Content strategy

Jul 12 2020

Local SEO Content: Improve Your Local Presence

Want to rank for searches within a specific city? The solution is simple; Be city-specific with the content you publish. Local SEO content is an excellent way to get search engines to recognize the city in which you want to improve your local search presence.

What is local SEO content?

Local SEO content is content that is optimized for a city-specific keyword. The content within your page will identify unique elements that relate the content to a specific city.

By identifying popular landmarks, places, addresses or anything unique to the locality, your page and your website become more closely associated with searches that originate from your target location.

There are a few different types of content that work well to optimize for your city, county, state or province. Here are seven of the more popular types that you’re most likely to see used on a website.

Expert round up from professionals in your city

An expert roundup is a form of evergreen content where you combine the quotes from a group of professionals. Confining the area in which you collect your quotes will make your content local to your city.

You can generate a lot of good local backlinks from different local experts that will in turn boost the competitive ability of your website within your city. People will link to your content when they are featured in it.

This type of content can be combined with an infographic to really improve the likelihood of your project being shared within your industry. An example of this is 12 Web Design Trends In 2020 By Toronto Experts.

In this example, 18 experts shared their opinions on the top web design trends for 2020. The infographic was shared and used on a few of the participant’s sites, which accounted for a boost in local traffic.

You can read the details in a local SEO strategy case study.

Local client surveys

Create a survey for your clients that will help you understand how to serve them better as well as create extremely targeted content. Original data is one of the most valuable assets you can obtain in terms of content creation. Focus your survey on your local clientele to create highly optimized content.

One of the benefits of generating your own data is that you can promote your content to other companies in your niche. When you have something no one else it becomes a linkable asset. Other websites will be much more likely to use your data as a resource when the information is coming straight from your own research.

Host a local event

If you’re planning on hosting an event, no matter how small or large, you should be writing about it on your blog. Include the name, address and times of the event and use structured data mark up on your page.

Hosting your own local event creates an opportunity to publish highly optimized content to your city. As search engines index your site, the amount of local content you’ve published contributes to a stronger local presence.

Sponsor a local event

If your business covers service areas or you simply don’t have the resources to host an event, there are plenty of opportunities to sponsor a local event.

Simply getting a link to your website on the sites that are promoting the local event is worth the local optimization points. These events should take place in the city you’re optimizing for and you can write about the event on your blog to promote awareness.

Here’s an example of a Meetup group in Toronto that has six sponsors listed on their Meetup page.

This Toronto Meetup group has sponsors that can use this material for local SEO content

You can look for opportunities to sponsor events on sites like Meetup, Eventbrite and your local chamber of commerce.

Location pages

If your website operates in multiple locations, a location page for that city will give you the best opportunity to rank highly for city-specific search terms.

Location pages can be optimized to provide more relevance to the target location. With a page dedicated to a specific city, you can optimize for the city in the metadata as well as include city-specific references within your content.

Here’s an example of the Toronto location page for Roto-Rooter. You can see the URL includes the province and city. The title (h1 tag) is also Toronto, On.

Roto-Rooter Toronto location page as an example of local SEO content

If you have an address located within that city, your NAP details should be included in your on-page optimization. Including structured data mark up will ensure search engines know your page is dedicated to a specific city.

Write about local events and activities

Publish content on local events and activities that relate to your business. Give your audience updates on current events that affect your locality and how it relates to your business.

Content that makes city-specific references and links builds your local notoriety for both users and search engines.

FAQ page and/or section

Publish a frequently asked questions page to win positions on the SERP (search engine results page) and drive more traffic to your site.

You can use a FAQ page to target featured snippets and PAA boxes. The sweet spot to appear in these SERP features are answers to commonly asked questions that fall within the 40-60-word count.

Use h-tags to mark up your questions.

You can even add FAQ sections to location pages or any page where it makes sense. Use structured data to mark up your content. This will make your page eligible for rich results when it ranks on the first page of Google.

Create a local SEO content strategy

Every business will have different opportunities available for working out an effective local content strategy. Identify the best traffic opportunities as well as the best link building opportunities to harmonize your efforts.

