Looking for tips to create higher converting content? We spoke with the SEO experts directly on how to craft meaningful content that captures your target audience’s attention.
Search engine optimization is more important than ever for businesses, particularly businesses that do most of their services or sell products online. However, SEO isn’t just about making sure that your landing pages are optimized for getting customers to your site, it is about maximizing content overall. In this article, we have asked some of our experts to share tips and tricks of the trade on how you can successfully create SEO-optimized blog content that drives high conversion rates on your site.
1. Start by doing Keyword Research
The first step to ensure that the content you create for your website is researching keywords that are relevant to your industry and business. When you use relevant keywords then potential customers are much more likely to find your site, thus eventually converting to leads.
Here are what one of our experts had to say about keyword research:
“A big blog SEO mistake is using keywords that are too broad. You want a good amount of keywords that are directly related to the topic you are writing on and a few that are related but doing too many that are not related to your blog topic will lower your SEO ranking.” —Ashley Akau, Assistant Director of Social, SEO & Sales, Agency onethree
There are also plenty of tools that can help you. SEMrush has insights on the best keywords, related content, and how your competitors are ranking. Use keywords that have higher search volume and lower competition, or rank low to medium in competition. This approach means you’ll be much less likely to compete with others in your line of business to get your customers to your page. However, using this strategy means that your content could be more niche.
2. Develop a Content Strategy
Once you have a list of keywords that you know you need to use in your blog content, then it is time to delve into your content marketing strategy to decide what you want on your blog. Using the list that you have created; you can begin your research of what the blog post will feature or focus on. Here are what our experts had to say about content strategy:
“Avoid thin content—overly short, simplistic content that’s generic and doesn’t answer your target audience’s questions. Lastly, while you can target competitive keywords, be aware that it will be tough to rank high in search results unless your content is very comprehensive, well-researched, and gets a lot of links back from authoritative sources.” —Mike Layer, Founder & CEO, Layer Digital Solutions
Mike continues his advice and has this specific tip: “Use a free tool like Answer The Public to get content ideas around certain topics. When it comes to writing your content, make it as high quality and relevant as possible. It should be clear, useful, and answer a specific question (or set of questions) related to the target topic.”
But Answer The Public isn’t the only free tool out there, according to this source, there are many more including Portent’s Content Idea Generator that gives you an array of content ideas within seconds.
Additionally, it is important to create blogs that have “meat.” Fluff pieces are not worth it unless the positive story you are sharing is tied to an actionable item or generates leads.
3. Keep the text simple
Experts say that the content should not be thin, but that does not mean that it should be complex. When creating the content in the blog, you do not want it to be generic, pinging your customers away from your website. Rather, you want the text to be easy to read, yet use relevant and specific language that will get the customer to your site and stay there.
“Never go too far off into unrelated topics that you think might be interesting if they are not close enough in relation to your industry, and never include large chunks of copied material, even if you cite them properly, as it will hurt your originality score and ultimately your SEO strength.” —Sam Manshouri, Marketing Specialist, Brand Vision Marketing
In addition to this, avoid long paragraphs or language that can be complex to the reader. A good rule of thumb is to write for a 12th grader. This ensures that you are casting the widest scope for your target audience.
4. Leverage Multiple Tools
When creating blogs, there are several ways that you can maximize your content potential. Sure you can write a piece that is well written and has all the right keywords, but does it have a call to action? Have you tested the blog to see if it is matching with the appropriate audiences? This expert explains how using multiple tools can help you get the most bang out of your buck:
“Optimize your articles with tools like SurferSEO, PoP, or Cora” —Joe Maracic, Digital Marketing Manager, MAXBURST, Inc.
Other tools to consider using are heat mapping and A/B testing to see if the call to actions (CTAs) in your text are working, or the structure of your content is right.
5. Optimize the Blog to your Advantage
Blog pieces are not only meant to be read. Audiences love visuals more and more these days. When creating your content, use relevant images, infographics, pay attention to visual trends, and use different styles. This also includes ensuring that the back end is also optimized to its fullest extent. Here are some tips on how:
“Don’t forget to also optimize images! Images should not only have relevant alt text but also SEO-optimized file names using keywords from your keyword research.” —Justine Shih, Marketing Coordinator, ShipBots
In addition to images, optimize your title tag, header, and meta description because this is how your post will come up in search engines.
