Comprehensive SEO content strategy to elevate your rankings

By Sarah Jones|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |Comments Off on Comprehensive SEO content strategy to elevate your rankings

 

 

Ciao, my friend! Let me tell you, a robust SEO content creation process is like the secret sauce in Mamma’s spaghetti. It’s essential for increasing brand visibility, engaging visitors at every stage of their journey, and driving those qualified leads into your sales funnel. But listen, it’s not just about creating great content but mixing those SEO best practices to dominate Google’s SERP rankings. So, grab your espresso, sit back, and let’s craft an SEO content strategy that aligns perfectly with your business objectives and capisce.

 

By: Ryan Walsh

Date: 29/07/2024

 

Content Advice, Keyword Research, Marketing Strategies

 

Introduction to SEO Content Strategy

 

Ah, my dear friend, understanding SEO content goes far beyond producing high-quality content. While quality is crucial, you must invest time in incorporating SEO best practices to improve Google’s SERP rankings. This guide provides an SEO content checklist to help you demonstrate your content’s quality, relevance, and authority, ensuring it reaches your target audience effectively. Andiamo, let’s dive into this beautiful world of SEO and make your content shine!

 

Identifying valuable topics in your niche

Effective topic ideation and validation

 

Selecting suitable topics is the cornerstone of effective SEO content, my friend. It’s essential to understand your audience and what they seek.

Your content should address their needs within your core expertise area. Imagine you’re a chef and need to know what your diners crave to create a menu that keeps them coming back for more.

 

Topic Brainstorming Checklist:

 

To start, identify your audience’s pain points and create content that provides solutions.

Use keyword research tools to explore relevant topics. Consult your customer service teams to understand common inquiries. Analyse web analytics to identify high-performing content.  Stay updated with industry trends. Monitor social media to understand your audience’s concerns. Share case studies and original research to add credibility.

 

Did you know, my friend, that according to HubSpot, businesses that blog generate 67% more monthly leads than those that don’t?

 

Conducting comprehensive keyword research

Building your content around keywords

 

Does SEO content revolve around keywords and capisce? Google uses these keywords to match web pages to user queries. Conducting thorough keyword research is crucial for this process. Think of keywords as the spices in your recipe – without them, your dish would be bland and forgettable.

 

Keyword Research checklist:

 

Generate general topics related to your business (these are your seed keywords).

Use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to find related search terms for each theme. Evaluate keywords for traffic potential and competition. Aim for a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords with varying volumes of search interest and keyword difficulties. Organise keywords into topic clusters and plan content to meet the search intent behind the keywords.

 

Here’s a spicy fact: 50% of search queries are four words or longer. Long-tail keywords are the linguine to your SEO Alfredo! Those long, specific phrases can help you capture niche markets and highly interested audiences.

In-Depth content research

 

With over 30 billion indexed web pages, matching search intent while creating engaging content is vital.

Research is not just about providing accurate information; it’s about understanding people-first content. Think of it like preparing a dish – you must know the ingredients and the best way to combine them to satisfy your guests.

 

 

Crafting new and engaging content

Strategic Content Creation

 

Understanding why someone might search for your keywords helps determine where they are in the buyer’s journey.

Use this insight to choose the correct content format—articles, FAQs, how-tos, or reviews—and create engaging SEO content. It’s like choosing the suitable dish for the right occasion; you need to know what will delight your guests.

 

Content Creation Checklist:

 

Define your topic and its purpose

Develop an organised outline with SEO-optimised headers and supporting points for each section. Write compelling, focused content using your expertise and authoritative sources. Follow the outline to keep your article focused. Use an appropriate tone for the piece and make the article easy to consume and compelling to read.

SEO content tools can help with readability and flow.

 

Businesses prioritising blogging are 13 times more likely to achieve a positive ROI.

That’s like getting a free dessert with your meal! It’s all about providing value, keeping your audience engaged, and coming back for more.

Prioritising Reader Value

 

Google’s helpful content system prioritises original, valuable content.

Aim to provide information that readers can apply directly to their situations. It’s like giving them a secret family recipe – helpful, something they can use and appreciate.

 

Helpful Content SEO Checklist:

 

Offer comprehensive answers and detailed solutions.