Develop a strong local presence to capitalize on some of the highest converting traffic available. Make sure your content includes a local element to build your brand recognition in your locality.

Jul 05 2020

Create A Custom SEO Strategy For Long-term Growth

Establishing an effective, custom SEO strategy for your business is more important now than it ever has been. The global pandemic has created a strong awareness of the options that exist to people in a contactless environment.

Many people will continue to explore those options long after the pandemic is over. As online searches continue to surge, companies are experiencing a large increase in the demand for their products.

The benefits of SEO have never been greater. A top-ranking in the search results for important keywords can contribute to the largest source of leads and new clients your business acquires.

Many companies relying on the in-store experience have felt the impact, while those positioned at the top of the search results have experienced a boost in brand recognition and overall sales.

The bottom line is that your business needs to be prepared for more digital solutions in a contactless environment. A custom SEO strategy is one of your best solutions to ensuring long-term growth.

Why is SEO important in 2020?

Despite the inevitable end of a global pandemic, the behavioural patterns of the typical consumer has been changed forever. Online searches have surged creating massive traffic opportunities for companies to capitalize on to increase revenue.

So many have turned to online shopping for the first time. As people become more accustomed to researching and making purchases online the trend in online sales will continue to skyrocket.

Ecommerce is booming and will continue its rapid expansion of total sales. The numbers this year will break all records and extend past initial projections.

ecommerce predictions suggest increased importance of a custom SEO strategy — image source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-ecommerce-2020

How can you position your company to benefit from the inevitable shift in the way we do business?

Position your website to receive increased search traffic to capture more leads and new clients. Execute a custom SEO campaign designed to drive traffic from keywords that are important to your business.

What is an SEO campaign?

An SEO campaign is a process that improves your website’s search visibility through improved rankings in keyword searches. It results in attracting visitors who are a match to what your business offers in products and services.

An SEO campaign provides the blueprint for developing your site in the major keyword topics that surround the inner workings of your business. As you build content that answers questions and educates visitors, your site becomes increasingly relevant to keyword searches.

As a result, your website appears in keyword-related searches from users at different stages of the buyer journey.

The buyer journey details the different types of content that need to be created in an SEO strategy — image source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/what-is-the-buyers-journey

The goal is to create a website that has the ability to drive traffic, educate prospects and convert visitors to clients.

How to customize your SEO strategy and build an effective SEO campaign

The main focus of an SEO campaign is on the keywords you target and the content you publish. The largest ranking factor is being the best result to a search query. An SEO campaign builds the relevance of your page to the keyword topics and targets.

Understand your audience by researching your target keyword

Establishing search intent is crucial to understanding what it is that Google is using to rank pages highly in a search result. Keyword research is the first area that establishes the foundation of an effective SEO strategy.

What is the user truly expecting to find when they type in a search query?

Whenever you’re considering a keyword to target, the first action is to use that keyword in a search. The SERP (search engine result page) contains a lot of information that will point to what is needed to rank for the search term.

Reverse engineer the way other pages have achieved a top ranking to provide clues on how your site will outperform your competition.

Perform a SERP analysis

For every keyword search you will find the following on the SERP:

The level of competition that competes for the first page
The type of content that is being used to rank
How pages are optimized to perform
How many links are pointing to the ranking pages
How Google displays the search result
The commercial value of the search term

Establish intent

The first assessment is whether this term is a perfect fit for your company. If the pages that rank are all competitors that are offering the same product or service it confirms the relevance of the keyword to your business.

If there is a mix of results, consider a more specific search term to avoid unwanted traffic that wouldn’t be interested in your content.

Assess the competition

Using software and keyword tools becomes necessary in order to establish the authority competing pages have built. By identifying the number of links each page has pointing to it, where those links came from and whether they will benefit your site is the first indication of how realistic your keyword is to rank.

Build a list of alternative keywords

A search result can display many different features that are clues to what users are searching for when they search for your keyword. Establish commonly used phrases and keyword alternatives to build a better understanding of what the bigger picture is to the user’s true intent.

Prioritize your target keywords

Keyword research will result in a large list of keywords, keyword synonyms and related search phrases. Prioritize your list in order of importance. Group your keywords based on search intent.

