Content strategy

Jan 28 2023

10 Digital Marketing Strategies To Implement In 2023

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 high search visibility for similar keywords (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 pages 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 2023.

Related reading: 12 Web Design Trends By Toronto Experts

Dec 08 2022

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.

Brainstorm 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 SEO-optimized blog posts, 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. This is a sweet little undervalued pearl of wisdom found within the many online marketing tactics you need to employ.

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 SEO-optimized blog posts. It adds credibility to your pages and shows Google that your page is truly serving your user’s 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 optimized blog posts 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.

Pillar Page Best Practices For Structuring Content

Publishing content regularly can result in your blog resembling a scattered array of articles that don’t work together as themed content. One advantage you can create as a publisher is defining themes within your content by organizing them in topic clusters. As a precursor to creating an effective topic cluster, use the pillar page best practices outlined in this article.

What’s a pillar page?

A pillar page represents a major keyword topic on your website that can be broken down into smaller subtopics. This page would briefly summarize the subtopics, but not go into great detail about them. Instead, it would link to narrowly focused articles that target long-tail phrases and in turn link back to the pillar page.

Pillar page best practices shown as creating a central page and linking smaller subtopics to and from the page

The interlinking structure formed by establishing a pillar page binds your major keyword topic. Since every smaller article points to the pillar it becomes the central hub for the topic, which enhances the page’s authority and ranking ability.

This internal linking strategy raises the profile of the pillar page to demonstrate the importance of its content as it relates to your website. This page represents a central idea being supported by a number of different articles to create depth and expertise in the subject.

Five separate topic clusters with pillar pages and cluster content

There’s no limit to how many pillar pages you create on your website. For every major topic, create a pillar page to create the main hub for how the information on your site is organized.

What are the benefits of using a pillar page?

This type of structure organizes your content for both users and search engines. The interlinking structure guides and encourages users to read more related articles on the website. This leads to higher click-through rates and extends the average length of time a user spends on your website.

An increase in user engagement translates to stronger ranking signals, which results in more traffic through improved search visibility.

Pillar pages tend to rank for multiple keywords and phrases because of the breadth of content that is incorporated. This gives publishers a lot of opportunities to target featured snippets and win positions in the People Also Ask box.

It also allows for the opportunity to target long-tail keywords using the clustered content as opposed to trying to target those keywords within one pillar page.

The traffic that is driven by the clustered content is a good match to your content since the visitors enter your site through article ranking for long-tail search phrases.

The stronger your cluster content, the stronger your pillar page becomes in terms of ranking ability. It’s similar to a tree growing taller because of a strong root system. With more cluster content that ranks and drives relevant traffic to your pillar page, the more your pillar grows in stature and authority.

Tips for creating a pillar page

There’s no single way to create pillar pages and for every website, it might be different. If there’s already an extensive amount of content on your site, the process will be different than if you’re publishing fresh brand new content.

Some publishers recommend writing your clustered content first so that you know exactly how brief to be in your pillar content. There are others who prefer to write the pillar content first and create cluster content afterward.

Whichever way you go, here are some universal tips, tactics and strategies, and pillar page best practices that will help you along the way to creating well-defined topic clusters that satisfy user intent.

Select your target keywords

Every website needs a strong keyword strategy. There’s simply no way around it. In order to have a clear idea of how to create an effective pillar page, you’ll need to do some keyword research to clarify the terms that your page will target.

Start with the most obvious terms

Almost every keyword strategy begins with a logical list of topics and subtopics that are relevant to your business. Create a list of terms that summarize the most important aspects of your business.

If you’re a digital marketing company, one of your pillars should be about lead generation. Write down every aspect of lead generation to start your list of clustered content. Examples of subtopics would be email marketing, call to action, content strategy, keyword strategy, etc.

Fine-tune your selections

Once you’ve got a basic list you can then add to it using keyword software and fine-tune your selection based on competition, volume, and the value each word represents to your business.

Perform a competitive analysis

You can’t outperform the competition without knowing what exactly they’re doing to rank on the first page of Google. Perform a thorough competitive analysis to find common characteristics of the top-ranking pages.

A content gap analysis will indicate the content your page is missing by identifying what keywords the competing pages are also rankings for to include those keywords in your strategy as well.

