How to Set Up a SEO Content Strategy​

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How to Set Up a SEO Content Strategy

How to set up an SEO Content Strategy
If you are interested in both Content Marketing and SEO, you probably noticed on the web that there is a lot of confusion between these 2 practices.
 
In fact, in many instances you will find that Content Marketing is announced to have made SEO redundant and that therefore SEO is no longer needed.
 
This could not be further form the truth.
 
It is a very expensive mistake that, unfortunately, many major companies have made, sometimes spending millions to generate content that created absolutely no engagement just because they misused or even stopped using Search Engines Optimization altogether.
 

So, let me try to help here.

In this article you will find:
 
  • Why SEO and Content Marketing are being confused
  • How SEO and Content Marketing depend on each other
  • How to Set up a SEO Content Strategy that will boost your Return On Investment (ROI).

Why are SEO and Content Marketing being confused?

Let’s have a look at how SEO and Content Marketing are defined

what is SEO

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine such as Google. SEO excludes all paid results as well as direct traffic and the purchase of paid placement.
 

3 main categories exist in SEO : On-Page SEO, Technical SEO and Off-Page SEO

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, consistent, and mostly digital content to a targeted audience to attract and transform prospects into customers.
Unlike other forms of online marketing, content marketing relies on satisfying the content requirements of a particular audience, as opposed to generating a new need.
 

This is the content that can be created by Content Marketing

By looking quickly at these definitions of SEO focusing on increasing visibility of a site and of Content Marketing creating content it is easy to understand how they can be confused.

But let’s dig a little deeper and see how they actually complement each other.

How SEO and Content Marketing complement each other

These are the reasons why SEO and Content Marketing complement each other:

  • Overall SEO is more on the technical and Content Marketing more holistic.

  • Content Marketing relies on SEO to inform of a need of an audience for content to be created.

  • SEO sets up the rules for Content Marketing to follow so that the content is found by search engines to be a match for the audience need.

  • SEO does not exist without keywords. Content marketing means using keywords.

  • There is no SEO without content, since SEO is about helping search engines to identify content relevant to a search.

  • SEO and more specifically Off-page depends on backlinks which will not exist if there is no valuable content to link back to from other sites. Content marketing creates this valuable content

  • By creating, sitemaps for navigation, robot.txt for search engines crawling and meta tags for indexing , SEO creates great user experience and slow the content to be found.

How to set up a SEO Content Strategy that will boost your Return On Investment (ROI)

Define your Area of Expertise or Know-How

This is a very important question you have to ask yourself and the first step of an SEO content strategy.

 
As a matter of fact, it is so important that it is part of the Strategic Analysis that many Corporations use to plan for their future for the next 3 to 5 years.
 
It is about really understanding what you are good at and where you could potentially provide added value to your audience.
 
The usual reaction is to believe that the knowledge of your product or service is the answer and yet often it goes far beyond this if you really think about it.
 
For example, if you are selling beauty products online, you might be tempted to think that your Know-How is your beauty product knowledge and you might be right.
 
But, have you thought about the skills you have developed to build an efficient website for this specific industry?
 
All the email and social interactions you established learning about the right content to use, the publishing channels and the post frequency?
 

Could it be something that your beauty product audience could benefit from learning?

Let’s go even further,
 
Could it be that other audiences but people interested in beauty would be interested to learn?
 
Try to think outside the box and you will reveal Know-how you did not think you had.
 

Now, let’s discuss the next step.

Identify your audience

Knowing your audience is probably the biggest step of the SEO content strategy.
 
There are a few ways to identify your target audience :
 
  • Examine your existing customer base and identify what they have in common that make them using your product or services.

  • Check out your competition and see who they tailor to but also who they do not, as it can present an audience opportunity.

  • If you have a website, use Google Analytics to identify some key information like demographics, behavior or geographical data as well as the type of content that is being consumed already.

  • Conduct surveys online.
    There are many tools you can use for this : Check out my tool box section for a complete list
Once you audience is clearly identified, you can go to the following step.


Run a keyword research

This step #3 of a SEO content strategy is probably the one you thought from the beginning but yet it is far more efficient to run after you identified your Know-how and audience.
 
There are 2 methods you can use for this.
 
Both start by your seed keywords, which are the words most related to either the products or services you offer.
 
The first method is manual and the second one is by means of a keyword research tool.
 
Both methods have Pros and Cons and should be used together for optimum results.
 

If you want to know in details how to run them, check out this video

Now you have your list of keywords you can go to the following step

Optimize

Now you have identified your keywords (hopefully long-tail keywords), you can go to the next step of SEO content strategy.
 
If you ran you keyword strategy the right way, you have identified 3 very valuable information about your audience :
 
  1. The Topics ans sub topics that your audience wants information on.

  2. Your audience intent, usually defined by How, What and Why.

  3. The specific questions that needs to be answered.

You can now use these keywords to develop the relevant content that your audience wants to see and provide the desired answers in the proper format.

You an also apply in the creation of your content the Technical and on-SEO principles that will help search engines identify your content, like for example :

  • Keywords in URL structure
  • Keywords in H1 and H2 Tags
  • Keywords in Images
  • Snippet optimization

For more information, check out this article : SEO Made simple, the 2020 Guide

Build Your Content on Your Own Website

This is the final Step of this SEO content strategy and also the one we could have started by.
 
Ultimately you want to have your own website where your content will reside.
 
It does not mean that you can not post also or other platforms but there are major reasons why you should start by your own website :
 
  1. The content you post can not disappear unlike other platforms that can decide to shut down and take your content down with them.

  2. There are no restrictions about the format, size or post frequency of your content, unlike social media platforms that can implement restrictions on these.

  3. The audience you develop on your website is yours alone.
    Therefore your brand is front and center whereas other platforms use your content to attract audiences to their brands.

  4. Your website is the corner stone of your Online authority, without it you will not be recognized by Google as an expert on any subject and will not appear on Search Engines Page results which are so valuable and a great opportunity to gather Free organic traffic.

  5. Finally, Without a high Domain Authority your Paid advertising cost will be higher if you decide to advertise online through search engines either for Paid Search or Paid Display.

And that’s how you set up a SEO Content Strategy that will boost your ROI.

Conclusion : SEO is All about Content Marketing

Search Engine Optimization and Content marketing do not conflict.
 
In fact, they make absolutely no sense without each other.
 
As great as your content can be, it will not be viewed unless people search and find it .
In order to make it found, you need SEO.
 
On the other hand, if there is no Content, there is no SEO either.
 

By combining SEO and Content marketing, your marketing campaigns will demonstrate great ROI.

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About Gilles Argivier

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He is an International marketing expert and visionary entrepreneur.

For over 20 years, he has been entrusted by world class organizations as a driver of top and bottom line growth through transformational business development, brand’s sustainable strategy, product innovation and powerful online customer centric experiences

He owns and operates his marketing consultancy firm out of the US.

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