As online content creators, there’s no denying that SEO is essential. It’s not enough to just write amazing content for your blog, but you have to optimize it as well if you want search engines (and potential readers) to discover it. To help you step up your skills and create content for SEO, you’ll want to dive into the recap of our latest #ContentWritingChat where we talked all about it!
#ContentWritingChat Recap: Curating Consistent Content for SEO
Our guest host for this week’s chat was Danielle Tate of Elegant Entrepreneur. Danielle is a CEO, best-selling author, and a speaker.
Q1: When it comes to publishing content consistently, where do you find inspiration to write?
There’s no denying that sometimes it can be hard to come up with fresh ideas for your content. In order to keep those creative juices flowing, you need to seek a little inspiration. We asked our chat participants where they find inspiration for their writing and here’s what some of them had to say:
For Danielle, she likes to look for news hooks that correlate to the topics she wants to write about. She also turns to customer questions, as they can make great blog content. This is a good reason to pay close attention to feedback your audience gives you and make note of any commonly asked questions.
A1: Find inspiration from your audience! They can give you great ideas based on their questions. #contentwritingchat
It looks like Danielle isn’t the only one turning to customers to find content ideas. The team over at Netvantage Marketing uses this strategy as well.
Kristi does the same. She finds out what questions customers are asking and what they’re talking about. This will lead you in the right direction when it comes to potential topic ideas.
A1. I usually look at trends, listen for challenges and I have a pretty serious rainstorm board in my office. #ContentWritingChat
Brittany knows it’s a great idea to look at the trends in her industry. This gives you an idea of what’s hot at the moment and provides you with an opportunity to write about it. She suggests looking at trends and listening for challenges others are facing and then having a good brainstorming session.
For Tony, he enjoys reading different articles for inspiration. There’s always something new to read, whether it’s something within your industry or not. You can always draw inspiration from what others are saying.
@ExpWriters A1. I find inspiration to write content from twitter chats and also from successful people who are great with others #contentwritingchat
Cheval gets inspiration from Twitter chats. Chats are very informative and they provide you with the opportunity to connect with others and hear their questions. It can be a great place to find your next blog post idea.
@ExpWriters A1: Frequently inspired by something someone said, what I see in nature when I #run, and a great photo/video. #ContentWritingChat
Jeremy finds writing inspiration from a variety of sources. He gets ideas from things he hears others talking about, what he sees in nature while he’s out on a run, and from great photos and videos.
Q2: What advice do you have for writers maintaining a blog long-term?
One thing that many on the outside looking in don’t realize is that blogging is actually hard work. You take on many roles as a blogger and it can sometimes feel overwhelming. So, how do you manage all of those tasks for the long haul? Check out this advice:
A2: Don’t be afraid to widen your scope of topic so you have more to write about for the same audience #ContentWritingChat
Danielle says you shouldn’t be afraid to wide your scope of topic when it comes to the content you cover. If your audience would be interested and it’s still relevant overall, there’s no reason you can’t experiment with something new.
A2: Write about something you genuinely enjoy, don’t let it turn into a chore, and find a schedule for yourself #contentwritingchat
— Digital Natives Cast (@DgtlNativesCast) May 9, 2017
No matter what you choose to write about, it should be something that you genuinely enjoy. If you aren’t passionate about your chosen topic, writing will quickly become a chore.
Make sure you’re running tests to see what’s working for you and what’s not. This allows you to see what you should do more of and what needs to change.
To make sure you’re staying consistent, develop a content strategy and keep an editorial calendar. This will keep you on track when it comes to publishing.
Varun says there should be consistency in the quality of the content you produce, you should allow formats to evolve, and you need to keep an eye on trends in your niche. He also suggests focusing on community building. This will help you build a relationship with your audience.
Gabriela’s advice is to define your blog’s purpose and align it with your passions. Having that passion for what you’re doing will ensure you’re consistent and committed to your blog.
Q3: Do you have a specific formula for creating posts on your blog?
Writing a blog post requires quite a bit of work, as there are many stages of content creation. Developing a formula to follow will help make the process easier. Check out the formulas our chat participants follow:
Simple, but effective! For Sarah, she comes up with an idea, jots down notes or an outline, then performs any necessary research. Once that’s done, she begins to write, proofread, and ultimately publish her content.
A3. I use the Ann Handley method: write “The Ugly First Draft” draft, let it breathe, then rewrite and optimize. #ContentWritingChat
Don’t be afraid to write that ugly first draft! Brittany follows Ann Handley’s method by getting a first draft out, letting it rest for a while, then coming back to rewrite and optimize.
A3: Outlining posts, including calls-to-action before filling in information works great for us! #contentwritingchat
— Digital Natives Cast (@DgtlNativesCast) May 9, 2017
An outline can pave the way to a fantastic piece of content.
A3.
Gut
& analytics!
Balance
of:
what is proven to
be of interest
vs.
what I feel should
be addressed. #contentwritingchat
Tony likes to be ahead of schedule when it comes to content creation. He has an editorial calendar that allows him to plan and then create content in advance.
