Wondering where to start? How do you build a content strategy from scratch?
I’m going to take off right where we left. In my last article, Essentials of SEO — A Beginner’s Guide, I explained the fundamentals of SEO and delved into the SEO success strategies.
If you’re scratching your head and thinking about where to start, then this one’s for you.
- Your SEO content strategy should start by making a list of topics. Then create long-tail and short-tail keywords (we will talk about this in the next sub-section) around the topics. Use Google Keyword Planner — it's a life-saver!
You will also find other free keyword research tools online. Google away!
2. Make a separate page for each topic and set up a blog on your website that includes readings/archive/blog or whatever it is you want to call it.
4. Maintain a frequency of uploading content and create a linking plan.
5. Use images where necessary with alt text.
6. Keep updating information and keywords as and when you find necessary.
7. Measure and analyze your SEO performance from time to time.
Alert!!
Your content must be unique and not copied from anywhere. Search engines are smart, trust me!
Their bots will crawl the web like spiders and detect plagiarism and even get you penalized for spamming your page with too many irrelevant links!
8. Keyword Research: You must know what and how people could look at products/services that you offer. Identify the keywords that best define your content.
The most common mistake that people do is that they update their pages for SEO for a week or two and then stop. Keyword research and updation are not a one-time thing! This is why dedicated specialists are hired for this job!
Keyword research has two objectives: 1. To rank high on search engines, 2. To develop content around search terms that people are using — and thus, maintain relevancy.
How to do Keyword Selection
Use your own keyword research tool and choose the right keywords and put them on a list (ideally an excel/spread sheet).
Competition Analysis for Keywords
For a keyword like ‘indoor plants,’ there will be thousands of web pages out there. Sites which have been prevailing for a while and have made a good reputation, Google recognizes that they give useful information. That is how they came to be in this position.
Outranking your competition would be difficult if you don’t earn Google’s trust. To earn more clicks (and eventually revenue), develop content and select keywords that fit the user’s search intent.
9. Utilize HTML tags in your SEO
For the non-coders, HTML may sound terrifying at first! The good news is that they need not worry because here we don’t have to deal with coding. All you need to do is know the process of changing tags, descriptions and headers.
Unless you do this, Google will not be able to identify what your content is about or rank its relevancy to the topic being searched.
Essential HTML Tags for SEO
Tags are nothing but small pieces of information that when patched together form the entire code. Changing the HTML for SEO is as simple as copying and pasting. Let’s have a look at some of the important elements to consider when it comes to HTML.
· Title Tags
At the top of your browser is a tab which contains the text. This text is called the title tag and appears when your page shows up in the search results on Google. Call this a headline — which Google checks in the very beginning. It is crucial to optimize this title tag to give the best representation of your website/content.
If you fail to provide text in the title tag, Google will create one on its own, whatever it deems fit. This default representation by Google may not always be exactly what you wish your page visitors to see. So, make your title tag catchy which attracts the readers to click on it.
Checks to optimize title tags on HTML-
1. Keep your title tag under 60 characters since Google will now show tags longer than 60 characters.
2. Stay away from keyword stuffing. Use the keywords in the title tag when possible for better SEO.
· Meta Description
In search results, a meta description is a piece of text that appears beneath the title and link. The description informs the reader about the page’s content so they know what to expect. The character limit here is 160.
· Heading tags (H1-H6)
For both readers and search engines, heading tags are used to arrange your pages. It is natural that not everyone will read full articles. Instead, readers skim the text until they find a section they like, read that section, and then move on.
If the material isn’t broken down into portions, many people will skip it right away because it’s overwhelming or seems irrelevant. Thus, headers are useful as they give an idea to the reader about what the upcoming block of text is all about.
However, from the standpoint of the search engine, heading tags are the most important part of the text, since they help search crawler bots comprehend the page’s content.
Also don’t forget H2, H3 and H4 headers after H1. This will make the page fetch better.
· Image Alt Text
When inserting an image, sometimes it doesn’t appear or the user is not able to view it. In this case, alt text helps to provide information where the picture was inserted and also aids the search engine in ranking the image. This helps make your content more SEO-friendly.
· Schema markup
Rich snippet features are added to conventional SERP snippets using schema markup. This one is a bit different from the others. You to add more elements to your listings using schema markup. Images, star ratings, and many other options are available. While not everyone uses schema markup for listings, you might find the appropriate tag to improve your company’s search results. Although it’s unclear whether schema markup enhances your search ranking, it certainly makes your listing more attractive to searchers.
10. Linking in SEO
There are mainly three types of linking in SEO: internal linking, external linking and backlinking.
· Internal linking is required for your content to be ranked. When your posts and pages are linked to from anywhere on the internet, Google finds them easily.
Internal links connect your content pages and offer Google a sense of your website’s structure. They can help you create a site hierarchy, allowing you to give the most important pages and posts greater link value than the less significant ones. As a result, having a good internal linking strategy can help your SEO.
· External linking: Any hyperlink or backlink that goes to a destination page on a domain other than the one on which it is published is known as an external link. It exists outside of the host domain. The term ‘external link’ is used in SEO to describe links that are built on other websites and point back to your domain.