Provide downloadable guides and templates. Share real-life examples, original research, and unique viewpoints. Identify and fill topic gaps in top-ranking pages. Enhance your content with videos, charts, and graphs.

 

Did you know?

Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media. It’s like the tiramisu of your content strategy—everyone wants a piece! Ensure your content is informative, visually appealing, and shareable.

Adhering to EEAT Principles

 

Google’s human raters assess content based on experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT). It’s like a judge in a cooking competition – they’re looking for the best of the best.

 

EEAT Checklist:

 

Highlight personal knowledge and industry achievements to demonstrate experience. Showcase certifications, accreditations, and relevant credentials to meet the expertise guidelines. Establish your business as a respected source to demonstrate authoritativeness. Ensure your website is secure and professional to build trustworthiness.

 

Remember, 85% of consumers conduct online research before making a purchase.

 

Natural Keyword Integration and Optimisation

 

Search engines now understand the context better, making keyword stuffing unnecessary. Instead, focus on natural keyword integration to enhance readability and SEO performance. It’s like adding just the right amount of seasoning – not too much, not too little.

Here’s a fact:

Websites with robust keyword strategies see a 5.66 times higher conversion rate. That’s like hitting the SEO jackpot! Proper keyword placement can significantly improve your search engine rankings and user experience.

 

Editing, Proofreading, and Internal Linking

 

Before publishing, make sure your content is polished and error-free, like a fine Italian wine. Use internal links to help Google understand your site structure and improve user experience. It’s like organising your ingredients and kitchen tools – everything needs to be in place.

 

Editing Checklist:

 

Check for spelling and grammar mistakes.

Review content for clarity and flow. Ensure formatting and stylistic consistency. Align content with brand voice and tone. Verify facts and statistics.

Optimise for on-page SEO elements like keywords, meta titles, descriptions, and structured data.

 

Internal Link Checklist:

 

Link new content to older articles.

Use primary keywords as anchor text for business-critical pages. Recommend related content to keep users engaged. This helps improve your site’s navigation and keeps visitors exploring your content.

 

Did you know?

Internal linking can boost your page views by 40%. It’s like offering more delicious courses at dinner – people can’t resist! Proper internal linking helps with SEO and enhances the user experience by guiding them through your content.

 

Calls to Action

 

External links to authoritative sources enhance credibility, while clear CTAs can boost engagement and conversions, like the perfect ending to a beautiful meal. It’s all about creating trust and guiding your visitors towards taking action.

 

External Links Checklist:

 

Choose reputable and original research sources. Use descriptive anchor text. Ensure you’re linking to recent studies and articles—open links in new windows. Use external links only when they add value to your content or back up your claims.

 

CTA Checklist:

 

Structuring content effectively

 

A well-structured page aids both readers and search engines.

Use headers, short paragraphs, and lists to make content easily digestible. It’s all about creating a seamless and enjoyable experience for your audience.

 

Content Structuring Checklist:

 

Use H2s, H3s, and H4s to organise content. Keep paragraphs concise for easy skimming. Use bulleted and numbered lists to summarise vital points. Highlight important information with visual elements like bold and italic fonts, pull quotes, and summary boxes.

 

 

Post-Launch Promotion and Maintenance

 

After publishing, promote your content to attract traffic and ensure it stays up to date, like a well-tended vineyard. It’s not enough to create great content; you need to get it in front of the right audience.

 

Post-Launch Checklist:

 

Submit pages through Google Search Console to request indexing.

Distribute content through social media and email marketing. Add internal links to your new content from your older content. Monitor performance using analytics tools like GA4.

 

Content Freshness Checklist:

 

Regularly review and audit your content inventory. Update out-of-date information. Cite newer research and studies if available. Check for broken links.

 

Here’s a spicy statistic: Fresh content can boost organic traffic by 111%. Keep it fresh like basil in your garden! Regular updates ensure that your content remains relevant and valuable to your audience.

 

Partner With an SEO Content Expert

 

Creating top-performing content requires attention to detail, from topic selection to demonstrating quality to Google. Our team can help customise your content strategy, ensuring all SEO checkboxes are ticked. Contact us today for a free consultation to learn how to create content that resonates with your audience, optimises your pages, and achieves your business goals.

