The Simplest and Most Effective Way to Improve Your SEO Overall
Forget all the overly-complicated SEO tactics you see online, there’s only one thing you need to remember.
If you’ve done some SEO research and figured it’s a lot to take in, I have some good news. You don’t have to remember all of that. You just need to focus on one thing. And that is your content — or more specifically, your content marketing strategy.
What’s a content marketing strategy?
It’s your strategy for creating, publishing, and distributing content to a targeted audience (aka your ideal customers). And one of the best ways to do that is by blogging.
According to Hubspot, 70% of marketers actively invest in this area of marketing. And blogging is their primary way of doing it.
But how often do you publish content? Orbit Media surveyed 1000+ bloggers to find the answer. It turns out that bloggers who publish frequently (at least daily) are most likely to report strong results compared to bloggers who only post a few times a week.
Why is blogging so effective?
It helps customers find you online.
You’ve learned that Google is constantly crawling the web, looking for new pages, updating its index, and improving its search results. This means that the more you put out helpful, engaging, and high-quality content, the more Google will see you as someone who provides value to people.
Also, blogging consistently tells Google that you’re keeping your website relevant and up to date, which it prefers. Google even has an algorithm that ranks pages based on freshness!
It helps customers understand your business.
The truth is your customers are probably looking at 10 other businesses similar to yours. Blogging is your chance to show them why they should choose you.
Be honest and communicate your values. Your customer might be there to look for a certain product, but he might stay to read your blog. And before you know it, you’ve already got a loyal customer.
Helps customers after they’ve purchased from you.
People buy with emotion and then justify their decision after. Your blog can be the friendly voice that will help put them at ease.
Assure them they’ve made the right choice by giving helpful advice and tips on how to make the most out of your product. Feature testimonials from past customers and show them how others are using your product.
Not only will this help your customer justify his decision, but it will also make him feel like he’s part of a community.
Makes it easy for customers to trust you.
Use your blog to help customers solve their problem without asking for anything in return.
This will do two things: It will highlight your expertise and make it easier for customers to trust you. So that when they’re ready to buy, your brand will be the first one they turn to.
How to get started blogging for SEO
Now that I’ve (hopefully) convinced you that blogging is the best way to improve your overall SEO, you’re probably wondering how to get started.
Assuming you already have a website, just follow these steps:
Step 1: Define your main topics
“Topics?” you ask, “don’t you mean keywords?”
I’m glad you asked.
Google’s algorithm is now focusing more on topics rather than keywords.
Search engines have evolved enough to understand not just the meaning of the words people type in, but also the context behind each search query by connecting similar or related searches in the past. (Amazing, right?)
So when determining the best results to a query, instead of just taking the exact keywords from an individual search, it now pulls out pages that have related keywords as well.
So, how does this help you?
If you have a main topic page connected to other related topic pages in your site that all link to each other naturally, Google will notice that and think of you as an authority on that main topic (assuming you have helpful, engaging, and high-quality content, of course!)
But what if you don’t have content about your main topic yet? How do you go about doing that? How do you even choose a main topic? Let me show you.
First, list down all the problems your customers are having. What answers are they looking for? What are they trying to solve by googling?
If you sell boat parts, for example, then it might make sense to have ‘boat maintenance’ as a main topic. Or if you’re a dermatologist, one of your main topics could be ‘acne’.
It’s okay to have just one main topic at first. You’ll still have to expand that into subtopics. And then expand those subtopics even further into blog posts. So don’t worry about running out of ideas!
Find out what your customers are asking online, list them down, and organize them into categories — what are those categories?
How do you know if you’ve got a main topic? Here’s an easy trick. Imagine this headline:
Everything you need to know about ________
Now, can you think of more than 5 subtopics to support that? If so, then you’ve got yourself a good main topic to work on!
Step 2: Figure out your subtopics (long-tail keywords)
This is where keyword research comes in. More specifically, this is where you find out what keywords are related to your main topic.
Let’s say you’re the dermatologist and you’ve decided that ‘acne’ will be one of your main topics. What’s the next step? Do you have to buy one of those fancy keyword research tools everyone’s talking about?
Well, you can. But no, you don’t have to. There’s a free and easier way to do it. Let me show you.
Go to the Google Search home page and type in your main topic. In this case, we’ll type in ‘acne’.
Now take a good look at the search results. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see a box with the title, ‘People also ask’.
And if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll see a section called ‘Searches related to acne’.