@ThinkSEM A3: I tend to keep seasonality in mind for posts. Timeliness. Tap into what people are searching for online. #ContentWritingChat
For Leah, she likes to keep seasonality in mind. This ensures you’re timely with the content you share and you can be sure it’ll appeal to your audience in that moment. Figure out what people are searching online and add those topics to your editorial calendar.
A3: Share valuable information. That’s the only formula we have. 🙂 #contentwritingchat
The number one formula we should all remember? Provide value to your readers.
Q4: What does SEO mean to you as a content writer?
To switch gears into the SEO focus of this week’s chat, we asked our participants to share what it means to them as content writers. Here’s what they had to say about SEO:
For Danielle, SEO mentions intentionally weaving keywords her audience is searching for into her content. She knows this is essential if she wants the right people to discover the content she creates.
Great way to look at it! SEO is something you have to deal with in order to let your content shine.
Q5: How do you determine the keywords you use within your posts?
When creating content for SEO, you need to determine the right keywords to use for the content you create. How do you go about that? Here are some helpful tips:
A5: I analyze which key words are performing best on Google Ads and purposely frame titles and topics to include them #ContentWritingChat
Create a list of potential keywords you can analyze, but make sure you go with something that your ideal audience will actually be searching for. Think about how they talk and how they would word their searches.
Choose a topic, then research keywords people are searching for that relate back to your topic. Once you have that ideal keyword, use it naturally throughout your copy.
A5: 1) Choose topic 2) keyword search 3) Apply in writing BUT write naturally for your reader? *pick keywords w/ volume #ContentWritingChat
Elizabeth starts by choosing a topic, conducting keyword research, and then writing while naturally sprinkling in her keyword. She says to pick keywords that have high volume so you know people are searching for what you’re writing about.
@ExpWriters A5: Google analytics, watch trending words/topics on all platforms, create some cross-platform appeal. #ContentWritingChat
Jeremy’s go-to strategy includes using Google Analytics, watching trending words and topics on platforms, and ultimately creating cross-platform appeal with his content.
A5: Remember your keywords are more than interest specific, they’re built for your audience. Build for potential reach #ContentWritingChat
Great answer from Jeff that we should all keep in mind when creating content for SEO.
Q6: What are your favorite lesser-known SEO tips you can share?
By now, we all know the basics of SEO. However, there’s always something else we can learn, so we asked everyone to share their favorite SEO tips that most people don’t seem to know about. Here’s what they had to say:
A6: Include links to previous posts you wrote on a topic to boost your key word relevance & ranking. It’s called siloing #ContentWritingChat
Danielle says to include links to previous posts you wrote on a topic. This will boost your keyword relevance and ranking. This technique is called siloing. If you aren’t already doing this, it’s time to get started. You can go through the blog posts in your archives and begin interlinking related posts right now.
Utilize the strategy of link building. You can guest post on other websites and include links back to posts you’ve written and published on your own blog. This helps to build quality backlinks to your blog and sends more traffic your way.
— Digital Natives Cast (@DgtlNativesCast) May 9, 2017
Don’t forget to add alt tags to the images in your blog posts. This tells search engines what your images are of and it’ll help them show up in search results.
Sarah says it requires her to focus on the larger picture. There’s no reason to post for the sake of posting. Everything should serve a purpose and be strategic.
A7. Used to believe in just writing good content for the sake of it. Content is pretty useless without a measurable goal #ContentWritingChat
Zala said it helps you understand the focus for your content. It also shows you how to make it valuable, relevant, serachable, and useful.
A7 Need to plan ahead, but also aware of trends and shifting patterns in SEO. Algorithim updates can make or break you #contentwritingchat
— Traffic Jam Media (@trafficjammedia) May 9, 2017
Plan ahead and be aware of trends and changes in SEO algorithms. You need to be on top of those changes to ensure you’re doing the right things when it comes to creating content for SEO.
Q8: What are your favorite tools and resources for SEO? Tag them!
The great thing is, there are plenty of tools and resources that will help you create content for SEO these days. Here are just some suggestions that will help you out:
While the purpose of content is to be helpful and useful for readers, it also needs to appear in search engines — otherwise, you’re losing out on the potential your content could have.
Like all types of online writing, however, learning how to write content for SEO is a skill that you must learn.
With this in mind, let’s dive into how to write content for SEO, and what proactive steps you can take to make your online content visible, relevant, and interesting.
How to Write Content for SEO: 7 Steps
Here’s a sneak peek at the 7 steps we’re going to cover in today’s blog.
1. Outline and ideate the content in your head before you write it.
2. Structure your content for easy readability & long-tail keywords.
3. Format all of your content into short chunks.
4. Make your headings descriptive.
5. Nail the transition.
6. Have other people proofread your posts.
7. Have other people proofread your posts.
8. Make sure your articles are long enough to provide ample main content.
[bctt tweet=” 70.6% of ALL web traffic comes from Google — a reason why SEO is critical for every business’s content marketing. No idea what SEO is? Don’t worry. @JuliaEMcCoy guides you through the basics on how you can write for SEO! ” username=”ExpWriters”]
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. By making online content easy for the crawlers of search engines like Google to understand, good SEO principals help written material rank more efficiently. They can even make it easier for readers to find your written material online!
