For those in the SEO industry, we live and work in the wake of the Helpful Content update that Google dropped in 2022. This means that, more than ever, content shouldn’t just be search engine-friendly, but human-friendly, too.
Simply copying and pasting your keyword into a page one thousand times hasn’t cut it for years, and certainly won’t do the job anymore. This is something that we as consumers should be happy about, because it means we’ll be seeing much better content at the top of our search results.
However, as creators, we need to be ready to put aside the idea of one kind of post being for Google and another being for our readers. For our content to perform well in 2023, we need to satisfy both parties on the same page.
After all, why not give your blog post two chances of succeeding instead of putting all your eggs in the ‘this is for links’ or ‘this is for rankings’ baskets? As one of the leading Manchester SEO providers, we’ve put together this guide and tool to help you out.
How To Inject SEO Into Your Content Marketing
Some of the best ideas come while you’re waiting in traffic or singing in the shower, not when you’re staring at keyword data in a spreadsheet. So, how can you incorporate SEO into those creative ideas? It’s easy!
People traditionally have a human-focused, idea-first mind when it comes to content. By following the steps below, you can find keywords to support any idea that you have.
This means we can easily create content that is ready to satisfy search engines and rake in the readers for 2023. A word of warning; these tips do require an Ahrefs account, but plenty of free alternatives do exist and can be easily interchanged so anyone can use the tips below!
Step 1) Content Ideation.
Think of an idea that is relevant to your industry and business objectives. If you need inspiration, look at what your competitors are doing or think about the questions your customers are asking. Address these.
Step 2) Search Like It Exists.
Type what a potential title for that idea may be into Google and see what pages come up – if they’re blog posts, you’re on the right track. If you’re seeing loads of product or category pages, then that idea might not be worth targeting with an article.
Understanding Search Intent & What Ranks 👇
Remember, Google shows what they think people want to see. Ranking for “buy red air jordans size 10” with a blog post will be very tricky, because Google thinks people want to see product pages for this search. Consider what the search engine is currently ranking highly for ideas like yours and if you think Google will consider it as intent-matching.
Step 3) Examine Those Pages.
One at a time, paste the URLs of the five examples of content that are closest to your idea into the Site Explorer area of Ahrefs, then select Organic Keywords on the left (be sure to have it set to ‘URL’). If you can’t find any content like yours, try a few more approaches; ask it a different way, or use a different term. If you can’t find any articles like yours, then ask yourself: is there a reason, or have you just found gold?
Step 4) Find Your Primary Keyword.
In Site Explorer, you will now see a list of keywords that these pages are ranking for organically. This is essentially your cheat sheet of keywords to target. Identify your primary keyword to focus the article around and plot this into the Keyword Mapper below. A good primary keyword has strong search volume, achievable keyword difficulty and is deep enough to write an article about.
Understanding Keywords For Your Content 👇
To help understand primary and secondary keywords, examples of these may be:
Primary keyword: vegan protein powder
Secondary keywords: plant-based protein, how to build muscle, protein supplement, protein shake, workout supplement, vegan gym supplement
5) Find Your Secondary Keywords.
Identify 5-7 other secondary keywords. A good secondary keyword supports the primary keyword by being relevant to it, but not identical. Plot these onto your Keyword Mapper tool below.
6) Build Content Around These Keywords.
Use the keywords you’ve found to put together a blog structure that covers all those keywords and topics, then tick off the boxes as you add them in. If you can get to a point where 90% of the boxes are ticked, you’ll have an article that search engines will love.
Our Content Marketing Tool For Keyword Mapping
By using this tool below, you can easily identify and track keywords within your content. By including these, you can massively increase the chances of your blog post or commercial page climbing the rankings.
That’s it! Below is the Keyword Mapping tool we’ve built, which you can copy and paste to keep track of your own keywords and how often you’ve used them in the piece. Simply open the link below, make a copy of it and check those boxes as you take your content to the next level!
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Here at Add People, we see a lot of businesses trying SEO for themselves. We love that go-getter attitude, but many find it too time-consuming or complicated. In fact, a lot of our clients join us after dragging their feet for 12-18 months of wasting their time with SEO, before realising they might need a whole team of professionals to make an impact.
Get started with Add People
From dog walkers to dentists, and electricians to eCommerce sites, we’ve seen it all. Give us a call and see how our digital marketing experts can help to grow your business online.
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