Determine the level of detail required to rank

Figure out what the average word count is for the top 10 ranking pages. The average length of a page in the top 10 positions for your keyword indicates the level of detail required to be competitive.

Keep in mind that it isn’t the word count that makes the page competitive but rather the topics that are being covered within the page. There may be room to further break down some of the subtopics you’ve established into several subtopics.

Create content that meets and exceeds the value a user receives from the top 10 ranking pages to make sure you earn the first-page position.

Address each stage of the buyer journey

The pillar page is the central hub of a major keyword topic, so it should naturally be assumed that this page should have the ability to convert visitors into clients. To do this, you should address each stage of the buyer journey to guide your visitors from wherever they are, to making a purchase.

Awareness

Create a stronger awareness of your product or service by incorporating basic information about your keyword topic. Start your pillar page with definitions of your keyword topic so that visitors have a clear understanding of what the page is about.

Consideration

List the benefits and practical applications associated with your product service or major keyword topic. You can always link out to more detailed articles when you touch on a topic that deserves more attention and can be broken down with more detailed explanations.

Decision

Bring the visitor to the conclusion that your company offers the best solutions for what they need. Using comparisons, case studies and testimonials can help influence your visitor into a favorable purchase decision.

Optimize your content

Take advantage of the opportunity to appear in SERP features-more specifically the People Also Ask box and featured snippet. You’ll need to be aware of the questions that appear in these features in order to know how to optimize correctly.

Analyze the SERP by clicking through the question in the PAA box and copying every question that is relevant to your keyword topic. Repeat the process for related terms that your page could also rank to get more options and ideas for how to structure your headings.

It also helps to have a list of secondary keywords to use in addition to your primary keyword targets. Having a list of optimized search terms can influence the headings you use within your content.

Link to all relevant content within your topic cluster

In order to bind your topic cluster together and identify your page as a pillar of your website, you need to build internal links. Your pillar page only becomes your pillar when it’s obvious that there are multiple pages within a cluster that are linking back to it.

Link to every article within your topic cluster and make sure they link back to your pillar. Pillar pages have the most link equity and will increase in authority with more cluster content linking to them.

Be sure to link your cluster content together to emphasize the relationship of the articles within your cluster. This is not only beneficial from a technical standpoint but also enhances the user experience.

Give users the opportunity to read related content by linking to articles that move them through the buyer journey. Keep them learning about your business and how it can help them solve the problems that are commonly faced by those looking for your product or service.

Use call-to-action banners

The purpose of creating content is to educate your audience into making a purchase decision with your company. Make sure you give them plenty of opportunities to make a call, fill out a form, or complete the objective conversion goal you’ve created for your website.

Use a CTA banner throughout your pillar page wherever it makes sense. Definitely leave a call to action at the end of your pillar page to encourage more goal conversions.

Example of how to create a pillar page in a topic cluster

Create options for keyword topics by listing the major keywords of your website. Each of these keywords will act as an idea bucket which you will fill with terms that belong under your main keyword topic.

For example, let’s say your website is about home renovations. One of your pillar pages would target the keyword kitchen renovations. A potential topic cluster that organizes the information related to kitchen renovations into smaller detailed articles would look like this:

Kitchen renovations pillar page and topic cluster example

Although you would mention all of these subtopics on your pillar page, you would need entire articles to go deeper into detail on each aspect of kitchen renovations in your SEO writing.

Silo your content

Keyword topic clusters can have more outer levels than just the one that surrounds the pillar page. In the kitchen renovations example, you could break down the topic kitchen countertops into deeper detail if there is a demand for that content in your product.

Example of siloing the information needed or kitchen renovations in a kitchen counter tops topic cluster

Repeat the pillar page creation process

Organize your content using a structure that search engines and users understand. Topic clusters are one of the top content structures for encouraging user engagement and ultimately high rankings.

Publish pillar pages to compete for competitive keywords and increase the authority your site demonstrates for that major keyword topic. You can build the level of depth and expertise your website has by continually adding to your clustered content and providing users with the solutions to commonly asked questions and problems.

Search engines prefer to display websites they trust and those that are considered to have an expert opinion. Demonstrate both of these ranking factors by implementing these pillar page best practices to create topic clusters that rank highly to drive high volumes of traffic.

Oct 14 2022

SEO Content Writing: How Does It Work?