The result should be a keyword strategy that addresses the most important aspects of your keyword topic. This is the initial blueprint of a keyword strategy that lays the foundation for your content strategy.

Develop your Content Strategy

The approach you take on building content should be to provide as much information about your business by building a resource of information. The content you publish should answer common questions, provide insight and educate based on satisfying the intent of the keywords you target.

As your site becomes more successful in ranking for these terms, it increases the trust search engines place on your website for keyword related searches.

Map your content to match your keyword strategy

A visual representation of a keyword strategy is known as a topic cluster. Google ranks pages based on topical relevance. Connecting the ideas and concepts of your main keyword topic builds more relevance to your site and to the pages that are interlinked.

topic clusters concept to structure your content in an SEO campaign — Image source: https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/what-are-topic-clusters

The pillar pages of your site will target the most important keywords. The clustered content will target more specific searches that serve connect visitors to your business by addressing the various details surrounding your keyword topic.

Read about how to implement pillar pages

Publish content that performs

The content you publish needs to serve the user’s purpose. If there are massive guides that are published on the first page of results for your keyword, it indicates the level of detail that’s required.

The Skyscraper method is a common approach to making sure your content is 10 times better than anything that ranks.

Using this approach ensures you cover the topics and subtopics necessary to address the intent of a search.

Read about how to write SEO content that ranks highly

As a local business, publishing local SEO content is a strategy that enhances your local search appearance.

Optimize for traffic opportunities

When your page ranks at the top of a result, it ranks for a number of different keywords. People use a number of different terms in a search-even though they are searching for the same content. Part of your content strategy includes optimizing for additional terms as well as traffic opportunities that exist in Google features.

Featured snippets and PAA boxes, for example, are considered and traffic opportunities because they are features that attract a percentage of clicks on the search engine result page.

featured snippet and PAA box are traffic opportunities in your content strategy

Optimize to appear in these features for additional traffic to the same page for multiple related search terms.

Link building strategy

Link building is necessary to get votes of confidence in the quality of your content. Well-placed links to your content build credibility and authority in your niche and industry.

There are a number of different link building methods you can employ, but regardless of what you choose the strategy should appear as natural as possible.

A common tactic employed is to assess your competitor’s links. By identifying where their links come from, you can pick up on a few links for your site.

Not every link on a competing page will be good for your ranking. In fact, there may be links pointing to their site that don’t help them and are hurting their ranking potential.

Choose to pursue links from websites that have traffic and whose visitors will be genuinely interested in your content. This approach helps to identify the sites that have a strong relation to yours and also get more people on your site that has a strong possibility to become clients.

Reach out to similar niche and authority sites

Most SEO campaigns require some level of outreach. In order to get links in the most natural way, it’s common to reach out to website owners who publish similar content.

The success of your link building depends largely on the quality of your content. When you have good content worth sharing people won’t mind linking to it.

Achieve goals and benchmark your success with your SEO strategy

Every SEO campaign should end with the goal of driving traffic to your site from keyword searches that serve a role in your overall keyword strategy.

Creating content that ranks is a primary function of traffic generation. With the right keyword strategy, your website will thrive from the flow of visitors that convert to clients.

Customize your SEO campaign to achieve keyword related goals and drive traffic that converts.

May 27 2020

How to Outsource Freelance Writers For SEO Content Creation at Your Website

You want your website to grow in traffic and become a brand.

You want it to win SERPs, get backlinks, and – sooner, rather than later – convert.

For that, you work hard on crafting your website. UX design, colour psychology, UTP, on-page SEO, and social proof are all very well; and you already know who can help you with that. But the most powerful weapon to help search engines see you and communicate your brand message to consumers is… yes, it’s texts. Outstanding SEO content that would not only contain tons of keywords but also engage people, translate your tone of voice, and encourage them to click and buy is what you need right here and on a regular basis.

Savvy freelance writers would solve the problem.

Benefits are many: You save time and money, you don’t spend resources on workplace organization and training of full-time employees, and you get compelling content that drives organic traffic and works on your brand reputation.

