If you are tackling the inbound market plan, Your Buyer Persona’s preferences and issues should be the determining factor in the content you write, regardless of which part in the process they are at. The method of planning your content marketing strategy will be the same.
Content is King
A term that has been circulating since 1996 due to Bill Gates and later repeated by Google’s then Matt Cutts. The idea is it is that content is the king. The notion that content must be the primary focus is familiar to marketers. It’s been proven for a long time that content is the primary component of developing an SEO strategy. However, in the last few years, SEO strategies have focused more on content than ever.
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What is SEO-Friendly Content?
The content deemed SEO-friendly has been developed in response to search behavior or a search phrase or is optimized for a particular keyword either during or after the content’s creation. These two methods result in content optimized to be more effective on organic search results for a targeted keyword or group of keywords.
Content marketing is always benefited by taking SEO into account while creating content. Making SEO-friendly content requires various approaches and initiatives, but there are two primary ways SEO could and should impact the workflow of your content:
SEO-Fuelled Content Idea GenerationIf you’re looking for content ideas, you’re in the right place. SEO can provide you with a wealth of ideas for content by conducting keyword analysis. The SEO-led or keyword-driven approach is a good start because the content you create will be affected by your audience’s search habits. Understanding what they are looking for and how they look for it will influence how you approach the subject and will aid in developing content that is well-optimized.
The keyword research process will determine which keywords are searched for the most frequently by the search engines of your targeted group and help make your content more focused on a particular element or problem your Buyer Persona has difficulty with. The steps you can use this method for creating content:
- Use the Keyword Planner or Moz’s Keyword Tool to list keywords for your primary product or service.
- Sort the keywords output according to the volume of searches and competition.
- Choose the words that are suitable for writing about and also ones that you believe are doing well in the results of searches and appear achievable.
- Conduct Google searches on all possible subjects to examine the content’s competitive landscape for every result.
- Include topics in your content calendar, including keywords and search volume, to help you decide when to start creating your content.
If you study how people are searching for relevant topics related to your business, you’ll allow you to identify users’ attention when they’re in need.
- Content Optimisation for Organic Search
Alternatively, if your subject matter is not derived from keywords, you may need to incorporate SEO into your content. For blogs, you can choose your keyword after selecting the topic you want to write about or have started writing your post.
In this stage, it is essential to ensure that the identified desired keyword, and variants of it, appear frequently enough in your content to assist search engines in comprehending the terms that your content is expected to appear in search results for. Remember that you must naturally incorporate keywords within your content and avoid excessive use and “keyword stuffing” to prevent search engines from taking adverse actions to your content.
Optimizing your content before or after the creation of content is a necessary stage in your content workflow to ensure that your content is clearly tagged with a search term to get the attention and drive visitors from organic results.
Additional Methods & Considerations
Another aspect of making SEO-friendly content is creating content that is always fresh. This means you must ensure that your content remains current and relevant even after it’s been made. This usually involves revisiting your content regularly, for instance, every two years or bi-annually, to ensure that you ensure that the content is up-to-date for your customers and a search engine. It is also possible to make essential updates in response to market changes and offer fresh ideas and solutions to your Buyer Persona’s issues. Consider updating your visual assets and the publication date, depending on the number of changes you’ll make.
Creating time-sensitive content appropriate for a certain amount of time, e.g., “2017 Content Marketing Tips,” is another approach to developing SEO-friendly content. Although it’s only relevant for a short time, as evergreen content is time-sensitive, content can assist you in ranking in Google for a specific period while the subject is appropriate. Both time-sensitive and evergreen content kinds are essential to an effective content strategy.
To create content that can increase your SEO ranking and help your Buyer Persona to solve their issue, add links to range from the past in your content. Linking to older, related articles you’ve written about similar topics can assist you in boosting your SEO rankings on both the published and unpublished pieces and make you appear as an authority source for your Buyer Persona.
It also involves linking to content from other beneficial and advantageous sources. First, external linking suggests valuable content related to the topic to users. Secondly, external linking helps search engines recognize the content’s connection to the issue you’re discussing.
Neither Can Succeed Without the Other
It’s crucial to remember that for your content SEO and marketing strategies to work, both need to be well executed. Content that is not optimized will be less visible within search results and be easier to reach with help from other sources. On the other hand, those who write content solely focusing on keywords and need more content and strategies for inbound marketing will be able to convince readers to interact with your site and brand.
SEO and content marketing are one symbiosis instead of two distinct strategies. It is possible to reconsider how you approach SEO and content marketing to ensure they are in sync.
For more information on how to ensure your content marketing starts with a positive beginning, get the Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.