As you do this, you’ll begin to see what people want to know about acne.
You’ll see that they want to know what type of acne they have, what causes it, and more importantly, how to get rid of it.
Write these down! And go even further, click on one of the related searches and see where that takes you. What else do people want to know?
Below, I clicked on ‘what causes acne’ in the related searches and then scrolled down to ‘People also ask’.
If you scroll down to the bottom, you start to see the patterns in related searches. You can click on one of the related searches again and see what else you can uncover. It’s like searching for buried treasure!
From that activity alone, we now have 5 subtopics to support ‘acne’:
- Removing acne
- Preventing acne
- Acne breakouts
- Types of acne
- Acne causes
If you’re not sure what counts as a subtopic, ask yourself:
- Is it related to my main topic?
- Are people asking questions about it?
- Will it help people understand the main topic better?
If the answer is yes to all of these questions, then you’ve got a subtopic.
You can definitely have more than 5 subtopics (even as much as 20!). For now, let’s move forward with this example.
Step 3: Brainstorm content ideas/headlines
Nice, you’ve gotten this far! So, you’ve defined your main topic. And then you’ve chosen 5 subtopics to support it by doing keyword research. Now what?
Now it’s time to expand on your subtopics further by brainstorming ideas for your actual blog posts. This means you need to be more specific.
To get started, think of 3–5 headlines for each subtopic. A headline is what you call the title of a blog post. Don’t worry about getting it perfect.
Crafting a good headline that will attract clicks is an entirely different matter. For now, just put down the main idea of the headline. You can always go back and edit it later.
Let’s go back to our 5 subtopics:
- Removing acne
- Preventing acne
- Acne breakouts
- Types of acne
- Acne causes
How should you start brainstorming headlines for a subtopic? A quick Google search for ‘removing acne’ will give you some pretty good ideas.
Remember to check ‘People also ask’ and the related searches section at the bottom. (I’m telling you those two spots are a gold mine.)
Look for specific questions that people are actively asking about the subtopic. The two best places to look for those are Reddit and Quora.
Now think of headlines that would help them answer their questions. Here’s what I came up with for ‘removing acne’:
- 7 Essential Steps to Removing Acne
- 5 Weird Home Remedies for Acne
- How Long Does It Take to Remove Acne?
- 9 Things You Should Never Do to Remove Acne
- The Only Tip You Need to Remove Acne For Good
These are good headlines to start with. And if it makes sense, you can even create an “Ultimate Guide” blog post for a subtopic.
I think it makes sense for ‘removing acne’, so let’s add ‘The Ultimate Guide to Removing Acne’ to our list of headlines for that subtopic.
So now we have this for the subtopic ‘removing acne’:
- 7 Essential Steps to Removing Acne
- 5 Weird Home Remedies for Acne
- How Long Does It Take to Remove Acne?
- 9 Things You Should Never Do to Remove Acne
- The Only Tip You Need to Remove Acne For Good
- The Ultimate Guide to Removing Acne
And then you continue to think of 3–5 headlines for the other subtopics using the same process we did above.
Not sure how to create a good headline?
You can make use of headline generators to help you come up with eye-catching titles. Learn to experiment with crafting your headlines to come up with something that fits your own voice.
If you’re having a hard time coming up with blog post ideas for a subtopic, ask yourself:
- What are some questions people usually ask you about (subtopic)?
- What’s commonly misunderstood about (subtopic)?
- What do you like about (subtopic) / What don’t you like about (subtopic)?
- How is (subtopic) part of the bigger picture?
- What parts of (subtopic) can you zoom in on or expand upon?
- What are some pros and cons of (subtopic)?
- What do other people think of (subtopic)? What do you personally think?
- How do you explain (subtopic) to an audience who doesn’t know anything about it?
You can also check out what other people are writing about your subtopic and try your best to improve upon it or highlight a perspective that hasn’t been tackled before.
Try to do what hasn’t been done before, say what hasn’t been said before — you get what I mean. Stand out. If you do, not only will Google take notice, but other people will too.
Step 4: Plan out your content
Now that you’ve got a good list of blog post ideas with working headlines — it’s time to plan out when you’re going to publish them, and how frequently.
First, let’s figure out how often you’re going to publish. Are you going to publish daily? 3 times a week? Once a month?
If you’re going to do it by yourself, consider how much time you can dedicate to writing content for your blog every week. This will help you decide (realistically) how frequently you can publish.