But there’s also a reverse of the coin:

Looking for freelancers, you may face irresponsible performers who miss deadlines, ignore instructions, write poor texts, or disappear once they find a client promising to pay $1 more than you. Outsource is about the interaction of expectations, collaboration, insights, and personal traits: As an SEO specialist or a business owner, you want them to be cheaper and faster, while they want to write longer and sell texts higher.

To balance the process for a win-win, learn how to outsource freelance writers for your SEO content and how to work with them like a boss.

Where to Look for SEO Freelance Writers

Corresponding websites are many. Freelancer, Upwork, Guru, People Per Hour, Fiverr – each of them has its own approach but the same essence: post a job description, start receiving proposals, compare candidates’ profiles as well as ratings, prices, and portfolios, and hire those fitting your expectations and business needs most.

Tip: Don’t ignore freelancers living and working outside of the US. They work just as well as native-speaking SEO writers but may cost you less, so pay attention to professional background and experience rather than the country.

Screenshot of Upwork for how to outsource freelance writers for SEO content

How to Choose an SEO Writer

Sad but true:

Most people believe they can write.

Indeed, five in ten are bloggers today, posting to Facebook or Instagram with hundreds of likes and shares, which inspires them to practice freelancing or remote work and earn extra money. Good luck to them.

But when you come to find a professional who would create compelling SEO content for your website, you have to thread your way through the tons of their profiles… And you simply get lost there.

How to save your time, nerves, and money? How to understand which writer can deliver your keywords, search intent, and business message, not just put words on paper?

Pay attention to these aspects:

A writer is able to meet deadlines.
A writer is creative, with writing style and voice, but also adaptable i.e. able to follow your instructions.
A writer’s texts are thoughtful and well researched.
A writer is flexible, able to deliver SEO content when you need it or revise it according to your feedback.
A writer is accurate and attentive to details: They know the principles of critical writing, format texts properly, avoid most common spelling and grammar mistakes, design content from scratch, and clearly understand what you want from them.

The questions gathered by Corey Wainwright at HubSpot will help you understand if a particular writer meets your business needs. Ask them before hiring.

How to Organize Your Work with SEO Writers

First and foremost:

Make it clear for a freelance writer what you want from them. In other words, craft guidelines right and avoid quirky mistakes while training a writer.

Details to include in your guidelines:

Target. Tell a writer about your small busi ness and its target audience, as it will help to create engaging content. Specify a type of content you need from a writer – informative, entertaining, or marketing. Also, explain what message it should communicate to the audience. Include all necessary keywords and search intent for a writer to understand your target audience better.
Task itself. Include information on formatting and visual elements: how to format headings, lists, citations; paragraphs length; what links to include if any; what words to avoid (if you have a brand style guide, share it with your freelance writer so they could understand your tone of voice better); experts and resources to refer; a deadline.
Comments. Share some content assets for illustrative purposes so a writer could see what you expect. Encourage SEO writers to check a completed task for plagiarism to avoid duplications and unintentional rewrite. Give contacts of whom they could address for comments.

To save time and resources, organize your work with freelance writers effectively.

Work in Google Docs, as it’s among the best resources to access and manage fast.
Create a separate folder for your freelancer to save all texts there.
Write a strategic plan, and share its part about the content with a writer so they could see deadlines in advance and organize their work time properly.
Create a separate doc with all keywords, formatting rules, and guidelines so a writer could refer to it whenever needed.
Discuss payment details in advance; and, plan deadlines smart: Save some time for revision and edits.

And last but not least:

Don’t forget to control your freelance writer’s work for better efficiency. How much time do they spend on one task? How many tasks do they complete within a definite period of time? How many are still pending a revision or already expired?

Screenshot of Google Calendar for controlling your outsourced SEO writer

Google Calendar and Google Sheets are free yet compelling tools to control an SEO writer. Add tasks, change their status, leave comments for a writer to revise texts accordingly, and analyze their working efficiency with formulas.

Also, you might want to try a specific software, developed for business campaigns management. It analyzes completed tasks, grades them, regulates communication processes, generates reports, calculates expenses for every writer, and more.

Once organized, the work with freelance writers will save you tons of time and costs for SEO services. And nerves, which is sometimes worth more than monetary rewards, isn’t it?

