7 Tips for Creating an Effective SEO Content Marketing Strategy

In this digital age, search engine optimization is paramount when it comes to visibility. With so many brands competing for the same audience, it’s important that your company has a solid SEO content marketing strategy in place. Even if you aren’t able to understand everything about SEO and how it works, you probably know that it’s something that’s essential for websites and businesses if they want to be successful.

After all, there are over 1 billion searches conducted on Google every day. That means if you want people to find your business online, you need a solid content marketing strategy centered around SEO principles. If you aren’t sure where to begin or need some guidance along the way, keep reading for our top 10 tips for creating an effective SEO content marketing strategy!

Define Your Audience

Before you dive headfirst into your SEO content marketing strategy, you need to define your audience. This will help guide you when it comes to deciding on topics, writing styles, and keywords to use. A big consideration is where your audience is located. If they’re located in other countries, you’ll need to follow SEO best practices for those countries. Another important factor is the size of your audience. If your brand is targeting millennials, for example, you’ll want to use a different approach than if you’re targeting senior citizens.

Have a Goal for Each Content Piece

Next, you’ll want to decide on a goal for each content piece. Are you trying to drive sales? Build brand awareness? Or something else? Whatever your goal is, you’ll want to incorporate the appropriate keywords and phrases into your content. This will help drive search engine traffic to your website. If you’re trying to build brand awareness, you’ll probably want to incorporate different keywords than if you are trying to drive sales.

Know Your Competition

You’ll also want to understand your competition. The best way to do this is to conduct keyword research. This will give you an understanding of which keywords you should be targeting as well as the topics your competitors are using in their content. In addition to keywords, you’ll also want to know the type of content your competitors are producing. If you’re trying to build brand awareness, for example, you’ll want to create different types of content than if you are trying to drive sales.

Research Your Keywords

Once you understand your competition, you’ll want to research keywords and phrases. This will help you understand the type of content you should be creating. It’s also important to make sure you are following the search engine’s guidelines when doing keyword research. For example, if you want to be found for the phrase “organic dog treats,” you’ll want to make sure you aren’t using the same phrase for your content that your competitor uses. You’ll also want to pay attention to the type of language used in the search engine results. For example, you’ll want to make sure you aren’t using “buy” in the content if you want to rank for “organic dog treats.”

Don’t Forget Video Content

Another important aspect of your SEO content marketing strategy is including video content. According to HubSpot, 93 percent of marketers say that video content will play a role in their company’s future marketing strategy. You’ll want to focus on the three W’s when creating video content for your SEO strategy: Who, what, and why. You’ll also want to incorporate keywords and phrases into the video content. It’s best if you can use the same keywords that you’re targeting in your written content. If you’re still stumped on what type of video content to create, you can use the SWW method as a guide:

Create a Content Calendar

You don’t want to create content for your SEO strategy haphazardly. Instead, you want to create a content calendar to keep you on track. You can use this calendar to track your progress, create deadlines, and keep others on the marketing team informed. A good rule of thumb is to create one piece of content per week. This will give you enough time to create each piece while keeping you from getting overwhelmed.

Integrate SEO in All Steps of the Writing Process

Once you have your content written, you’ll want to make sure you’re integrating SEO into all steps of the writing process. This includes things like title creation, keywords, and SEO analysis.

Title creation: Before you begin writing, you’ll want to come up with a title. This title should be enticing and inclusive of the search terms you’re targeting.

Keywords: After you’ve come up with a title, you’ll want to incorporate your keywords. You want to make sure each keyword is included once in the title and once in the first few paragraphs of content.

SEO analysis: Before publishing your content, you’ll want to conduct an SEO analysis. This will help you to identify areas in which you can improve. Analyzing your content will also help you to determine how long your content is.

Conclusion

Creating an effective SEO content marketing strategy can be a time-consuming process. However, it’s something that’s necessary in today’s digital landscape. If you follow these 10 tips, you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective SEO content marketing strategy.