authority building blogs

A few weeks ago, on February 11, I gave a talk for SEMrush on one of my favorite topics – writing and publishing authority-building blogs and SEO content. We had hundreds of viewers live, and lots of great questions! To help out those of you who couldn’t attend, and for those who were just too busy for the almost two-hour talk I gave (!!), we’re recapping the entire webinar here on the Write Blog. ?? I cover everything you need to know, including why inbound content ROCKS, and how to create strong content that gets results, step-by-step. Ready to learn? Let’s get into the nitty-gritty, including why ads are dying and why inbound marketing/blogging is the way forward in 2019. [bctt tweet=”Read the recap of the live talk @JuliaEMcCoy gave for @semrush in February, on #authority building #SEO content ?” username=”ExpWriters”] The Talk: Secrets to Writing Authority-Building SEO Blogs in 2019 Like video content better? Watch a replay of the 1.49 hour session on YouTube: The Recap: Secrets to Writing Authority-Building SEO Blogs in 2019 As promised, here’s our written recap of the top takeaways from my talk! Why Blog? The State of Advertising is Dismal The state of advertising is pretty bad when you look at the conversion numbers. Compared to 3 years ago, conversion rates on advertising have dipped ridiculously low. In 2016, the average return on ad spend (ROAS) was 11.88x. Today, that number has dropped to 0.66x. (Read all about the dreary state of advertising in this recap of The Ad Strategist’s report.) By comparison, blogging and content marketing look awesome. Seriously: Inbound is THE future of marketing. For instance, did you know Google is the most-visited website in the world? YouTube and Facebook hold the next two top spots, but they still aren’t anywhere close to Google’s traffic numbers (nearly 3.5 billion searches per day!). When you build authority SEO content on your website, you build your Google authority simultaneously. That’s because Google will crawl your blogs and rank them, giving them a position in the search engine results. Since Google grabs so much traffic, that could be beyond powerful for growing your web presence. BUT – To build authority, your content has to be amazing, strategic, researched, and well-crafted. Your content platform (your website) must be user-friendly and well-designed. You have to do it all (or, if you’re a smart delegator, make sure it all gets done). Don’t worry, though – where there’s a way, there’s a will. And there IS a way. Follow me! [bctt tweet=”To build authority, your content has to be amazing, strategic, researched, and well-crafted. Your content platform, your site, must be user-friendly and well-designed. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] How to Write and Publish Authoritative, GOOD Content: 6 Strategic Steps It’s time to dive into authority-building content creation. Get ready for greatness! 1. Make Sure Your Website is Right A useful, user-friendly website needs to be the bottom layer of your online presence cake. Without this crucial piece in place, you won’t see any real results from your content. A strong website is what makes your content eligible to rank in the first place. Our site at Express Writers gets nearly 4,000 organic visitors daily from our blog and content rankings (we currently rank for over 16,000 keywords). Those numbers wouldn’t be possible without a strong website serving as the foundation. What does a strong website look like? Using our site as an example, the top 5 elements are illustrated below. Strong sites are built on trusted platforms, like WordPress, which is one of the most robust SEO  out there. They load quickly – under 2 seconds is ideal. According to Google, as page load time increases from one second to 10 seconds, a site visitor is 123% more likely to bounce. The page copy is simple, clear, and easy to read. CTAs are also clear, strategically placed, and stand out. Sites should have cohesive branding and design that don’t mess with site speed and page load times (no heavy images or videos!). Communication apps, pop-ups, and chatbots are minimized so they don’t annoy your visitors. 2. Map Your Blog Topic to Your Goals Before you even start writing or outlining, your goals should mark your content trajectory. [bctt tweet=”Before you even start writing or outlining, your goals should mark your content trajectory. @JuliaEMcCoy #blogging” username=”ExpWriters”] How will your blog help you advance to your goals? Will it increase your brand awareness? Build trust and loyalty with readers? Capture leads and grow your following? Whatever you hope to achieve, make sure each blog you put out aligns with either an overarching goal or a smaller goal that paves the way to bigger successes. Answering the following questions can help further nail down your goals for each blog you write: Who are you writing this blog to? What questions can you answer for them on this topic? What format will this content take? Is it suited for a long-form, in-depth blog post, or does it lend itself better to a visually stunning infographic? Remember, blogs aren’t your only option for content creation. When will you publish the blog? Can you strategically tie it to a season or holiday? Where will you publish? To build authority, you should focus on publishing most blogs to your website. However, posting to guest blogs from time to time can give your brand more exposure. 3. Do Strategic Research After mapping your blog content to goals, the next step is to dive into strategic research. First up, that means keyword research. Don’t start with any random industry keyword, though – begin with your audience’s pain points and research keywords that hit on their problems. You want to find keywords that tie to the questions they’re asking in Google so you can position your content as a solution they’ll find in search results. Using a tool like SEMrush during keyword research is immensely helpful. It will give you vital data about your keyword including keyword difficulty (KD) and related … Read more