Content Conversations

Conversations and resources for small business, startup, and solopreneur content marketing and social media.

SEO Basics for Content Marketing

May 3, 2021 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

Creating high-quality, useful content is a complete waste of time and money if no one reads it.

Given that nearly half of internet users start their browsing session on a search engine, all content creators need to follow basic search engine optimization (SEO) principles to get their content in front of its intended audience.

But successful SEO is more than stuffing in keywords or appeasing Google’s ever-changing algorithm. For SEO to benefit your content marketing goals, you must consciously blend audience insights and structural elements to improve your content’s audience value and set it above the competition on search rankings.

Let’s explore the basic elements of SEO and the top SEO tools to explain how you can boost your content marketing results.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search engine optimization is a practice where you create content in a way that increases its likelihood of appearing higher in search engine results, thus reaching more of its ideal readers.

At a basic level, SEO is about knowing your target audience, the terms and phrases they use, and how search engines deliver content based on your audience’s search queries. Ask yourself: how would my target buyer seek solutions to their problems? What do they search for? What topics are they interested in?

There are SEO considerations for every aspect of your content, including your headline, body copy, alt descriptions, and behind-the-scenes elements like meta descriptions. We’ll cover just a few top considerations for SEO in this article, but you can learn more about SEO in this piece from Semrush.

Create Content Optimized for Audience Value, Not Just SEO

One important thing to remember: Write content for people, not to benefit SEO.

Any content you create should pique your audience’s interest, answer their questions, provide resources, and otherwise be valuable in some way. This should always be your content focus.

Do not write content with the primary lens of SEO. Not only will you likely come across as robotic or simply uninteresting, but you may also actually hurt your SEO rankings (see our section on “backlinks” below).

5 Essential SEO Elements for Content Marketing

There are a few core SEO elements that all content creators should be aware of. Create your new content with these ideals in mind, and audit your existing blog content to optimize your posts.

SEO Keywords

Keywords are the words, phrases, and language that your audience uses to discuss and conduct searches around their topics of interest. Keywords are a foundational element of SEO that all brands should document and consistently review.

As a broad example, a marketing technology provider could have keywords like “marketing automation,” “audience insights,” or “customer personas.” There are long-tail keywords, too, which drill further into a clear audience need. In the above example, long-tail keywords would include “best marketing automation technology” or “top marketing tool for identifying audience personas.”

There are plenty of tools to accelerate your keyword search (see our section on top SEO tools below). Or, you can use manual means like social listening and conversations with your customers to understand the right keywords to reach them.

Where you use keywords is as important as how many times you use the keywords. For a blog post, you should include a keyword in the URL, headline, meta description, and a subhead, all in addition to your body copy, to make an impact.

SEO Headlines

Primarily related to blog posts, your headline should compel your ideal reader to click on your post.

Headlines are often used interchangeably with titles. However, there are specific SEO considerations for your page title that you should be aware of once you’ve established your SEO strategy.

Headlines should be short (no longer than 70 characters), include at least one keyword, and clearly communicate the value of the content. Common headline structures include number-based lists, questions, and “how-to” style guides. Some headlines include terms like “workbook,” “checklist,” or “template” to call out the value-add of the piece directly.

The CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is perfect for experimenting with different headlines. The team scores your draft headline out of 100 and offers advice on how to strengthen it. You can learn more about what makes for a great headline from their team.

SEO Content Structure

Your content structure is relatively self-explanatory—it is how your content flows and elements that enhance its skimmability. Great content includes clear headings, subheads, bullet points, and other visual elements that guide the reader through the piece.

Google recommends that you write a blog post as though you’re writing an outline. Create a hierarchical structure for your content, including headlines, subheads, and bullet points/lists.

Well-structured content is more likely to be read and shared by your ideal reader. Experiment with different content structures to find a format that resonates best with your audience.

SEO Meta Descriptions

A meta description is a short blurb about your content that will appear alongside it on search engines and social media channels. The description should be no more than 260 characters and address what’s in it for me for the audience.

When writing a meta description, ask yourself: If I saw this description returned as a Google search result, would I click on it? If so, would I be satisfied with the content based on the meta description positioning?

SEO Backlinks & Link Building

Backlinks and link-building strategies involve the piece(s) of content that you link to and the various sites that link back to your content.

All content you create should link back to other resources on your site or articles from external sites. The purpose is to build a content ecosystem that guides your reader through various interrelated resources and pieces of content.

From an audience standpoint, links provide a straightforward content journey that allows your reader to continue exploring a topic. Backlinks in your content, especially to high-authority domains, will also signal to search engines that your content is well-researched and can get it to rank higher in search results.

The ultimate goal for link building for SEO is to get high-authority websites to link back to your content. This is not a simple task. There are many strategies to strengthen your link building, but I believe that the best way to get links back to your content is to write content for audience value. By providing value-rich content that is SEO optimized, other content creators can more easily find your assets and link to them in their own content.