SEO content writing is a term that refers to producing optimized content that appears for target keywords. The process incorporates keyword research, SERP analysis, competitive analysis, content creation, and optimization.

Publishing search-engine-optimized content gives your posts a better chance of being found in the search results. Incorporate the following steps to create articles that rise to the top of the search results:

Want to skip the steps and have an SEO professional do it for you?

Choose the keyword best suited to your needs and ability

The keyword you choose to target should present value to your website as well as be within your ranking ability. It won’t make sense to choose keywords with a low business value just for the sake of ranking your content on the first page.

SEO content writing involves keyword research (image of keywords spelled in scrabble tiles)

Similarly, it’s a waste of time to publish content that no one will read because it’s too difficult to drive traffic to the page for its target search terms. The keywords you choose should be a blend of suitable search volume as well as within your realm of expertise to achieve a first-page position.

How do I determine if a keyword has business value?

Use the cost per click for a keyword to indicate whether other websites are making money from the traffic it drives. The logic behind this is simply that if there are people willing to pay money for every click then they are obviously making money from that traffic.

The higher the cost per click, the higher the inferred commercial value. Apart from the transactional value of the term, you should also consider the impact your content will have on its audience.

Does your content make your visitor feel like they need your product or service?
Does it further educate them on making a decision about a purchase?
What stage of the buyer journey does your keyword address?

There’s more to assigning value to keywords for transactional intent. The purpose of your content can also be to create brand awareness and instill a sense of confidence in your prospective client.

The bottom line for choosing a keyword to target is that it moves your visitor closer to making a purchase decision.

What’s an appropriate level of volume?

Adequate search volume will be different in every niche. Typically, B2B niches with high-ticket services require less volume to make a keyword profitable.

If you’re a lawyer or plastic surgeon, one client is worth thousands to your practice.

If you’re selling poop bags for dogs on your website, you’re going to need thousands of visitors in order to pay rent for the month.

Your conversion rate will determine the true value of a keyword and unfortunately, without data, you will need to make an educated guess at how many people you can move into your sales funnel from the total volume of monthly searches.

Gauge the competition

When you’re looking at potential keywords to target, filter out options based on the strength of the competing pages. You can get a good sense of how difficult your keyword will be to rank by looking at the domain authority of the top-ranking pages.

Unless you’re planning years into the future, eliminate keywords where your domain authority is dwarfed by every domain in the top 10 results. If you own an eCommerce website, you may be competing with retail giants like Amazon, Walmart and other high authority websites. In order to outrank those sites, it will take an enormous amount of time and resources.

Image of Moz domain overview for Walmart showing high authority and thousands of backlinks.

Look for openings in the SERP where websites with a similar domain authority are ranking. Keep in mind that Google ranks pages, not websites so you have the option of building links to your page to improve the page authority. That’s how you make up the difference in domain authority.

Choose your keyword based on a blend of factors

It’s rare to find a keyword that has low competition, with high volume and converts extremely well. They do exist but in most cases, you have to concede come qualities for others. Make your final decision on your keyword target by considering each of these factors and how they fit into your overall keyword strategy.

Establish search intent

One of the most important criteria for ranking highly in the SERPs is that your content accurately satisfies search intent. Identify and publish the content type and format that is best suited for users searching your keyword.

Establish what’s working to rank in the top positions by scanning the top 10 page titles on the SERP. The headlines can usually provide a strong indication of the content type that users are enjoying best.

When there’s a predominant type of content that appears in the search results, it’s an indication of what will work best to satisfy search intent. Identify which content type is the most dominant within the 10 organic search listings and plan on duplicating the same content type.

Analyze the top-ranking pages

In order to outrank the competition, you need to understand what is currently working to rank on the first page. You can’t make a “superior” piece of content without understanding what made it rank on the first page.

Analyze the top-ranking pages and determine what topics they cover and how deep into detail they go into. You can get a good idea of the outline a page has by scanning its subtitles.

Most articles will have the main points of a page highlighted by using headlines for each segment of their content. You can write them down to compare articles, or even cut and paste the content into your own CMS and see a detailed breakdown of topics. WordPress does an excellent job of summarizing the content you create on its HTML editor:

Take note of the internal and external links that they’ve used within their content as they may be valuable hints for optimization. There are some guides that rank extremely high, and the majority of their pages are external links to the various chapters of the topic.

