Content strategy

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.

Here are 10 expert tips for writing SEO optimized blog posts that rank well and convert readers with a call to action.

1. Reverse roles with your audience
2. Use Google to suggest keywords
3. Analyze search term metrics
4. Visit sites where your audience hangs out
5. Create a scannable outline
6. Write at a 9th-grade reading level
7. Use the inverted pyramid style of writing
8. Optimize blog posts for a target keyword
9. Leave a call to action
10. 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Related reading:

• 10 Amazing Headline Strategies
• How To Outsource A Freelance Writer For SEO Content At Your Website

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

Related reading: 10 Expert Tips For Writing Expert SEO Content