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How To Produce Your Best Content Ever by Writing For the Search Engines

Kelly Shelton, VP of Marketing at Boostability

POWERED BY

@kellyshelton32

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A little bit about Boostability

Fun Facts:o We have three offices across the Wasatch Front and an office

in Berlino We have more than 400 employeeso We have more than 26,000 active clients (seo, social media,

websites)o On average we produce more than 12,000 pieces of content

each montho 80% of our client’s keywords reach the first page within six

monthso We love small businesses

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Content Is Still “King”CONTENT

Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages on Google’s search

engines

Websites with 401-1000 pages get 6x more leads

than sites with <100 pages

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What good is content if no one sees it?

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SEO helps ensure that your content is found, but more importantly found by consumers that are most interested in what you do and are looking to buy.

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“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”

Herbert Simon

7Overview:

• How to come up with content that consumers and Google love

• How focusing on keywords can help inspire creativity and discipline in content design

• How to ensure the technical aspects of SEO are used correctly in you content and code

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Content For Search Engines = Content For Consumers

How to come up with content that consumers want and will easily find

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Be ShareableCONTENT

After researching over one million Google search results, BackLinko.com determined that . . .

. . . "The number of domains linking to a page correlated with rankings MORE than any other [SEO] factor."

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Best Practices for Share-abilityCONTENT

Blog Posts Content Strategy

Social Media Posts

Focus on real-time content.

Make a list of frequently asked

questions for you and your business and plan to write Q&A specific how-to guides and

posts to answer these questions.

Focus on long-form content on sites like Facebook, Google+,

or LinkedIn. 

Trust & Curiosity = Increased Engagement & Sharing

11Quick Tip: Use Google Trends for Real Time Content Ideas

www.google.com/trends

12Quick Tip: Use Trending Hashtags for Real-time Content Ideas

• Twitter (www.twitter.com)

• Trendsmap (www.trendsmap.com)

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How to select the right keywords

Keyword Focus = Content That Consumers Are Searching For

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Why Keyword Selection Still MattersKEYWORD SELECTION

The most important step in SEO!

The most important step in content creation• First step to getting your content found online • Best way to identify topics that matter to your audience—

responds to their current needs • Shows you how to create content that stands out from your

competitors—that’s unique and memorable• Dials up efficiency of content marketing efforts (more content

more quickly) by establishing a consistent, easy to follow process for everyone

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Start with In-Depth Research – Make it Your First Priority!KEYWORD SELECTION

1. Set aside the concept of “topic” and put yourself in a “keyword” mindset (at least at first)

2. In addition to your typical, go-to sources for research, use SEO tools to help learn and to map out content

3. Rely heavily on tried and true keyword research tactics to decide what you’ll write about

4. Find keyword topics that bring in the searchers you need

The secret: Replace “topic” research with “keyword” researchUse this 4 Stage Keyword Selection Process

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1. Set aside the concept of “topic” and put yourself in a “keyword” mindsetKEYWORD SELECTION

We’re naturally sloppy “topic” pickerso We think about the topico We brainstorm the topico We go online and search for ideaso We rely on anecdotal evidence

But we’ve learned to be disciplined “keyword” selectors

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2. Use SEO tools to help learn and to map out content

KEYWORD SELECTION

Research toolso Keyword Planner

(https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/)o Moz (https://moz.com/products/pro/keyword-explorer)o Keyword.io

18Google Adwords Keyword Planner

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3. Rely Heavily on Tried and True Keyword Research Tactics to Decide What You’ll Write About

KEYWORD SELECTION

Understand the businesso Know the what, why, and how of the businesso Identify core competencies / nicheso Research method: Conduct client interviews and examine

website

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3. Rely Heavily on Tried and True Keyword Research Tactics (Continued)KEYWORD SELECTION

Research your/the client’s industry

1. Demand• What services do customers need?• What’s standing in the way of getting that?

2. Competition• Keyword competition• What makes you unique?

21Google Adwords Keyword Planner

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Use keyword selection tactics to interpret searcher intent, and create content that draws people ready

to buy

4. Find Keywords that Bring In the Searchers You NeedKEYWORD SELECTION

234. Find Keywords that Bring In the Searchers You Need: Searcher IntentKEYWORD SELECTION

Awareness

Consideration

Conversion

Awareness

Consideration

Conversion“Same Day

Plumbing Service”

“How To Fix A Leaky Faucet”

vs.

