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March 27, 2023 Content Chat Recap: Great Research Strategies for Blog Posts

April 7, 2023 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

Your writing foundation can make creating your next piece of content feel like an uphill climb, or a pain-free stroll through the park—if you’re hoping for the latter, then you’ll need to invest the necessary time in research.

In this #ContentChat recap, Erika joins Kristen Hicks (@ATXCopywriter), a freelance content marketing writer specializing in B2B tech, to discuss great research strategies for blog posts.

Read through a few highlights from the conversation below, and listen to the full recording here.

Q1: Why is it important to conduct research before starting to write a piece of content?

One of the most obvious reasons to conduct research before writing a piece of content is so you can understand the topic you’re writing about. Research will help you cover all angles and perspectives in your content, and ensure you create something truly unique and valuable.

A1: The most obvious reason is: to understand the topic you’re writing about. You want your writing to be accurate and relevant to your audience. Plus, do enough research and the writing part gets a lot easier #ContentChat
— Kristen Hicks (@atxcopywriter) March 27, 2023

A1: Kristen, this is totally right. It makes your life easier when writing, and it is important to be knowledgeable about the topic before putting content out there. #ContentChat
— Emma Lange (@EmmaLange78719) March 27, 2023

A1: Even if you are an expert on the topic, it’s important to take a look at recent content to ensure you create content that offers up something above and beyond what your reader has likely already seen. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) March 27, 2023

A1A: Yes in addition, research also helps make sure that you cover all angles and perspectives. Research helps you ensure that you are presenting the views accepted by the experts.#ContentChat
— Sweepsify 🎈 (@Sweepsify_) March 27, 2023

In the recording, Erika and Kristen shared the following:

“You do have to spend time on [research] if you want to get things right, but it makes the harder part—the writing itself—that much easier.” – Kristen
“If somebody has already written an ebook on your topic, for example, then you need to discover gaps in their information or have your own angle if you’re also going to [cover that topic]. And you’re not going to know that if you don’t read other people’s content.” – Erika
“If I’m reading a piece and it throws out a statistic but doesn’t have a link, or it is just making statements without telling me how they came to that conclusion, then that suggests to me that this isn’t a trustworthy source.” – Kristen
“I can’t tell you how frequently I’ve gone into an organization and they’ve said ‘here are some of our quotes and stats that we use all the time,’ but there hasn’t been a source attached. It almost always turns out to be an internal statistic that, in fact, was made up by somebody at some point, and doesn’t have any way to actually prove it. This is really not okay.” – Erika

Q2: What internal resources should brands provide writers (including freelancers) to help them create on-brand content faster?

5 Essential Content Structure Elements To Boost Your Content SEO

August 1, 2021 by Alek Irvin Leave a Comment

When it comes to content marketing, there is no question that search engine optimization (SEO) is a vital tactic for teams.

Our friends at Semrush found that SEO was the most efficient content marketing tactic in 2020 (according to 75% of marketers surveyed), followed by updating or repurposing existing content (61%).

However, the trouble is that Semrush also found that 44% of content marketing professionals are challenged with improving their content’s SEO performance.

To unlock the full potential of your content performance, let’s explore the ideal blog content structure for SEO. If you’re just getting started with SEO, check out our SEO basics for content marketing first to learn about the importance of keywords, headlines, backlinks, and meta descriptions.

SEO Elevates Great Content

A quick disclaimer on SEO and content marketing: SEO should never be the focus of your content creation. Instead, SEO practices provide an invaluable way to understand your ideal community members, how they search for and consume content, and how to package your resources to fulfill these audience expectations and get in front of your readers.

Your content should always involve some original idea tied to a topic of importance for your audience. This means your team must define its content keyword priorities before you can effectively create content for your community. The Yoast team has an excellent guide that can walk you through how to define your team’s SEO keyword priorities.

Elements Of An Ideal SEO Content Structure

There are a lot of factors that impact how well your content performs from an SEO standpoint. For most day-to-day content marketing needs, though, there are just a few key areas you will want to familiarize yourself with.

These core content structure elements affect how well your content will rank in search engine results. These are also crucial elements to help improve the content experience for your audience.

By creating content that addresses these SEO content structure elements, more people can access your content, explore the additional links and resources you provide within the content, and ultimately share that content on social media.

Accessible Links

Links to high-domain, valuable content within your content will help boost your content SEO. The idea is that including links to third-party resources signals that you’ve done your research, and your readers should visit these resources for more details.

However, your community needs more descriptive links than “read here” or “learn more” to understand what value they will gain from the other content you link to within your post.

Provide a clear explanation of where your link will take the reader, ideally including a priority keyword for that audience. These information-rich links can include “learn more about the challenges marketers face with SEO,” “read about our newest sustainability initiative to reduce water waste,” or “check out these top tips for creating high-value blog content.”

Watch this short video from Melissa Eggleston, a user experience instructor at Birdcall UX, and past #ContentChat guest on how to create accessible content, to learn more best practices for links on websites.