When search engines crawl your page they will follow the links that you’ve built. If those pages are excellent resources for your topic that link will help to build the relevance of your page for satisfying search intent.

Publish 10X content

Once you’ve determined what the competition has published, aim to create content that is 10 times better than anything on the SERP. Make sure your article completely blows away the competition in every category. Provide more information and better multimedia with the intention of improving the user experience to a level that no other page can compete with.

How do I create 10X content?

After analyzing content on the top-ranking pages you should have an accurate idea of the topics that are covered and the level of depth that they’ve achieved. Your findings alone can be applied to, at the very least, provide a similar version.

Where you excel is to look at what these pages don’t have and including it in your content. If you’re pulling the best from every page you should already have a much better version of content when you put it all together.

Add depth of coverage

Keep adding to your findings by taking clues from the SERP. Use the questions in the PAA box to create more depth by answering commonly asked questions related to your keyword. The PAA box is infinite so if you continue to click on questions-more will continue to populate the box.

Add a completely new segment to your own content to boost the depth of coverage. The goal here is to provide a better solution to search intent, so keep your user in mind when you’re selecting questions that pertain to the topic you’re targeting.

Add new multimedia

Create a more enjoyable user experience by adding new multimedia to your content. Whatever the competition has used, don’t just one-up them, aim to outperform them to the point of embarrassment.

Make sure you have more images that explain more points. If the ranking page has five images, give yours at least 10. Provide a visual example for every subtopic that warrants a visual explanation. This will make your content easier to understand and digest.

Is there a video on any of the ranking pages? Make a video for users who prefer to watch and listen rather than read. Your content will appeal more to that specific segment of your audience that prefers video.

Be innovative and embed a slideshow. This can give your content a feature that isn’t as common, which separates your page from the masses. Whether it’s a slideshow, an audio file, or a gif., use whatever you believe will create a more enjoyable user experience for your audience.

Use original research and data

The more unique your content is with original statistics and real results, the more you differentiate your brand as an innovator. Visitors will trust your company and what’s more, your page will accumulate more backlinks as an original source of data.

The amplifiers in your industry are often looking for statistics when writing about topics. If you can supply original statistics from studies and surveys you’ve completed, the value of your content goes way up.

Chart that shows original data and research is the most efficient content type for link building when writing SEO content

Optimize your page for performance

When you’ve finalized your draft, you will need to optimize your content to maximize the traffic you’ll receive. Not only do you want to be optimized for your target keyword, but you want to make sure your page has multiple ways to drive traffic from keyword-related searches.

Review content for the PAA box and featured snippet opportunities

The featured snippet appears for almost every question used in a search. Review your content for any opportunities where you can appear in a featured result.

If you’re analyzing keywords using a tool, you can find a list of the SERP features along with other keyword stats.

SEMRush keyword overview that shows the SERP features that appear for this keyword

Look for questions and definitions as those are among the most common forms of snippets that appear in the SERP.

If you’ve followed the steps in this article, you may already have questions you found in the PAA box included in your content. As long you keep your answers short and succinct, you have a good chance of appearing in the feature.

Add structured data

Structured data markup enhances the optimization of your page. Schema.org has over 1300 defined entities that you can include in your page to make it easy for search engines to quickly process and establish the most important elements of your page.

Use the structured data markup helper to mark up your content. Aim for every possibility of receiving a rich result. The added search listing enhancement that rewards your page will attract more attention and ultimately more clicks and traffic to your site.

You can check here for a list of the items and the markup required to implement rich snippets in your content.

Use your target keyword in the metadata

Using your keyword in your metadata is among the oldest and most well-known forms of optimization for a reason; it has a big impact on your ranking for your target keyword.

Use your keyword in the title, image alt tags, and URL, a few times within the body of text as well as in your meta description. The meta description is the only place that search engines don’t specifically factor into your optimization-but it does impact how users see your search result.

Add secondary keywords

It’s never a bad idea to include some keyword variations a couple of times within your content. Using a keyword twice is probably enough to put it on a search engine’s radar. This adds context to your target keyword and creates more keyword options for search engines to rank your page.

When a page ranks in the number one position for a keyword, it usually ranks for hundreds of other terms and variations, according to a study by Ahrefs.

Line chart illustrating how the higher your Google position is on the SERP, the more keywords you're able to rank for

Give your page the greatest range of options when it comes to optimizing for keywords.