Are you looking for SEO expert jobs? Find out more at Jooble.

May 08 2020

10 Expert Tips For Writing SEO Optimized Blog Posts

Driving traffic to your site relies heavily on the effectiveness of your content. In order for people to click on your pages in a search result, they have to rank high enough to be seen by users. Learn how to write SEO optimized blog posts to increase the traffic your site generates.

What is SEO content writing?

The difference between publishing SEO content and a typical journalist-styled article is that SEO content is created to rank in the search engines and has a call to action.

SEO content should play a specific role in your sales funnel. There should be a conversion objective for each article you publish that targets a specific keyword. That’s one advantage of having an SEO company in Toronto in your corner to help with content creation.

For example, if you’re explaining SEO to a beginner, they may not be ready to jump into a regular monthly investment after just learning about what SEO is for the first time.

The call to action from an explainer article would be to ask the visitor to read an article that is positioned deeper in the sales funnel.

For instance, an article on The 10 Greatest Benefits of SEO would bring that reader another step closer to wanting to invest in SEO after reading the positive effect it has on a website and ultimately a business.

Header for article on how to write SEO optimized blog posts that rank high on Google

Here are 10 expert tips for writing SEO optimized blog posts that rank well and convert readers with a call to action.

Reverse roles with your audience
Use Google to suggest keywords
Analyze search term metrics
Visit sites where your audience hangs out
Create a scannable outline
Write at a 9th-grade reading level
Use the inverted pyramid style of writing
Optimize blog posts for a target keyword
Leave a call to action
Drive traffic to newly published pages

Reverse roles with your audience

Every great article begins with extensive keyword research. The first step to hashing out an outline is to think of the needs of your audience and what they want to read about.

Your first step is to brainstorm on the search terms that your audience would type into a search.

When you have a few good keywords, you will want to dive deeper into the related topics of that keyword to create depth in your content.

You can use your head for this one as well, but what will help create a more detailed strategy will be the use of a few tools.

Use Google to suggest keywords

Based on the results of your list, type them into Google and take a look at a number of different places on the page such as:

Google autosuggest;

the people also ask box;

the featured snippet;

and the related searches box at the bottom of the page.

The words and phrases you find in all of these parts of the SERP are popular search terms that are repeatedly searched on Google.

Add the most appropriate results to your list.

If it’s necessary you can go a few levels deeper by typing in the new results in a search and see what different terms are generated.

Analyze search term metrics

As a precursor to writing any piece of SEO content it’s worthwhile to run a keyword report to get an idea of the competition, traffic and some keyword suggestions.

There are dozens of keyword tools available to choose from but the most popular publicly available would be Moz or SEMRush.

MOz keyword report on SEO content — Moz keyword report on *SEO content*

Make sure your keyword has a minimum level of search traffic that matches your overall strategy. You don’t want to target a keyword that gets zero searches a month.

Take note of other search terms suggestions that would fit nicely in your article.

Choose a few terms to target that are essentially variations of your target keyword.

Make it a point to use them in your content and subtitles to contribute to optimizing your page.

Visit sites where your audience hangs out

Part of a good research strategy is to find niche forums, social media groups and places your audience hangs out to discuss your keyword topic.

Quora gets a lot of traffic on a monthly basis and by scanning through questions you can get an idea of the most commonly asked questions and the terminology people are using while discussing your topic.

Research your audience on Quora to write an SEO optimized blog post — Quora results for search term “SEO content”

One of the biggest groups for finding a lot of relevant Q & A’s is Reddit. Simply type your keyword in Reddit to get a list of the discussion groups you can join.

Write an optimized blog post by researching reddit: example is for SEO content

The culture here typically has a low tolerance for self-promotion so keep that in mind if you’re engaging in any discussions.

The goal is to gather as much information about your topic, what’s trending and what people are most commonly talking about.

Create a “scannable” outline

Most people who read articles online will scan through the article to see if they are even interested in the content on the page.

Create an outline consisting of subtitles to serve as the skeleton of your article.

The outline should summarize the story of your writing with as much descriptive detail as possible.

A scannable outline on how to write SEO optimized blog posts

A solid outline creates an easy to follow guide for writing your article. Each segment is already laid out so you merely are filling in the blanks between your subtitles.