There are two different segments of SEO: technical SEO and on-page SEO. While technical SEO refers to the links, structure, and code of a website, on-page SEO is the keyword inclusion, length, outbound links, images, and style of a post – all of which help Google “read” it and rank it accordingly.
Both technical and on-page SEO are methods of optimizing content and getting it to rank in a favorable manner. Common SEO tactics involve keyword research and inclusion, image optimization, link building, and content formatting.
How to Create Content That Supports Good SEO: 7 Formatting & Structure Tips
Today, good SEO and good content go hand-in-hand. If your content is poorly formatted, improperly structured, or carelessly thrown together, it’s going to be difficult to shape it into something that supports effective SEO. With that in mind, here are some tips to help you correctly develop all of your blog posts, starting now:
1. Outline and ideate the content in your head before you write it.
While nobody is saying you need to sit down and create a “brain map” of your various ideas, content that supports good SEO is the opposite of an impressionist painting. Instead of being random and sudden, it is methodical and categorical. Because of this, brainstorming content is a powerful way to ensure that you’re including all of your main points and topics, and that you can use the content to input links, keywords, and other important SEO elements.
To this end, think about all of your content, with these questions, before you write it:
Who are you trying to reach?
Which keywords will you include?
What’s the overall point of your material?
What do you want the content to communicate?
By thinking through the course and structure of your content clearly, it’s easier to publish great content that lends itself nicely to SEO.
2. Structure your content for easy readability & long-tail keywords.
Great blog posts rely on great structure, and good SEO does, too. With this in mind, consider mapping or outlining your blog posts before you write them. In addition to giving you a structure to abide by, this simple task will also help you lay out your introduction, body, and conclusion, and ensure that your content is easy to read, which, in turn, makes it more reader- and search engine-friendly.
A large brick of text is intimidating to readers, and it will push people away. With this in mind, be sure to divide all of your content into readable chunks of text, with a beginning, middle, and end.
As a general rule, paragraphs should be only 3-4 sentences in length, and you should do your best to insert subheaders at intervals of every 300 or so words. This makes your content easier for readers to approach and helps keep it from feeling intimidating on the page. It also has the potential to improve your click-through rate, which can boost your overall SEO scores.
Look through some posts here to see examples of readable content:
Beyond just using headings, you need to know how to make them descriptive and useful. Headlines are meant to guide readers through your blog post, and headlines that are highly descriptive and include target keywords will do the best job of this. They’ll also work as a sort of advertisement on Google’s search engine results page and, if they’re written well enough, will draw more people to your content.
5. Nail the transition.
Transition words are important to your writing, and they can go a long way toward making it smoother and easier to understand for readers. While this sounds simple, it’s important to remember that good content is the foundation of good SEO, and content your customers can’t read doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of ranking well.
With this in mind, don’t hesitate to use transition words and phrases like “However,” “Secondly,” etc. These help your readers keep pace and will work wonders to streamline your writing.
6. Have other people proofread your posts.
While you may be an effective writer and editor, having other people read your posts will cut down on errors and improve your writing. With this in mind, hire an editor or another writer to help you look over your post before you publish them. Don’t ever make a habit out of publishing something you’ve not adequately proofread since this is a recipe for mistakes and sloppiness, both of which can damage your rankings.
7. Make sure your articles are long enough to provide ample main content.
According to Yoast, every article you post should have at least 300 words. The reason for that is that content shorter than that doesn’t provide enough of what Google, in its updated Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, calls “main content.”
While it’s true that longer articles tend to perform better in the world of SEO, the main priority you have as a writer is simply to ensure that your articles provide enough main content to be useful to search engines and people.
[bctt tweet=”ℹ️ 7 SEO structure tips: outline your ideas, use long-tail keywords, make your content readable, make headings descriptive, ▶️ use transition words, and ☑️ get your content proofread by someone else. ℹ️ ” username=”ExpWriters”]
How to Write Content for SEO: 6 Critical Tips for all of Your Content
Once you’ve learned what it takes to develop content with a favorable SEO structure, let’s talk about what it takes to actually write content for SEO.
While some bloggers overlook SEO, you simply cannot afford to take this approach, especially in light of the fact that many of the things mentioned in this article, like page load time and ample amounts of quality main page content, are things that Google has been prioritizing with recent algorithm updates.
Designed to help you rank well in search engines and enjoy a wider audience, writing content for SEO is a critical part of becoming a well-known blogger in your given field.
1. Optimize your content to load quickly.
While it’s not an element of on-page SEO necessarily, page load time is a huge factor in the world of SEO, and there are certain steps you can take during the writing process to streamline load times. According to Neil Patel, 40% of people abandon web page when they take more than 3 seconds to load, so it’s essential to keep load time in mind as you craft your pages.
To determine how your site does in terms of load time, use a tool like the Pingdom website speed tool. It’s super easy to use. Just plug in your URL and location.