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“Same Day

Plumbing Service”

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“How To Fix A Leaky Faucet”

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TF-IDF/LSIADVANCED

o Compares how often a keyword appears compared to expectations (gathered from a larger set of documents) – Think IBM & Watson

TF-IDF: Term Frequency, Inverse Document Frequency

LSI: Latent Semantic Indexingo Determines relationship between terms and concepts in content. Looks

for synonyms related to title of your page.

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Properly Coded Content =Better Ranking Content

How to properly code your content

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METABASICS Basic information on your pages and in your code that tells

the search engines what your page is about and what the content on those pages will be

Site Code

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METABASICS

Allows certain things to be displayed in search results that give information about the website and business

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META: PluginsBASICS

Plugins (Yoast)

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META: Google Search ConsoleBASICS

HTML Improvements

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META: Google Search ConsoleBASICS

Duplicate Descriptions

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META: Canonical TagsBASICS

Allows you to mark which piece of information is original or came first. This is important because if you have duplicate content, you can identify the

original.Google gives more authority to the original and doesn’t like duplicate content

Canonical Tag Code (HTML)

Canonical Tag Plugin

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Open Graph ProtocolBASICS

Passes information to social media sites that show up when people search for your business using those sites

Meta Facebook Post

Code for Facebook Post

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Code CheckingBASICS

What it does:o Reads your site codeo Displays errors about your

site or specific pageo Shows you how to fix themHow it helps:o Makes sure your site runs

properlyo Fixing code issues helps

your site rank bettero Ensures all content is

displayed correctly https://validator.w3.org/

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URLsBASICS

Contains information about your product or service

Displays in SERPS and links

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URLs: WordPress Permalink SettingsBASICS

Allows you to make your URL structure uniform

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ResponsivenessBASICS

Responsinator – www.responsinator.com

iPad iPhon

e

Code your site to be compatible and displayable on many devices

Use tools like Responsinator to check how your site will look on different devicesGoogle Mobile-Friendly Test - https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

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ResponsivenessBASICS

Responsive Code

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LinkingBASICS

No Follow Links

41IndexingBASICS:

SitemapShows all pages of your sites and allows search engines to go through them all

Gives Google a hierarchy of pages that are most important to you

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Robots.txtTells crawlers and search engines where they should and shouldn’t go

Indexing BASICS

43AMP:AcceleratedMobile Pages

ADVANCED

Primarily content so page can load very quickly on mobile devices

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Schema

Schema:JSON, HTML, & Plugins

ADVANCED

Code that will tell SEs everything about your site. The more you tell Google about your page, the easier it is for them to index. Schema increases click through rates and helps with rankings.

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Data Highlighter

Schema:JSON, HTML, & Plugins

ADVANCED

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Data Highlighter

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Schema Plugin Markup

Schema:JSON, HTML, & Plugins

ADVANCED

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Schema: JSON, HTML, and pluginsADVANCED

Content Without Markup

To find out what schema to use for blogs, articles, and other different types of pages, visit schema.org

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Schema: JSON, HTML, and pluginsADVANCED

Content Without Markup

HTMLMarkup

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Schema: JSON, HTML, and pluginsADVANCED

Schema Without Markup

JSONMarkup

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Schema: JSON, HTML, and pluginsADVANCED

To find out what schema to use for blogs, articles, and other different types of pages, visit schema.org

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Get The Most Out Of Your ContentCONTENT

Blog Posts

Social Media PostsDiscover your most popular content and repurpose it

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Thank You!

Question & Answer

@kellyshelton32kshelton@Boostability.com