Write at a 9th-grade reading level

Write in a conversational tone that is easily understood by readers of all ages.

Approximately 50% of the US population reads at a basic or below basic level. Make your content extremely easy to understand by avoiding technical jargon and complicated words.

By making your content more difficult to read you are essentially losing half of your readers.

You can use the Fleishman score to determine how easy to read your article actually is. The Yoast plugin offers this feature.

An excerpt from Wikipedia on the Flesch reading ease values showing the table and formula — Image source: Wikipedia

Use the inverted pyramid style of writing

When journalists write they use a style of writing that is known as the inverted pyramid. This style of writing gives readers what they need to know at the beginning of the article and what is nice to know in the latter part of the article.

The inverted pyramid is a journalistic styled approach to writing SEO content

This may sound counterintuitive to those who appreciate a nice build-up. The logic behind it is that people are impatient and if you want to rope them in immediately, give them what they need to know regarding their query.

Be the last destination in their search. If they are interested in secondary details, history and other useful facts you have added, they will read on.

This style of writing insures you don’t lose your visitor to another site.

Optimize blog posts for a target keyword

It can be argued that if you’ve explained your topic extremely well that Google will automatically understand what keywords best represent your article.

However, the strategic placement of keywords will emphasize the target keyword in which your article should rank and improve your on-page SEO.

Make sure you include your keyword in your title, URL and make sure it occurs at least a few times within your content.
Use your keyword within the first paragraph (or 100 words).
Enhance your optimization by adding the keyword to the image alt tags.
Include variations of your keyword in your subtitles and text.

Leave a call to action

Readers need to be told what to do upon completing an article. What may seem obvious to you may not be as obvious to someone who is visiting your site for the first time.

Your call to action should move your reader further along the sales funnel. If it’s a new visitors reading a basic introductory article about your business, recommend another article on your site that builds more awareness of the benefits of your product or service.

If it’s an advanced article, leave a link to a service page or contact page to set up an appointment or phone call.

Leave a call to action based on what stage of the funnel your article represents.

Drive traffic to newly published pages

Even the best content in the world needs a little help in being found. You can give your pages the help it needs by driving traffic through an internal and external linking strategy as well as all social media outlets available.

Outbound internal links

Good on-page SEO means incorporating a few internal links. Include outbound links to related content. Link to some articles you’ve previously written to enhance the reader’s understanding of your topic.

Inbound internal links

Search engines rely on internal links (and your sitemap) to find new content. To get your page indexed quickly, add a few links from related articles you’ve previously published. Those inbound links will allow search bots to find your new content.

Internal links also bring readers to your newly published page, which promotes a higher click-through rate within your website.

Outbound external links

It’s considered best practice to reference authority sites from within your content. It adds credibility to your pages and shows Google that your page is truly serving your users needs.

Although it may be an SEO tactic, choose your outbound links wisely to send visitors to quality sites that will indeed enhance their user experience.

Inbound external links

Backlinks are a major consideration when it comes to ranking. Choose the most appropriate backlinking strategy that suits your goal.

If you’re attempting to rank locally you may need to lean heavily on the local link building tactics to create the most relevance for your page.

Social media outlets

Always post your content to every social media profile you’ve created. Posting over a long period of time builds an audience that provides a quick solution for getting your pages noticed and your content read.

Drive traffic to your page by leaving a call to action on every post that links to your site. Don’t forget to ask people to share with their network to get your content in front of as many eyes as possible.

Create content for users to build a loyal audience

Many mistake the purpose of SEO content as content that is created solely for ranking purposes.

This may have been true in a time when Google was less capable of determining the value your content holds for readers.

Create your content for users and not search engines.

The more you hold the attention of a reader and satisfy their search intent, the better your page will perform.

There is a close correlation with the quality of content and a first-page ranking. The biggest ranking factor is typically seen as the ability to satisfy user intent.

Make it your priority to write content that specifically tackles a specific search query from a user.

Combine the technical aspects of writing SEO content with a focused strategy to satisfy search intent and enjoy the fruits of a first-page ranking.

