What is SEO content?
For the Ideagency teams , good content meets reader expectations (response to a problem, presentation of a service) and is easily accessible via search engines. Because certainly it is necessary to interest the reader, but for that it is necessary first that the latter has had access to your content. Thus, it is important to link the notions of SEO and content marketing. You can get in touch with Best SEO Services Agency in Washington
1 – Define your targets, your audience
Before starting your digital campaign, it is essential to have a good knowledge of your audience in order to attract potential customers and to fully understand the people most likely to buy your products or services. You must create your ideal customer profiles (or buyer personas) in order to be able to know precisely their needs, their challenges, their objectives, their challenges… To offer them specific content at the right time!
To establish your buyer personas, you can interview prospects, former customers, your sales teams or even use the data collected using your tools (eg CRM). These personas are essential for creating engaging content that turns your visitors into leads and then into customers.
2 – Define your content marketing campaign
Content marketing is one of the pillars of inbound marketing strategies , which consists of producing and distributing content with high added value in order to attract Internet users to your business and generate leads and customers.
Still according to the study carried out by Hubspot, B2B companies that blog more than 16 times a month generate on average 4.5 times more leads than those that blog between 0 and 4 times a month. Be careful all the same, the tendency is more to decrease the rhythm of publication but by favoring longer articles. Less is more!
Content (educational, entertaining, etc.) makes it possible to demonstrate your expertise, guide your prospects through their buying cycle, educate them, gain their trust, etc. To generate leads, it is essential to vary the formats. They can for example take the following form: white paper, minibook / eBook, infographic , research report, video, webinar, case study, podcast, video, free trial, expert report, slideshow…
A content strategy will consist of mapping content around the path to purchase of your personas. For each stage of the journey, you will define themes around which you will create content.
This guide of questions to ask can be useful if you have not yet defined the path to purchase for your personas:
3 – Write: from the editorial brief to web writing
When we tackle content, we first produce an editorial brief. It is a guide which is used to lay down all the rules of writing to be respected as well as the subjects to be approached. We thus find:
- The marketing aspect: target, advertising campaign;
- Style: tone, grip;
- The SEO aspect: keywords, priority expressions, title, meta;
You can also download the editorial brief template that we use at Ideagency and that we have made available for free download below:
4 – Optimize content
As we have seen throughout the article, the content, a fundamental piece, must be easily accessible via search engines. During the previous steps, we defined the targets (personas, the campaign, the editorial briefs…), now see the levers available to optimize the content.
On-page SEO
This consists in optimizing the elements of the site which have a direct impact on the positioning of the pages in the search engines. Among the many “on-page” criteria, we can cite, for example:
- Page titles that appear in Google;
- The Hn titles that structure each web page;
- Alt-Text tags that allow images to be described to search engines;
- The content of the pages;
- The links on your pages (internal/external) which improve your linking;
- The structure of the site: tree structure, ergonomics, loading speed, code, etc.;
When you write an article, it is therefore important to think about all these points in relation to the brief. Remember to link your articles together to create an internal link.
Off-page SEO
The term “off-page SEO” refers to the part of the optimization that is not done on the pages of your site but outside. It is therefore the opposite of on-page SEO. We can cite :
- External links (or backlinks): the number of links or sites that point to you;
- Social shares: the number of people who share your publications;
- Sites/blogs that talk about you;
FOCUS: What is the ideal length of a blog post?
This is a question that we have all asked ourselves at one time or another before writing a blog post. At least, this is a question that comes up very often from our prospects or clients: is the length of the article a determining criterion? Is there a minimum size? And a maximum size?
Item size is not the only factor to consider. There are a multitude of criteria that influence the length of your articles. The perfect size is above all the one that gives pleasure to your reader, which brings real added value and which arouses the desire to read more.
Generally speaking, the topic of the article determines its length. Since each article must contain an introduction, paragraphs, subtitles and a conclusion, your articles should normally never be less than 500 words. Below that, either the topic is too simple or the content of your article is too superficial.
Writing articles of a certain length will allow you to insert your keywords strategically throughout your article, to put natural links and above all to deal with a subject in depth. Something which is extremely interesting these days in order to provide quality content to your readers, in search of useful information.
We also often hear that long articles are to be avoided, especially for mobile users who no longer read the entire articles. At Ideagency, we do not really agree with this postulate. Indeed, if your article brings real added value to your readers, they will be ready to “scroll” to continue reading the article, regardless of the device they are using.
It’s just the way of reading that differs from one terminal to another. Hence the importance of structuring your articles in paragraphs, inserting hooks, images, bullet points, in order to facilitate reading and allow your readers to easily locate the information that interests them. But that is another topic!
Do we necessarily have to argue around a subject when we believe we have covered it to improve our SEO referencing ? Of course not ! Once again, we do not write for Google but for Internet users. And if you stuff your text with keywords simply for the sake of SEO, you are on the wrong track!
Always keep in mind that the content you write is intended to help your readers. They must be relevant, useful and must meet their needs. In fact, better quality content of 500 words rather than a 2000 word article, full of repetitions and filler.
The length of your article is also influenced by many criteria: the subject of the article; the purpose of the article (boost traffic, sharing on social networks, etc.); the style defined in your editorial line (direct, professional, friendly, interactive, etc.); the frequency of publication (once a week, every day, etc.); the format of your article; the marketing targets you are targeting through the article (needs, expectations, interests and problems of your targets); the quality of your title; the structure of the article; the quality of your links, your keywords, etc.
There is no magic formula, just a set of rules to follow. The good length of a blog article is the one that matches your style, the expectations of your targets, that deals with an interesting subject and that above all provides quality information to your readers. Sometimes it can be short, sometimes long. At the end of the day, if your article is interesting, well structured and deals with a topic that meets the expectations of your readers, then length becomes the least of your worries.