Top Free and Paid SEO Tools for Content Marketing

With practice, most content marketing pros can easily address the above SEO elements without needing any tools or resources. But just because content creators can do something manually doesn’t mean they should do it without help.

There are multiple incredibly powerful SEO tools that can automatically identify issues with your content and proactively suggest ways to improve your approach. Additionally, there are tools to streamline your initial SEO planning, such as keywords or what makes a successful headline.

Check out these SEO tools the #ContentChat community recommends for content marketing:

Alexa.com: Amazon’s Alexa.com offers SEO and competitive analysis software. The tool is great for competitive research to identify content gaps for your keywords and your competitor’s keywords. The team also offers a free browser extension for you to see any website’s Alexa traffic rank and the number of backlinks.
AnswerThePublic: This tool is a goldmine for content ideas and understanding what people are searching for on a range of topics and brands. This is perfect for refining your keywords and finding new content ideas.
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer: Many marketers (including me!) love CoSchedule’s headline analyzer. The free tool helps you workshop your headlines by assigning a score to your drafts and helping dissect the headline elements for editing.
Moz: Moz is an all-in-one SEO toolset with keyword research, backlink research, rank tracking, and other capabilities. The team offers a few free SEO tools along with their paid offerings.
Semrush: Semrush is a SaaS platform that covers every SEO need, from keyword research and competitor analysis to rank tracking and link building. You can use Semrush for free with limited functionality or choose from their paid packages for more capabilities.

These are just a few of our favorite SEO tools. You can also check out these recommendations for a core set of other content marketing tools to make your life easier.

Boost Your Content Marketing Results Through SEO

Getting started with SEO is much easier than you may think. By optimizing your content headline, keywords, structure, meta description, and backlinks, your team can effectively reach new readers and build authority in your space.

It is best to incorporate your SEO elements into the earliest stages of your content creation. To streamline this process, we’ve created a planning document that bakes all the essential SEO elements into your planning processes.

Download our free content planning template today to start driving more value with your content.

How to Refresh Content to Boost its Value in New Channels and Formats

April 19, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

As a marketer, it’s important that you have at least three different uses planned for any single piece of content you create.

This mindset is necessary to drive the most value from your work and ensure you provide your audience a variety of formats for learning more about their topics of interest. Think about it: If your ideal buyers are interested in a topic, it makes sense to repackage or reapproach your ideas in a few different ways, through various formats and channels, to best reach these buyers.

However, it is often difficult to go back and give a piece of content a full set of derivative content when you already have a lot on your plate. There is always another deadline right around the corner. And this only further complicates in heavily siloed organizations.

The best way to optimize your content creation is to think through the various forms for your content from your earliest planning phases. I’ll show you how to bake this type of thinking into your day-to-day work and showcase the range of ways that you can repurpose content for new channels and formats.

Plan Your PESO Model 2.0 Content Ecosystem

All content you create should fit within your greater content ecosystem. To say this another way: all content should tie to a priority topic for your audience, and your team should provide value through your audience’s preferred channels and formats.

To start, you must first define and document your priority content topics. Andy Crestodina, the co-founder of Orbit Media Studios and author of Content Chemistry, refers to this as your Content Hub. This enables you to build authority on a topic and break through the noise in your given space.

With your primary content topics defined, the best way to visualize your content’s full potential is to follow the PESO Model created by Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich and author of Spin Sucks.

How To Audit and Refresh Your Existing Blog Content

April 5, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

When did you last review your blog content? Can you say with confidence that all posts meet your current audience persona needs?

Research from HubSpot recommends companies publish three to four new blog posts a week to maximize their organic traffic. This means a brand will ideally create more than 156 new posts in a year—and you’re at an extreme resource disadvantage if you treat each of those as one and done content.

Most content you create can become an evergreen resource that drives steady traffic to your site, as long as you give each piece the ongoing attention and pruning that it deserves.

Let’s explore how to conduct an efficient blog content audit and the simple changes you can make to your outdated content to keep it audience-focused and brand-relevant.

How to Conduct a Blog Content Audit

It will likely take a significant amount of time to audit your existing blog content. However, it is well worth the time investment, and there are multiple ways to optimize the process.

Use a tracker to document your blog content audit journey and serve as a project management tool that guides your team through the next steps. We’ve created this free blog content audit template to get you started.

Follow these steps to fill in the blog content audit template and complete your audit:

Step 1: Add each piece of blog content to its own row.

Starting with your most recent blog post, paste the title and hyperlink it to the published article on your blog. This way, your tracker will become your new content inventory, replacing the need to search through content on your site manually.

Step 2: List the topic and audience persona tied to each piece.