Content Length

How long should content be to benefit SEO? HubSpot data suggests the ideal blog post length is 2,100-2,400 words, but that will depend on the type of post and its purpose (how to, what is, etc.). Yoast recommends your content be at least 300 words, but you should strive for at least 1,000 words for a better chance at ranking.

Your content length is important because longer posts can fully explore a topic and address the variety of questions that your readers may have. Search engines will also find longer pieces of content to be more valuable, especially if they are well-structured and include a few well-placed and relevant keywords.

Content Tags

Content tags are not as directly influential in the SEO ranking of a piece of content as some of the other elements (like headings and subheads) are. That said, your blog post tags do play a role in helping search engines understand your overarching site structure and the type of topics you regularly explore.

Much like your keywords, your team should determine its content tag strategy. Keep in mind that it is better to have just a few main recurring tags for your content instead of including every possibly relevant keyword tag.

Headings and Subheads

Have you ever clicked on a blog post to find that it is just one long, uniform block of text? This type of content forces readers to start from the beginning and read through the end—if they even last that long—without any indication of what topics the post covers along the way.

Headings and subheads (or header tags) are an essential way for search engines to “read” your content and help readers skim for the most relevant sections to their needs. Tag your main headline or title for the content as ‘H1’, and ensure it is the only part of your content labeled as such.

Organize the rest of your content using ‘H2’ and ‘H3’ subheads, to create a hierarchy of information. Think like a journalist and include your most important details and keywords toward the start of your article, and delve into more granular details as the piece continues.

Images And Alt Text

There are a few SEO considerations for images in your content. Mainly, you want to focus on how images affect your page load time and set up these images for accessibility.

Unoptimized images, including GIFs, can slow down your web page load times. With this in mind, it is best to upload the smallest acceptable file size that does not detract from the reader experience. For all web pages, upload images that are screen resolution (72 PPI), and use a JPEG file format when possible.

Alternative text is required for all images, especially if you want to model best practices of web accessibility. For example, the alt text should describe your image so that people can understand what the image depicts if it does not load properly or if they use a tool to read web content (which is common for people who experience visual impairment).

Google explains more about how to optimize your images for SEO in this guide.

Refine Your SEO Strategy To Adapt To Changing Audience Needs

The only way to stay in front of your audience is to consistently provide high-quality content structured for SEO optimization to ensure it will appear high in your audiences’ search results.

Regularly revisit your team’s keyword priorities to ensure they reflect how your community searches for and consumes content. Look at content KPIs like click-throughs, time spent on a page, and social shares to understand whether your content resonates with your audience.

The best way to start optimizing your team’s SEO strategy is to audit and refresh your existing blog content and retire any blog posts that are no longer valuable for your audience.

Are you looking for answers to more of your SEO questions? Let us know in the comments, and we’re happy to help!

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 would 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.

4 Steps To Start A Smart Guest Blogger Program

May 22, 2019 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

Blogs are increasingly important to companies for lead generation and nurturing. HubSpot even found that 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.

With growing content needs, marketers may be inclined to invite guest bloggers to contribute content, thinking it will save time and fill a content gap. Although guest bloggers are a great option that can yield tremendous value for your brand, they are not right for every blog, and they can be more resource-intensive than you think.

If you’ve been considering a guest blogger program, use these four steps as the foundation to assess if your blog is ready for guests, and how to get your guest blogger program off to a good start:

Sharing My Passion for Baking Through Erika’s Gluten-free Kitchen

July 12, 2016 by Erika Heald Leave a Comment

A few months ago, I ran into the ever-inspiring Joe Pulizzi at a conference. After our conversation, I reflected on the fact that I’d spent the past two years incredibly focused on creating awesome content for my in-house and external clients at the expense of writing for myself.

Both agency life and start-up life can be all-consuming. And if I’m spending the bulk of my work hours creating content, especially if it’s highly involved, B2B content, which it often is, I don’t have the time or creative juices leftover at the end of the day to spend time on my personal writing projects. Hence this blog being woefully neglected, as was my World of Warcraft blog. Heck, I didn’t even get around to chronicling our holiday Rhine River cruise!

But talking to Joe, and later, reading this article on the benefits of passion projects, made me prioritize getting back on track with my own writing, starting with this blog.

I also decided to put some time into a more personal passion project, Erika’s Gluten-free Kitchen. This new blog is a place where I can capture what I’ve learned and how I’m progressing in my pursuit of creating tasty yet low-FODMAP food for our family, and learning how to bake without gluten (which is a challenge, even as an experienced and enthusiastic home baker!)

The final part of that pursuing my passion puzzle is raising my hand to host the weekly #ContentChat, Mondays at 12 noon Pacific/ 3:00 p.m. Eastern. It’s been so much fun combining my passions for twitter, content marketing, and professional development into one fun project. I hope you stop by and take part in a future Content Chat.

So that’s my mid-year update. What are YOU doing to follow your passion? I want to hear about it!