10 Digital Marketing Strategies To Implement In 2020

Of all the important tasks that a small business has on its plate, there are at least 10 digital marketing strategies that should remain at the foremost of your mind. Here is a checklist for starting the New Year with an additional boost to your website’s search visibility.

Optimize for keyword topics
Create content for users
Focus on one social media profile
Build a personal influencer network
Be an active guest author
Improve UX
Build an email list
Incorporate branding
Improve technical SEO
Analyze and adapt

Optimize for keyword topics

The capability of search engines to extract meaning has changed the way content is optimized. Sprinkling keywords throughout your page isn’t enough to make a page relevant in a keyword related query. It’s still necessary to have keywords in the most important places for on-page optimization but in order to truly be competitive, your content needs to be optimized for an entire keyword topic.

Keyword research

Keyword research is the process of discovering the most important terms as well as relevant topics that contribute to your page’s overall optimization. Use multiple sources for identifying keywords to create more options to choose from.

It would be impossible to publish a relevant page on kitchen renovations without mentioning the subtopics that go into performing a kitchen renovation.

By breaking down each topic into smaller subtopics, you’re able to target more specific search terms and provide more depth in a keyword topic.

Topic clusters

Creating topic clusters is an effective way to promote the relevance of your site for a specific topic. By identifying the most relevant subtopics of the most important terms to your business you can create a content cluster best represented by the pillar page model.

Pillar page model

The search term in this example is kitchen renovations. This topic can be broken down into subtopics to include countertops, flooring, lighting, cupboards, etc. The main page would link out to individual pages to explain each of these components in further detail.

Example of a topic cluster for kitchen renovations

As you dive deeper into detail it becomes apparent that each of the subtopics to kitchen renovations also has their own subtopics that can be further explained with separate pages. The phrase kitchen countertops can be broken down into more articles that explain the types of countertops and represent very high volume search terms.

Example of a topic cluster for kitchen countertops

Whether your content already exists or not, clustering your topics to show that your site goes deeper into detail will demonstrate expertise in your niche. By linking to the main pillar page from your subtopic pages, you raise the profile of the major search term. From a search engine perspective, this demonstrates the depth your site has for the entire keyword topic, enhances optimization and increases your site’s ability to answer user intent.

Create content for users

Satisfying search intent is a major factor in establishing relevance and ranking for a search query. The first page of results is a search engine product because it represents their best solution to a search query. Websites are selected in a search result based on the ability to provide what the user was looking for and as a result, be the final destination of the user’s search.

Search engines want to see that your site dives into the most important details of a query and has the ability to answer commonly asked questions related to the search.

Publishing content that provides solutions to common problems increases the value your site has because your content provides a specific response to a specific query. Create a resource for your clients and future clients by providing content that targets problems. Learn how to write SEO optimized blog posts to increase traffic your site receives.

Use the SERP as a resource to find what people are searching for the most. Google autosuggest, PAA boxes and featured snippets are major clues to the questions and answers people are searching for and serve as an indication as to what content should be included on your site.

Focus on one social media profile

There’s no question that a social network can provide an excellent source of the traffic to your site. Here is a list of the top social media sites and the number of users on each platform.

Social platforms to implement into your digital marketing strategies based on number of users as of 2020 — Source: Statista

The top social media sites have become secondary search engines that can benefit your site by driving traffic from optimized content. In order to be effective in driving the most traffic from any social site, it’s necessary to be active as a community member and not just a robotic content posting machine.

The whole purpose of social media is to be social, which allows businesses to show a more human side in which people can relate. This type of effort takes time and resources so it’s advantageous to allocate enough attention to one profile where you actually engage with other members.

Choose the most appropriate social profile to focus on to create a strong presence and build a network. It wouldn’t make sense to focus on Instagram if your company specializes in high-ticket B2B services. LinkedIn would be a better platform for your particular niche.

However, if your selling retail products, Instagram is the perfect platform where your product can get a lot of exposure and interest.

Build a Personal Influencer Network

One of the top three ranking factors is the strength of your backlink profile. It has become increasingly difficult to acquire high-quality backlinks and building a PIN (Personal Influencer Network) can increase the speed at which your website acquires links.