· Backlinking in SEO: Any incoming link to a website from another website is referred to as a backlink. It’s a method of keeping track of external websites that connect to a person’s or organization’s website. An incoming link is also known as an inbound link, in-link, or inward link.
You might want to contribute a guest article to a website where people are interested in your area of expertise.
The site for which you write a guest post should have its own visitors. When the site gets more traffic, more link juice will flow in your direction since others will notice what you’re sharing.
11. Anchor Text in SEO
The word or words you click on to get to another page or website are called anchor text. It’s crucial for both SEO and UX since it informs search engines and people about the content of the page you’re linking to.
What role does anchor text play in on-page SEO?
Your anchor text is used by search engines to figure out what the website you’re linking to is about. They can assist your website rank for relevant keywords. Since each kind of anchor text has its own position in SEO, you should include as many different types as possible for good SEO ranking.
What is a good anchor-text ratio for SEO?
The allotment of all of the different sorts of anchor texts in your backlink profile is known as the anchor text ratio.
For example, the majority of backlinks in an organic homepage backlink profile usually feature the brand name or URL as the anchor text. Although the backlinks pointing to a blog article may have a far better balance of keyword and non-keyword anchors.
12. Enable Content Sharing in SEO to increase visibility
Content sharing and SEO are much related when it comes to offering a great user experience and attracting more customers to your website. Social sharing and personal sharing are major types of sharing in SEO. It is important in driving engagement and referral traffic to your website.
How to get more Social Sharing in SEO:
Here are three suggestions for increasing social media shares:
1. Create high-quality content: Simply put, the greatest strategy to acquire shares is to create high-quality material. Google devotes a significant amount of time and money to stopping anyone from abusing the system. It’s a straightforward concept. It’s a value transaction. Everything in business is based on value exchange, and SEO marketing is no exception.
2. Consistency is key: In SEO and social media, consistency is crucial. Not only will social media algorithms despise you if you only post once every three months, but there won’t be anyone there to share the content because it’s been so long since your last post. Consistently posting on social media necessitates having new stuff to present on a frequent basis.
3. Make it simple: Use plugins available to encourage social sharing on your site. Use social media buttons as links (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or whatever you think is relevant).
13. Site Architecture and Device Compatibility for SEO
Your users may be logged in from any type of device: laptop, mobile phone, tablet etc. It is important to ensure that all media configurations can be viewed in the best resolution on each of these devices. For this, it is crucial to optimize your SEO accordingly.
Mobile-friendly SEO
Did you know that cell phone transactions account for more than 40% of all transactions? You must invest in mobile search engine optimization if you want mobile consumers to engage with your website and become loyal clients (SEO).
How to tell if your website is mobile-friendly
Check to determine if your site is mobile-friendly before making major modifications to increase your mobile SEO. The best thing is that you don’t have to load every page on your mobile device to receive a mobile-friendliness score for your site.
Using Google’s mobile page testing tool is a simple approach to assessing mobile-friendliness.
14. Improve Page Speed through SEO
Google may penalise you or make it more difficult for you to outrank your competitors if your site or specific features load slowly.
Once again, the Google Search Console will share this information with you, saving you the trouble of looking for a tool to determine the page’s speed in SEO.
15. Build Authority
Google uses two types of authorities to calculate your site’s overall authority. Domain authority is a measure of how well-known your domain name is. Coca-cola.com, for example, is quite authoritative because everyone has heard of it.
On a scale of one to one hundred, you can use this test to assess your authority. That implies going from 0 to 20 is relatively simple.
Anything over 50–60 is considered a high page authority, and 80–90 is frequently the highest in a given industry.
16. Reduce Bounce Rate through SEO
Reduce your bounce rate by improving your content, loading speeds, usability, and attracting the proper readers. Visitors who are interested in your material will spend more time on a site that loads quickly, looks well, and has excellent content.
Another wonderful approach to do so is through video, but your video content must stand out, engage and deliver for them to stay.
Most importantly, your material must meet the reader’s expectations. They need to land on your page as fast as possible and quickly give them exactly what they’re looking for. If you can do it, the majority of visitors will stay on the site long enough to tell.
Now that you know what is SEO and how to use SEO to increase your Google ranking, let’s flip to some of the best practices for SEO.
Best practices for SEO: Do’s and Don’ts
Some best SEO practices to keep in mind are:
· Understanding it is one thing, but putting SEO into practice takes a lot of effort and time. You can’t expect to see results overnight by making tweaks today. Be patient and take action daily on your SEO to achieve long-term success.
· Stay away from duplicate content/plagiarism. Offer as relevant content as possible.
· Invisible texts and keyword stuffing is a BIG no-no! Go for well-labelled images. Use Alt Text wherever possible.
· Cloaking your page, disguising it or click-baiting is annoying to the consumer. This will eventually lead to them away as they won’t find anything relevant on your page. Use relevant links and references only.
· Don’t crowd your page with links from sites which have nothing relevant to offer. Use unique and relevant page titles.
· Simplicity is the key. Complicating content or inappropriate structure of content will confuse the consumer. If the content is of no use to them, they will eventually fade away. Hence, all your hard work goes in vain!
· Use standards-compliant HTML, correct spellings and grammar. Errors will lead to your content not being identified, and will not rank in searches.
Did this help? If yes, please leave a comment. If not, I would request you to still leave a comment!