Briefly skim each piece of content to identify its primary topic and the audience persona it is geared toward. If the topic is still of interest to your audience, but the content is outdated, or the writing doesn’t match your existing brand voice, mark it for a refresh in the action column.

Step 3: Flag irrelevant posts for removal.

After a cursory scan of your content, identify any pieces that are no longer relevant for your audience, do not meet an audience persona need, or refer to outdated concepts or technology. Tag them for removal in the action column.

How to Amplify Customer Stories That Will Win New Business

March 15, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Research has consistently shown that buyers want non-marketing information and peer recommendations to evaluate their options for any significant purchases. While you may initially think of this as being exemplified by Yelp and other customer review sites, it is especially true for B2B companies.

Brands need to arm their sales teams with more than just product information and cost sheets—buyers expect to hear real use cases, challenges that others have overcome, and feedback from actual customers.

This information is most commonly packaged as a customer case study, which gives prospective buyers a glimpse at how a company similar to them (either in size, industry, or challenges faced) has transformed through the use of a product or services.

The problem with many case studies is that brands too often focus on selling their product, not telling a relatable story. Although your technology or service is always an element of a customer case study, it cannot be the entire focus. Instead, case studies should discuss people, the challenges they face, the solutions they seek, and the results they achieve.

Drawing from decades of my customer case study work with clients, let’s explore how brands can optimize their customer case studies to win business. We’ll discuss how to identify the right customers for a case study, tips for writing customer-focused content, and examples of standout customer case studies.

How To Put Your Community At The Heart Of Your Virtual Event

February 22, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Virtual events skyrocketed in importance in 2020, and 92% of companies plan to host a digital event, meet-up, conference, or other virtual gatherings in 2021.

These virtual or hybrid event settings have a natural appeal given the potential benefits and apparent conveniences. Virtual conferences encourage a greater diversity of attendees and speakers because there is no need for travel. There are measurable environmental benefits that make virtual event experiences a sustainable option. And, not to mention, there are countless types of event technology that can replicate (or even improve) some of the most-loved aspects of in-person events.

To achieve the full potential of digital conferences, though, marketing teams and event organizers must not lose sight of any event’s most critical element—the attendee experience.

Two crucial areas can easily make or break an attendee’s virtual event experience: the quality of event sessions and the availability of networking opportunities. Let’s explore how to approach each of these areas, along with general digital event best practices and ideas, to maximize your virtual gathering’s success.

Best Practices for Virtual Conference Sessions

The quality of your digital event sessions is arguably the most important area to focus on. Sometimes conference sessions do not address the “what’s in it for me” for attendees (a.k.a. WIIFM). In that case, virtual audience members will likely become disengaged with the sessions or skip them altogether (along with any future events that you host).

Many brands seem to liken their virtual events to webinars and employ similar tactics to structure the experience. This is a fundamentally misaligned approach, given that virtual event attendees expect a very different experience than they would get at a webinar.

To build a virtual event schedule that your audience will love, consider these planning elements.

Are Live or Pre-Recorded Sessions Better For Virtual Events?

A key differentiator of virtual events is that the sessions can be live-streamed, pre-recorded, or a mix of both. Each of these options provides unique opportunities for your team and carries a potential consequence to your audience experience.

Do You Know How Much Should You Pay Your Brand Influencers?

February 11, 2021 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Consumers’ trust in brands continues to decrease year-over-year, and they actively find new ways to avoid company advertising. This presents a challenge for marketing teams, as they now must explore different ways to connect and build relationships with their audiences.

It should come as no surprise that people most commonly turn to their friends, colleagues, and family to inform their purchasing decisions. But another avenue has become increasingly influential in shaping consumer purchasing habits—brand influencers.

Although some marketers have questioned the value of influencer marketing, these engagements have proven to be a powerful and potentially cost-effective way to expand a brand’s reach:

Marketers who implemented an influencer marketing campaign saw an average of $6.85 in media value for every $1 spent on paid media.
63% of consumers between 18 and 34 say that they trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves.
58% of consumers surveyed said they have even purchased a new product because of an influencer in the last six months.

To maximize the potential results from an influencer marketing campaign, marketers need to understand what value they can expect from influencer marketing, the different types of influencers available, and how much to pay a brand influencer.

Determining the Value of an Influencer Collaboration

Before racing to sign on a high-profile influencer to partner with your brand, your team needs first to identify your brand’s goals and objectives for the influencer relationship.

When developing your initial engagement plan, ask your team these questions to build out your program goals:

What do we hope to gain by partnering with this influencer?
What do we expect of the influencer in this partnership?
Do we want a long-term engagement or just a single campaign?
How does this influencer’s audience differ from our existing audience? Do they reach a niche audience we have yet to tap into?
What do we want this influencer’s audience to do as a result of the collaboration?
How will success be measured? Are we looking for a direct financial return or something else?