How to create SEO content

Part 1: Basic SEO content

What is SEO content?

SEO content is content designed to rank in search engines. It could be a blog post, product or landing page, engagement tool, or something else.

Why is SEO content important?

Not all content ranks and gets traffic from organic search. Only content created for searchers about the topics they're looking for will do (unless you're lucky).

Part 2: How to create SEO content

Creating SEO content is about giving searchers what they want and making it 'appealing'. If you can share unique insights and expertise, even better. Let's go into this process in more detail.

1. Choose a confirmed theme

You should have a confirmed topic if you have done keyword research. This is something that has traffic potential, business potential, and ranking potential.

Here is a confirmed theme for a baking supply store:

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It has good business and traffic potential, and seems easy to rank for based on its Keyword Difficulty (KD) score.

To find it, the author of the article:

1. Plug the seed keyword 'bakery' into Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
2. Check out the Matching Terms report .
3. Filter for keywords with good traffic potential and low KD

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Finally, the author examined the top ranking pages and their statistics in the SERP overview. Since many keywords have little to no backlinks and are from unknown brands, this seems like a promising keyword.

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2. Analyze search intent

Understanding search intent means finding out what the searcher is looking for. You need to do this because your chances of ranking highly are slim if your content doesn't match search intent.

Keywords themselves often reveal intent. For example, it's obvious that people searching for 'SEO tips' want a list of SEO tips. But other keywords will be less obvious, so it's best to use the top ranking sites as a proxy. In other words, infer intent from what has been ranked.

To do this, analyze the top ranking pages according to 3 criteria:

1. Content type . Are they blog posts, product pages, landing pages, or something else?
2. Content Format . Is it a guide, list, how-to, recipe, free tool, or something else?
3. Implementation perspective . Are there any strong selling points, such as the low price or how easy it is?

For example, the top results for 'neapolitan pizza dough' are all blog posts about recipes. And authenticity is the dominant perspective.

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3. Show off your expertise

Google uses signals to help identify content that demonstrates expertise. This is more important for topics that can impact the reader's happiness, health, or wealth. Google calls these Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics.

Here's what Google says about expertise for YMYL and non-YMYL topics:

1. Theme is not YMYL . Ordinary experience is sufficient, if the writer has the type and amount of life experience to make them an expert on the subject.
2. YMYL theme . Formal expertise is important, but general experience is sufficient for some topics. For example, a person with cancer can answer 'what it's like to have cancer' better than a doctor.

Use the diagram below to decide whether and how to cover a topic.

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4. Cover the topic completely

If you have the expertise, it's time to create the type of content searchers want to see. Analyzing search intent will give you a high-level idea of ​​this. The best results for a query include everything the searcher wants to know.

Here are two ways to find important topics and additional points to include:

1. Look for similarities between top ranking pages . Subheadings often reveal this.
2. Look for popular keyword rankings among the top ranking pages . These often reveal sub-themes. And if a lot of people are talking about them then they're probably pretty important.

You can use Ahrefs to do the following:

1. Enter your keywords into Ahrefs Keywords Explorer.
2. Choose a few relevant top ranking pages.
3. Click 'Open in' and select 'Content gap' .

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For example, let's say the target keyword is 'content audit' . If you include some of the top ranking pages in the Content Gap , many keywords will map to subtopics.

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It's clear that searchers not only want to know how to perform a content audit, but also want to know:

1. What is it.
2. Why do this?
3. Template.
4. Tools they need.

5. Make the content unique

If your entire content is based on the top ranking pages, you will have duplicate content. This content doesn't stand out from the crowd or offer anything unique.

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Duplicate content is a problem for SEO because people have no incentive to link to it. And links are important because they are a ranking factor.

Here are some ways to solve this problem:

1. Provide original research . Polls, surveys, research – they all work.
2. Offer a unique perspective or opinion . This could come from you, someone within your organization, or an industry expert.
3. Build on what's already there . Expand on main ideas, go deeper and offer alternatives.

If you use the Best by links report in Ahrefs Site Explorer to see the most linked blog posts, most of them are research. This shows how effective original research can be in earning industry backlinks.

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Another tip is to look at why people link to the top ranking pages.

For example finding links to a competing site about SEO copywriting thanks to a formula set by the author. Therefore, the article created its own ASMR recipe for its post. It brought in a few links.

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6. Make content relevant to users

People won't search around for something they find confusing or difficult to read. That's bad because Google uses engagement data to gauge relevancy. If searchers abandon your content, it's unlikely to help SEO.

Here are some tips to make content more relevant to users:

1. Keep the content simple . Avoid complicated words and sentences.
2. Make content visual . Break up walls of text with images and videos.
3. Speak the language of your audience . Use terms and jargon that resonate with readers.
4. Have good control over your spelling . Run spell check; It makes all the difference.

Tools like Hemmingway and Grammarly can help simplify and check spelling. If you want to know what kind of language and terminology your audience might use, try this:

1. Enter your keywords into Ahrefs Keywords Explorer.
2. Go to the Related terms report .
3. Click the 'Also talk about' toggle button .

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7. Keep content fresh

Content doesn't stay new forever. That's a problem if you're targeting a fast-changing topic. That means you'll have to work hard to update your content to keep Google and searchers happy.

For example, estimated traffic trends for top Google search listings fluctuate.

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This happens because this topic requires new content. Searchers don't want a list of top Google searches from the previous year; They want something up to date. Each drop occurs as content gets older, and each increase occurs as the page updates.

If you are a WordPress user, you can track your decreasing rankings with the free WordPress SEO plugin. Just set a target keyword for each page and it will tell you if rankings start to drop. You can then investigate whether this is because the content needs to be refreshed.

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Samuel Daniel

Update 26 March 2024