If the results aren’t quite what you had hoped for, there are a few things you can do to alter your on-page SEO and speed load times accordingly:
Optimize your images. Images are an important part of a good blog, and they’re critical for SEO, as well. When they’re too long, though, they can easily harm a page’s load times. With this in mind, optimize your images to load more rapidly. This involves adjusting your image sizes so that they’re not excessively large, uploading speed-friendly image formats (JPEGS are the best options), and inputting image src codes to prevent the browser from surveying the page directory in an attempt to “read” the image.
Keep redirects at bay.Redirects can destroy your page load time, so it’s important to keep them to the bare minimum. As much as you can, avoid citing URLs in your content that redirect to other URLs. This will help enhance your load time and create a better user experience.
2. Make your headlines powerful and attention-grabbing.
The headline is a huge asset when writing content for SEO. In addition to the fact that the headline is the first thing people see, it’s also one of the primary things that Google evaluates when ranking your sites. To ensure that your headlines are performing well and drawing readers, be sure to do the following:
Include relevant keywords. For best results, input your keyword phrase at the beginning of your headline to make it as prominent as possible.
Use action words. Action words make readers want to act. When your headline asks someone to click, share, or download, they’re more likely to do just that.
Address the reader directly.Addressing the reader directly makes your headlines more personal, and can grab a reader’s attention from the depths of the SERPs.
3. Write a fresh meta description and title.
Meta descriptions are the small snippets of descriptive text that show up in Google’s SERPs. If you want SEO juice, you CANNOT ignore this part.
For example, check out the meta description that appears for Express Writers in the SERPS.
While they’re easy to overlook, they’re critical for the health and wellbeing of your content’s SEO. To get the most from each meta description you write, include relevant keywords, direct your content to the reader personally, and keep it the right length (fewer than 160 characters) so that it doesn’t get truncated by Google.
While these may seem like simple steps, they’re essential to keep your meta descriptions on point and helpful to your readers.
4. Include keywords (in the right places).
Keywords used to be all the rage in the world of SEO. Today, the buzz has quieted a bit, but they’re still an important piece of on-page SEO. With this in mind, you’ll want to include relevant keywords in all of the writing you do, but take pains to not go too far with them and “stuff” your content like a Thanksgiving turkey.
As a general rule, your keyword or keyword phrase should be included in your title, subheaders, and throughout the body copy. While keyword density is only one of Google’s more than 200 ranking factors, it’s still an important thing to pay attention to and optimize for when you set out to write content for SEO.
Links are a powerful tool to help improve your SEO. While internal links (links that point back to your own content) can help direct users to your other material, external links (to high DA sources with a score of 50 or above) will help communicate to Google and other search engines that your website is authoritative and relevant, and that you value quality connections to other online content.
To use links correctly, attach them to relevant, non-stuffy anchor text and ensure that you’re using only the most relevant sites for your particular information.
6. Use the right tools and resources.
While it’s true that writing content for SEO can be tough, there are dozens of great tools and resources at your disposal. Consider using apps like the following to improve your content’s SEO and help it rank more effectively.
Yoast SEO. A simple WordPress plugin that helps optimize WordPress posts for SEO.
Hemingway. A simple app that helps writers simplify and clarify their content for enhanced readability.
The AMI Headline Analyzer. A tool that analyzes headlines and determines how emotive and impactful they are.
BuzzSumo. A powerful tool designed to help bloggers mine topics, track keywords, and located trending topics.
[bctt tweet=”ℹ️ 6 tips on how to write content for SEO: optimize your copy and images, ️ use catchy headlines, ✍️ make sure to write meta data, ️ use keywords, use high-quality links, and ⚒️ use the right tools. ℹ️” username=”ExpWriters”]
Conclusion: How to Write Content for SEO, Made Simple
While it’s true that writing content for SEO can be tough, these simple tips can give you the roadmap you need to make the process easier and more streamlined than ever before.
With good SEO content comes good rankings, more readers, and increased online visibility – which is great for your content and your company.
If you run a business, there’s no doubt you’ve been told you need to be busy on social media channels.
But, essentially you need to know that your efforts on those platforms are driving traffic to your website and making it quicker for customers to find you online. In short, you need to know you’re getting a return on investment.
The question is this: do social signals actually influence your SEO?
Social Engagement and SEO: The Answer Is Indirectly
Social media allows you the chance to impact your business’s SEO in an array of indirect ways.
How to Measure That Indirect Impact
Just because you can’t tie the indirect impact of SEO and social signs doesn’t mean it’s time to pack up shop and shut down all your social profiles. While there may not be a very specific formula for directly connecting SEO and social, it definitely doesn’t mean your social effort are futile.
Let’s say you have a ton of followers on Twitter. That doesn’t really guarantee that you’re going to enjoy higher ranks on Google and the other search engines. However, it also doesn’t mean that won’t change tomorrow.
For instance, in 2013 Google said that they did include social signals. A year later in 2014, they said they did not.
According to Justin Kirby, CaveSocial Co-Founder, if a business’s content tends to be drawing people from various social networks to your URL constantly, SERPS are going to view your content as respected and eventually your rankings will increase.
Social Is Much More than SEO Rankings
Increasing your business’s website rankings in search engines really shouldn’t be your only goal when it comes to social signals.