Finalize and publish

SEO content writing is not only a calculated approach to publishing top-notch content but is a way to publish content that drives traffic. Take the steps outlined in this article to produce content that captures the attention of your audience and is rewarded by search engines with a top ranking.

Jul 29 2021

Social Media Analytics For Small Businesses

Today, social media has evolved into a powerful tool to help you reach your target audience and grow your small business. For this reason, if you want to take this seriously, you need to make decisions based on the data that social media analytics provides small businesses rather than a gut feeling.

Fortunately, most social media platforms offer analytics and reports on how your content is doing and how the audience is receiving it. But, the question is, are you using this information to your advantage?

Here are five ways you can use social media analytics for your business plan that you can start implementing today!

Social media analytics for small businesses infographic

1. Customer insights

Social media is not only about getting likes, people commenting on what you post and share. The key to real success lies in looking at the right metrics and uncovering opportunities.

Insights can tell you more about your audience’s interests, demographics, connections, and behaviour with your content. With this information in hand, you can segment your audience and create marketing personas.

You can also understand better what your audience is looking for, what their needs and wants are, and how you can satisfy them with your products or services.

Therefore, when you are writing a business plan, you can use this information to decide what products and services you should continue to offer to the target audience to get the best results possible.

What can be considered an insight?

Insights are not just “data.” It needs to be also insightful, and they should meet certain criteria.

First of all, the data should be new. This means that if you already suspected or knew about a piece of information, it is not an insight.

Insights are also unexpected and relevant. If the information does not match your business goals or values, then you cannot use it.

Finally, insights should inspire you to take action.

Where can you traditionally gather insights?

There are many ways you can gather insights for your small business and the marketing strategies you want to develop. One of them is focus groups, but you can also do surveys and questionnaires.

However, as we mentioned above, social media already provides very useful insights that you can take advantage of without having to invest in focus groups, surveys, or more.

2. What are your top-performing channels?

Not every social media platform works great for every brand. What can work well for one company may not work for yours. The good news is that there are many social media channels to choose from: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more.

Many people often ask themselves if they should be on every channel. Still, even if you have the opportunity to do so, it may not be the best idea.

Work on finding the best channel combination for your small business. Focus on where your audience is and choose channels to produce great content and engage with potential customers.

The best way to know this is, of course, by looking at the social media analytics of each channel you are using and deciding to keep only those who are performing well.

Which social media channels matter?

As Neil Patel – a digital marketing guru – explains, the first question you should ask yourself about social media is “where is my audience participating in?”. Where are they spending their time? Also, just because you have followers does not mean that you have an audience! There are many fake accounts out there and many inactive accounts as well.

Also, you should ask yourself where your audience is active; otherwise, the site may be of no use to you. Finally, ask yourself what your audience is searching for. Remember that people use social media for socializing but also for searching.

How to choose the best social media channels?

If a brand is getting many leads from a specific social media channel, it does not mean that it will also work for yours; therefore, you do not have to be there.

Facebook has more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, which makes it the largest social network today. However, they are browning photos and profiles, not really interested in anything else.

The opportunity for brands on Facebook is to participate in pages, groups, and events to gather a real presence.

Then we have Twitter, where things are constantly happening. It is a place where you can provide customer service and generate leads; however, not as much as you can do on Facebook.

For B2B businesses, LinkedIn is the place to be. Here, you can connect with professionals and decision-makers.

But, don’t leave out Instagram, YouTube, and maybe TikTok. Why not? If it makes sense for your brand to be there, then you should try it! Also, consider that today video content is becoming more important than ever. You should analyze if your brand could benefit from them.

3. Create relevant content

Today, high-quality content creation is crucial for any strategy in social media. Your audience needs to find it exciting and entertaining. One way to know your brand’s best content is by looking into social media analytics.

This way, you can develop a more ingenious content strategy, focused and targeted to your audience.

You can analyze what content your audience engages with the most and the topics they respond well to are. Then, you can optimize your social media marketing plan and create content that resonates with your followers.

How to make your content more relevant?

There are many ways you can make your content more relevant, and the first step is to create and cater to a buyer persona. No, there is no such thing as content that is relevant to everyone or that you want to sell to reach everybody.