If you’re going to hire a freelance writer, on the other hand, figure out your budget beforehand and then plan your publishing frequency around that.
Let’s say you’re going to do it by yourself. You’ve thought about it and you’ve decided to publish once a week.
The next step is planning what you’re going to write each week in advance — because let’s be honest, you don’t want to have to think of what to write every week. You want to be able to sit down and already know what to write. (Doing this will save you a lot of headache, I promise.)
When you’ve got your list of headlines, it’s just a matter of scheduling them into your calendar. Meaning, figuring out when to publish each.
It sounds easy, but if you’re an overthinker like me, it can get a bit overwhelming because some marketers put a lot of emphasis on timing your posts. The trick is not to make too much of a big deal about it.
There are many ways you can go about doing this. But by far, the easiest and most popular way is setting a theme or subtopic for each month.
Let’s say for this month, you’ve decided your theme is ‘removing acne’ or ‘face detox’. It can be anything related to your main topic, really, that serves as a way to focus your content efforts.
Now go ahead and schedule the headlines under that subtopic (or theme) for each week this month.
And then do the same with the other months. That is, decide what your theme for that month will be and then schedule your headlines accordingly.
It’s good practice to pre-plan your themes throughout the year. That way you’ll know when you need to brainstorm blog post ideas for an upcoming theme when you’re running out.
This is a good method to get you started with planning your content. But there’s no right or wrong way to go about it. It’s always good to experiment and figure out what works best for you.
Once you get the hang of coming up with ideas, scheduling them, writing, and publishing them into a quality blog posts every week, you’ll get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Just do more of what works!
Step 5: Establish a content creation system (from draft to published)
Now it’s time to turn those blog post ideas (or headlines) into actual articles. It helps to have a system in place especially if you’re doing it by yourself.
Having a repeatable process that you can just follow every time you write will help you write articles better and make you more efficient.
To give you an idea, here’s an overview of my own writing process:
Step 1: Draft the headline
If you’ve been following along, then you already have this ready to go when you sit down to write.
Step 2: Research
Figure out what you need to know to adequately write the article. Sure, you’ve got a general idea of what you’re writing about, but there might be some gaps in your knowledge.
What else do you need to know? Write down relevant questions to focus your research efforts and find the answer.
Step 3: Outline
Once you’re satisfied with your research, it’s time to organize all that knowledge in a way that makes sense for your target reader.
What does he need to know first? What does he need to know next? What’s the main point? And then conclude by adding a call to action or suggesting next steps that your reader can take.
Not only will this help your reader, but it will also help you organize your own thoughts, focusing your writing, and making you more efficient in the long run.
Step 4: Draft
Time to put your research to good use and start writing! For some, this is the most difficult part. But since you already have an outline in place, it should be easier to get the words out of your head.
It’s called a draft (or more like ugly draft) for a reason. Don’t be afraid to just start writing whatever comes to your head even if you’re just saying the same thing over and over. You’ll edit most of your writing in the next stage.
Step 5: Edit, revise, repeat
When we’re writing our draft, there’s a tendency to meander or go into random tangents. At this stage, you will have to be ruthless and cut out irrelevant sentences from your draft. Only keep relevant sentences and aim to make your writing clear, coherent, and concise.
Step 6: Optimize the headline
Most of the time (sadly), readers won’t even click on your article if the headline doesn’t peak their interest. That’s why optimizing your headlines is an important step.
- Make sure your headlines arouse your reader’s curiosity. What are they really interested in? What do they really want to know? This is why it’s so important to know who your audience is.
- Make the benefit of the article clear so that readers will know what they will get out of clicking the headline and reading it. You have to get them to feel like they need to know what’s in your article.
- Make it relevant. Why should readers read the article now? Was it published recently? Why do they need to know this right away?
Step 7: Review & approve
This is where you ask for feedback from your peers or a manager if that applies to you. Let your article be reviewed by a fresh set of eyes and see if it achieves the goal you set out for it. Be open to constructive feedback and edit accordingly.
Step 8: Publish
The final part of the process — publishing. Publishing an article varies since it depends on what kind of content management platform you’re using, but this part should be pretty straightforward.
Step 9: Pat yourself on the back
Hooray! You’ve finished your article! Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.
Wrapping it up
If there’s one thing for you to remember, then remember this: Think of your audience first, before you even think about SEO.
In other words, prioritize creating content that will be helpful and engaging to your audience. If the people love your content, then Google will too.