Just look at these other benefits:
Link building
Increased website traffic
Social profile growth
Content visibility
Each of these can, and will, contribute to increased rankings.
Now, SEO revolves around honest experiences and trustworthy brands which means your rankings get better as you provide quality content, delivered consistently from a variety of sources.
When you create a marriage between your social and content, you’ll see how your ranking and website traffic will improve.
Let’s not forget about social reputation and brand awareness, either.
“The correlation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high, and the number of social signals per landing page has remained constant when compared to with the values from last year’s whitepaper. … The top-ranked websites in Google’s rankings displays vastly more social signals than all other pages…. This is primarily due to the overlap between brand websites performing strongly in social networks and being allocated top positions by Google.”
Essentially, the more ways people are able to find you in search engines, the more you’re able to control your brands’ images. Simply open the first few pages of Google on a search of your product or brand. Be consistent in your efforts and you’ll be able to “own” some topics online with your killer content and, ultimately, your services and products.
So Many Reasons to Be Active on Social Media
While there may not be a clear recipe of what you should be doing on social for your efforts to affect SEO, that doesn’t mean social signals won’t affect SEO whatsoever.
There are plenty of reasons to be active on social, like engaging one-on-one with customers and growing your community. All the growth and social activity to see on your networks will lead to increase website traffic, increased interest in your offerings and more content views.
SEO Is Becoming More Dependent on Engagement
Human marketing, that is, having an online presence and engaging with your community, is good for all sorts of reasons. It’s especially good for your bottom line.
Search engines are hard at work building algorithms that are way more in tune with human thinking since at the end of the day, humans are the ones using the search engines. So the closer they get to being human, the better the results will be.
But don’t just take my word for it. Searchmetrics created a list of correlating factors between social signals and search engine positions.
What you can see here is that 8 out of 10 highest correlations between search engine positions and rankings are tied to social engagement factors. That means that those factors that tie in best with the search engine positioning is related to how people react to content on social media.
Human beings’ reactions on social media don’t happen because of numbers or because you’ve created a perfect site (from a technical viewpoint). It does happen because your content appeals to your audience; it resonates with them; they can relate. They’re human!
We could get into a whole heated debate about a link between causality and correlation. But there’s really one main thing we need to know: content that is likely to entice engagement has a better chance of higher rankings and content that ranks well will help your bottom line.
Matt Cutt’s Viewpoint
So, just how far is Google from using social media signals as factors for ranking? Can the SERPS use follower and engagement metrics from the likes of Facebook and Twitter to evaluate an individual’s authority?
The answers to those questions were certainly buried in the headlines in Matt Cutt’s video.
Supporting what Matt had to say, Google’s John Mueller has categorically stated Google doesn’t use social signals in its search ranking factors.
Okay, so let’s go in depth into Matt Cutt’s comments to try to understand why Google doesn’t do so.
Do Twitter and Facebooks Signals Play a Part in Google’s Ranking Algorithms?
That’s what Matt Cutts answered in the video. Let’s break it down.
1. Twitter and Facebook posts are treated like other web pages
Every individual tweet on Twitter, for example, is a standalone website in Google’s eyes. On Facebook, a re-share, a status update and even a link share are all “pages” on their own to Google.
What we need to understand here is unspoken implication. While a lot of people assume Google tries to index every single page on the World Wide Web, this isn’t true.
While the search engine’s resources are certainly vast, there are limits. What’s more, with the rate at which web pages increase, Google recognizes that not every page is equally valuable, if at all. So the search engine builds its own crawling bots algorithms in order to be selective in what to crawl.
2. Google is limited in how much social web it crawls
Matt has made it clear that Google can’t always crawl all the pages on social sites.
However, while Google can see every tweet posted in real time, for example, doesn’t mean they do actually index every tweet. In a study conducted in June 2015, it was found that Google still indexes less than 4% of all tweets.
3. Social signal correlations that have higher rankings for sites don’t equal causation of those rankings
Matt has made something very clear that caused a bit of a stir: several sites, particularly Moz and SearchMetrics, have published correlation studies depicting social signals like Google+1s and Facebook Likes as arguably one of the highest correlating factors for those sites that rank highly on Google. This has led many people to jump to the conclusion that social signals are the cause of higher rankings.
Then there’s the level-headed Cyrus Shepard from Moz who tried to explain that an associating factor doesn’t necessarily need to be a causal factor. The more likely explanation is that sites that seem to get higher social engagement tend to be sites that attract a lot of other signals that do contribute to their search ranking power.
What’s important to keep in mind is that social media exposure tends to increase the opportunities that sites will indeed link to your content.
4. Be active on social media to build your brand and drive traffic
According to Matt, there are some really valid reasons for being active on social platforms, whether or not social has an impact on rankings.
Marry up good network building and an active social presence and you’ll soon notice a growing brand reputation, the development of authority and trust, better customer service and increased traffic to your sites via the conversations you have and the links you post.
5. It all needs to be a long-term project
This is really important.
During the three year experiment of Google Authorship (which may just be coming back), one of the hot topics in the world of SEO was “author rank” – that is, the idea that Google could use the author’s individual authority for given topics as a factor in search ranking.
