expertise and what they bring to the table. Think about the process used to create your products.
Even knowledge that appears dull at first glance can be really useful. Marcus Sheridan has one of the most inspiring success stories I’ve ever heard about not being scared to get too specialized with skill, and I’ve seen him speak a few times. Before he started writing, he had a struggling swimming pool installation business.
4. Using the content tilt, create a list of probable topic ideas
It’s time to come up with some ideas. Finding ideas your brand should be writing about is much simpler now that you are aware of your content slant. They’re also subjects you know your audience is interested in.
This is a good phase to involve additional employees from different parts of your company, including those in the sales, production planning, and customer support divisions. Just be sure that they understand your topic tilt before the brainstorming to prevent detours.
5. Make an editorial schedule
Create an editorial calendar for your content based on the results of your keyword research. If you have someone else creating the material, be sure to mention your keyword target(s) so they are aware of the critical points to include. Here are a few starting points for your research:
- Free editorial calendar templates from HubSpot (Google Sheets or Excel)
- Free editorial calendar template from Content Marketing Institute (Google Sheets)
6. Determine the criteria for success
After deciding on the content you’ll provide, you must choose how your success will be judged. Using the Kaplan example again, lead generation was our main concern. As a result, we concentrated our efforts on tracking how many leads came to our gated content and how many of those leads turned into sales over a specific time frame. We also counted natural access points to our unrestricted material.
7. Create an SEO Roadmap
You want to establish a strategy that provides the greatest effectiveness and impact when producing content that people want to share.
As you begin to create a content plan, conclude from your KOB data and your rough content strategy. You should also take into account things like:
- Your website’s credibility
- What kind of content performs best in your sector?
- Key performance measures (KPIs)
- Target markets
- Seasonal content topics
8. Identify Metrics and Launch Reporting
Performance might only be determined by the number of links you obtain or the development of your traffic if you only use content marketing. A 360-degree perspective of your competition and the genuine worth of your marketing approach are both important considerations in successful SEO content marketing.
Conclusion
It’s no secret that Google loves to be the first to show results. To keep their algorithms fresh and up to date, they change things periodically. As a result, it’s important to stay on the tip of your toes with content strategy for SEO which is exactly what everyone should be doing anyway. The Internet is ever-changing, and as it does, so do we.