From a technical standpoint, you will want to avoid referencing sites that have low domain authority. If you use backlinks that rate low, your SEO will also drop. You will also want to ensure that your blog is optimized for all platforms, not just for desktop, especially as users use mobile and tablets more and more.
6. Do Not Overstuff
When you are developing content, do not use the kitchen sink. “Keyword stuffing” refers to when overloading your site with as many keywords as possible so that your SEO will rank higher. However, it does not work in your favor:
“Keep the keywords consistent and do not overstuff. Try to speak in the 1st person, since people respond better to honest communication.” —Ashwin Thapliyal, Marketing Lead, Exemplifi
By overstuffing, Google and crawlers know that you are trying to “game” the system instead of creating genuine, marketable content. Should you end up working with an SEO marketer or Content creator, be wary of promises that get you to #1 on Google, as that means they likely overstuff and don’t deliver.
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7. Use Pillar Content
Having evergreen or “pillar” content is a stable strategy used for content. Pillar blog posts can be referenced repeatedly in future blog posts, using the qualities of SEO to your advantage.
“Write a content pillar—a blog post or webpage with 5000 plus words about the keywords you’ve chosen. Add infographics, video, images, links to products, and links to other blog posts on the same topic. Make sure to pack the blog post with lots of valuable content so people will want to spend more time on the page and will click on something because it is interesting or created curiosity. When you write new blog posts on the same topic, go back to the content pillar post and add the first paragraph or two of the new post with a link to it. —Shannon Peel, Creative Entrepreneurial Owner at MarketAPeel
Pillar content is great because it can be reused in several ways, including outside of a blog post. Creating content in various ways can take a lot of effort, money, and energy. But if you have a piece of content that is evergreen, then it can be retooled to a podcast episode, social media campaign, or individual post, or used in white papers.
8. Stay abreast of SEO trends
Search Engine Optimization best practices are constantly changing. What might be useful today could be completely different a year from now. Once you have a steady stream of content on your blog, be sure to check on trends to ensure that the keywords and SEO are working to your advantage. If you notice that traffic to your site is down, look at the trends to see what needs to be updated.
“Experienced marketers often rely on older SEO techniques. For example, I had a client, who was an experienced SEO marketer, that thought link building was the #1 ranking signal. This leads him to believe that if we build a ton of links to a page, it will rank for the target keyword. This is not the case. Often, keyword intent is overlooked. What is the “intent” of the target keyword? For example, if you are a computer notebook company and want to rank for “notebook”, no matter how many links you build, you will likely not rank for that keyword. Why? Keyword intent. When you google “notebook” you get results for a paper notebook, computer notebook, and notebook the movie. A better keyword to target could be “best computer notebook”. That better fits with the intent of the search.” —Mark H, Digital Marketing Manager, Big Leap
Wondering how to stay on top of trends? We suggest staying tuned to UpCity’s expert blog posts for yearly trends, case studies, and updates to algorithms, as well as checking out free resources on social media sites like LinkedIn, free courses, or through SEO tools previously mentioned.
9. Use Analytics to Evolve
Once you have created the content, the work doesn’t end. You may need to repurpose it into a video or a social campaign. Go back to your content strategy to see how you planned to use your content across multiple channels and look at the analytics to see if your strategy is working.
One of our experts has more to say:
“Now comes the next step: how do you convert these search visitors into leads and eventual customers? A powerful SEO-based way of doing this is digging through the analytics of what visitors searched to get to your site or while they were on your site and building content offers around that search intent. Align offers on your blog to the various buying stages your visitors may be at: first-time looking, due diligence research, or getting ready to pick a vendor. See what search terms your visitors are using to get to your site and add downloadable white papers, case studies, templates, or the option to book a one-on-one consult. The important thing is to align your content with your visitor’s search intent. This gives your potential new customers a very detailed guide answering the question that brought them to your blog in the first place and gives you the chance to follow up with them.” —Colton De Vos, Marketing Specialist, Resolute Technology Solutions
You also may learn that you need to start from scratch and create new content. The process of content creation and SEO marketing is cyclical and ever-evolving.
Summary
As you can see, there are some specific ways that you can boost SEO and increase lead generation for your business using content marketing strategies as a blogger. Some of the basics are knowing your keywords, creating quality content, retooling across channels, and then following the metrics. Then it is important to stay on top of your SEO strategy if algorithms and trends change.
However, we understand that doing all this work on your own, while maintaining a business can be difficult to do. Luckily, UpCity has an in-depth list of SEO experts that can help you with your SEO strategy.