But Matt Cutts has made it clear in the video why using individuals’ authority as a ranking is a long-term goal for Google. Establishing a person’s identify and verifying it is hard.
Social Engagement and SEO – It’s All a Bit Like a Fine Wine
Google is incredibly careful in their search results. There is absolutely no incentive for them to rush an unreliable or incomplete signal into their ranking factors. In fact, there are enough disincentives to put them off.
Precisely evaluating and measuring the complex signals that could indicate how authoritative an organization or individual is on social media, particularly with regards to certain topic areas, is massively complex and made even more difficult when major areas where these signals exist are difficult for Google to get to.
This doesn’t mean that Google doesn’t value these signals. Every single indication we have had from Google spokespeople, has been that certain areas of social signals as well as authors as subject authorities continue to be areas of intense interest for the search engine.
In fact, during his 2013 Pubcon keynote speech in Las Vegas, Matt mentioned that social signals shouldn’t be looked at for short term benefits like direct ranking, but rather as long term efforts. In other words, over time the search engines will start watching who consistently gets great social signals over and over again as an indication of who is a trustworthy authority figure.
Just like a reputable wine maker wouldn’t serve a fine wine before its time, the search engines aren’t going to serve ranking factor before its time. While social signals are definitely important, and active use of social media has become essential, you need to be investing in them for the long-term.
You need to know that if you build real value that people will value, overtime, that is going to become valuable to the search engines as well.
Social Media Channels Are Search Engines
We think that social engagement already ties into SEO rankings.
People these days don’t just head over to a search engine to look something up, they use social media channels. Check out this article on why social is the new SEO.
So let’s say you’re active on Twitter. Then it is possible that people will find your business’s new content after searching for market-related tweets with Twitter’s search function. Likewise, brands that make use of stunning visual content can benefit from making that content visible on Instagram and Pinterest by categorizing their pins and using hashtags.
What’s more, if someone wants to look up your company, they’re more likely to open up Facebook and Twitter to do a quick search and check out your presence on each platform.
If Not Now, Definitely Soon
Ultimately, the World Wide Web is all about relationship building, expressing your identity, fostering audiences and sharing ideas. It’s intrinsically social and there is absolutely no reason why SEO best practices would chose to go against the grain – particularly since the rules governing SEO are supposed to make the web a more useful and enjoyable place.
Does social engagement really tie into SEO rankings? We sure think so – but right now, there’s no clear way to measure it.
What’s your take on it? Let us know in the comments!
Wait just a second – isn’t content for SEO purposes? What does my odd title mean? Well, yes, content is great for SEO, and SEO is just one of several reasons why you should be using content. Goodness knows we’ve talked about the importance of content for SEO multiple times. However, it isn’t the only reason. You need to craft content that reaches your audience both on and offline, and it needs to be high quality and engaging.
That said, how do you craft content that doesn’t primarily focus on SEO, while still putting out content that’s excellent enough for Google to #1 it? This blog is going to take a look at this, as well as help you craft excellent, engaging copy for your website and social media sites. Following these suggestions could help turn several of those clicks into excellent leads and long-term customers.
SEO is Just One of Many Reasons for Content
It might seem like the only reason most companies utilize content is for SEO, so why can’t you? It does look like it works, especially at the beginning. However, when you focus your content solely on SEO purposes, you can eventually lose your readership. There is nothing quite as boring as reading a piece written only to trigger the search engines and bring people to the site.
Yes, SEO is a great reason for a content campaign, but it is not the only one on the market. There are several other reasons that combine to create an incredible formula of success. Take a quick look at my blogs; I write them for you specifically without focusing too much on SEO. I do take it into consideration. I like ranking in Google searches (who doesn’t?). However, I also want you to find something of immense value and that is the true goal of content.
What Happens if You Only Focus on Content for SEO?
The main thing that can happen is you can lose your readership. This is something discussed in several blogs about SEO. “Don’t keyword stuff because readers won’t appreciate it,” “don’t write for the bots because of readers.” Your readership is vital to the success of your business. Another important reason is if you only focus on the SEO aspect of your content, you can eventually be penalized by Google. Do you see now why it is vital to your business to only use content for SEO as one reason?
How Else Can You Use Content?
Now that you’ve seen just how important it is to not focus solely on SEO, you might be wondering how else you can use your content. Let me look at two important ways to use content for your business:
To Reach Your Followers Online. One of the reasons for writing web content is that it gives the ability to reach your followers easily through the Internet. The online world gives all companies the unique ability to meet customers where they are. This could be if the customer is on a train commuting to work, at Disney Land, or as they marathon House, M.D. on Netflix. No matter where you customer is, you can use your web content to reach them quickly. When you only focus on SEO, you still might reach them, but you won’t be able to retain them, which can be detrimental.
Use it to Grow Your Business Both On and Offline. When using web content, not only can you reach people online, but you can grow your business offline. How can online web content grow your business off of the World Wide Web? Simple – word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing gets your business to other people who may never have known about it at all.
What will happen is one customer likes a product or service, and they will tell their friends and family members who will then tell their friends or family members. The cycle continues until it grows into a great client base. This can also happen on social media, and, as the Forbes article I linked to says, it is one of the most important elements in your social media marketing campaign.