 

By following this comprehensive guide, you can create an SEO content strategy that improves your search rankings and effectively engages your audience, driving meaningful results for your business. Buona fortuna, my friend!

What does Google E-EAT mean, and how has it changed search engine optimisation (SEO)?

By Sarah Jones|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |Comments Off on What does Google E-EAT mean, and how has it changed search engine optimisation (SEO)?

 

If your business wants to get onto the first page of Google.co.uk, you must understand the principles of Google E-EAT.

This is paramount because it’s what Google’s algorithms use to assess how well-written the content marketing is on your website.

So, before putting your hands on the keyboard and writing your first blog post, you must understand the acronym Google E-EAT and its meaning. This will help you to write better quality content marketing, which can help your business to rank higher in Google’s search engine results pages.

 

Written by: Ryan Walsh
Date: 10/07/2024
Topic: On-page SEO

 

Introduction

In a nutshell, Google E-EAT stands for “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness”.

Google introduced this into the “Search Quality Rater guidelines” back in 2014. So it’s nothing new, but something all copywriters, businesses, and SEO agencies need to know about. Then, in 2022, Google added Experience to the acronym. We will discuss how this changed how companies should implement organic search engine optimisation.

We must consider the Google E-EAT signals as a significant factor Google uses to determine where a page should rank in the search results. This is not a minor ranking factor, like alt text, which is entirely different. E-EAT is used to evaluate the whole page’s quality to assess where it should rank in the search results.

 

Achieving and maintaining high search rankings

Getting to the top of Google is not straightforward; it’s like climbing Mount Everest. It’s a lot of work, yet we must persevere with grit and determination. It would be best if you had a good understanding of how Google’s algorithm works; therefore, as E-EAT is an integral part of that, you need to understand what the E-EAT acronym means, what the Google Helpful Content Update is, and why Google is now looking at every single page on a granular basis to assess is a good quality or not.

If your pages are generally of good quality, you can see an organic uplift in your business rankings, but if the quality is not good, this can mean your business is moved back down to the organic results.

 

What Does E-EAT Mean?

Can you tell us precisely what Google E-EAT means? What are the means, and how should they be introduced into SEO marketing strategy?

 

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Google wants to serve the best possible answer to a question

It doesn’t matter if it’s finding a local dog walking company or you’re looking for a divorce solicitor- Google (Alphabet) wants to present the best, most comprehensive answer to any query.
Google will want to use proven businesses where the pages have a meagre bounce rate, high dwell time, and a lot of (do-follow and no-follow) backlinks leading to them.

You also need to assess whether the text on the page is written by somebody who understands what they’re talking about or if it’s just a marketing waffle. This is where Google E-EAT comes in a framework Google uses to scan over the page and determine whether it is good quality information. For example, Google E-EAT will ask questions such as, who’s the author? Have they got a good understanding of what they are talking about? How many good-quality links lead to that page?

 

Google’s Knowledge Vault and Entity-Building

Essential things are interconnected; for example, celebrities will be interconnected with films they’ve made, who they have married, where they live, and significant life effects, such as if they won the BAFTA awards.
The significant things are known as “entities.” They are people, events, and products, and they will be interconnected to other things. Google understands these entities well, which is why Google’s Knowledge Vault and GoogleBot constantly crawl and index new information.

Therefore, the point we’re trying to make here is that if a page offers excellent information, contains mentions about entities, and shows that the person knows what they’re talking about because they’ve gone in-depth, really pushed the boat out and made an effort to offer a good quality answer to a question, and followed the advice in Google’s E-EAT, then Google rewards these pages with higher rankings; therefore, Google’s E-EAT is simply a framework evaluating whether that page is good quality or not.

 

Google’s Rank Brain

Google uses Google E-EAT to evaluate whether the content marketing on the page is good quality. It is written by somebody who doesn’t know how to engage the reader, or if it’s a boring read. It’s a bit like reading a book written by a professor at a University, it might be written to offer an in-depth answer, but it’s not that interesting to read; a lot of technical language is used, which alienates the reader, and they don’t know what the page is talking about, and the reader loses interest in reading any more, because the work is tedious, or overly technical, well this page will have a low dwell time a high bounce rate.