Relevance is audience-dependent, and it has to do with generating a good conversation. The best way to achieve it is by creating one or more buyer personas that will help you understand the characteristics of your target audience, what their needs and wants are, and how you can be relevant to them.

Then, you also need to understand user intent and create a list of keywords. And yes, we are talking about SEO, but the truth is that Search Engine Optimization will help our content reach the audiences we are trying to connect with. Once you have the list of keywords with opportunities, use them in the right places.

Additionally, your content will be relevant if it solves a problem and is timely. Most of the searches people do online are about solving a problem they have, and if you have the answer, then it is your website where they will go to. But, make sure your content is timely and matches current events, whatever those are in your niche.

Finally, make the content as long as it needs to be. You can have great, relevant content that is just a few hundred words long. Longer articles do not mean more relevant and valuable articles.

4. Track the competition

If you want to grow, you need to see what your competitors are doing. We suggest that you make a list of five competitors and use a social media analytics tool that can help you obtain data from them. You can also do a manual evaluation of their profiles and accounts.

Where are they present? What kind of content do they post? How is their engagement, and how do they respond to comments they receive?

All of this information will give you ideas for your brand and perhaps a little inspiration too.

How can you track your competitors?

It does not matter what industry you are in; you will always have competitors seeking your audience’s attention, for traffic, for followers, for sale, and so on.

Therefore, competitor analysis is incredibly important, and there are many online tools available and can help you achieve it. Here’s a helpful list you can use:

Sprout Social: It helps you understand your competitors’ performance on social media from different angles and data points. You can also benchmark your growth against several profiles with a few clicks.
Phlanx: In a few words, it is an Instagram engagement calculator. It gives you clues on how active an account’s followers are and therefore has insights about the competition’s Instagram presence.
Social Blade: This online tool assesses follower counts on the likes of YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. It assigns a grade to every social profile you search.
SEMRush: This is another very popular tool today for competition analysis and SEO. You can pull your competitor’s backlinks and monitor their ranking and if there have been any changes. Plus, you will be able to know who else is competing for your traffic.
Ahrefs: Check any URL’s top organic keywords with this tool, plus also receive an estimate of the traffic a competitor receives on those keywords.
MozBar: This free Google Chrome extension will allow you to check the domain authority, DA, of any website. This way, you can analyze how competing sites are doing in a Google query with just a glance.
Buzzsumo: This tool will allow you to look at the top-performing content for you and your competitors.
Similarweb: Here, you can better understand where the competitors’ traffic is coming from and what topics their visitors search for.

These are just a few tools from many more that are available out there. We recommend that you choose one or a combination of several so that your small business can gather the data it needs to grow.

5. How do your customers feel about your brand?

Finally, you can analyze how customers are feeling about your brand, product, or service. This is possible by monitoring conversations on social media platforms. It will allow you to uncover what they want and give it to them.

Also, you can uncover challenges, pain points, and more to take advantage of for your strategy. You can even prepare for a potential crisis or prevent it if you know what people are saying about your brand.

Associate your brand with positive emotions

We can bet that personally, you would prefer to be surrounded by people who are positive rather than negative. In fact, it is likely that you avoid being in a negative environment altogether. The same happens with brands and products.

People love to surround themselves with positivity, which is why you should focus on the emotions your brand conveys through the messages it shares: They should be positive and promote a great experience that creates trust.

Positive emotions help create an atmosphere for customers in which they become more trusting towards your brand.

Also, for customers to associate your brand with positivity and a “nice place to be,” you need consistency. However, this consistency needs to occur on an individual level, which is possible by designing diverse and rich marketing communications to transmit their message based on personal experiences.

Storytelling copywriting is very popular today because of this. Everyone likes a good and captivating story, and it will help people feel closer to you and more positive towards you and your brand or company.

Another important action is personalization, which not only makes people feel special but makes them feel they matter to the brand. The customer-brand relationship becomes more genuine and human.

In conclusion

There are many moments in life where trusting your gut is the right way to go. However, social media strategies are not those.

To create engaging content, leveraging your social media presence, and grow your small business, you need to use data as part of the planning process. It can even be useful for newsletter strategies, ads, and more.

It is a constant process of analyzing, publishing, reviewing, and making changes to get the best possible results and to grow your business as much as you can. It is a work that never ends but is in constant transformation. The good news is that there are many tools available today and that some of them offer a free version that can be enough for small businesses.