Tips on Creating Excellent Content That isn’t Just for SEO
Just how can you create killer content your audience will enjoy without solely focusing on SEO? Let’s take a quick refresher course on a few ways to help your company both on and offline.
Know Your Audience. One of the most vital parts of creating content that doesn’t just focus on SEO is knowing who your audience is and what they want to read. This will take some researching, but it can be done. This will help you craft excellent content that will be shared on social media, helping with one aspect of word of mouth marketing. If you truly know your audience, they will feel comfortable with your company and will be willing to tell others about it. A few ways to research your audience are:
Create specific questions to help you truly learn about them.
Sending out customer surveys for your audience to fill out.
Meeting with clients and hosting a sort of online town hall to get a feel for what they want.
Research your audience on social media and what they are saying about you.
Write for Your Readers. When you focus your content solely on SEO purposes, you miss the biggest mark for successful content – writing for your readers. You can write your content with SEO in mind, but readers are going to notice if you are trying to rank. The best way to write for them is to follow point one and research them, but to also write naturally. “Talk” to your audience by using pronouns and create a relationship. Write on topics they find interesting and give them valuable information that they don’t feel they can get elsewhere. A great way to write for your readers is to use their language or “voice” in your content. This will establish a great connection with them, but also make the content easier for them to read.
Write on Interesting Topics. Your content provides you with a chance to write on relevant and interesting topics. It helps keep your website up-to-date and fresh, which is something your readership will greatly appreciate. Creating fresh content might sound a bit difficult to do, especially since you’re incredibly busy with other business tasks. However, it is possible. A few ways to ensure you are writing quality, fresh content for your readers are:
Researching your audience as in point one.
Writing on topics that you are passionate about. Writing from the heart is a great way to connect with your client base.
Take inspiration from other great writers. This can be classic authors like Mary Shelley or modern authors like Neil Gaiman. You can also garner inspiration from films, television shows, and following trendy people online such as George Takei.
Write Content that is Engaging. A great way to write excellent content that doesn’t just focus on SEO is to write engaging pieces. Engaging content is a great way to attract more readers and convert visitors to leads. A few ways to write engaging content are to:
Write strong headlines for your pieces to get clicks.
Create unique pieces to retain the visitors you receive.
Give people answers to their questions.
Always source your material and do proper research before writing your content and hitting publish.
Add other forms of content such as images, videos, and infographics. This can help break up all of your text while giving people something easy to share.
Continually update your website and blog to keep people engaged. If your website stays the same for a long time, it will grow stale. If you don’t update your blog regularly, it too will go stale. You need to make sure to keep your content fresh.
Create Content You Want to Promote. You can easily tell your content is excellent if you want to promote it, according to AuthorityLabs.com. If you are writing content you don’t enjoy, and that you don’t have the desire to show others, then it is obviously not a quality piece. When crafting content, make sure you are creating something you want to share and always make sure it is something you would find interesting if you happened across it on the web. This goes for your web content, as well as social media content. Make something interesting that will grab your followers’ attention!
As you can see, it is vital to create excellent content and not use it just for SEO purposes. You want to convert those clicks that come from your basic SEO practices into leads and the best way to do that is have great content. Take this into mind as you start creating your content campaign and make sure that you focus on your readers along with SEO as you start crafting future pieces. You will be quite pleased with the results! Photo credit: zakokor / iStock
PubCon is the top social media and optimization conference: it’s supported by the top businesses, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors involved in social media, Internet marketing, search engines, and digital advertising agencies. (Yes, one day I’ll make it to one.) This awesome event always offers an in depth look at the future of technology, as envisioned by the top-speakers, in cutting edge sessions. Moreover, at PubCon Vegas 2014, a noteworthy speaker made it widely known that content marketing and SEO are irrevocably joined at the hip.
At the recent PubCon in Las Vegas, Carolyn Shelby spoke about how content marketing and SEO are inextricably linked. Shelby is the Director of SEO and SEM for Tribune Publishing. She also works for six Tribune newspapers, plus the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune. She has been in the industry since 1994, and she has been professionally designing and developing websites for nonprofits and a diverse variety of businesses since 1995. She consults, she speaks, and she isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty with hard online work. Her specialty is rehabbing underperforming and outdated websites. In addition, her appearance at PubCon sheds some new light on SEO as content marketing.
What are SEO and Content Marketing?
As you know, SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a specific website or web page in a SERP’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. Lee Odden, an industry expert from the Content Marketing Institute, recently described SEO as “a customer focused content marketing program.” He went on to say that it’s like a “sandwich” in which “SEO is the mayonnaise.” Although the mayo touches just about everything and enhances the sandwich’s flavor, it’s not exactly appetizing on its own.
Content marketing is marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media content in order to draw in and retain customers. You might liken it to the bread of Odden’s sandwich. Good quality bread can really make a sandwich and complement its contents. While the bread may be scrumptious all on its own, it’s usually the contents of the sandwich that lead us to eating it.