 

Google RankBrain and Google E-EAT.

This is why this SEO agency firmly believes that Google E-EAT is using the framework to evaluate whether the information is of good quality and how interested the reader is in reading the work through Google RankBrain.
For example, Google RankBrain will want to know what the bounce rate is for that page and how high dwell time is. These are all critical factors that Google’s algorithm uses to determine whether a page is of good quality or not.

 

Here’s what you need to know about Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and
Trustworthiness:

 

Experience

 

Does the person show in-depth experience of that particular product or service?

For example, a builder describes their services, explaining how they add property extensions to a house have they explain the construction process in an in-depth way.

When the copywriters work with a builder; they will be able to clearly show in-depth knowledge of the process, explaining step-by-step how the extension is built from the ground works through to writing about the roofing tiles being added.

Google’s algorithm can examine the page, use semantic SEO, examine the keywords on the page, and clearly ascertain whether or not the person knows what they are talking about. For example, if the author when they are writing about the construction process, of a new property extention if they mention breeze blocks, certain tiles, electrics first fixing, and plasterboard. All of these things are interconnected with making a property extension and the construction process, so it shows to Google’s algorithm that the person know to some level, what they are talking about.

You also need to write in such a way that engages the reader. Say if the reader spends over three minutes on average reading each page, so it’s clear to Googles algorithms the dwell time is high, Google’s Rank brain shows that you have engaged the reader. As of this page, it moves up the SERPs.

 

Expertise

Does the text show that the person clearly knows what they are talking about, and it is effortless for them to explain something to a customer. For example when you sit in front of a highly qualified barrister or solicitor; they should be able to convey complicated areas of law simply.

On the other hand, if the website is content-thin, has a small amount of text, then you cant expect to rank well in the SERPs. So you need to work with expert in their related field, who really know your stuff, and use their knowledge, expertise, advice and make sure that this is placed into the article.

 

Google’s Helpful Content Update

Google’s Helpful Content Update clearly shows that Google prioritises content marketing that will be helpful to the customer, that’s gone to the extra mile, to offer useful information that the customer will want.

Therefore, gone are the days of trying to push a product down a customer neck; instead, you have to walk in the customers’ shoes and help make their buying decision- by offering helpful and useful information . Content marketing must be helpful, insightful, and written by an expert.

If it’s not helpful, and you keep mentioning keywords all the time in a feeble attempt to try and get the business onto the first page of Google though black hat methods of SEO; well this attempt will not work- it will most likely result in the business incurring a big fat, Google penalty.

 

Authoritativeness

If your website offers high-quality information, such as excellent and well-written blog posts, you could attract many do-follow and no-follow backlinks to your company’s website.

Your website’s authority can improve as you accumulate more good-quality links.
As any good SEO consultant will tell you, links, also referred to as backlinks, are still one of the most important ranking factors.

This means Google deems links necessary when determining where to rank your business in the SERPs.
So, if you want your business to appear on page one of Google, you often need quality links.

 

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is an arbitrary factor but an important aspect of Google’s E-EAT.
Therefore, Google will be trying to decipher whether a company’s website can be trusted.
For example, are you happy to include credit card details on the website?

 

• Does a show company address?
• Is the website secure in terms of having a padlock within the browser?
• Is it clear if there is contact information, such as a company phone number?
• How many positive reviews are there on the likes of Trust Pilot, for example?
• Is there a Google Business profile, and if so, how many positive reviews does it have?

 

Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

The Google E-EAT framework initially came from this: “the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines”.

The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, published by Google, is a comprehensive document that provides detailed insight into how Google evaluates a page’s quality. It covers various aspects, such as content relevance, user experience, and trustworthiness, which are crucial for SEO. So, before you go burning the midnight oil writing a very long article, we highly recommend reading this document, “The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines”.

 

SEO strategists

If your business is based in Cardiff, what’s to improve your organic search engine optimisation, then do call us today:
We can help improve the following aspects of your company’s SEO:

– Backlinks
– Content marketing
– Technical SEO
Call us today, and we can offer you a free, no-obligation quotation.