Identify the influencers, site owners and authors that actively publish content in the same industry as your own. One approach in building a mutually beneficial relationship is to offer them value before you’ve even made contact.

For example, research their website and find what keywords they’re appearing for on the second page of Google.

Link to their site on relevant pages a number of times in your own content and link building efforts.

Reach out to them explaining how they’ve influenced your work and provide them with the list of URLs in which you’ve included links to their content. This in itself is often enough to encourage them to want to return the favour.

Regardless of how they respond to your generosity, they will definitely be more inclined to pay attention to a page you’ve created in which you need links.

A simple email informing them about your content is more than often enough for them to help you out by linking to your site.

Be an active guest author

Guest posting regularly is an excellent way to build awareness of your brand and acquire high-quality links. The characteristics of quality backlinks are that the links come from relevant content, on a relevant site and from a website that has a good flow of traffic and search visibility (preferably with a high DA).

You control all of these factors and apart from the authority, you build from the links you increase the awareness of your company and create relevant streams of traffic to your site.

Improve UX

The experience users have on your site plays an important role in engagement. Visitors will leave a site that they find difficult to navigate or that takes too long to load.

User experience is a category to address in your digital marketing strategies. Page speed has a direct impact on user experience

Page speed became an official ranking factor on mobile devices in July 2019 after the Mobile-First update. Considering that the majority of searches are now performed from a mobile device this places a high priority on maintaining fast load time.

Improving mobile page speed is a digital marketing strategy that leads to a better ranking

Speed up your load time by uploading images that are compressed and sized to fit the space for what your site needs.

Use plugins to minimize and inline your HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Delete unused plugins to clear unwanted clutter from your header as this is the first area to register when your site is loading.

Build an email list

Boasting the largest ROI in the business at roughly 3800%, email marketing is an aspect you can’t afford to ignore. An email list will Google-proof your website by providing traffic through scheduled newsletters, updates or promotions.

Build an email marketing campaign and learn more about your audience through the statistics your campaign generates that provide insight on user behaviour. High open rates indicate what subject lines would make great headlines to attract attention. High click-through rates to your site indicate interest in a particular topic in which you can build more content on your website.

Incorporate branding

As the competition becomes more difficult, branding becomes a bigger asset to your marketing. Incorporate branding in your link building and content creation. When users recognize your business it encourages leapfrog clicks. People will jump to your site if they recognize your company as opposed to clicking on a site they don’t recognize.

The way people scan search results is shifting from the traditional allocation that ranking suggests. The number one position won’t always get 30% of the traffic because people will click further down the page for a recognizable brand. This type of user behaviour improves your site click-through rate, which also results in a higher ranking on the SERP.

Improve technical SEO

Stay on top of the technical aspects of your site to maintain a competitive edge. When all things are equal in terms of content, optimization and backlinks, the technical performance of your site can mean the difference in outranking your competition.

Use tools such as Screaming Frog or Deep Crawl to get an overview of the performance of your site. Identifying and correcting indexing issues, duplicate content and metadata issues can improve the performance of your site. A few 404 errors (broken links) may not hurt your site too much, but as they accumulate they can weigh down the user experience and therefore affect your ranking ability.

Analyze and adapt

Optimize your websites for performance in every aspect that pertains to how search engines are ranking sites for your keyword. Analyze the SERP to identify the characteristics the ranking pages share and what is making a difference in how Google is determining to rank websites for that particular search term.

For example, a characteristic that magazine-style blog sites benefit from is fresh content. Having the most recently published content is baked into the ranking algorithm. Therefore, maintaining a consistent publishing schedule and updating older blog posts creates positive ranking signals and a sharper competitive edge.

Every niche and every keyword should be considered separately because Google’s ranking algorithm changes with the intent of a search. Be aware of what’s working on the SERP for your keywords to make those adjustments and additions necessary to rank in a top position.

Implement sound digital marketing strategies

Execute careful and consistent content strategies that address the needs of your current and future clients.

The top-ranking factors (content, backlinks and Rankbrain) are ultimately related to providing the best experience for the user. Keep this in mind when forming keyword, content, link building and digital marketing strategies for the biggest impact in traffic and lead generation in 2020.