Why You Need SEO in Content Marketing
If SEO is like mayo and content marketing is like bread, then obviously both are important. In her segment at PubCon, Carolyn Shelby listed the following reasons for why you need SEO in your content marketing:
It helps identify the goals for your marketing, and it creates a performance benchmark
It helps you select your themes and topics through good old-fashioned keyword research
It assists you in writing that unbelievably amazing, on topic content
It allows you to decide where to distribute and promote your content for the best visibility to your target audience
It gives you the capability to run reports that show your ROI
However, these aren’t the only reasons you need SEO and content marketing as a combo. Regardless of what people say, SEO and content marketing aren’t duking it out to see which species survives to the next step of cyber evolution. We’re not looking at survival of the fittest or a corporate takeover. We’re staring at a merger.
The people who go around pushing “Content Marketing vs. SEO” are chomping at the bit to pit them against each other like a couple of prizefighters. Not only do they want you to pick a side, but they also need you to do so. Do I have your attention?
SEO versus Content Marketing
The apparent implication comes across that, in order to be wise with your digital marketing budget, you have no choice but to choose between hiring only one type of specialist over the other. In this case, it’s the SEO guru over the content marketing king. Maybe you have a $3,000 budget dedicated to marketing to allocate as seen best fit per month. The dilemma then becomes, do you put your eggs into the content marketing or SEO basket?
The only way this makes any kind of sense is if the intended SEO in question is of the black-hat variety. Black-hat SEOs were indeed a booming, albeit questionable, business practice for years. Today, their methods are entirely unethical, ineffective, and downright dangerous to your SEO strategies. Search engines don’t take too kindly to websites caught running a black-hat SEO tactic and they penalize those found guilty of doing so accordingly. It can be disastrous.
The truth is white-hat SEO practices are tried and true methods of increasing visibility and ultimately readership, thus leading to conversion. One of the most talked about white-hat SEO methods is creating and publishing high quality content. Guess what? We just stepped into the domain of a seasoned content marketer. There is no choice between SEO and content marketing. They work together. In fact, awesome content is quickly turning into the ultimate SEO tool!
SEO as Content Marketing: Two Sides of a New Coin
Savvy online marketing professionals should come to the conclusion that content marketing and SEO are the two key contributors in an enterprise-focused marketing strategy. If your website is lacking in one or both of these areas, it has to be brought up to par.
SEO experts shouldn’t be living in fear of the extinction of the craft they’ve worked so hard to build. Their roles will continue to be vital for a brand’s marketing strategy because they know better than anyone that effective, ethical SEO can’t happen without the necessary content to optimize. And where the content gurus know the ins and outs of epic content—like citations and internal linking going SEO viral—the SEOs know how to get search engines to see that content.
We all strive to create high quality content with the intention of supporting our marketing objectives. If done properly, an integral part of our execution strategies will be focused on creating optimizations that will increase the probability of our content being discovered on search engine result pages.
As it stands, claiming that SEO and content marketing are two separate marketing tactics with no interaction is akin to saying that headlines and copy are mortal enemies. However, as Google continues to perfect the search users’ experience, content is taking on new meaning. One might even go as far as saying, as Shelby did at PubCon, that SEO is becoming the new content marketing. Content marketing is huge!
Baskets Be Gone
Remember how we talked about the content marketing and SEO baskets? One of the greatest struggles is that of a majority of people attempting to distinguish between various tactics by putting them into separate baskets. In truth, as SEO becomes the new content marketing, we are effectively merging the two baskets to create one—a better one. Ideally, instead of seeing each one as an individual entity, they should be seen as an aspect of one strategic, overarching process.
Our SEO can literally hand us vital information about our target audience. The performance of our SEO can indicate which content is working and which is not. Shelby pointed out that the Tribune Content Agency actually leverages their SEO as an influencer and informer on behalf of their overall content strategy. That strategy encompasses everything from topic selection to the actual content creation and its placement.
Content is King…
…but it needs SEO to reign supreme. The fundamental element in marketing is and always has been content. As we move forward, content should continue to serve as the basic foundation of your online marketing strategy. Google wants high quality content, and their every algorithm update supports that desire. But it’s not just the wishes of the almighty SEO setter. It’s the wants of audiences around the globe. They want relevancy, but they want awesome content, too.
Content is king, but it should be populated with vital information expertly tailored to speak the language of your intended audience. At the same time, it must adequately and accurately address the problems and desires that are at the forefront of your audience’s mind. It must offer value; otherwise, it is worthless. Content must be able to answer whatever questions your audience has, alleviate their fears, and encourage them to action.
Here’s the thing: the accomplishment of your content marketing goals, according to Shelby, hinges on your SEO. You can’t have one without the other. Regardless of whether your content marketing goal is to build brand awareness, beef up your site’s content inventory, generate that fuzzy feeling, or offer up some link bait, it’s all for not without at least some SEO.
So, before you go separating your 2015 budgets and contemplating which is more important, stop! SEO becoming the new content marketing is happening. To choose one over the other is to choose a disadvantage. Regardless of whether you’re taking the plunge to outsourcing your content creation and/or SEO or not, you have a mission. Be sure to make room for both content marketing and SEO. It’s the only way you can have your cake and eat it too!
